Wired magazine just noticed Settlers of Catan. That's awesome.
Heh. This is actually a neat tracing of the popularity of German games, and includes the interesting tidbit that Teuber, inventor of Settlers, more or less playtested the hell out of the idea with his own family, for four years. So, you know, no wonder it's a good game.
The funny thing is, the part in the game that Teuber emphasized in the article was the resource trading.
ReplyDeleteWhen we play as a family, trading is a moderate activity at best, even with the kids involved.
Then again, we don't screw each other with the robber all that often because we try to be nice to the kids. So I guess we're messing up the whole mathematical core of the game! Though when you're in the lead, nobody will trade with you and you tend to get hit with the special event cards.
For me, the big selling point has always been the ability to randomize the game board (hexes and production numbers) while retaining enough consistency for players to quickly recognize the limitations and advantages of each game board.
We go the other way...we emphasize trading and we never rearrange the board, we always use one of the suggested arrangements. We don't play it often enough, I think. I think we assume it will take longer than it actually does.
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