Board Game Analysis and Enhancement

 Settlers of Catan: 

Settlers of Catan is a turn-based strategy game that can be played with 3-4 players. There is an expansion for the game that allows for 2 more people to play, expanding the game board to make space for them. It requires you to collect resources, trade with other players and finally build and expand your settlements to earn points. 

 

Catan contains a simple 4-page ruleset that begins with setting up the board. There are some ways to set the board up as shown in the rulebook, but the idea is that it is random, and every game is different because of this. Once the board is set up, and the cards have been placed in piles near the board, the players will start placing their settlements and roads on the board and collect resources based on the tiles their starting settlements are connected to. 

After this, everyone will take their turns, rolling the dice and collecting resources, then trading, and finally building. 

The first person to 10 Victory Points wins, with settlements being worth 1, cities 2, and other special cards or development cards also rewarding VP. All players will start with 2 points from their 2 settlements. 

 

There is a large collection of features and mechanics in Settlers of Catan, all of which are explained well in the rulebook.  

The Game Board consists of multiple pieces that create the edges and then a collection of hexagonal tiles of different resource types that are used to fill in the middle of the hexagonal board. It is very simple to put together, although the larger 6-person board can be a bit of a hassle with more pieces required to make the edges. There is also a variety of components included that are used for many things. Firstly, there are the player’s pieces that consist of settlements, cities, and roads. There is the same amount of these pieces for each colour, with 15 roads, 4 settlements, and 4 cities. There are also tokens that are placed on the board to show what number must be rolled to get each resource. These tokens display numbers from 2-12 with the exception of 7, which does something else when rolled. Finally, there are numerous card types that are used to represent many things. Cards are mostly used to allow players to have a visual representation of their resources, but are also used for the development cards, which can cause anything from moving the thief, to winning the game with the last point required. The final thing cards are used for is the players’ cost cards and the representations of the milestones of Longest Road and Largest Army. 

Players will interact a lot during the game, not only on the board but also through trade and deal making, which will require more than just luck or some in game mechanic to work as the players themselves will have to be persuasive or drive a hard bargain to gather the resources that they need. A lot of decision making must be done, with resource management and logical expansion being a vast majority of what the game is. 

 

Catan, like all games, has its strengths and weaknesses. It is very good at making players work with each other to trade materials and win for themselves and creates an amazing competitive environment from a relatively simple game. It is very easy to follow what resources people have because of the effective card system that Catan uses. 

It does also have weaknesses though, as the gameplay can be very luck based due to how resources are distributed, and it can cause some players to be shut out of the game for many turns and therefore creating an unenjoyable experience for the player[s] being shut out. Games of Catan are mostly based around trading with players, and it can be an issue if not all players are willing to get involved in this mechanic. It can make it very hard for anyone to win, especially if they end up capturing most of one resource and again create an unenjoyable experience. 

 

Settlers of Catan, all in all, is a very complete game that wouldn’t need many changes. However, there are still things that could be added to increase the replay value. One of these things is adding some sort of combat to the game, possibly through the use of the already added Knight cards, which would allow players to take over or destroy other players settlements and roads and just generally disrupt the flow of the game. This mechanic could cause issues though, with Knights being easier to get through wealth, so it could be possible to change how the cards used in combat are gained, such as a new building like a barracks. This would require players to focus resources into creating these buildings, rather than getting development cards, which still reward the player even if they aren’t Knights. 

I think there could also be a little bit better clarification on how building near other players work, as I personally found it a bit confusing when building roads from other people's settlements was brought up. 

I think both things could be quite easily implemented, as they are using things already included in Catan and wouldn’t require entirely new things to be created. Knights would have to be removed from the Development Card pile, or a new unit would have to be created for the Barracks troop and have their use be combat related, rather than moving the thief. This would also require the Largest Army card to be changed from Knights to the new Barracks Unit. For better clarification, it would require minor changes to how the rules are written and possibly a summary of the basic rules. 

A final change that could be made would be a pity mechanic for players that haven’t gotten resources in a while, so that they aren’t completely shut out of the game. It could be something as simple as letting them collect some resources after 3 of their turns not collecting. 

 

In conclusion, I think that Catan is a very complete game, and has many expansions that probably fix the problems that I mention. However, as I haven’t played these expansions, I think that the things I have mentioned are the few things that could make the game better for everyone and have better replayability. These additions and changes would also add extra layers to the gameplay, with more for the players to aim for and work towards.