I'm an addict! (Settlers of Catan)

Member Name: jennikitten

Product:	Settlers of Catan
Date:	10/09/08 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great board game

Disadvantages: Not cheap, will take up a lot of your time

The Settlers of Catan is a German board game that has a range of expansions and add ons that can be purchased online (I recommend looking it up on Wikipedia to see the full range and what goes with what, etc.). There's a card game and a travel game, but I'll be reviewing the board game which is the one I'm most familiar with.

The idea is that you (and the people you're playing with) are settling on an island. You build two settlements to start with on hexagons, and the hexagons have a type (wood, wheat, ore, brick and sheep) and a number (2-12, except 7). Whenever the dice gets rolled (at the beginning of someone's turn), you get 1 resource if a number gets rolled that you have a settlement on. Settlements can be upgraded to cities, and then you get 2 resources per number of the dice roll. With the resources, you build more roads, settlements and cities, and you can buy development cards. These do things such as you can pick two resources of your choice from the bank (Year of Plenty) etc., with the most common being Knights (you can steal a random resource from a player and the person with the most knights gets the 'Largest Army' card, worth 2 points).

There is also a robber, who can be moved on a 7 to steal from your opponents and block them from gaining resources on a certain hexagon/number.

The winner is first to 10 points (settlements are worth 1, cities 2, plus there is the aforementioned Largest Army, and also the Longest Road - at least 5 pieces unbroken).

You can pick it up for £20-25, and it's not cheap but it is an amazing and very addictive game. It's designed for 3-4 players, but you can play it with 2 (search online), and you can also get a 5-6 player expansion. You can also work in teams if there are too many people.

If you want to try it out you can play the basic game for free at playcatan.com, but I recommend getting a game in with someone who knows what they're doing or you will probably get very confused if it's your first time!

Summary: I love it!