Sunday night we had a board game night with some new friends. It was wonderful to get together just to play board games. One game that we played was Settlers of Catan. It was a lot of fun and not too complicated. Best of all, it didn’t take hours and hours to play.

In Catan, you play settlers of a new island and can share resources to build a new civilization. You build roads, setltlements, and cities. The first person to have 10 points wins the games. Settlements are worth one point, cities are worth two, etc. We played with five people but the game is usually played with 3 or 4 people. There are special rules for a two player game.

Settlers of Catan was very fun and didn’t take that long to catch onto how to play. Placing your settlements and cities will determine which resources you get on which die roll. Players roll two dice on their turn. Sometimes you may have a lot of sheep but no wood, so you can trade at the end of your turn with other players. When a player rolls a seven, they move the thief to a spot on the playing board. Then the player can take one card from a settler who has a settlement on that spot. The thief shuts down production of the item on that die roll. So, if you gain a sheep on a roll of an 8, when an 8 is rolled, you gain nothing as long as the thief is on that spot.

Settlers of Catan will be our next board game we buy. It was a lot of fun. There are also expansions to it, which I can’t wait to play, too. You can also Play Catan online but it’s in German. Settlers is a game from Germany. I just found the English version of playing Settlers of Catan online. There is an online version at MSN but also a download demo of the game to play offline.