Board Game: Settlers of Catan

Can't believe we hadn't gotten around to playing this before.

The Game: Settlers of Catan
The Publisher: Catan
Time: 60 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Megan, and Jenn

Game Play: This is the "wood for sheep" game. You start off with a hexagon full of smaller hexagons, each of which has a number on it. Every turn, a player rolls the dice, and if a given number comes up, any player that has a settlement bordering a given type of hex gets resource cards (wood, sheep, bricks, ore, wheat).

An as-yet empty hexagon.

 Players can then use resources to buy roads, settlements, cities (which involve upgrading a settlement), or development cards. More settlements means more resources, so a lot of the game is figuring out where to build to maximize your resource gain. However...

That little grey dude is the robber. Roll a 7, and the robber moves, which allows the player to steal a resource from another player, but also he robs anyone with more than seven cards of half their resources. There is, therefore, no advantage in hoarding, because someone will roll a 7 sooner rather than later (it's the most probable roll on 2d6, after all).

The game goes until someone gets 10 points on their turn (settlements and cities give you points, as do certain development cards).

Opinions: It's easy to see why this game because such a huge screaming deal; it's easy to play but it's got some depth of strategy and it's colorful and fun to move stuff around. Plus, there's a human/psychological element in the trading (since you can trade resources as much as you want). The only complaint I have about the game is that it's not quick, so it's not something you can just pull out to play whenever.

Keep? Yep.