Redirected from Siedler von Catan
Settlers of Catan is a multiplayer board game invented by Klaus Teuber.
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Settlers is perhaps the first German-style board game to reach any degree of popularity outside of Europe. It has been marketed as "The Settlers of Catan" in the United States by Mayfair Games[?]. It has been said that the original Siedler actually consisted of the game we know as Siedler today and the first expansion set, Seefahrer. Whatever the case, both the original game and the expansion are available (at a bare minimum) in both Europe and the United States -- where Seefahrer is marketed as "The Seafarers of Catan". It has been translated into English, French, Italian, and Japanese from the original German.
Terrain | Production | Color | |
Plains | Grain |   | |
Pasture | Wool |   | |
Forest | Lumber |   | |
Hills | Clay |   | |
Mountains | Ore |   | |
Desert | Nothing |   | Water | (trading advantage) |   |
Each land hex, apart from the desert, produces a specific natural resource for players who build settlements or cities adjacent to it. After the board is assembled, a production token with a number from two to twelve, excluding seven, is placed on each hex. At the beginning of each turn, two dice are rolled, and all terrain hexes marked with that number produce their distinctive commodity. Because of the probabilies for two dice, hexes marked with six or eight are much more productive than those marked with two or twelve.
Two cities or settlements, whether friendly or otherwise, can't be built on adjacent intesections.
Development | Cost | ||||
Road | 1 Lumber | 1 Clay | |||
Settlement | 1 Lumber | 1 Clay | 1 Wool | 1 Grain | |
City | 2 Grain | 3 Ore | |||
Development Card | 1 Wool | 1 Grain | 1 Ore |
Also there is maritime trade, or trading "off the island" so to speak. A player with four identical commodity cards may trade them in for one other commodity of any type. A player with a settlement or city adjacent to a port may trade in commodities at a more favorable ratio, but never one-for-one, so it is usually desirable to trade with other players if possible.
Development cards occasionally represent direct contributions to civilization, such as a library or church, and as such directly add one victory point to the total of the purchasing player. More often, however, they are soldier cards. A soldier card allows the purchasing player to relocate the robber and steal from another player. Also, whichever player has played the most soldier cards, with a minimum of three, is awarded two victory points for having the largest army.
There are also a few development cards which don't contribute directly to victory points, but are useful in other ways, such as Road Building (build two roads), Year of Plenty (get two resources of your choice), and Monopoly (steal all resource of one type from everyone).
The final source of victory points is building the longest road on the island, with a minimum of five segments.
The player with the longest road is awarded two victory points.
However, the victory points for longest road and largest army are only temporary; another player who builds a longer road or larger army takes over those victory points as well.
A more subtle contribution to Settlers popularity is that gamers (typically women) who have an inclination to cooperate more than to compete aren't shouldered aside as in more bloodthirsty board games. Hyper-competitive players may get caught in cycles of embargo and robbing revenge with each other, while a cooperative player angers no one, trades freely with everyone, and quietly wins.
At the same time, there is considerable depth to competitive strategy. In serious games everyone needs to pay attention during all players' turns. The production and trading of commodities is public, but the commodity cards are held face down, which means that an alert player with a perfect memory can know everyone's exact holding, whereas the inattentive player will often be wondering (or asking out loud), "Does anyone have grain?". Commodities have an intrinsic value based on what they can be used to purchase, but their trading value changes from moment to moment based on shortages and surpluses. A sharp trader will know the distinct value of each commodity to each player at each turn, and use this information profitably.
Expert games tend to come down to close finishes, because everyone is aware of who is leading, and the leader is most likely to be hurt with the robber. Furthermore, the rest of the players will usually absolutely refuse to trade with someone on the verge of victory, knowing that they could unwittingly provide the commodity necessary for the tenth victory point. Seldom does any one player produce all commodoties necessary to win, and being forced to use maritime trade can be a severe brake on one's progress.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump