Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:35, 22 September 2007

Settlers of Catan

Settlers of Catan German-language edition game boardPlayers collect resources and build roads, settlements, and cities in an attempt to gain the most victory points, winning the game.
Designers	Klaus Teuber
Publishers	Kosmos Mayfair Games Capcom 999 Games
Players	3 or 4 (standard) 5 or 6 (with expansions)
Setup time	approx. 10 minutes
Playing time	45 to 60 minutes
Chance	Medium
Age range	10 years and up
Skills	Dice rolling, Trading

Settlers of Catan is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. (Kosmos) under the name Die Siedler von Catan.

Settlers was the first German-style board game to achieve popularity outside Europe, and has been called the "killer app" of designer board games. Over 11 million games in the Catan series have been sold, and the game has been translated into twenty-five languages from the original German. The game has rapidly become popular in part because its mechanics are relatively simple, while its dynamics are quite complex. The game is well suited for family play, since no one gets eliminated, and players who are behind can strive towards goals that are within their reach.

The standard game and its many expansions are available from Mayfair Games in the United States, from Capcom in Japan, Kosmos and 999 Games in the European Union, Devir in Spain, Portugal and Latin America, and Strategy Games in Canada.

Gameplay

The players in the game represent the eponymous settlers, establishing a colony on the previously uninhabited island of Catan. The island itself is laid out randomly at the beginning of each game from hexagonal tiles ("hexes") of different land types each producing one type of resource: ore, grain, wool, lumber, or clay (brick). One hex is desert which does not produce anything.

Starting with two settlements and adjoining road sections, players build roads, settlements and eventually cities as they settle the island. Roads are built along the edges of the hexes, and settlements at the corners; no two settlements may be built on adjacent corners. Positioning of roads and settlements allows a player to deny other players access to essential resources, and good building is one route to victory.

Each turn, a roll of the two dice determines which hexes produce resources. This is the main random element in the game. Normally, players with settlements adjacent to those hexes receive resource cards of the appropriate type, with cities yielding more resources. However, if the dice roll is 7, the "robber" token must be moved to a different hex. This allows the player to prevent that hex from producing resources and to steal a resource card from another player.

The resource cards can be spent to build more roads or settlements, upgrade settlements to cities, and to obtain development cards for later use; or they can be stored for trade or later use. When a seven is rolled, players with too many stored resources lose half their stored resources, making the choice of whether to build or store resources a difficult one.

Players are allowed to trade among each other the resources they have produced, and to trade "off the island" for a hefty price. By building settlements in certain positions, players may obtain better off-island trading prices. Bad luck in the game can be mitigated by trading, and trading is the main method of player interaction in the game; astute trading is another route to victory. If a player is winning, other players may refuse to trade; this allows them to catch up with the leader.

A player receives a victory point for each settlement built, and another for each settlement upgraded to a city. Various other achievements, such as establishing the longest road, grant a player additional victory points. The victor is the first player to accumulate ten victory points on his turn.

There is no combat. Apart from moving the robber, refusing to trade, and cutting off building routes, there is no way to harm other players. The layout of the board and restrictions on building allow for a player to be boxed in through poor play or bad luck. Also, given the random component of board layout, it's possible for players to gain a monopoly on certain resource, and demand steep trade rates from other players. Home games generally take between one and two hours to complete.

Teuber's original design was for a large game of exploration and development in a new land. Between 1993 and 1995 Teuber and Kosmos refined and simplified the game into its current form. Unused mechanics from that design went on to be used in Teuber's following games, Entdecker and Löwenherz. The game's first expansion, Seafarers of Catan, adds the concept of exploration, and the combined game (sometimes known as "New Shores") is probably the closest game to Teuber's original intentions.

The Settlers of Catan series

The enduring popularity of Settlers of Catan has led to the creation of a great many spinoff games and products, starting with the Catan card game and including a novel, Die Siedler von Catan, by Rebecca Gablé (ISBN 3-431-03019-X) set on the island of Catan.

Catan card game

Teuber first returned to the Catan theme in 1996 with the Settlers of Catan card game, a card game for two players. The game is longer, with games lasting roughly 90 minutes, and is more complex, containing amongst other things a sixth resource type, gold. Each player places cards representing the game elements of Settlers - roads, settlements and regions - in their own separate areas, and seek to expand their principality while scoring victory points for certain features. As of 2007, seven expansions have been published for the card game, with the most recent being Artists & Benefactors, released at the 2007 Nuremberg International Toy Fair.

The card game tends to be more competitive than the original board game, although the Barbarians & Traders Upgrade Kit (or the latest version of the complete game) adds several rules to reduce this. For example, the Spy card now carries a slightly limited usage rule, which eliminates a 'Burn and Steal' strategic move.

Settlers expansions and editions

After releasing the card game, Teuber began to publish expansions for the base game. The first, Seafarers of Catan, was released in 1997. Seafarers adds ships which allow players to cross sea hexes, and includes scenarios in which players explore an archipelago of islands. It also adds gold-producing hexes which allow players to take the resource of their choice.

In 1999, expansions to allow fifth and sixth players were released for both Settlers and Seafarers. As well as extra components to accommodate more players, the expansions add an extra trade phase to the turn, so that players can participate in the game during each others' turns.

The second large expansion to the game, Cities and Knights of Catan, was released in 2000. It adds concepts from the card game and its first expansion to Settlers, including Knights who must be used to defend Catan from invading barbarians, and improvements which can be bought for cities which give benefits to players. A 5-6 player expansion for Cities and Knights was released at the same time. Also released in 2000 was a book of variations for Settlers

The third large expansion, Traders & Barbarians was announced for release in 2007. Traders & Barbarians collects together a number of smaller scenarios, some of which have previously been published elsewhere. The set includes an official two-player variant.

Historical scenarios

In 1998, the first historical scenario pack was released, which allows players to reenact the building of the pyramids of Egypt or the expansion of Alexander the Great's empire using Settlers game mechanics.

A second scenario pack for Settlers concerning the building of the Great Wall of China and the Trojan war was released in 2001, and in 2002 a travel edition of Settlers was published, featuring playing pieces which slot into a fixed-layout board. Atlantis: Scenarios and Variants was published in 2005. Atlantis is a boxed set which collected a number of scenarios and variants published in gaming magazines and at conventions, such as The Volcano and The Great River. The set also includes a deck of event cards which replace the dice in the main game, giving it a less random spread of resource production.

Special editions

Two special editions of the game were released in 2005: A collector's edition of the base game and Cities and Knights, with hand-painted 3D tiles and playing pieces; and a 10th anniversary edition with detailed plastic pieces.

Standalone games

Die Siedler von Nürnberg, a standalone game set at the foundation of the city of Nuremberg, and Starfarers of Catan, a standalone game set in the far future, were released in 1999. Starfarers was followed in 2001 by a 5-6 player expansion and by Starship Catan, a two-player card game. Two "mission packs" for Starship Catan were published in 2003 and a third was published in 2004.

There are two catan games aimed at children. The Kids of Catan, a children's game played on a revolving board, was published in 2003. Settlers of Catan Junior was announced at the 2007 Nuremberg toy fair.

Two more historical reenactment games were released using Settlers game mechanics: Settlers of the Stone Age, released in 2002 and set in the Stone Age; and Struggle for Rome, released in 2006 and set at the fall of the Roman Empire. When Struggle was published, it and Stone Age were put under the common brand "Catan Histories"

The Catan brand name was also used for two games set on the island of Catan, but otherwise unrelated to the parent game. The first, Candamir: The First Settlers, was released in 2004 and is an adventure board game set around the first settlement of Catan. Players control individual settlers hunting and gathering, with characteristics affecting success. The second, Elasund: The First City, was released in 2006 and is a two- to four-player game in which players build within a single city, with game mechanics based on real estate pricing and eminent domain.

A dice game based on Settlers of Catan was announced in 2007.

Licensed adaptations

Many companies and conventions have produced adaptations of Settlers for promotional purposes, and a few companies have obtained licenses to sell derived games. The Water of Life was produced in 1997 for Scottish distillery Glen Grant, and The Communication in Catan was made in 2000 for the French telecommunication company Alcatel. Capcom published a line of Rockman.EXE Catan (ロックマン エグゼ　カタン) games, based on their Rockman.EXE franchise and including standard and portable versions.

The Settlers of Canaan, a licensed version of Settlers of Catan with additions to fit themes from the Old Testament, was released in 2002 by Cactus Game Design, and The Settlers of Zarahemla was released in 2003 with additions to fit themes from the Book of Mormon by Inspiration Games. SimplyFun, a company which produces simplified versions of board games, released Simply Catan in 2006.

Video games

Since the game's release, a number of computer games have been published based on Catan and its spinoffs. The first officially-sanctioned English-language release was Catan: The Computer Game by Big Fish Games. A PC CD version of the Catan card game was released in 2000. Microsoft acquired the game for MSN Games and released Catan Online in August 2005. Teuber and Big Huge Games recently worked together to produce Catan, a version of Settlers for the Xbox Live Arcade. It was released on May 2, 2007. There is also a computerized version for the Nokia N-Gage.

There have also been several unauthorized video game implementations of Settlers. One of these unauthorized versions, called "Java Settlers", was developed by Robert S. Thomas as part of his Ph.D. research at Northwestern University. A paper describing the AI research involved was published in the Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces.

Awards

2005

• Games Magazine Hall of Fame

1996

• Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game

1995

• Spiel des Jahres Game of the Year
• Deutscher Spiele Preis 1st place
• Essen Feather aka 'Essener Feder'

References

1. ^ Larry Levy (August 2001). "Special K". Retrieved 2007-05-01.
2. "Catan Games". Mayfair Games. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
3. ^ Shannon Appelcline (2003-02-13). "Anatomy of a Game: The Settlers of Catan". Trials, Triumphs and Trivialities. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
4. "Professor Easy's Settlers of Catan tutorial". Retrieved 2007-04-26.
5. "Catan-Domaine-Entdecker". Mayfair Games. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
6. ^ W. Eric Martin. "Convention preview: Nuremberg 2007". Boardgame News. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
7. Teuber, Klaus (2006), Barbarians & Traders Upgrade Kit: Rules and Card Almanac, Kosmos Verlag and Mayfair Games, Inc.
8. Robert Thomas and Kristian Hammond (2002). "Java settlers: a research environment for studying multi-agent negotiation". Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces: 240. Retrieved 2007-09-15.
9. Origin Awards

External links

• Catan GmbH's Settlers of Catan website
• Settlers of Catan and the Catan series at BoardGameGeek

Template:Link FA

• Settlers of Catan
• Origins Award winners
• Spiel des Jahres winners
• Deutscher Spiele Preis winners
• Board games with a modular board