The Settlers of Catan First Impressions
I finally got to play The Settlers of Catan.
Long overdue.
In Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game.
Brief Rules Overview
On a player’s turn, they roll both dice. Anyone with a settlement or city next to the total of the dice gains resource cards matching the terrain that number is on.
If players roll a 7, they move the robber (who stops the tile they are on giving out resources) and anyone with 7 of more resources in their hand discards half.
Now players can trade resources with each other and use them to build.
These resources can be used to build roads to create a path around the board and build those settlements and cities you need to gather resources.
You can also buy development cards for 1 wood, grain and ore which allow you to build roads for free, move the robber or simply gain points. The Knight cards give you 2 points to the player that has the most as the “Largest Army”.
In the same way, the player with the longest road has a card worth 2 points.
When a player has 10 points on their turn, they win.
Summary
I didn’t like the dice rolling, but, I did like trying to build to make the dice roll more in your favour.
Being blocked off from the Stone is something I didn’t like, but it made me trade for it and I liked that.
I thought it was good, not great, just good. I can see why in 1995 when it was released it would have been a big deal.
The Settlers of Catan Update 24/05/2018
So you can see from the short, sharp “review” above that I either didn’t like the game or was busy and didn’t give it much attention 🙂 (Future Future update: I did go back and update the rules overview)
Probably it was the prior plus so much has been written about Catan what do my thoughts even matter?
Well, you can’t argue it’s an influence on the hobby and other games that come after it.
I mean, I am being a bit unfair, it’s not terrible it’s just not for me. The randomness and the trading confrontation are not things I like in a game.
I’ve played it a few times more since and I’m still not a fan. I don’t like the trading part mostly. I did play Star Trek: Catan which looked better and had some more exciting elements, but it’s still the same.
Jesta ThaRogue
