Game: Die Siedler von Catan Junior

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wizhyun — 2008-07-11T06:08:37+00:00

Catan Junior Korean Edition by Korea BoardGames

Thread: Re: How English-language friendly is this game?

gamemark — 2008-04-05T20:14:04+00:00

Stephen... thanks for the information.

Thread: Re: How English-language friendly is this game?

Franknfurter — 2008-04-05T18:45:09+00:00

The 'CoCo' (aka development) cards are the only parts with German language on them. They also have pictures to indicate their action. to summarise, the cards are as follows:

1) Move the Ghost Pirate and take two wool/rum/sabres/wood (as indicated on card) from the bank
(the player with the most of this type of CoCo cards also puts a fort on the Ghost Pirates Island (similar to largest army in Settlers; other players must get *more* cards to win this bonus from the incumbent player.)

2) Immediately build a ship or Pirate Fort

3) The players to the left and right of you give you a card each.

Stephen

Thread: English rules?

jupiterchild — 2008-01-12T15:47:52+00:00

Can anyone provide an English translation for this game? I'm looking to use this as a guide to create a variant to the original Catan game.

Thread: Holiday Gaming

Paul Mackie — 2008-01-04T05:13:19+00:00

Yet another Xmas present for the kids (the 5 year old in this case), Die Siedler von Catan Junior was another in our haul from ADAMspielt that I had been looking forward to opening for some months! It has the same basic mechanisms as the standard Settlers, with a kid-friendly pirate theme added.
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The board and starting positions are ‘fixed’, and there is only one d6. Land hexes are allocated a number 1-5, with a roll of a 6 resulting in movement of the Ghost Pirate, which blocks production on the hex where he is moved to. The main things to build are Pirate Camps (at hex corners) interspersed with Pirate Ships (on edges), and there is no minimum distance rule. The third thing to buy is a card from the “Coco Helps” deck (Coco being the pirate parrot). This game also has a marketplace, potentially allowing for the swapping of single cards, hence providing a trading mechanism to help ease the frustration of younger players. Players can also trade between themselves, although we didn’t use this in our games with young ones, just to help keep things moving and to avoid accidental exploitation of the naive!

We played with our 5-year old and an 8-year old. Miss 8 got the hang of this quickly and was doing well, if somewhat suboptimally with her ship and Pirate Camp placements. Mr 5 also figured out the basics of building too, although he was somewhat more distracted and less focussed on what he was to do, eventually becoming a bit bored by the game end. Don’t believe the 30 minutes printed on the side of the box by the way - both of our games took just over an hour.

With four players the game is rather mechanical and certainly the plays are obvious for adults, resulting in a purely luck-based experience. This is lessened somewhat with three players, as you can then race to the relevant vacant spots on the board. But for kids, probably 6 and up, this is a great introduction to the basic Settlers concepts of trading, collecting and buying/building.

(Originally posted in The Mine Shaft Gap.)

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Paul Mackie — 2008-01-04T02:50:50+00:00

Catan Jnr in progress (originally posted in The Mine Shaft Gap).

Thread: First review of Settlers Junior

Thies — 2007-12-29T19:07:05+00:00

Introduction:

Before the unfortunate demise of adamspielt I got in one final order, which included Christmas and birthday presents for my daughters. My oldest got Settlers Junior for Christmas, and we had the chance to try it out a few days later. I’ll approach this review mostly from a comparative perspective because I suspect that most interest for this game will be from fans of the “grown-up” Catan games who want to try it with their kids. Because this is the first review of this game, I’ll also go into rules a bit more than I usually do.

Board and Bits:

The board is not modular like Settlers, but is two-sided – one side is for three-player games and the other for four players. There is really no difference between the sides other than the pre-marked starting spaces for three or four players. The board is colorful and has cartoonish, kid-friendly art. The artwork all carries the pirate theme of the game. There are also a second, smaller board for the marketplace (more on that later) and some cardboard building cost guides and port tokens. Each player gets a set of seven pirate forts and eight pirate ships in his color. These pieces are plastic instead of the traditional Catan wood, but are very well-molded and detailed. Overall, I don’t have any complaints with the components.

Rules and Gameplay:
Settlers Junior shoots to be a simplified version of Settlers, and does a pretty good job at it. Most of the rules are present, but some have been simplified or made a bit more forgiving. There are also a couple of interesting new twists.

The board itself has the traditional hexes depicting the five resources – two each of forests/wood, meadows/sheep, treasure caves/swords and sugarcane fields/rum, and one river/gold. The two starting locations per color get each player initial access to wood, sheep, swords and rum – the gold can only be reached by building a new fort. Each of the wood, sheep, sword and rum hexes has a number from 1 to 4, and the gold hex has a 5. This shows the first big simplification from Settlers – only one die is rolled for production instead of two. Rolls of 1 through 5 will pay out resources, and a 6 activates the ghost pirate (Settlers Junior’s version of the robber).

Each player starts the game with one wood and one rum, and the youngest player starts. A game turn proceeds much like a turn in Settlers – roll the die, collect income or move the ghost pirate (on a 6), then trade and build. Not much needs to be said about rolling and generating income – this works just like Settlers except with only one die. When the ghost pirate is activated, he is moved onto a hex, where he (like the robber) blocks production until he is moved again. Unlike Settlers, the player moving the pirate does not get to steal a resource card from a player who has build adjacent to that hex – so there is a bit less “take that” in the ghost pirate movement.

Trading may be done with other players (but only with the active player involved) just as in Settlers, or with the bank at 3:1 (unlike the 4:1 of the original). The four ports (indicated by anchors on the gameboard) allow trading with the bank of either wood, sheep, swords or rum at 2:1 – this is determined by randomly picking one of the port chits when building on a port spot. The new twist in trading is the marketplace. At the beginning of the game, one of each of the five resources is displayed in the market. On a turn, a player may one time only trade any one resource from his hand for one resource from the market. If at any time this results in the market having five identical resources, the market is refreshed to again display one of each.

Building is done just as in Settlers. Ships cost one wood and one sheep (actually, that is just like Seafarers). Pirate forts cost one each of wood, sheep, rum and swords. And “Coco help” cards – the equivalent of development cards – cost one each of rum, swords and gold. There is no equivalent of cities – only the forts, which equate to settlements. The Coco help cards are all played immediately when bought. These cards give the player resources, and some also allow movement of the ghost pirate. Whichever player has played the most Coco help cards that move the pirate (ties don’t count) is allowed to place a fort on the ghost pirate’s lair. This doesn’t produce resources but, because the goal of the game is to build all seven forts, gives that player a victory point. Obviously, this is the analog of the largest army card.

A few other notes: first, while there is a largest army equivalent, there is no competition for longest road. Second, the distance rule has been eliminated. In fact, not only can a player build on adjacent spots, he must do so – according to the rules a player is not allowed to skip over a vertex to build on the next one. Finally, the game ends when a player has place all seven of his forts – by building them and possibly by placing one on the ghost pirate lair.

Rating:

Does Settlers Junior accomplish its goal of providing a simplified, kid-friendly version of Settlers while maintaining the essential elements of the original? I believe that it does. It takes some of the complexity out – no more distance rule, cities, or longest road, but what remains is unmistakably recognizable as Settlers of Catan. Some things are just more friendly, most notably the fact that the ghost pirate only blocks production and does not also steal resources, but also the equal access to resources on the initial setup, and the lack of a forced discard if too many resources are in hand when the pirate’s number is rolled. The game also plays in a more kid-friendly 30-60 minutes instead of 60-90. Finally, there is the marketplace. This makes the game a bit more friendly by making it possible to trade 1:1 for resources that other players may not want to give up, but also helps the game along by providing access to resources that are otherwise not rolled. I think that this would be an interesting variant to play with the original Settlers and may try it – although for all I know it has already been done.

So overall, I give this game the same 8 rating that I give to the original. It should be understood that I wouldn’t recommend this over the original for a group of adults, but it is great with kids. I also think it is more than just an “intro” to play with the kids as a step toward playing the full version as soon as the kids are ready for it. My 7 year old can handle the full game, but I think that this is just more appealing to her because of the artwork, the friendlier rules, and the shorter time required.

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dilli — 2007-11-14T14:45:11+00:00

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Werbaer — 2007-11-06T19:18:25+00:00

press photo (promotion image, Copyright Kosmos Verlag, used with permission)

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Werbaer — 2007-11-06T19:17:23+00:00

components (promotion image, Copyright Kosmos Verlag, used with permission)

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Werbaer — 2007-11-06T19:17:22+00:00

Box (promotion image, Copyright Kosmos Verlag, used with permission)

Thread: Re: How English-language friendly is this game?

Great Dane — 2007-06-30T07:11:05+00:00

Hi Mark,
your son shouldn't have any problems.

While there are text on the "Development cards" (or whatever they are called in this version) there are only like 4 or 5 different cards and all cards must be revealed and implemented immediately upon drawing.

The text is only a single sentence, and shouldn't pose much of a problem for you :-)

The game should be perfect for you and your son, but as Mayfair hasn't announced it yet you may find he is ready to play the real Settlers when it finally is published in English

Thread: How English-language friendly is this game?

gamemark — 2007-06-29T23:11:17+00:00

Which is really 2 questions:

1. Could I, with a translation, play this game with my 6 year old son who doesn't read German?

2. Is this game going to be published in English?

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JoelH — 2007-06-15T08:03:26+00:00

Blue won

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elSchwabo — 2007-02-07T14:51:37+00:00