Settlers of Catan review

This will probably be my shortest boardgame review ever. This game is dead simple, and I guess much of its popularity derives from just that - simplicity.

Settlers of Catan is a 3-4 player game which takes place on an island full of natural resources that the players need to harvest and turn into roads, villages, towns or development cards in order to achieve victory. Each of the mentioned things yield various amounts of victory points and the first player to reach 10 points wins the game.

The board is made up of hexes featuring one of the following resources: clay, wood, stone, livestock and grain. These tiles are randomly deployed and you follow up by placing small markers with numbers on each hex. The numbers correspond to the results of rolling 2 D6 dice, and the number of dots featured on each marker show the statistical likelihood of you rolling that number on 2D6.

After having placed all tiles of the board on the table players roll 1D6 and the player who rolled highest starts deploying his starting village, then the remaining players deploy theirs. All players start with 2 villages and 2 road sections each.

Villages are placed at the intersection of 3 tiles and cannot be placed closer than 2 road tiles to another village.

Once starting villages are placed, the turn sequence is as such:

First player rolls 2D6, checks the result and compares it to the numbered markers on the hexes. Should a hex feature the correct number and be adjacent to a village/town then the player who owns that village/town draws resource cards. As such there is a constant stream of resources being dealt to players all the time. The current player may initiate in trade with his fellow players during his turn, and offer some of his resources in exchange for theirs.

Resources are turned into new villages, road sections, upgrading villages into towns (making you harvest 2 resources instead of 1 when your settlement is near a number generated by the 2D6 roll) or buy development cards. Development cards are divided into victory point cards, army cards and special cards granting bonuses for having a grain monopoly, largest army, largest road network etc.

The first player generates resources, deals resource cards to the appropriate players, builds new developments, initiates trade or buys development cards to boost his chances of victory.
When all this is done, the turn is handed over to the next player.

The game plays lightning fast and I don't know how many turns we managed to play before we had a winner, but probably 20 something turns in around an hour with 3 players.

Additional features on the board are the desert tile in the middle which is worthless, trade harbors along the edges allowing players to trade specific or unspecific resources at a set ratio for whatever resources they desire. There is also a highwayman, who if a player rolls 7 may be placed on an opponent’s hex preventing harvesting of resources featured on that hex and allowing the player who controlled the highwayman to steal 1 resource card from the targeted player.

The game is easy to learn, very fast paced, and fun. For me this game is perhaps a bit too simple, but then I'm a fan of "blockbuster boardgames" that are heavily themed. There is a bit of planning and tactics involved, but it relies quite heavily on the luck factor when it comes to generating resources, generating the board and generating starting positions.

The quality of the tiles, cards and pieces is quite OK. It's not Fantasy Flight Games quality and artwork, but then again this game does not strive to appeal visually on the same level as heavily themed games. Settlers of Catan is simply a more "classically styled" boardgame comparable to games such as Monopoly. Games that the whole family can play together. It's not necessarily something I would bring to a boardgame night with my game group.