This article originally appeared in Pyramid #18

Pyramid Pick

Die Siedler von Catan (The Settlers of Catan)

Published by Franckh-Kosmos, Germany
Designed by Klaus Teuber
Price: $54.00 (imported from Germany)

The Settlers of Catan is a very satisfying game of economic development and trading. The game is currently for 2-4 players, but Franckh-Kosmos is releasing an expansion kit to allow up to six people to play. The game takes only 1.5 to 2 hours to play, but has as much satisfaction as games that take much longer.

The components, as with most European games, are beautiful. The board is composed of separate hex-shaped tiles that can combine in different ways to create the island of Catan. The pieces are wooden, the cards attractive and sturdy.

The game is set on a newly discovered island, Catan, which the players are attempting to develop. Each hex tile is one of five types, each of which supplies a different type of natural resource. These are represented by cards which can be combined and turned in to build roads or settlements, improve settlements to cities, or draw development cards. (Development cards range from an abstracted military power, to inventions, to extra victory points.) One tile is a desert tile, which produces no resources and is the home of the robbers at the start of the game.

Each player starts out with two settlements and two stretches of road. Settlements are placed on the vertices of where three hexagons meet, and roads along the edges between two hexagons. Each tile has a number chit on it from . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: March 1, 1996

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