Settlers of Catan - introduction

We were first introduced to this game by our son Daniel, when we visited him on board the MV Doulos. He had learned to play the game, and thought we would love it. The set we played with was very worn - so it was hard to see the different tiles - and although we enjoyed an evening playing a game with our sons, we weren't entirely sure what the point was...

Meanwhile our other son Tim had learned to play in Larnaka, with some other friends. He liked it so much that he put the game on his wishlist, and was given it one Christmas. So he played a game with us... but it was so long since we had first learned that we'd quite forgotten what it was about. I'm not competitive naturally, and really didn't like moving the robber to block other people's resources. I simply couldn't remember what to do. And while I like most board games - and it was undoubtedly much more interesting than either Risk or Monopoly - it didn't grab me.

We played again when Daniel was home on furlough. We found ourselves confused once more - the gaps between games were just too big. Somehow I did manage to win a game, with a lot of help. But I didn't think it was as enjoyable as either Rummikub or Scrabble or Mahjong, which had long been our family favourites.

How wrong I was.

In January 2009, a family of home educators moved to Larnaka, initially staying in our guest flat. When they found somewhere to stay, and we had become somewhat friendly, we discussed board games. They said that their favourite was Settlers of Catan. So we said we'd played a few times but didn't really get it... however, we were happy to spend an evening with them learning it more thoroughly.

I suppose it was about April 2009 when we began. Since then, we have played on average, I suppose, about once a week. To start with, one of our friends won most games, while we were still figuring out what cards were needed for each kind of building.

We still weren't all that familiar with it when a friend came to stay, who also liked board games; so then we learned to play with the 5-6 player expansion and its additional rules:

A bonus - I suppose - is that we learned a few words of German, since the set our friends own comes from Germany (where the game originated). At first we had to have a crib-sheet to tell us what the development cards meant, but soon learned to distinguish them. Ritter is the knight card, for instance. The victory point cards are obvious, as is the monopoly card. The only two that slightly confused as at first were the street-building and 'year of plenty' cards.

After a couple of months I was very much enjoying the game, and realising its potential. I researched online for sites with strategy hints, and started thinking more about my initial placement of tiles, and how to use the cards flexibly. I began winning a few games.

This one had an interesting layout at the beginning, with all the wheat in the middle, and all the wood on one side:

Another friend, from Egypt, came to stay. It turned out that he, too, enjoyed Settlers of Catan. So he came to play with our friends a few times too:

By this stage we were completely hooked. So we decided to get our own game, since Tim had taken his set to the UK. More friends were coming to stay in August, from the UK, so we ordered the basic set and 5-6 player expansion, using some Christmas money, from Amazon UK. And then, of course, we had to teach it to our friends:

It was confusing at first because our set was the new version, with interlocking sea (a very good idea) and quite different looking resource tiles. But we soon became bilingual, so to speak.

Then we spent a couple of weeks in the UK in September, where we played some games with Tim and my mother using his set, which, we found, was different again. His seems to be the American design:


Since then we have continued to play regularly. We were pleased to learn that there's a two-player variation - actually, several of them. So we decided to create our own 'house rules' for two players, and adjusted them gradually. I'll explain them in another post.