The early nineties were fascinating times. Rumours spread of many interesting and innovative ideas that would seal our future; mobile phones were beginning to take a firm grasp on the world, the Internet was to become a household idea, and Y2K was still comfortably off in the distance.
Everybody was playing Magic the Gathering.
And then, in 1995, a board game from an unknown designer and publisher, presented in an unassuming red box, modestly appeared on some shop shelves… and took the world by storm.
Catan, or the Settlers of Catan as it was first known, by Klaus Teuber, is a board game for three to four players and focuses on effective trading, building and settling.
A hexagonal fictional island, Catan, is discovered, and players start to inhabit it, by gathering resources, trading them for other resources, building roads, towns and cities, and purchasing some developments, all in a bid to be the first player to 10 victory points, which ends the game and gives them the win!
The island is made up of hexagonal tiles, featuring various types of landscape. There are hills, quarries, forests, pastures, farmlands, and a single desert tile.
These together form the island, either by a set pattern or randomly built by the players. The idea is that hills provide ore, quarries allow for bricks, forests provide lumber, pastures contain sheep for wool, farmlands grow grain, and the desert – well, it is the hideout of a very naughty robber.
On all these tiles, except the desert, numbered discs from 2 to 12, but no 7, are placed. Two dice are rolled, and let’s say an eight comes up. All hexes with an eight on them produce whatever resource they provide to all players with buildings on the edges of those hexes.
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If you have built a town there, it gains you one of the resources, while a city gains you two. This is another little thing that people don’t consciously think about – the novel idea of getting something out of your turn! Then the player whose turn it is may trade out resources, build a road, town or city, or buy a development card, after which the next player rolls the dice before their turn to see which numbered landscapes will be producing resources next.
The only exception to this is if a seven is rolled. This activates the robber, which the player moves to a different hex somewhere on the board. All players with more than seven resources in their hands immediately lose half of these.
The active player may then pick a building next to the robber’s new location, belonging to another player, and randomly steal a resource from that player’s hand. Until another seven is rolled and the robber is moved elsewhere, that hex will be unable to produce its resources, effectively blocking all players with buildings around that hex to get what they may need.
Now, the mathematicians among you will be interested to know that, with two dice, the number seven is the most likely to be rolled (6+1, 5+2, 4+3, 3+4, 2+5, 1+6), six and eight are next likely, five and nine the next less likely, and so on. Two and twelve are the least likely to be rolled (1+1 and 6+6).
These numbers make the landscapes on which they are placed more likely or less likely to produce resources, and that is a very innovative mechanism to drive the trading aspect of the game, and increase the social interaction around the table.
See, you won’t be able to get all the resources you need by simply rolling the dice. When you need ore to upgrade your town to a city, but have no access to any hills, you will have to bargain with the other players to trade something in for ore, or, failing that, go to the ports and trade with the shipping lanes, effectively the “bank” in the game, but this is a very expensive option and only to be used as a last resort, as the exchange rates are sky high.
For instance, where another player may have been willing to trade you one of their ore for one of your sheep, the ports will trade you one of their ore for four of your sheep! This necessitates keeping in friendly speaking terms with your neighbours, as negotiations will be flying all around the table to get the players what they need.
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Towns are worth one point each, cities two points, and some development cards allow for bonus points, as well as amassing the largest army and building the longest, uninterrupted road. This is yet another subtle intricacy of the game! You may only build onto your own network of roads, and some players may try to cut you off with their roads!
All these exciting and riveting aspects of the game come together to make Catan the hit it is. It has bound players to its easy, yet captivating, game play since the day it launched and is easily billed as the board game that opened the sluice gates to make the industry what it is today.
Twenty-five years! Copies of Catan abound. This game has hardly ever been out of print or unavailable. There is no excuse not to have this game in your collection.
Even if you have progressed as a gamer to other more intricate, engrossing and challenging games, this game should always be on stand-by should your cousins come and visit, or if people new to gaming needs to be introduced to the hobby.
And there is just something so satisfying about sealing a deal, and successfully trading two of your grain for three bricks…
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