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jtl144's Settlers of Catan (Other)
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| [February 10, 2014 03:02:40 PM]
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Multi-player (3-6 players)
The object of the game is to obtain 10 victory Points (VP). These are earned by building settlements and cities, having the longest road or largest army, or through development cards. Each settlement gives you one VP, and each city gives you two VPs. Obtaining the largest army or longest road gives you two VPs each, and the development victory point cards are worth 1 VP each.
The game is primarily based around the collection, trading, and spending of resources, which are used to make Roads, Settlements, Cities, and to buy Development Cards. There are 5 different Resources: Wood, Sheep, Clay, Stone, and Wheat. In order to build a settlement, 1 wood, 1 sheep, 1 clay, and 1 wheat are needed. A road requires 1 wood and 1 clay. Cities must be built on top of (and replace) settlements, and require 2 wheat and 3 stone. Development cards can be bought with 1 sheep, 1 stone, and 1 wheat. A settlement can only be built if you have a road to a junction and there are no other settlements or cities within two junctions of the location.
Gameplay has an element of randomness with a dice roll and shuffled development cards. There are 3 different types of development cards: VP points, Soldier Cards, and Progress cards. VP points simply add to your VP total, Soldier Cards allow you to steal one random resource from another player, and the player who has played the most Soldier cards gains the largest army VP bonus. Progress cards help you gain resources.
Strategy is based around the position of resources and the statistical chance that the (2) dice will roll a certain number. These chances are placed on the board and as such, are made readily available to the players.
One thing that I found interesting about Settlers of Catan is that each time the game is played, the layout of the game board is different. The game board is hexagonal with 6 border pieces and a number of hexagonal inside pieces. Each inside piece has a specific resource printed on it and a dice roll associated with its position on the board. Before the game starts, the hexagonal inside pieces are shuffled and placed randomly inside the border.
After the board is placed, each player rolls the dice to determine who will go first, and an initial land-grab phase starts. Each player in clockwise order from the first player takes a turn placing their first settlement and a connecting road down, then in counter-clockwise order from the last player each player places their second settlement and connecting road.
The game then starts. During a player's turn, he/she rolls the dice. Then, all settlements or cities that are adjacent to a hexagonal board piece with the number rolled collect the resource that is printed on the board piece. One resource for each settlement, two for each city). Players can also trade resources on their turn, either with other players or with a port on the border of the game board. If a player does not have a settlement on a port location, then the player can trade 4 of the same type of resource for any other resource.
Each player can build up to 15 roads, 5 settlements, and 4 cities. Because of this limitation of 4 cities, it is impossible to win by building just cities. However once a player builds a city, they are given the settlement back to rebuild, and can win by building 4 cities and two settlements, but the player must have enough road around open junctions in order to do this.
The first time I played the game, I was playing with 6 people, and three of them have played before. I fortunately had enough insight to place my initial settlements around at least 1 of each resource type, but did not place them close enough together to obtain a long road. Also, I placed one of my initial road pieces in an almost worthless position. As the game progressed, we realized that the random layout was forcing almost all players to have a surplus of Sheep and a deficit of Clay. The other three resources seemed to come in at about a normal rate somewhere in between. Due to this, very few roads or settlements were built early on, and most settlements were upgraded to cities before new settlements were constructed. Also, a race for the largest army started through the use of soldier cards. This also had the side effect of people stealing from each other and trade alliances being formed. One player eventually obtained enough clay to build a road to a port where he was able to trade many of his incoming sheep for other resources. Due to his high access to sheep, and ability to trade them for clay, he ended up obtaining the longest road and eventually won.
We decided to play again, but one of the experienced players had to leave, so this time we played with 5 people. This time stone was difficult to come by, but wood and clay were plentiful. 3 people had roads of at least length 13, but only one of them was able to create a single path of 14 roads and obtained the longest road VP bonus. For my strategy, I decided to spread my cities mostly around wheat, sheep, and stone. I wanted to see how far I could get using mostly those three resources to buy development cards. Eventually I obtained the largest army and was able to steal and trade for enough wood and clay to build my 5 settlements. I also obtained 1 VP development card. However I realized that because I was spending most of my stone on development cards, I was unable to build cities and was unlikely to win due to that. At that point I decided to start hoarding my stone in the hope that I could build two more cities and win the game. But as the game progressed, I realized that I actually only needed to buy one city and could then buy another settlement when a settlement piece is returned to me after upgrading a settlement to a city. I was able to do this and won the game.
I enjoyed playing the game, and although at first glance the game appears to have a strong strategy feel to it, it is highly based upon the luck of the dice roll. Statistics also can be deceiving. For example, the only way to roll an 11 is to roll a 5 and a 6 on the dice, but during my first game, an 11 seemed to be rolled way more than a 9, which could be either a 3 and a 6, or a 4 and a 5. A lot of luck is involved, but I think the reason I enjoyed the game as much as I did was the fact that it really has the feel of a social game where you race to build the most. Although you are competing against each other, the social aspect through the trading and alliances is why I enjoyed playing it.
I also found it really interesting because a small economy type system is involved. In both of my playthroughs one resource was in excess where another resource was hard to come by. This makes it hard to have a real standard strategy for each playthrough, but also makes it more enjoyable because you may have to mix up the way you play.
This entry has been edited 4 times. It was last edited on Feb 10th, 2014 at 15:09:14.
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jtl144's Settlers of Catan (Other)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 8 February, 2014
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