The Man Who Built Catan
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The Man Who Built Catan
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Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#2I've got a little story as to how addictive Catan can be to some people...
About 15 years ago, a friend came to visit in my country with Catan. The simple, original box. He stayed at my place and for days my friend, my roommate and his girlfriend and me kept playing it. Then my friend left back to its country and took his Catan with him. We were so addicted and wanted to play really badly, but it was saturday evening.
Shops wouldn't open until monday and we wanted to play. We had played the game so much in a few days, non-stop, that we knew it by heart.
So I told my roomate and his girlfriend: let's build it. I was working in the book publishing business and had a very nice color printer at my apartment. I fired up Gimp on Linux (IIRC) and Quark XPress (that I'm sure of) on the old Mac and started designing basic hexagons and cards layout while my roommate started drawing and his girlfriend started writing down everything she remembered. Then we printed everything on the color laser printer and started cutting.
In about three hours (!!!) we had a functional game (we'd put a huge table glass on the map once randomly distributed). And we played the whole Saturday night, the whole Sunday... And when we woke up on Monday, we went to buy the game.
We were so into it that the three of us couldn't wait 36 hours or so to buy the game: we had to have it immediately. And we built it.
There's one word I'm thinking of for this game: addictive ^ ^
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#3Catan was my first German-style board game[0].
I've since "graduated" on to more complicated games, so I rarely play it anymore, but I find that it's an effective "gateway" German-style board game. Almost all of my friends who have played it love it, and have gone on to try (and enjoy) other German-style games. Catan is nice because it's sufficiently more complex (and well-designed) than Monopoly so as to be interesting, but not so complex that the rules take ages for newcomers to learn (as is often the case with many more complicated games).
My personal favorite at the moment is Through the Ages[1], though I'm also a fan of Puerto Rico[2], as it's a rare example of a good game that has (almost) no random elements to its gameplay, such as rolling dice or shuffling a deck. (There is one set of tiles that is shuffled, but it's rather inconsequential and could easily be made deterministic if desired).
Here in NYC, there's a cafe dedicated to board games and which was funded on Kickstarter[3]. As a huge board game geek, I'm really glad they're catching on.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-style_board_game
[1] http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25613/through-the-ages-a-...
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#4Is Catan really Silicon Valley's golf, like the article claims? I'd love to think so but I haven't seen any deals cemented over a game of Catan. Anyone have any stories?
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#5Catan was my first German-style board game[0]. I've since "graduated" on to more complicated games, so I rarely play it anymore, but I find that it's an effective "gateway" German-style board game. Almost all of my friends who have played it love it, and have gone on to try (and enjoy) other German-style games. Catan is nice because it's sufficiently more complex (and well-designed) than Monopoly so as to be interest…
In Oxford there's http://www.thirstymeeples.co.uk/. It's really good for finding new games, as they've got roaming board game specialists that will recommend a new game, help you get set up and teach you the basics. I just wish they'd get an alcohol license ;) (if only to help their profitability!)
After playing a fair bit of Catan, I tend to get frustrated with how it's just a bit too random to establish complex strategy. I rather like Dominion for variability and depth.
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#6Here's a fun (and pretty long) podcast interview with Klaus and Guido: http://jeffrubinjeffrubinshow.com/episode/16-settlers-of-cat...
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#7Catan was my first German-style board game[0]. I've since "graduated" on to more complicated games, so I rarely play it anymore, but I find that it's an effective "gateway" German-style board game. Almost all of my friends who have played it love it, and have gone on to try (and enjoy) other German-style games. Catan is nice because it's sufficiently more complex (and well-designed) than Monopoly so as to be interest…
If you liked Puerto Rico, I recommend Dominion [0].
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#8"The company originally sourced all of the materials for the game from Europe, but, when demand began to take off, the manufacturers didn’t have enough wood to keep up."
Couldn't they have traded some grain or ore?
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#9Catan was my first German-style board game[0]. I've since "graduated" on to more complicated games, so I rarely play it anymore, but I find that it's an effective "gateway" German-style board game. Almost all of my friends who have played it love it, and have gone on to try (and enjoy) other German-style games. Catan is nice because it's sufficiently more complex (and well-designed) than Monopoly so as to be interest…
I'd argue that Catan is much less complex monopoly. Just that most people learn monopoly at a very young age so they never notice the complexity. Monopoly's rules are 6 pages of pure text. Catan's rules are 4 pages with some illustration.
I don't understand at all why monopoly is the universal board game that every kid learns. It's a horrible game that drags on for hours. Even though I don't particular care for Catan it'd make a much better universal board game.
Re: The Man Who Built Catan
#10My friends and I just got into Catan and it's really great. We used to play a ton of FIFA and Madden when we were together, now it's always "who wants to settle?". It really is a great game because it can't be completely beaten like Monopoly can and there is no best strategy that we've found. I play totally differently than my friends and we all win sometimes.
I also love the social aspects of trading and the robber. We have a LOT of table talk when we play, and it's hilarious to see what people will say to convince someone to put the robber on a spot they don't own. Also the desperate trades we get into "I'll give 5 wool for a grain! 6 wool for a grain!". It's really the best board game I have ever played by far.