Fantasia Settlers of Catan Review

I was first introduced to Settlers of Catan back when I was a student in college and though it took me a little while to get the hang of strategy, it was a game a liked right away. Settlers of Catan is a game of strategy where you try to build up your settlements and cities faster than your opponent to where you have a total of 10 points worth of scoring. I will get to the scoring a little later, but the object of the game is to gain enough materials through the rolling of the dice, that you can turn around and exchange them for settlements, cities, roads, and development cards. It is not really a complex game in how it plays out, but it can be really complex and developed in the strategy that people play the game with. This is one of those games where every single move you make could be strategy based, and each move becomes more important than the last one. These are the types of games where friends can have a tough time playing against each other though, because you may have to steal some of your opponent's resources during the duration of the game. There are a million variations to the rules, and you can adjust anything you want to be a new "house rule", but the basics of the game are so fun that you will want to play again when the first match ends.

With the game you get 37 Hexagons which will be set-up to construct the game board itself. 95 Material cards split up as 19 of Lumber, Wool, Grain, Bricks, and Ore. There are 25 Development Cards, 4 building cost cards, and two special cards (longest road and largest army). The game pieces are in 4 different colors, consisting of 16 cities, 20 settlements, and 60 roads total. Then there are 2 dice to be rolled for turns, and 18 markers that have letters on one side and numbers on the flip side. These are all of the pieces that will be necessary to play out the game of Catan. To start out, you shuffle all of the hexagons that have land on them face down, and then draw each one and place it on the table working from the inside out to form the game board. You lay one down, and then work clockwise around the outside of it until all of the pieces are laid out. Then, you take the 18 hexagons that have water on them, and place them around the edge of the board, so that the playing field is not surrounded by water. Half of them have ports on them, and you space those out with one non-port between each one.

Once the hexagons are all placed, its time to place the markers on the hexagons. Organize the stack so that it is in alphabetical order starting with A, and then place them on the board working from the inside out. Make sure to place them so that the number side is face-up. This is to make sure that the numbers are randomly spaced well enough to insure a fair game. The numbers will correlate to what you roll on the dice when it's your turn, and the more common the number (like 6 or 8), the more valuable that land becomes. There is no 7, because when you roll a seven you will be in charge of moving the "robber". When all of the numbers are placed, each person chooses a color to be, and then rolls the one of the dice to determine who will go first (highest number deciding that). When it is determined who goes first, that person places one of their settlements on one of the corners of any hexagon on the board, with one of their roads extending outwards. The strategy here, is to place it in a location where you can get good numbers when there is a roll, but also so that you can get good resources. Each of the hexagons has one of the resources on it (Lumber, Wool, Grain, Bricks, and Ore), and if you have a settlement or city on one of the corners of that hexagon, you get a card for that resource. So, placement can be very important early in the game. After the first person has placed, it goes to the second person to choose where to put theirs. Between every settlement and city must be at least one corner of a hexagon, and you must build roads to get out to more corners. When everyone has placed their first settlement, each person then places a second one with the last person of the first round starting out in reverse. When everyone has placed their two settlements and two roads extending from them, the main part of the game gets under way.

When the players placed their first two settlements, each player is given a resource card for each hexagon they are touching. Thus everyone starts out with some cards. When the first person roles, everyone gets the resources for the numbers rolled if they have a settlement touching that hexagon. For instance, if 3 people are playing and all have a settlement around a brick hexagon with a 6, and a 6 is rolled, everyone gets a brick card. These cards are then exchanged for roads, settlements, cities, development cards. Each different thing takes a different combination of cards. For instance to "buy" a road you need 1 wood and one brick. You put them in the bank on your turn, and place a road at the end of one of your previously created roads. Once you have two roads in a row, you can build a settlement or city on it. The development cards that you trade in for can be knights, victory points, or things like 2 free roads. Victory Points count towards your end total, and if you play a knight card, you can place the robber anywhere on the board and steal a card from an opponent.

Regarding the robber, it is a little black piece that comes into play every time a 7 is rolled or a knight card is played. When the robber is placed on a hexagon, that hexagon is dead until the robber is moved again. When someone rolls a 7, they move the robber to a hexagon of their choice, and take one card from any opponent that has a city or settlement touching it. This is where some people can get cranky if they think they are being targeted. If a knight card is played the robber is moved in the same fashion. The winner of the game is the person that gets to 10 points first, with settlements counting for 1, cities for 2, victory points 1 each, and if you get them; the longest road is worth 2 points, and the biggest army (most knights) is also worth 2 points. Position can mean a lot in the game, and utilizing the ports on the sea can help. These ports allow you to trade in excess resources that you have. For instance if you get a 2:1 port you can trade in 2 of anything you have for one other thing in the "bank." Each port has a different value and such, so positioning yourself to own a port with a settlement could become important later in the game.

Once you get the hang of it, Settlers of Catan is a really fun, and really intense game to play with people that you know. Since the board changes each time that you play, you have an endless supply of endgame strategy that can come into play. Trading is allowed during the game too, so if you need a resource that someone keeps getting a lot of, you can trade them for it. Also, I should point out that if you have more than 7 cards and a 7 is rolled, you lose half of your cards back to the "bank", so it is vital to play them quickly. I love the game because of all the variables that come into play each time that the board is set. Figuring out where you want to start, deciding what resources you want to go after, and deciding what to build and when are all great parts of this game. Much like chess, the game is all about making sure that you start out with a strategy and only adjust it if you need to. Settlers of Catan is an extraordinarily fun game that I highly recommend having in a family setting. There are some small parts, so the younger crown should be watched closely, and they could get lost easily if you aren't careful. On the other side, this is a game that can also be played just by adults because it appeals to all ages.