Settlers of Catan, a building game that entails dice, pawns and miniature buildings, has its players randomly place hexagon-shaped pieces to make a playing field. Because of this, the game’s board is always different.

“I guess it could throw off your grove,” said freshman James Olney. “It is rearranged every time so it’s harder to pick up on any one strategy.”

The basic concept of the game is to collect cards that represent wheat, ore, wood, bricks and sheep. Then players use these cards to build settlements and cities. With the Cities and Knights expansion set, players need to protect themselves from barbarian invaders.

The expansion set called Knights and Cities, released in 2000, creates more twists to the game. Instead of just rolling dice and collecting wheat, ore, sheep, bricks and wood to build towns, cities and roads, the players can also get special cards. These cards tell players to take more wheat or place a robber on hexagons that are controlled by other players.

“My favorite part is when I have tons of stuff, and I don’t know what to do with it,” Olney said. “I like it when someone else is losing, and I have everything.”

There are a lot of pieces to Settlers of Catan. Beyond the hexagons that make up the game board, there are three dice, several tiny houses and cities for each player, as well as the commodity cards and roads that add to the pieces in the game. There are flip charts in the expansion set, which add more twists to the game.

Olney said Settlers of Catan is more complex than more traditional games such as Monopoly and Life.

The game also allows players to trade goods. A player can trade his wheat for sheep, bricks or coins.

“It feels like you’re actually doing something. It’s not like your just throwing the dice,” Olney said. “It feels like you’re winning at first even if you’re going to lose. But you can do pretty well and not win.”

Settlers of Catan, even with all its complexities, received a rating of 8.5 from Olney

The downside isn’t losing, but losing when the end is coming.

“When it gets close to the end it gets long for the people losing,” said Olney. “You get to the point where you know you’re going to lose, and you don’t want to play anymore.”

Settlers of Catan, which takes about an hour and a half to play, according www.boardgamegeek.com, can be purchased online for less than $20 at www.amazon.com. Expect to pay a little more for an expansion set.

Expansion sets are Alexander the Great, Cities and Knights and Traders and Barbarians.

Harris Lunt
scroll staff

Photo by Katelyn Phipps

Originally Published 05/05/09