Things I Love – The Settlers of Catan

This game is my new obsession. It is so much fun it makes me want to make new friends so I have more people to play with.  Last weekend we invited my good friends Kristin and Justin down for a dinner. When they asked if they could bring anything, the hubby already had the menu planned (recipes forthcoming), so we asked that they supply the entertainment. And we were introduced to Catan. Granted, we are of a sort of nerdy persuasion, so the game wasn’t entirely new to us. We’d seen at at Games by James when we were doing our Christmas shopping, it had been mentioned on Reddit, and the gang was playing it on the previous week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory (does anyone have any wood?) But this was our first experience with the actual game play.

And I am totally hooked. Even after far too much wine, the rules are simple. There is a balanced mix of luck and strategy, and plenty of opportunities for smoting your opponents (we made up a word because we needed something stronger than smite). It has a certain nerdy appeal, but is not unapproachable by the average person like RPG card games. And one of the great aspects of the game is that the board is made of 19 tiles you assemble at random, so each game is different and requires different strategy. We had so much fun with Kristin and Justin that we turned around and bought it ourselves, and the 5-6 player extension pack and forced it upon Ryan’s family. Who in turn enjoyed it so much they bought it so they can play with their friends next weekend.

So I highly recommend you find 3 friends and a copy of The Settlers of Catan and get started gathering resources and building settlements. The game is quite popular and you can even find it at Target these days. At $42 for the 3-4 player base game, it is a bit spendy, but totally worth it.  The 5-6 player extension is another $20 but adding additional players puts a whole new spin on the game and is also very fun.