When comparing Captain Sonar vs Catan, the Slant community recommends Catan for most people. In the question“What are the best strategy board games?” Catan is ranked 2nd while Captain Sonar is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Catan is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro A great teamwork experience
All player roles have great synergy with one another, so by performing your role to the best of your abilities, it allows your teammates to work more efficiently. Regardless of which role you choose (captain, first mate, engineer, or radio operator), each and every one is important and vital to the success of your team.
For example, each time the submarine is moved, the captain decides the direction, the engineer ensures no systems are overloaded, the radio operator will be determining the position of the enemy sub, and the first mate can start getting the weapons charged and ready to deploy.
It's a lot of fun when your team becomes a well oiled machine, communicating and working together to bring down your opponent's submarine as a group effort.
Pro Pace can be as relaxed or frantic as you want
The game has rules for both real time and turn-based play. With real time, everyone on both teams is able to perform their roles simultaneously which usually results in a bunch of people shouting over each other in excitement and panic. On the other hand, turn based play is much more relaxed. Teams are able to take their time when making decisions and forming strategies.
Pro Versatile thanks to its many different roles
Each team controls their own submarine with four different crew member roles to choose from. For one game you might opt to the be the captain and plot the course of the submarine, and the next you may choose to be the first mate who prepares and deploys weapons. Depending on which role you play, your game experience will be vastly different as each role has very different responsibilities.
Pro Tense gameplay
Communicating with your team and trying to coordinate your submarine's movements, track the enemy sub, and keep all your systems running can be tense in all the right ways. Relying on your teammates to perform their crew member roles effectively while you scramble to perform your own results in an atmosphere where everyone is frantically working towards outplaying the other team. This is all compounded by the fact that a team of real human opponents is doing the same thing to you in a suspenseful game of cat and mouse.
Pro Scales to groups of various sizes
Captain Sonar scales well to groups of anywhere between two and eight players. While ideally, you'd want 4 players on each team to ensure all four roles are filled, it's entirely possible for you to take on multiple roles if needed. This means, even with 2 players, it's fully playable.
Pro Extremely easy to set up and start playing
The game consists of a game board for each player depending on their chosen role, clear plastic sheets, and a black marker. Setting up is as easy as taking the game boards out and placing a clear plastic sheet over each one. There's no tokens, dice, or other pieces to keep track of.
Pro Fun social experience
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.
Pro Teaches you about basic economic principles
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.
Pro An intellectually rewarding strategy game
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.
Pro Players have control over the pace of the game
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.
Pro You can increase replayability with different expansions
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.
Pro Allows for multiple strategies in a single game
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.
Pro Suitable for 2-6 players
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.
Cons
Con One bad player can ruin your team effort
The game is highly dependent on your team working together to track and damage the opposing team's submarine. Since each role is vital to success, if a teammate is playing their chosen role badly, it will negatively impact the entire team.
Con Not a good game for a younger audience
Success is heavily dependent on thinking ahead and planning. Even though the recommended age is 10+, it is not a good game for children who may lack the skills needed to get the most out of the game.
Con Chaotic expansions
Due to the game's popularity, there have been quite a lot of expansions over the years. While you can combine some of them easily, others not so much. It can be quite messy to figure it all out by yourself. There is a guide on the Catan website containing rules for combining expansions.
Con Constant haggling
One of the more prominent characteristics of Settlers of Catan is haggling, which can get tiresome if you're not into that sort of thing. You can expect to be bargaining for resources throughout the whole game, since your placement of villages does not guarantee getting a constant supply of a particular resource.
Con No official two-player rules
There are no official two- player rules thought there are some two-player rules that users have created and can be found online.