Catan is a very challenging strategy game where you take the role of a new settler who has reached the coast of an uncharted island along with other fearless seafarers. Catan is a beautiful island with mountains, pastures, hills, fields, and forests, surrounded by the sea. You will use your natural resources to build roads and new settlements that eventually become cities. It is suitable for three to four players and aged 10 and above.
Inside this game, it comes with 19 terrain hexes, 6 coastal frame pieces, 9 extra harbour pieces, 20 wooden settlements, 16 wooden cities, 60 wooden roads, 95 resource cards, 25 development cards, 4 building costs cards, 2 special bonus cards, 18 number tokens, 2 six-sided dice, a wooden robber pawn and instructions.
Before your first game, you are required to remove the die-cut components from the cardboard holders, which took us at least 10 minutes and for us, there were a lot of cardboard shavings to clean up. It then took us another 40 minutes to learn the game through the app.
So before you play this game, set yourself plenty of time to get ready! It is also best to download the app for the instructions which I find is an easier way to learn the game, than trying to read through the instructions! In the app, there are tutorials for three or four players and also for game set up. You can use their digital dice & event cards to play and many more. It is very easy to follow the tutorial and it is very detailed.
For the first few games, we simply followed the set up for beginners. Constructing the frame and placing the hexes into the frame is a bit of a drag. It would have been nice if they had a board that allowed me to place the terrain hexes into the grooves instead. Anyway, that is the first challenge out the way!
The whole idea of the game is to trade, build and settle. To begin the game, each player gets to place two small houses and roads on spaces where three terrain hexes meet. They are your starting settlements. Each settlement is worth 1 victory point and each city is worth 2 victory points. If you expand cleverly, you may be the first player to reach 10 victory points and thus win the game! Do be careful and not roll a 7 or you may get robbed!
This game is a challenging strategy game that requires plenty of thinking, bartering and trading. I find the game is very appealing to play provided it is played amongst peers. Catan is available to buy from good toy retailers, online including Amazon.
You can also read our past Asmodee UK Blogger Board Game Club’s review here: Colt Express, Dobble, Splendor & Pandemic!
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own. We have included an Amazon affiliate links to the product. If you click on this and buy, we may earn a small commission. We are members of Asmodee UK Blogger Board Game Club.