Settlers of Catan Card Game

The Settlers of Catan card game contains 120 cards, 1 production die, 1 event die, 1 knight token, 1 windmill token and a rule book. The rule book is 32 pages so this is a very brief overview of the game which is very complex. The one advantage of the card game is that it is designed for two players, unlike the Settlers of Catan board game which requires at least three players. There is a variation of the board game in the Traders and Barbarians of Catan Expansion Pack that does allow for two players.

The initial setup for this game is quite complex and somewhat time consuming. Each player starts with nine cards, 2 settlement, 1 road and 6 regions cards. The road goes in the center of each player's set up with settlements on each side and the settlements are surrounded by the regions cards, which are placed diagonally at the four corners. The six regions cards produce resources, ore, grain, wool, brick, timber and gold.

When the initial setup is completed the cards are divided into 10 piles. The development cards are sorted into road, city, settlement and region. Event cards create a fifth pile. The expansion deck is divided into 5 piles. Each player looks through one of the 5 piles of the expansion deck and chooses 3 cards to start. Now you're ready to start playing.

Each player rolls the dice, takes the actions they choose and ends their turn. The event die is the first to be rolled. The event die has five icons representing Tournament, commerce, brigand, year of plenty and event. In the tournament, each player totals his knights tournament points and the winner gets a resource. Commerce allows the player with the most commerce to take a resource from his opponent. Brigand means that any player with more than 7 unprotected resources loses all his ore and wool. The year of plenty allows each player to choose one resource and event allow the top card from the event deck to be played.

The production die is numbered and is played in much the same way as it is in the Settlers of Catan board game.

The card game has a bank. When you take actions, you can trade either with your opponent or the bank. You can develop by trading resources for roads, settlement and cities and you can expand your cities. The expansion cards can increase the resources of some regions and can also earn victory points. You can build garrisons which protect your resources against brigands.

At the end of each players turn they replenish their deck cards to 3. If you didn't play any cards during your turn, you may exchange one of your expansion cards.

While the set up and rules of the game are somewhat complex, the game provides excellent entertainment and lots of ways to win. It depends heavily on strategy and very little on luck. The design of the game is attractive and high quality. You may have to play this a few times to get the hang of it and you'll need to keep the rule book handy for reference.