Miscellany: Settlers of Catan

I don't have any studies to back it up, but it's pretty clear to me that American board games are in a funk. Aside from recent successes like Cranium, it's been awhile since family board games were anything more than an exercise forced on the kids in order to spend some "quality time" away from the computer and the TV. This is unfortunate, but help may be on the way in the form of European-style board games like Settlers of Catan (SoC for short).

In SoC, you place settlements and roads on a randomly generated board of hexagonal terrain tiles. As players roll dice, you collect resources using these settlements and gradually build up your civilization - first player to 10 Victory Points wins. Since you rarely have everything you need to build, and since there's no way to directly harm your competition, the game turns on your skills at trading, diplomacy, and settlement placement.

SoC is more than a decade old, but continues to draw in new players like myself. The rules are simple enough that the basics can be explained in ten minutes, the game has enough random chance involved to allow players of less skill to hang with (and beat) experienced competition, but there are enough wrinkles so that the game isn't turn-after-turn boring like Monopoly. It's definitely a "casual" game, as luck plays a pretty large role in determining the outcome, but it's heavier than something like "Sorry" or even "Backgammon."

SoC is just one of a huge series of innovative new board games, primarily from Germany but now being designed around the world. I plan to buy and play many more games like this in the future - look for the results on this site.