Ridley’s Review: Settlers of Catan

Welcome to the debut of Ridley(s) Review: Games! In this section, the Erik’s, younger and older, as well as the occasional guest reviewer will share our thoughts on a variety of games. In our inaugural review, we are pleased to welcome Joel to the Review team for an deep-dive into the legendary game, Catan.

Before we begin, let’s tell you a bit about our individual gaming preferences. That will help you to get a sense about what we each like and don’t like in games and to help you match up our reviews to your own interests.

Erik (the younger): In a world of labels, I’d ID myself a “casual gamer.” I play for laughs, a good time, and to bond with people. While I do have a competitive streak that comes out at times (like after consistently losing to the same person at Catan), I can also get behind a silly, goofy game without a set goal in mind. Versatility is the name of my game: like in life, I find myself being a jack of all trades, master of none: strategy, social, luck, party, board, card, video…you name it, I’ve probably tried it. From charades to COD to Catan to Chutes & Ladders, I’ve probably dabbled in it. My primary metric for a game is whether it is fun or not, which happens to be the most subjective metric on the planet. I will try to look objectively, though, while giving some spicy takes along the way. 

Erik (the older): A frequent board gamer, I typically favor strategy games with an intermediate-to-high level of complexity that provide an interesting challenge and some fun, good-natured competition with family and friends. My favorite games tend to be highly replayable, have multiple paths to victory, offer an interesting decision space, don’t rely too heavily on dice rolling/luck, and run between 1-2 hours. I can also appreciate well-designed shorter games, though, and even certain party games. I especially enjoy games that are simple to learn, but hard to master. Although I much prefer playing games with friends for the social experience and fun, I also enjoy playing solo games for relaxation, to not be on a screen, and to use my mind in a different way to unwind after a long day at work or on weekends.

Joel (the friend): I was quite literally taught how to add and subtract as a child from my mother by playing the card game Cribbage. From there, my love for cards and board games took off. My brothers and I spent many weekends having board game competitions that included Clue, Catan, Life, and my two personal favorites: Legendary and Harry Potter House Cup Challenge (what I wouldn’t give for the creators to update the game with years 6 and 7). These board games with my brothers were dramatic, ruthless, and dramatic (did I already say that?). As I got older, I tended to play more strategic, social card games like Spades and Pinochle with friends. My strategic effort and emotional involvement in a game tends to match the mood of the situation with friends. Most games tend to be laid back and fun, and I can do that and enjoy myself. But nothing is better than an intense, strategic, brain-melting board game when everyone gives 110% effort.

Ok, let’s get to it!

The Game: Settlers of Catan

Our inaugural game review will feature the legendary board game Catan. In Catan, players (settlers) will acquire and use resources to explore the island of Catan, building roads, settlements, and cities while wheeling and dealing with other players. They can also buy “development cards” for added in-game benefits and and compete for bonus points from having the Longest Road and Largest Army in an all-out sprint to reach 10 points.

Fast Facts: 

• Game type/Genre: Board game/Strategy
• Player count: 3 or 4 (support for 5-6 players is available via a helpfully named 5-6 Player Extension, while a 2-player mode is also available as part of an expansion, more below)
• Play time: 60-120 minutes (average about 90 minutes)
• Setup time: 10-15 minutes
• Designer:  Klaus Teuber
• Introduced: 1995
• Publisher: Catan Studio
• Cost: Approximately $45

Notably, Catan was one of the first popular “Euro”-style games, which tend to avoid direct player interaction and provide a number of ways to earn points. So if you’re used to games like Axis and Allies or Risk, this (and other Euro-style games) will play out quite differently. There are no player eliminations, so everybody will still be participating in the game when it ends.

There have been a number of expansions to Catan over the last few decades, including an add-on that supports a player count of 5-6 and various others such as Seafarers of Catan, Traders and Barbarians, Cities of Knights, Explorers & Pirates.  A multitude of spin-offs, including Star Trek Catan and Catan – Starfarers, have also been released. There’s even a two-player card game – Rivals for Catan. And this month (June 2024), a new standalone version – Catan: New Energies – will be released, featuring a new twist that focuses on pollution.

We’ll discuss these later in the review, but unless stated otherwise, this review will focus on the base game of Catan. 

Complexity

We will rate games on a complexity scale of 1 to 5:

Erik (the younger): How is this game 30 years old?!?! I could’ve sworn this bad boy came out in the 2010’s. I go 3 here: it is simple to learn, but if you devote a lot of thought to your game, you will be a lot more successful. The social element adds a fun, “Survivor-ish” layer of complexity to the proceedings.

Erik (the older): Indeed. This game is older than you! I would also rate Catan at a 3 complexity level. There aren’t too many rules, but there is a little bit of a learning curve to understand the nuances of the game and some good strategies, especially where to place your initial settlements and roads. 

Joel (the friend): I would rate Catan a 3 as well. In a first, practice game, the rules should come easily. However, it takes a few more games to understand the pathways to potential victory. 

How to Play 

Setup: 

Place the resource tiles and dice numbers randomly on the board, per the instructions. One player at a time then chooses to place a town on a corner of hexes of their choosing, and also places a road between two hexes, in any direction but attached to the town. This continues until all players have placed their first town/road, then the order reverses for a second town and road. The real fun is just beginning:

Play:

On every player’s turn, the following occurs:

– Dice roll

– If a non-7, Resources handed out for player’s owning a resource corresponding to the dice roll

– If a 7, any player with 8 or more resource cards must get rid of half of the cards in their hand (rounding down), before the player whose turn it is moves the robber to a hex and takes one resource card from the hand of any player who has a share of that hex. 

– Negotiations! The active player can sweet talk the others into a trade of resources

– Building: The active player can then choose to turn in cards to build their empire, either buying a road, settlement (worth 1 point), or city (worth two points). They can also choose to acquire a development card, which has interesting attributes or added victory points. 

– First player to reach 10 points immediately wins the game.

Special things to note:

• Additional points (2) are awarded for the longest active, connected road in the game and for the most knight cards played (with a minimum of 3). These knight cards can only be acquired via the development card deck.
• Any space that the robber is on does not award resources until moved
• A city gives you two resources when a hex it is on is rolled, as opposed to one
• Four resources of any one type can be traded to the bank for one resource of your choice
• Special harbors at the edge of the map grant special powers that allow for better resource exchanges with the bank

How to Win

Erik (the older): I will mostly defer to you for this part of the review, as you have by far the better record in this game than I do. I do think it’s important to have access to both wood and bricks early in the game in order to pay for roads, which you will need to expand across the island. One strategy I will mention is that when behind, I often go heavy on buying development cards as a hail mary in hopes of a miraculous come-from-behind win. It doesn’t often work, though!

Erik (the younger): 10 points is all you need, and, hey, you start off with two in the bank! Points are gained through the building of settlements and cities, risking it for the biscuit with development cards as you said, or putting the pedal down on road building or playing knight cards at will. Once a player hits 10, it’s game over (GO) right away. 

Most important is getting resources, which allow you to buy/build all those things. Next-level strategy mixes prioritizing certain resources and their dice numbers to get the gravy train a rollin’.

Joel (the friend): Wow, there are a multitude of ways to win the game. Because each game setup is unique, the path to victory is different game to game. I personally focus on obtaining spots that contain brick and wood that can open up road expansion (and half of a settlement). However, befriending your opponents cannot be understated. If your opponents offer generous deals, it makes your path to victory all the easier. But if there is a trade embargo on you? Winning becomes that much harder.

What we like about it

Joel (the friend): The game has so much replayability with the different setup and strategy to every game. Do you place your cities on the most common numbers? Do you decide to place your first city on three sheep spaces and then your second city on a sheep port? Every game presents a new challenge and opportunity. Sometimes the game also comes down to the final play, adding a level of drama. Is the development card you just purchased a victory point, giving you 10 points and stealing the victory away from an opponent about to build a city for their 10th point? No two games of Catan are the same, but all are exciting. 

However, not all games of Catan need to be intense. It can be a fun game to play while catching up with friends. Since the rules are straightforward, people can play with minimal strategy but still create an enjoyable evening.

Erik (the younger): The ultimate game to clown around with some buddies and talk smack on each other. Why? It’s the perfect blend of achieving a solo goal, messing up the other players, and social politics. A recipe for drama, chaos, and broken hearts. 

Other pieces of the whole shebang:

• Every game can have a different setup, meaning you never play the exact same game twice. 
• Layers on layers on layers: so many ways to 10 points. Roads? Robbers? Development cards?!? The world is your oyster; real big Choose Your Own Adventure vibes here. 
• Half luck, half strategy: the middle numbers are most probable to be rolled, of course. The best bet at the start is to make the math work for you. But your brilliant plan is liable to be ruined by a run of 3’s rolled midgame to grant your esteemed opponent endless wheat to foil you. On a different note, never has a number 7 been so soul-destroying (turn in those cards, my guy!)
• Trading can and should be to your benefit, requiring staying in the good graces of your opponents while simultaneously trying to screw them over. Get your popcorn ready and let the negotiations commence!

Erik (the older): I agree with most of what you said here, with the exception of your half-luck, half-strategy point. I view that as a negative; games with that high of a luck ratio can be maddening when the dice consistently don’t go your way. 

In any event, it’s indeed a game that can be played with any level of seriousness. In fact, some of my favorite gaming memories from our family growing up came from our Catan games in which you always drove ridiculously hard bargains. I remember your standard “offers” of one brick for two of my ore, etc. Somehow you always wound up with a taker on these “deals”, though, and I remember we were almost always chasing you in the endgame.

As you alluded to, the negotiation aspect of Catan is a make-or-break part of the game. As long as everybody is playing with a similar level of spirit/seriousness, this can be a fun part of the game. If not, it will be a long hour or two.

I do enjoy the challenge of trying to build an optimal route to better access other resources and potentially block out one of your other settlers. I also really appreciate Catan’s replayability, thanks to a variety of different scenarios and expansions. Having a unique board layout every time is always cool, and I think it’s a very well-designed game overall. The expansions also add variety to mix things up and keep the game play fresh and interesting. More on that later.

Erik (the younger): I’ll go to my grave insisting I always offer a fair deal. Why would I screw myself over to help someone else (in a game, that is)?!? You want what’s mine? There’s a price to be paid.

I know you and dice have a toxic relationship, but I happen to enjoy a wildcard factor in my games. Keeps things spicy. 

Erik (the older): Wait, was I just gaslighted?

What we don’t like about it

Joel (the friend): Lies. Deception. Collusion. Yes, I am talking about the most recent season of Survivor, but I am also talking about Catan. The trading aspect of this game is great, but can also be brutal. It adds a curveball to the game. There are different mindsets to trading. Some people are addicted to trading; they will never turn down a 1:1 trade. Some people drive a hard bargain, demanding 2 or 3 resources for 1 resource. And then, of course, there can be total embargos, something that I Know All Too Well (Joel’s Version). During one year of living with housemates, we played Catan often. During some games, it turned into #AnyoneButJoel. I was left out of trades and it made my path to victory much harder. In one specific instance, I was at 9 points and was going to win on my next turn. The next closest competitor was at 5 points. In what could only be described as a miracle, other players donated their cards to one player who proceeded to have a 5 point turn, thus winning the game. As Calvin’s Dad always reminded him from Calvin and Hobbes, “It Builds Character”.

Ultimately, games can be frustrating because of the trading. But on the flip side, Catan would not be the great game it is without the variable of trading.  

Erik (the younger): I’ll grant that particular finish was BS. That being said, how many more games did you win than the next closest competitor in the house?!?

Erik (the older): Although I really enjoy playing Catan, I do have a few issues with it. First, as, Joel mentioned, there is a tendency for early leaders to be ganged up on by other players using trade moratoriums and constantly moving the robber to where it will damage the leader the most. These actions can make it extremely difficult for them to get the resources they need to move forward in the game. And there is very little that can be done to combat these moves, resulting in multiple turns going by without being able to accomplish anything. This can be very frustrating, but there is one silver lining to being mediocre at this game: I rarely face this situation as I don’t often find myself leading in this game.

Later in the game, the same dynamic can lead to a king/queenmaking problem (this is when players who know they aren’t going to win then can take actions to help one of the other players in the game win).

Second, the dice rolling can be maddening. There’s nothing more frustrating than dice rolls that continuously miss the territories you are adjacent to. Without early and regular access to resources, you are in big trouble. I know Erik (the younger) disagrees with me on this, but I prefer to use the event cards option (added in the Traders and Barbarians expansion) instead of dice rolling to even out the luck. The deck of event cards includes cards with number values that are mathematically proportional to the expected dice rolls. This feels more fair to me.

As alluded to above, the negotiation aspect of the game can potentially lead to hurt feelings and affect their enjoyment of Catan, so it’s important that all players approach the game in a similar manner to avoid any issues, etc.

The opening settlement placements are very important. If you don’t get this right, it’s going to be an uphill battle. Also, players will know about halfway through the game if they have a realistic chance of winning or not; there is no real catch-up mechanism in Catan other than perhaps the hail-mary play of drawing development cards.. For those who have no hope of winning, it’s not that much fun to play out the rest of the game when you are essentially just going through the motions. Of course, you could, as mentioned above, also conduct actions that favor a player you want to win (king/queen making), making life hard for the other players. But that isn’t in the spirit of the game, so I don’t encourage or endorse that approach.

Finally, you need to have 3 or preferably 4 players. The game plays fine at 3 (and our readers may actually prefer the more open space on the map to spread out as they learn the game). But Catan is at its best at 4 players, creating congestion on the island and more interesting decisions. I have not played with 5 or 6 players, so I can’t speak to that.

Erik (the younger): If a player so desired, it wouldn’t be hard for someone to fall on their own sword to spite another player and keep them from winning by abusing the trade system. There is no real mechanism for avoiding this. Also, as Erik the Older alluded to earlier, so much of the game is decided just during the initial placement of roads and towns. Mess up here and you’re toast, buddy. Who you play with is vital: you need people who keep things light and are here for a good time. I have seen Catan go off the rails with people who take a simple board game far, far too seriously. 

You would hate the dice portion! Maybe if you just talked to them nicer things would work out better. I find trade embargoes to be the great equalizer in the game: it allows players to work together as a unit to stop one person from running away with Sweet, Sweet, Sweet Victory until the game becomes close again. I don’t find it an issue at all, unless, as mentioned, there is a deliberate attempt to rig the game for one person in particular.

Erik (the older): I just really don’t like in an individual game when players can gang up on others and there is very little that can be done about it if you’re on the receiving end. This is why I stopped playing Risk.

As for the dice, I’ve tried cajoling, specific but polite requests, constructive criticism, tough love, veiled threats, and even direct threats. I’ve tried blowing on the dice, shaking them up in different ways, rolling with the left hand, and even using a Yahtzee-style cup for rolling. Sadly, none of these tactics have worked.

Thoughts on expansions:

Erik (the younger): Holy smokes the expansions keep rolling off the conveyor belt. I (the younger) have played Seafarers as well as the Traders and Barbarians expansion. The different maps and ship pieces add some variety to the experience (and new strategies), but I find it easier for one person to waltz to an unstoppable victory with the gold fields. While navigating the tossing seas is a lot of fun, I think the original version is just a little tighter and better balanced. 

Erik (the older): I hear what you’re saying, but I respectfully disagree on the expansions. Although the base game of Catan is great, I also really love Seafarers, as it creates new strategic possibilities to explore other mini-islands and potentially get more resources to yourself (and helping to avoid getting swindled by you in trades). Traders and Barbarians has also been a positive addition, including some fun scenarios and notably, a 2-player mode.

For the purposes of this review, I did a solo play of the 2-player mode, playing both orange (my favorite color) and red (Erik the younger’s favored color) along with two bot players. As usual, Erik the younger won, even though he wasn’t physically present. Although it removes a key element of Catan (negotiation), the game still otherwise “feels” like Catan and is a nice option to have when you can only get two settlers to the table.

However, these expansions aren’t vital by any means, and I would recommend them only for seasoned Catan players who are looking to add some breadth and depth to their playing sessions.