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Good day!
I received The Settlers of Catan Card Game card game as a gift over Christmas. It wasn't on my wish list, I'd never researched it. After a few plays now, I've fallen in love with it, and am quite surprised that it is not more popular in the BGG community. But am a regular Catan player, and reformed CCG'er. It is the latter experience I would like to try to focus on with this little review.
Catan, the card game, removes the evil collectability "feature", while leaving the card combination mechanic. There are many options with card combinations.
The game has a interesting draw mechanic that enhances users ability to get card combinations into play. The draw deck is divided into 5 stacks. From these stacks players can either draw off the top of the stack, or pay two resources to grab a stack and search for a desired card.
Another CCG-similar mechanic are resources. Just as you need to "tap" lands in Magic, the Gathering, you spend resources to activate cards. This requires some thought as you try to figure out how to spend your limited resources.
The Settlers of Catan Card Game will be attractive to those that enjoy CCG mechanics such as resource spending and card combinations. Heck, I highly recommend this game. It's fun!
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Definitely my favorite card game.
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I think this game would have a higher rating if it weren't so closely associated with the Settlers of Catan board game. In my opinion it's a bit too slowly paced - and the trading element less prominent/fun - to capture the feel of Settlers of Catan. So by comparison, I'd always rather play the board game if I'm in a "Settlers" mood. But I do love it as a two-player card game, and have personally rated it equally high as the board game.
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I know I would have given it a higher rating if it weren't so friggin' long to play for what it offers.
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It does tend to play very long. We've been rolling two dice each turn in order to produce twice (thanks to a BGG community recommendation). That shortens the game quite a bit.
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Thys wille shok you! With a 1,000 elephants!
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Teriyaki Donuts wrote: It does tend to play very long. We've been rolling two dice each turn in order to produce twice (thanks to a BGG community recommendation). That shortens the game quite a bit. To each their own, but this greatly changes the game. For starters, consider Brigand Attacks and the production doublers. I give this game my highest rating as I enjoy long, leisurely games, but I would expect it to get a ding for this from most (a la Ryan).
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I'm new to the boards, and within the past 24 hours have managed to get my hands on BattleLore, and The Settlers of Catan card game, expansion set, and the upgrade kit. If I'm sending too many points just stop me... My question is, now that I have the Settlers card game, and have become fairly familiar with the rules, do I a)add the expansion and upgrade kit to my Settlers cards, along with the upgrade kit... b)add the expansion and upgrade kit and remove older versions... c)intermix as I play different expansions (and if so, how do you tell them apart to pull them back out...they have the same backs, etc...) I've heard conflicting reports, and for the most part they seem unclear...any help would be appreciated. Thanks again, and have a safe New Years!!! (My group that is getting together will be playing 1000 BLANK WHITE CARDS...check that game out if you haven't heard of it...) 
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Teriyaki Donuts wrote: It does tend to play very long. We've been rolling two dice each turn in order to produce twice (thanks to a BGG community recommendation). That shortens the game quite a bit. We can play a single game, it seems in 60-90 minutes. I feel that we can get this down to 45-75 minutes after we are more skilled. I can't say that this is "very long" or "so friggin' long". For the complexity of choice that the game provides, I would expect some length. When we first played, we mistakenly played gold as a "wild card" resource. Spend one gold to get any type of resource you want. This sped the game up. With the base game, this might be a viable alternative to speed things up. You may, however need to remove the gold mine and port cards. ;-) I do not think that a using gold as a wild-card resource will work well with expansions, as I hear that gold is much more important there.
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mmoberly wrote: I think this game would have a higher rating if it weren't so closely associated with the Settlers of Catan board game. In my opinion it's a bit too slowly paced - and the trading element less prominent/fun - to capture the feel of Settlers of Catan. So by comparison, I'd always rather play the board game if I'm in a "Settlers" mood. But I do love it as a two-player card game, and have personally rated it equally high as the board game.
Well, Settlers of Catan is a 3-5 player game. Settlers the Card Game is a 2 player game. But point well taken on trading. We have yet to make a trade between players in the card game. Many people really enjoy the Catan franchise, including me. If you are a Catan lover, then I think you will really like Catan the cardgame. Especially if you often finding yourself wishing you could play Catan, but only have two players.
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TheGeek wrote: I'm new to the boards, and within the past 24 hours have managed to get my hands on BattleLore, and The Settlers of Catan card game, expansion set, and the upgrade kit. If I'm sending too many points just stop me...
[...]
c)intermix as I play different expansions (and if so, how do you tell them apart to pull them back out...they have the same backs, etc...) I don't really follow what you mean at all (what's the upgrade kit?), but for c the cards from the different expansions have symbols on the front to tell from which expansion they come.
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hoffswell wrote: But am a regular Catan player, and reformed CCG'er. It is the latter experience I would like to try to focus on with this little review. Now, I've never played a CCG in my entire life, so this might be all wrong, but I do believe that the "Tournament Game", described in the expansion set rules, will have even more of the CCG feel. In the Tournament Game you each have a set of the base game and each a set of the expansions. Then you pick out 33 cards that you want to use in the game, and arrange these into piles like normal. Each player has their own piles to draw from and discard to.
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Bad News [bnw] wrote: (what's the upgrade kit?) The new edition Mayfair released last year included some changed rules and changes to some of the cards. And last year's release of the Card Game Expansions included changes to a few of the existing cards along with a new expansion (so this release had six rather than the prior five). The Upgrade Kit had the rule changes, the changed cards (for replacement in the old sets), and the sixth expansion.
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Bad News [bnw] wrote: Now, I've never played a CCG in my entire life, so this might be all wrong, but I do believe that the "Tournament Game", described in the expansion set rules, will have even more of the CCG feel. In the Tournament Game you each have a set of the base game and each a set of the expansions. Then you pick out 33 cards that you want to use in the game, and arrange these into piles like normal. Each player has their own piles to draw from and discard to. No, that's very much accurate. I'm a big fan of Magic: the Gathering, but my wife isn't; however, we both love the Catan Card Game. The deckbuilding "tournament game" is an excellent way to play, and does feel just like deckbuilding in a CCG, except you don't have to keep paying once you've got the two sets of the game! After a number of games it may start feeling like there's only so many different types of deck (the fleets deck, the university deck, the counting house deck, the knights deck, the hand size deck...), but even then there's variations and tweaks, and you'll want to play a deck several times before dismantling it. It's great - give it a try!
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Posted Wed Dec 27,2006 06:03 pm
