For the sake of this review, I’m going to assume you’re already familiar with Settlers. If you’re not, go buy it and play it. If you want to leverage free shipping and are thinking this might be a nice addition to your cart – well, that’s how I got it. If you like spicy mustard on your hot dog, jalapenos on your pizza or the hot peri-peri on your Nando’s (South African insider), this is a great addition for you. If you like your food, your life and your games bland – stick to the basic game. (note, tongue planted firmly in cheek)

First, let me explain my biases. Settlers got me back into gaming. I still really enjoy it, but generally only play it as a gateway game. However, I love Cities & Knights. It adds so much to the original that it is my only choice. It is at just the right level of depth for me most of the time.

Bits & pieces - So what’s different

Set up Settlers, but throw out the development cards, the largest army card and one of your dice. You’ll add in the following aspects:

* Knights (thus the name) – these guys can be purchased for a wool/ore and sit on any street corner (not every other like settlements). They won’t do squat though until you give them a wheat. After that, they’ll defend against barbarians and the robber. You can deactivate one to chase a robber away.
* Two new dice – a red one and a non-numeric one. I can’t remember what this other one is called, but we’ll call it the bonus die (sorry Mayfair). All three are now rolled.
* Barbarians – these malcontents come a step closer every time you roll a black ship on the bonus die (nice ring to it). When they arrive at Catan, the players must collectively fight them back with their knights. If the number of active knights exceeds the total number of cities, the Catanians win – take a VP if you were the one with the most knights in the battle. If they lose, the weakest sucker gets weaker – he has to convert a city to a settlement. Darwinism – Catan was in the Galapagos.
* Commodites – now when you have a successful roll on ore, wood or sheep, instead of taking two resources you take a resource and a commodity (coin, paper, linen). You use these gems to develop your cities.
* Flipcards – you can spend commodities to flip three sections of a flip card. Here’s how it works. Say I pay one coin to develop that aspect (military) of my city. I flip the card over once. Now if someone rolls a blue castle on the bonus die and a 1 or 2 on the red die I get a blue progress card. There are green and yellow cards for the other two areas. These cards add a LOT to the game. A lot of nastiness, a lot of free building, and even swapping some numbers around on Catan. Good stuff.
* Metropolises – if you develop one of your three areas sufficiently, you get to put a new hunk of wood over a city – it is now worth four points.
* City walls – allow you to hold more cards.

Sounds like lots is going on, huh? If you’ve played Settlers it isn’t that big a deal.

Overview of key aspects

With a nod to fehrmeister, here’s how this game stacks up on several dimensions:

Rules complexity – For a newbie it is quite brutal. For a seasoned Settlers player, it is no big deal.

Strategic depth – meh. It’s Settlers. It’s not going to unseat T&E or PR.

Luck – the dice roll gives a reasonable amount of luck, but I think good players mitigate this through careful placement. I think there’s less luck than in Settlers – there are quite a few mechanisms you can use to mitigate the luck factor (e.g., Aquaduct allows you to draw resources if a number is rolled that you don’t have, Architect (?) allows you to change numbers on the board).

Negotiation – like Settlers there’s quite a bit of this as you trade resources and commodities.

Downtime – one thing I really like about Settlers that applies here is that every time the dice are rolled you’re involved, not just on your turn. With 5-6 player, you even get to build on every turn. Downtime is minimal even with a bad APer.

Fiddliness – I don’t think this is very high. There’s a lot of different things going on, but they don’t take much maintenance.

Replayability – I think this defines replayability. With the random board and the number of mechanisms and routes to victory I don’t see ever feeling like it’s “cracked”.

Component quality – same as the original, quite good, typical Euro. C&K comes with a set of cardboard puzzle pieces to hold Catan together. I hate it. Might as well ignore it except that it helps you get the barbarian route set up correctly.

Player interaction – very high. This is why I think Settlers is such a great gateway. It is very social. This game’s social too, but where Settlers is a dinner party, this is more a bar scene on a Saturday night – there may be a brawl or two.

“Take that” conflict – not horribly direct, but much more than Settlers. The blue cards are particularly nasty.

Meaningful theme integration – same as Settlers. Good for a Euro, but I don’t exactly hear the sound of waves on the beach in my mind as I play (unless I’m playing on the beach).

Overall recommendation

C&K is certainly a Top 10 game for me. I’ll play it anytime. I miss it right now since it’s in storage nine time zones away. It was one of the first meaty Euros I played and after playing many others is still one of my favorites. I think it is a sustainable 9. It’s a bit of a tricky one though.

If you’re a died in the wool (good one for Settlers) Euro-gamer, this may be a bit nasty for you. It changes Settlers a lot. If that bothers you, play Settlers or even Seafarers. It also lengthens the game quite a bit. I don’t mind. I’d rather play one game of C&K than two games of Settlers anytime.

If you’re a hardcore Ameritrasher, the conflict may be a bit silly compared to A Game of Thrones or Tide of Iron.

But if you’re like me and enjoy both genres, this game scratches a nice itch in between the two. I’d compare that itch to other games that sit in between, perhaps like Shogun or A Game of Thrones, though both of those have more direct conflict. I just really like the integration of Euro mechanics, a bit of conflict, and the multi-player aspect. I also enjoy the sociality of C&K – at the end of the night it feels like you’ve collectively played a game where many Euros feel more like you’ve competed in a puzzle.

Two thumbs up (I regret that I only have two thumbs to give).