
The Man Who Built Catan - route66
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/02/klaus-teuber-the-settlers-of-catan.html
======
TacticalCoder
I've got a little story as to how addictive Catan can be to some people...

About 15 years ago, a friend came to visit in my country with Catan. The
simple, original box. He stayed at my place and for days my friend, my
roommate and his girlfriend and me kept playing it. Then my friend left back
to its country and took his Catan with him. We were so addicted and wanted to
play really badly, but it was saturday evening.

Shops wouldn't open until monday and we wanted to play. We had played the game
so much in a few days, non-stop, that we knew it by heart.

So I told my roomate and his girlfriend: let's build it. I was working in the
book publishing business and had a very nice color printer at my apartment. I
fired up Gimp on Linux (IIRC) and Quark XPress (that I'm sure of) on the old
Mac and started designing basic hexagons and cards layout while my roommate
started drawing and his girlfriend started writing down everything she
remembered. Then we printed everything on the color laser printer and started
cutting.

In about three hours (!!!) we had a functional game (we'd put a huge table
glass on the map once randomly distributed). And we played the whole Saturday
night, the whole Sunday... And when we woke up on Monday, we went to buy the
game.

We were so into it that the three of us couldn't wait 36 hours or so to buy
the game: we had to have it immediately. And we built it.

There's one word I'm thinking of for this game: addictive ^ ^

~~~
krrrh
Some friends and I made a single-use board with felt markers some years ago.
It's also fun to customize the resources to your local environment. Debating
how resources should combine was at least as fun as playing.

[http://flickr.com/photos/dorywithserifs/3745799327](http://flickr.com/photos/dorywithserifs/3745799327)

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chimeracoder
Catan was my first German-style board game[0].

I've since "graduated" on to more complicated games, so I rarely play it
anymore, but I find that it's an effective "gateway" German-style board game.
Almost all of my friends who have played it love it, and have gone on to try
(and enjoy) other German-style games. Catan is nice because it's sufficiently
more complex (and well-designed) than Monopoly so as to be interesting, but
not so complex that the rules take ages for newcomers to learn (as is often
the case with many more complicated games).

My personal favorite at the moment is Through the Ages[1], though I'm also a
fan of Puerto Rico[2], as it's a rare example of a good game that has (almost)
_no_ random elements to its gameplay, such as rolling dice or shuffling a
deck. (There is _one_ set of tiles that is shuffled, but it's rather
inconsequential and could easily be made deterministic if desired).

Here in NYC, there's a cafe dedicated to board games and which was funded on
Kickstarter[3]. As a huge board game geek, I'm really glad they're catching
on.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-
style_board_game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-style_board_game)

[1] [http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25613/through-the-
ages-a-...](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25613/through-the-ages-a-story-
of-civilization)

[2] [http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-
rico](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico)

[3] [http://www.uncommonsnyc.com/](http://www.uncommonsnyc.com/)

~~~
graylights
I'd argue that Catan is much less complex monopoly. Just that most people
learn monopoly at a very young age so they never notice the complexity.
Monopoly's rules are 6 pages of pure text. Catan's rules are 4 pages with some
illustration.

I don't understand at all why monopoly is the universal board game that every
kid learns. It's a horrible game that drags on for hours. Even though I don't
particular care for Catan it'd make a much better universal board game.

~~~
mdmarra
Monopoly only drags on for hours if you play by silly house rules like $400
for landing on Go, money for landing on Free Parking, or not requiring an
auction when passing on purchasing a property. All of these common house rules
artificially extend the game by either injecting cash into the game or slowing
the acquisition of property.

A vanilla game of 4 player monopoly should take no more than an hour.

~~~
twoodfin
In my experience Monopoly games played by the official rules with experienced
players would drag endlessly due to trade negotiations. Typically, whenever a
player was clearly in an advantageous position, the remaining players would
form a loose alliance, shuffling properties and cash in an attempt to stymie
the leader. The leader would fall back into the pack, a new leader would
emerge, and the whole process would repeat. Every iteration would require a
substantial amount of discussion, proposals and counter-proposals for an
equitable but effective distribution of properties and cash amongst the
"insurgents". Any thoughts on what we were doing wrong?

Catan at least has the advantage of monotonically increasing building and army
points: Given enough time and even barely rational spending, a player is
guaranteed to reach 10 points, no matter how alliances form and splinter.

The biggest problem we encountered in both games was the "spoiler": The player
who was not in a position to win, but was in a position to determine the
winner. Either you try to impose hard-to-adjudicate rules requiring "rational
decisions" or you accept that a long-running game may be decided by caprice.

~~~
nl
*In my experience Monopoly games played by the official rules... Any thoughts on what we were doing wrong?"

I'm guessing you weren't actually following the rules[1]. If you do follow the
rules you'll find liquidity gets sucked out of the game by continual reselling
because you are only allowed to sell unimproved properties, and have to sell
houses & hotels back to the bank at half price.

[1]
[http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm#sellingprope...](http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm#sellingproperty)

~~~
twoodfin
That rule was followed. Given that we were playing with 3-4 experienced
players, monopolies were rare (everyone bought essentially every available
property landed on that was still potentially monopolized) and most targeted
the sweet spot of three houses. Monopolied properties weren't traded often,
but even then that's not a lot of liquidity to sacrifice with ~$800/board
cycle going into the game via passing Go.

Once a few monopolies did crop up, it was the remaining unimproved properties
that would be swapped most often for ludicrous amounts of money to allow, say,
a cash-poor player to build a few houses in the path of the current leader.

------
habosa
"The company originally sourced all of the materials for the game from Europe,
but, when demand began to take off, the manufacturers didn’t have enough wood
to keep up."

Couldn't they have traded some grain or ore?

~~~
adamconroy
I chuckled when I read that line. I assume they put in as a little joke.

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Pxtl
The great thing about Catan is how it's a wedge. It's a gateway drug into the
world of modern boardgames (I don't say Eurogames because there's some
fantastic Ameritrash). People who play Catan are then amicable to try out
other fun great games like Ticket To Ride and Small World.

~~~
philwelch
I thought the distinction between "Eurogames" and "Ameritrash" had more to do
with design style than actual nationality.

~~~
pessimizer
It does. I'm not sure what you're seeing in the comment you replied to that
seems like it's implying otherwise, though.

Eurogames trace their ancestry from early American designers, and Europeans
have contributed some really garish ameritrash (esp. the British.)

------
talmand
For those who might be interested:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3WJTlDa7oo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3WJTlDa7oo)

This is a Table Top episode hosted by Wil Wheaton playing Settlers of Catan.
There is also another episode where they play the Star Trek variation.

Also, if you haven't seen this series and are interested in board games I
highly suggest you watch other episodes. The level of interest will vary from
episode to episode based on whether you like the type of game they play. But
they give you a decent idea of how the game works and how it is played.

I have made several board game purchases based on this show.

~~~
Zikes
I've also made several purchases based on that show and recommend everyone
give them a watch.

They're also organizing the upcoming International TableTop Day at
[http://www.tabletopday.com/](http://www.tabletopday.com/), and are very proud
of how they almost got the ISS involved in last year's but that fell through
at the last minute.

------
locusm
I never played Catan but wondered if it was suitable for kids 8-12 yrs old?

Also, anyone play "Escape from Colditz"? man I loved that game as a kid.

~~~
andyjohnson0
Definitely suitable, in my experience. One of my children is in the middle of
that age range, and the other is just below it. They both enjoy playing the
game.

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habosa
My friends and I just got into Catan and it's really great. We used to play a
ton of FIFA and Madden when we were together, now it's always "who wants to
settle?". It really is a great game because it can't be completely beaten like
Monopoly can and there is no best strategy that we've found. I play totally
differently than my friends and we all win sometimes.

I also love the social aspects of trading and the robber. We have a LOT of
table talk when we play, and it's hilarious to see what people will say to
convince someone to put the robber on a spot they don't own. Also the
desperate trades we get into "I'll give 5 wool for a grain! 6 wool for a
grain!". It's really the best board game I have ever played by far.

~~~
YokoZar
Catan got really popular when I was in college, and I noticed a distinctly
different playstyle among the "normal" groups of friends I had and the ones
that came from the Economics department.

A lot of people never think to do things like: \- Pay the robber to rob
someone else \- Ask the robber what card he wants to take from you, and if
it's something you're willing to give up just show him which card it is in
your hand \- Trade away all of a scarce resource you have, then use the
monopoly card to get them back, then trade them away again \- Paying someone
to build roads to cut someone else off \- Paying to "rent" someone's port for
a turn to get a better exchange rate

We like to use a house rule that requires all trades to "clear" within a turn
(ie no arguments over enforceable/conflicting trades taking place on future
turns).

~~~
nopassrecover
Interestingly the "clear within a turn" rule would mean that you could only
rent a port from the player who's turn it is (unless you allow all players to
use their ports at any time).

I also assume by paying you mean making an undesirable trade, unless you allow
gifting through another house rule.

In some games I've seen the following: Player A (current turn) wants to trade
wheat for a brick through Player B's port. Player A will trade 2 wheat and a
bonus resource to Player B for x arbitrary resource. On Player B's turn they
move the wheat through their harbour for a brick and trade this back to Player
A for their x arbitrary resource back. Player B keeps the bonus resource as
payment, and Player A gets usage of Player B's harbour. This couldn't happen
in one turn as only the current player can use their harbour.

~~~
YokoZar
Right, it basically becomes a form of "I'll give you 2 wheat and one other
card if you immediately port the 2 wheat for the one thing I want and give it
back".

It's not strictly a discrete trade, as there are two steps for the player to
take, but it does resolve within a turn (provided the active player has the
port).

------
geddes
Is Catan really Silicon Valley's golf, like the article claims? I'd love to
think so but I haven't seen any deals cemented over a game of Catan. Anyone
have any stories?

~~~
michaelochurch
_Is Catan really Silicon Valley 's golf, like the article claims?_

I'd believe it of the old Silicon Valley. The new one, with Snapchat and
Clinkle and spider pooping and expensive real estate and multiple liquidation
preferences? Probably not. I think golf is the new golf in Silicon Valley.

~~~
Yhippa
I had to look up spider pooping. People can't possibly be doing that. Wow.

------
nnnnni
It looks like there is a fairly active IRC channel for modern boardgames
called #boardgames on Freenode.
[http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23boardgames](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23boardgames)

[http://www.boardgamegeek.com/](http://www.boardgamegeek.com/) is the IMDB of
boardgames.

~~~
epsylon
If you read French (or want to improve yours :-)), there's also the French
site TricTrac: [http://www.trictrac.net/](http://www.trictrac.net/)

------
tylero
Here's a fun (and pretty long) podcast interview with Klaus and Guido:
[http://jeffrubinjeffrubinshow.com/episode/16-settlers-of-
cat...](http://jeffrubinjeffrubinshow.com/episode/16-settlers-of-catan-
creator-klaus-teuber/)

------
the_watcher
Catan is incredible to me. We picked it up in a thrift shop in a rural eastern
Washington town, thinking it was some relic of the 70s (this was probably 1998
or something). We played it on family vacations and never thought about it
outside of them. Then, all of a sudden, it exploded in popularity. Really cool
story.

------
awkwit
Played it for the first time a year ago. I've been addicted ever since.

------
yourmind
Best game ever.

------
michaelochurch
I wish we had more of a board game culture in the U.S.

It seems that most adults end up, just because society is so demanding and
competitive these days, with a lot of low-level social anxiety. It's rarely
enough that most people notice it, but it keeps people from really relating to
each other or learning from each other, and it's a major part of why people
become so damn boring, one-sided, and narrowly careerist once they leave
school.

There seem to be two antidotes to this low-grade but ubiquitous social
anxiety. One is games, the other is alcohol. I don't mind an occasional drink
but, most of the time, I prefer the one that sharpens the brain over the one
that dulls it.

