Anyone here play Settlers of Catan?

[Generic Eric]

Anyone here play Settlers of Catan?  It looks interesting.

[Ond]

Yep my family play it quite often, it’s a resource management/strategy game, trade goods with other players, acquire goods through chance and tactics, build roads and settlements and try to dominate the resource rich areas of the board to improve your advantage.  You can get expansion packs which provide variations to the game, there’s on-line tutorials to help with learning the rules and game-play.  Game-play doesn't take ages like say Monopoly and peoples positions of advantage can change quickly depending on chance element and strategy.  The board layout is built up for each game, the pieces themselves are nice wooden parts etc.

Highly recommend it.

Ond

[Generic Eric]

I'm going to a game shop to play test a dragon fighting rpg  as long as I can get back to town in time.

Hoping they will have it there.   Which version do you play? How many players typically?

:Really:  I've only heard good things

[Ond]

I'm going to a game shop to play test a dragon fighting rpg  as long as I can get back to town in time.

Hoping they will have it there.   Which version do you play? How many players typically?

:Really:  I've only heard good things

We play the base game with the Seafarers add-on pack, this allows extra movement across the sea hexes and at least 5 players, the base game can only have up to 4 players.  Some people think the game looks complex to play, but most people who have actually played it seem to enjoy it (in my experience).  There's fun things like the robbers token, which if it lands on one of your hexes prevents that hex from producing resources until it's moved off again.  You can focus on strategies for extra points (like building the longest road for example).

It's one of our favourites and we play a lot of board games.  Another favourite is Forbidden Island, its a weird game where essentially you have to work together to escape and ever sinking island.  As a group you have to form a strategy in a race against time.  The arguments and discussions as the land runs out are hilarious! Its usually fairly cheap to buy, comes in a nice tin, if you see it snap it up!

[JMB]

Settlers is a fun game. It is a gateway game like that first MAME cab. Soon you'll be here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ and then you'll be knee deep in boardgames that you can never find enough time to play. Also look into Carcassonne. It is another great game that is simple to pick up and play.

[pbj]

Played once in a graduate economics class.  Our team got its ass headed to us because we played it aggressively and everyone else decided to work together.  Meh.

That professor set up some of my best comedic timing, though.  Classmate walks in, and I groan, "oh god, her husband's life is over."  I go on to explain to those around me that once your wife has gotten that damned chin length haircut she describes as "easy" and "fun" you're on a trainwreck involving 40lbs, no more make up, and lots of those scalloped collar t-shirts they like to call a "blouse."

Class starts, and out of nowhere, the professor announces, "yeah, my wife cut all her hair off today.... she says it's easy.... and fun.... yeah, so anyway, this game involves resource tiles..."

[Vigo]

Bit of a board game junkie here. Catan is a classic, and the expansions add a lot to the game. If you play original catan, it is a game of limited resources and limited land. The expansions turn it more into a game of exploration and empire building.

I agree with JMB, Catan is a gateway game. A few others lighter games I'd recommend are Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride. Pandemic, Red November and Forbidden Island are good if you are into co-op games. I learned to appreciated co-op games after my wife got sick of losing. (Although my wife always beats me at Catan)

[jfunk]

So many good board and card games out there    For something in lines with this forum, check out Boss Monster.  A card game with lots of nods to classic video and arcade games. 

[Generic Eric]

Settlers is a fun game. It is a gateway game like that first MAME cab. Soon you'll be here http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ and then you'll be knee deep in boardgames that you can never find enough time to play. Also look into Carcassonne. It is another great game that is simple to pick up and play.

ND_Eric @ bgg

Bit of a board game junkie here. Catan is a classic, and the expansions add a lot to the game. If you play original catan, it is a game of limited resources and limited land. The expansions turn it more into a game of exploration and empire building.

I agree with JMB, Catan is a gateway game. A few others lighter games I'd recommend are Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride. Pandemic, Red November and Forbidden Island are good if you are into co-op games. I learned to appreciated co-op games after my wife got sick of losing. (Although my wife always beats me at Catan)

We got Ticket to Ride over a week ago.  Played it four days in a row.  I like it.  Got the game on steam.  I usually play at least one game before bed on my ipod. 

We have blokus and Wits and Wagers too.  I have three games on my short list to get.  Carsconne, Power Grid and Settlers.  Now that I found my neighbor might get Settlers, that moved down the ranking. 

I also have munchkin and Cards against humanity, but I don't play those with the kids.

[MonMotha]

Do people still play Dominion?

Also, if you enjoy Catan, you might enjoy a game called "Power Grid".

[popsicle]

Catan always comes out when my parents visit (my dad loves it) but there are so many great similar 'euro' games out there that are really very accessible to non-gamer types.  I just bought a handful of new games for our family, since our (older) kids are able to play interesting family games. 

My favorite go to 2 or 3 player game at the moment is , which is a quick push your luck dice rolling affair with a civ building theme.   

If you like trivia style party games, try .  This one is pretty common now and I've seen it at Target and such. 

is fun in groups and easy to teach. Also uses nice and heavy quality dice and has a 'guess who is who' element.

Others I played recently and enjoyed are  , , and .

[Vigo]

I own power grid but can't get anyone to to play it because the cover art looks like 1980's Educational Software.

[Generic Eric]

I played Settlers of Catan over Winter holiday.  It is a fun game.

[Vigo]

I hear good things about the expansion that came out for it last year. Only expansion I haven't tried.

[yotsuya]

Kind of related, we're playing Diplomacy at work. That's a game for real ---smurfing--- ---daisies---.

[AzureKnight]

I love board gaming and honestly right now there are so many good games out there.

Recently I've played the following and enjoyed all of them:

Space Cadets: a great team based star trek style space duel.

Zombiecide: the title says it all.

Deadwood: wild west gangs in a fight over resources/control of a town.  I really like the gameplay of this one, it has a fairly different style of interaction on the board.

Battlestar Galactica:  I've only played this one once but we had a lot of fun.

Ironically I have played probably well over 100 board games but have never had the chance to play Catan....