Catan Review

This is a game that promotes casual conversation during gameplay. You can haggle for resources with other players. You can create drama by intervening in your opponents plans, for example, by breaking their chain of roads, or building a town in their way to the port. You can also make alliances with other players and then betray them when a better offer comes along.

This game teaches how to bargain, the meaning of scarcity, and how free markets work by forcing players to experience these firsthand. You can play without bargaining, but it is more fun to embrace the economy aspect of this game as it's a great learning tool.

This game allows you to try different, rewarding strategies. For example, you can create a monopoly over one resource, use the ports to trade with the bank for cheaper or try to buy the majority of victory points using the special abilities cards. There are a lot of options, and you can adapt and switch things up as the game goes on.

You also have to think ahead and pay attention to what your opponents are up to. For example, if you've decided to go for the 2 victory points for having built the longest road, you have to watch if anyone else is doing the same thing, because there can only be one longest road.

A game of Catan can take around 2 hours in a 4-player game. It's not a frantic game, there is no penalty for taking a while to figure out how you want to play your cards. You can keep it leisurely, or speed it up if you want to.

There are expansions for Catan such as Explorers & Pirates, Cities & Knights, Seafarers, and many more. Each one expands on the base game by adding extra mechanics. For example, the expansion Cities & Knights introduces city improvements that give various benefits to the player, and knights that protect them from invading barbarians. Expansion packs usually add game length and tactical complexity, which in turn greatly improves replayability.

There are distinct stages in the game (early, middle and end-game), which have different strategies. For example, when the game has just started out, you won't have much other options except rolling the dice to gather more resources. In contrast, the end-game is a lot more alert, because multiple players at a time can be just 1 or 2 points away from victory. The game changes between these stages fluidly, and you have to be present and engaged at all times to stay ahead.

Catan is relatively flexible in terms of the amount of players. It's recommended to be played with at least 3 players, but it is possible to work around that. There are no official rules for a 2 player game, but you can go around that by each playing two colors. The base game has 4 player slots, but people can team up, thereby increasing the number of possible players. There is also an expansion pack available, which allows for two more players to join the game without having to team up.