Monday, September 17, 2007

Missing the Land of Catan

My first try at writing this post devolved into a long-winded explanation of the The Settlers of Catan... which, frankly, who cares? If you've never heard of the game, go read this excellent review by Merric Blackman; if you already know about the game, you could have nodded off, struck your head on your monitor & called a personal injury lawyer to divest me of my earthly possessions - that's just how scintillating my game summary was. (Sigh.)

Anyway, that wasn't the purpose of the post.

See, I've been missing Catan lately... despite the guesstimate of Klaus Teuber's site, Catan.com, that over 15 million people worldwide play Settlers, evidently very few of those inhabit the Central Valley of California. I averaged 11-12 games a year of Catan (and the various expansions) when I lived in Nashville, TN; since I've moved to Fresno, the average is closer to 4-5 times a year.

Yes, it's possible to burn out on the game - but I own nearly all of the available expansions, so it's not like variety is a problem:
  • 5-6 player expansion
  • Seafarers expansion (+ 5-6 player Seafarers)
  • Cities & Knights expansion (+ 5-6 player Cities & Knights)
  • Das Buch (a book of scenarios & game components - in German)
  • both Historical Scenarios boxes (also in German)
  • numerous small expansions, including The Fishermen of Catan, The Great River & The Event Cards
And that doesn't even count all of the Catan-connected games which aren't part of the original system. (Double sigh.) While I have an active gaming group (hi, guys!), we just don't play Catan much. Which brings me to the real reason for posting this... hint, hint.

2 comments:

Archangel said...

HEY PASTOR, HAVE YOU PLAYED THE "SPIN-OFF", SETTLERS OF CANAAN? THAT IS ONE I DON'T HAVE YET, AND WOULD LIKE TO ADD A REVIEW TO MY BLOG. THX!

Scott Rushing said...

Since moving to Texas, the only games of Cataan I have played have been with friends whom I have had to teach.

Despite my enthusiasm for the game, it hasn't quite caught on yet. We have one friend with whom we play on a somewhat regular basis, but that's about it.