Settlers of Catan 4th Edition

Customer Reviews

Completely Addictive, Worth Every Penny! Review by Nakia

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This is a game that takes only a few minutes to learn but brings you back time after time to play. Every time you start with a fresh game board that makes every experience different. It is easy enough for anyone to play but involves strategy that keeps you thinking. Definitely get this game for your whole family, or bring for a fun game night! (Posted on 7/13/10)

Excellent Game for Strategy Game Beginners Review by Rick

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The Settlers of Catan is an excellent game for those that are beginners to the strategy board game arena. It does not take long to learn the game and thus anyone can play it.

The mechanics are quite simple and there are just a few key rules that must be learnt. The dice provides exciting/nervous moments as the robber can wipe out half your resources or a 9 could give you the resources to complete your victory!

The game does not get old too quickly either because the board changes for every new game played. Along with the order of turns and changing boards, new strategies must be developed each game. Because of its replay value, this game is money well spent as it has become a staple for board game night. (Posted on 7/11/10)

The Ultimate Board game hater conversion tool Review by Hogan

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Settlers of Catan (or just "Settlers" for those in the loop) has redefined how most of my friends and myself think of board games. The unique style in which players must trade to survive and making enemies actually has real consequences allows people who normally call board games "boring" to actually be involved enough to care who wins at the end of the game instead of selling boardwalk and park place with hotels for a dollar so they can go to bed. Settlers takes about 5 minutes to explain and about 5 games to develop your own unique playing style. Will you specialize in one resource and use the harbors? Will you try and get all of the resources in hopes of lucrative trades? No matter how you play it, settlers has essentially endless replay value due to the random board setup and literally thousands of different possible combinations. It has a firm place on my shelf and is one of my favorites.

P.S. Some people think that the numbers you pick really matter, and yes that would be true if you were playing an infinite number of times. But really, i think your best bet is to spread out to as many different numbers as possible regardless of their probability because usually some random 11 or 3 is what wins the game for someone anyway. (Posted on 6/27/10)

A very good gateway Eurogame Review by Louis

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You can't have a conversation about tabletop and board games without talking about Settlers of Catan. Since its inception in the mid 90's it has grown in popularity and has stood the test of time with several expansions and a dedicated fan base. Its popularity probably stems from the fact that it serves as an excellent gateway game to introduce people to board games. The strength of Settlers is in the interactions between players to make deals for resources, as well as the tough decisions on placing infrastructure, such as roads and settlements. The games can be tense and exciting as the game comes to a conclusion, as players compete for resources to achieve the necessary number of victory points.

Probably the only downside to this game is the price compared to what is contained within in the box. Although the terrain hexes and cards are of excellent quality, the wooden components are fairly simple and some have complained that it doesn't warrant the high price tag. With plenty of expansions and a successful game system, there isn't much to complain about with this classic. (Posted on 5/12/10)

Gateway Game into a Realm of Possibilities Review by Brian

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Settlers of Catan is one of those gateway games it is a good game to try and if you like it, it opens up a bunch of gaming possibilities. Settlers is a game where you don’t attack the other players directly, your goal is to make settlements and cities so that you build up enough victory points to win.

There is a random factor based on the goods drawn through rolling dice, so there is luck involved but a good strategy can help you out. I enjoy almost everything in this game the only time I find it bogs down is when you are trading cards between players. If you enjoy trading cards it will make the game more enjoyable for you. You never have to trade cards so you can work through the game without trades if that is your desire.

The mechanics of the game work quite well and the game flows nicely (except for the trading as noted above). I highly recommend this game as it has that build your settlement/route building goods mechanic that is used in so many other games. If you enjoy a family game that has a bit of luck and rewards you when you build your settlements this is a highly recommended game. Even if you don’t think this is a game for you I recommend trying it since you can get hooked on it easily.

(Posted on 5/6/10)

-The great introduction- Review by Maxime Yazz

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Settlers of Catan is the ultimate gateway game. Since 1995 it as seduced many people with its nice randomizing board, trading and building mechanics. Indeed Settlers is an easy and quick way of getting a night of gaming started. The board and the ressource gathering changes from one game to another making each game different. Also if you do ever get tired of it you can easily alter your gaming experience with one of the many expansion awailable. This is game is truly a must have if you are starting a boardgame collection. (Posted on 3/27/10)

Alexander's Review: If you are buying board games online, you *should* already own it. Review by Alexander

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Disclaimer: Since I can't display images in reviews for the Starlit Citadel, it can make explaining game mechanics somewhat difficult without proper visual aid. For this reason, my reviews will only provide a vague summary of how the game is played followed by specific praise or critiques for the game.

Background:
When I was introduced to Settlers of Catan, I was introduced into the board gaming hobby. Since then, I have played the game hundreds of times and acquainted with dozens of people. It is quintessential game to get people interested in the hobby.

So, what is Settlers of Catan? It is a resource management game that has a strong diplomatic element. It is designed to be played with three or four players, but I recommend the latter.

The objective of the game is to be the first player to reach 10 victory points. Those victory points are primarily gained through the building of settlements and cities. These structures not only inch you closer to victory, but they also the main method of acquiring resources. Wood, sheep, brick, wheat and ore are those resources and they are used to make progress in the game. Every action in the game has a cost associated with it. Want to build a road (roads are required to build additional settlements and to get to new resources)? That will cost you a lumber and a brick.
The game board is made of hexagonal tiles (each representing a resource) and each settlement or city needs to be in the intersection where three of these tiles meet. What tiles the settlement touches, those are the resources you can possibly get from that settlement every round.
What I consider the most important part of the game is trading. During your turn, you can say something along the lines of “anybody want sheep for ore” and the other players in the game can react to it. Sometimes no one will want to trade with you (perhaps you are too far in the lead...it's lonely at the top). Other times, someone will accept your deal and hand you an ore for your sheep. But if they smell desperation... they could drive a hard bargain “How about two sheep for my one ore”. This back and forth of trying to get what you need without getting the players too far in the lead is what makes this game tick in my mind. There are three other major mechanics in the game: the robber, harbors and development cards, but I am not in the business of being a player's manual.

What I like:
This game is simple fun. There are not many mechanics to the game, but what's there provides enough depth to last you several hundred games. It is fun making trades and more fun making other people squirm. Do you really need that ore? Is it worth losing two sheep over it?
Replayability. You can get a lot of mileage out of the base game, but this series is blessed with having good expansions made for it. Traders and Barbarians is a particularly fun expansion.
It is not intimidating. New players, to this game alone or the hobby entirely can grab grasp Settlers in a game and being playing on a competitive level with more seasoned players.
What I don't like:
Ironically, diplomacy games are the most violent. The first time one of my long time friends ever punched me was over a game of Settlers. It wasn't a fist fight or anything, but this game gives opportunities to screw other players over. Not only that, it's always personal because you often need to single out individual players and that builds resentment. Though, Settlers is a game that you can play very laid back.
...that brings me to my next point. Settlers can bring two types of playing styles that make the game a lot less fun when those kind of players are around. The first is the loner. Settlers is a game of solitaire to them and only in extremely rare cases will they interact with other players. While harmless, they can dampen the mood at the table. What you should look out for overly emotional players. I mentioned in my previous bullet that the game can be brutal. As soon as they realize they are losing or something unexpected happened to them, they will either sulk or make a personal vendetta against the player who ruined their plans. This causes the emotional player to spend the rest of the game screwing the player who wronged them, even if it means losing themselves.

Summary:
Settlers is a great game and the issues it has are not really its fault, but a reality of the temperaments of people. I recommend everyone who does not have it already to get it. (Posted on 12/13/09)

A Strategy/Negotiation Gaming Staple Review by Keith

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Catan is one of those games that is incredibly easy to learn and play, complex in its strategies, and infinitely replayable thanks to its randomness.

The land tiles and numbered chits are randomly placed at the start of each game, meaning that no two games will ever really be the same. The rules are fairly simple. Collect resources, use the resources to build settments, cities, and roads, and be the first person to reach 10 victory points. A large chunk of the game play, and the real fun, comes in the form of negotiating with the other players, trying to trade your excess resources for theirs, positioning your development to block other players, and using the robber to prevent someone from collecting resources from a tile.

The artwork in the 4th edition of the game is better than what was present in the 3rd edition, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the flimsy cardboard pieces they used for the tiles in this printing. The tiles in my copy and other copies I have played with are bowed and don't quite fit together properly making things awkward as tiles slide around and shift all of the roads and buildings, making you stop and put everything back where it was. Apart from that, the game is always fun to play with friends and gets even more interesting when you add the 5-6 player expansion and/or the Cities and Knights expansion. High recommended to anyone who likes strategy and negotiation games. (Posted on 9/15/09)

Settlers of Catan is a great board game and is sure to satisfy. Review by DV

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Settlers of Catan is a game I’d recommend to everyone, whether you are a board game lover or a simply a beginner. Settlers is easy to learn and the game mechanics are simple enough for anyone to pick up quickly yet it offers deeper strategy elements that you will only learn over time. It offers a good combination of luck and strategy: the rolling of the dice will randomly determine the resources but you must be smart about where to expand your settlements and build your cities. The game has a good level of interaction between the players (trading resources, development cards, and the robber) and has an excellent replay value as the game board changes will every play. It also has three major expansions (Seafarers, Cities and Knights, Traders and Barbarians) which add even more to the life span of the game. (Posted on 8/26/09)

Excellent game. Game system/mechanic easy to learn but game system, personal interaction, through trading mechanism, and random element, through resource dice roll, make game a facinatingly complex stategy game; ie, if you make bad decisions you will lose Review by nonentity

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Superb game system and expansion sets add various levels of values.

I gave this game, with expansion sets of 5-6 players and Knights and Cities, for Christmas to my nephews and niece. I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with them for two days after Christmas. My nephews and niece are Digital Kids, with Wii and Xbox systems available, and ages 16 (M), 14(M) and 12(F) respectively. On the evening of my arrival, the children (perhaps out of parental-enforced politeness) asked to play the game with me, and, my wife and their grandmother also played. After two or three turns, when all were familiar with game mechanics, and vigorously competing for victory. (I wish to emphasize that my mother (their grandmother) who is no duffer, but really joins games for because of their sociable aspect , was captivated by the game.) in the end, my niece won as everyone else was focusing on not letting the player who was perceived as winning, winning. The next day/evening a re-match was demanded. Point being the game is so engaging that the Digital Kids preferred it to there electronic toys.

Comments on:

Setters of Cataan expansion set for 5-6 players - allowing any to build each turn is the most significant and interesting aspect of expansion.

Seafarers of Cataan expansion set is a bit of a dud in that it essentially has searoutes as roads

Knights and Cities - well worth money as the this adds a political/diplomatic element to the game equally as important as trading in the basic game. (Posted on 1/17/09)