Tsaiberspace

I had an opportunity to play a game I’d been reading a lot about: Settlers of Catan. It is a 4-player board game, combining enjoyable elements of many other popular games. The notable thing about Catan is that gameplay is very balanced, even with a combination of beginners and experienced players (I won our first game :D), such that the outcome of the game can be completely up for grabs until the very end. Catan has elements of:

• Fantasy Football. The first two rounds involve something like a draft, where each player selects locations for their initial cities. Initial location is almost critically important.
• Sid Meier’s Civilization. Players may win via a variety of strategies, such as economic development, or military conflict (economic sabotage, really, but the game portrays it as a military action).
• Scrabble. Real estate is important throughout the whole game. Certain plays will open up or close off possibilities to other players.
• Craps. Knowing the probabilities of rolling 2-12 are important, and rolling a 7 is generally bad for those playing with you :).

Catan is a “first to finish” kind of game, and not a “last man standing” kind of game; players are never eliminated from play. Everyone may participate up until the end (indeed, the balanced gameplay is usually such that it can be anyone’s game at any time). An interesting element of Catan gameplay is that developments such as cities and roads, once placed, are never removed, nor do they ever change hands. This may dissatisfy poker players and other schadenfreude junkies. In particular, Catan is not like:

• Risk. How many times has a game stalled because of Kamchatka continuously changing hands between the player controlling Australia and the player taking over Asia? The immutability of cities and roads in Catan guarantees forward progress of the game, so that games will only take up a rather deterministic amount of time.
• Monopoly. Both Catan and Monopoly are about controlling real estate. However, Monopoly is a “last man standing” kind of game, whereas Catan is a “first to finish” game. Development of property is a goal in itself, rather than simply a means to eliminate other players.

However, the game does have a winner, so it is of course not without competition (and therefore not without schadenfreude), for people who need that kind of fix. The dice and other mechanics of gameplay allow players to benefit at the direct expense of other players.

Like any good board game, there are numerous expansion packs available, mostly to either affect the economy of the game or to expand the game to accommodate up to 5-6 players. And like any really good board game, there is an unofficial free version of the game that allows you to play online against other players: visit games.AsoBrain.com.