Eurogames and Settlers of Catan Review

Okay, I'm taking a break from important things today to talk about something awesome. Boardgames. That's right, you heard me. Except they're not lame. Think Monopoly or Risk, but fun. I know, sounds like an oxymoron, right? Well these puppies come from overseas, like Europe and Germany. I'm not sure how they make them, but they seem to be brilliant at it. Here are some of the keys to success that most of them have in common:

• Keep the turns short, or let everyone do something every turn.
• Play with three or more players, and focus on interactions between the players.
• Keep the players as close as possible in terms of victory, to prevent one player completely obliterating everybody else, and thus preventing the rest from having any fun.
• Player elimination is absolutely verboten.
• Use of dice should be minimized or eliminated entirely.
• Any sort of bookkeeping should be kept to an absolute minimum. No charts, no numbers above 100, or even better, nothing above 10.
• Make the game components of high quality products that will last more than a couple of plays through the game.

If any of this sounds even moderately interesting, or you're completely bored, check out Settlers of Catan by Klaus Teuber, here. It's a good introduction to the pleasantly surprising world of eurogames. It focuses on the players settling a resource-rich island (perhaps one called "Catan?"), and how they get resources, trade amongst themselves, expand, and try to claim the most prominent status on the island in the form of victory points. Although it uses dice, it's extremely unique on how they are used, and although luck does play a factor in the game, the meat and potatoes of the game focuses on the players trading amongst themselves. The resources, like brick, wood, sheep, wheat, and ore, are used to build things like roads (a brick and wood resource) and cities (two wheat and three ore). Things get interesting when only one person produces a little of a much needed resource, and everybody wants that resource and will throw all they have in a trade, because everyone knows you can't build a road out of sheep (unless, of course, you have some wood and four sheep, and squeeze the sheep hard enough together that they form bricks, but that's another story). There's only four things that the players can build, all with different combinations of resources, and if it's a close game (it almost always is, due to the losing players ganging up on the leader), it gets real heated when trade embargoes start popping up, and alliances start forming, which happens naturally and is the whole point of the game.

The last time I played the game, I came in next to last, but had an absolute ball. I played with my wife, a doctor friend of ours, his two sons, and one of their friends (which is an unusual gaming group under normal circumstances). Everyone had it in for me, because I knew the most about the game, and the one I love made it absolutely clear to everyone that I would take all their victory points, crush their settlements, and kick their puppies, so I was out of the running at the very start. But later she made one critical error in her trading and scheming, and almost conned someone out of the prestigious "Longest Road" achievement (which was promptly foiled by the once mild-mannered doctor), and sweet blissful chaos ensued around the entire board. The winner was the one we all least expected, the silent and innocent-seeming friend of the boys, who quietly secured a virtual monopoly of all the wheat and ore of the island, and in one fell swoop, claimed the ten victory points to win. Some of the best entertainment I've ever had in a long time. Check it out, and I promise you won't be disappointed--even worse, you'll be hooked.