Catan Histories: Settlers of America Review

Now that I have reviewed The Settlers of Catan, it is time to review its most recent offshoot: Catan Histories: Settlers Of America - Trails To Rails.

Settlers of America plays incredibly similarly to Settlers of Catan, but does change a few mechanics. First of all, some of the resource markers will move. At the beginning of the game (as at the beginning of the USA as a nation), all of the settlements are built on the East Coast. As the game progresses and players move westward, some of the resource numbers are moved with the players, thus causing the East Coast cities to be less useful later in the game.

The next mechanic that changes is that in Settlers of America, you cannot build a settlement directly (or upgrade to a city at all). You actually have to build a settler, and then pay to move them to construct their new settlement on an empty part of the board.

The third change (which I feel to be the greatest improvement) is that in Settlers of America, you collect something every turn. They have added the concept of gold into the game, and so if you do not collect a resource on a turn (due to poor placement, fluke dice rolling, etc), you at least gain a gold, and from there you can trade 2 gold for a resource of your choice later in the game. This helps balance out the randomness of the dice rolling, but is only somewhat effective at that.

The fourth, and most drastic change in the game is in the win condition. In order to win Settlers of America, you have to 1) place all of your settlements and 2) deliver the goods of your settlements to other players settlements - this is done through constructing rail lines and moving your train to be adjacent to other people's cities.

One of the problems with this game compared to the original Settlers of Catan is that the board is much busier. Between the rail lines, trains, settlements, settlers, and placed goods, it is very difficult to glance at the game board and see what is going on. This especially comes into play when collecting resources, as you will have to look through all of the board to determine where your settlements are and whether they produce resources.

Another downside of this game when compared to the original Settlers of Catan is that the board is not modular. There are a few resource numbers that are placed randomly (the ones that move westward as the game progresses), but other than that, the board is what it is.

Overall, I would give Settlers of America a 7.0/10. It is definitely a playable game, and I would recommend it to people that truly love playing Settlers of Catan. For those that only occasionally play a Settlers style of game, however, I would recommend sticking with the original.

Settlers of Catan Review

One of the games that a board game review site would be incomplete without is The Settlers of Catan. This is one of the classic board games that most people will play at some point if they have any kind of interest in gaming, and to that point, I believe Target even stocks it now.

The Settlers of Catan can be either the most fun or the most frustrating game that you have ever played in your life. One of the reasons for this is related to a mechanic that Settlers introduced (which has now also been used in several other Mayfair games such as Anno 1503, and I believe Catan Adventures: Elasund - The First City, and Candamir: The First Settlers). In Settlers, each player starts their turn by rolling 2 dice. Once the dice have been rolled, each player collects resources based on whether their settlements (or cities) are adjacent to resources of the corresponding number. Thus, in theory, 6 and 8 should be amazing numbers to be on, and 3 and 11 should be pretty bad. Unfortunately, this rarely works out, and all of your best laid plans normally go astray (however when the 2 that you placed next to is rolled 4 times in a row, you start thinking this is a game you should possibly play more often... right after you get back from the casino). With that said, however, this is a very interesting mechanic and can make for a quite enjoyable game with the right people (in the same way that Monopoly can be enjoyable with the right people).

The second part of this game that can cause the game play experience to be amazing or horrible is the true crux of the game - trading resources. On any given player's turn, they will most likely have extra resources that they don't need and other resources that they're missing. At this point, its their role to negotiate until they can persuade (threaten?) another player into trading them what they need. If the people that you play with are looking for a trading game, then this will go well (until one person is close to winning, and then they will not find many trade partners either way), but if the people you are playing with are not interested in a trading based game, then the enjoyment will decrease.

A definite positive about Settlers, regardless of how you feel about the first two items, is the modular board. Since you can place the resource locations and corresponding numbers randomly, the replayability is quite high. That mixed with the fact that the resource generation winds up being quite random makes the gaming experience unique each time.

Overall, I would give this game an 8.5/10. I do not think that it is the greatest game ever created, but I would definitely recommend everyone try it at some point, and it is also a good "gateway game" that a gamer could use to introduce their friends into slightly more complicated gaming experiences than Sorry and Connect 4.

Check out more reviews from the Catan universe: Settlers of American and Catan Dice Game.