Game: Settlers of Catan, The - 5-6 Player Expansion

Thread: 5 Player Session

wcdunning — 2008-11-16T22:52:52+00:00

Last night, 5 of us played Settlers of Catan. The players: me, Steve, Shane, Chris, and Ron. The first player to place was Steve.

The board was set up with one large wheat field (4 hexes) with numbers 4, 6, 9, and 10 in the Southwest. To the west, there was a nice brick quarry, with 5, 8, 9, and 10 as the numbers, and the brick port on the 8 brick/3 sheep. The other commodities were scattered around the rest of the board fairly evenly. Wood was a tough resource to come by, but it still had two 5's a 10 and an 11. Sheep also was tough, covering an 8, and 2, 3, and 11.

Steve's initial placement was on a 5-6-9 brick-wheat-wheat. Shane went for the triple brick approach - 5-9-10. Chris looked to get some brick and wheat early, Ron went after some ore, and I placed last. I was able to get a nice brick placement, 5-8, with a 3 sheep to boot. My second placement was on a 4-5-11 wheat, wood, sheep. I also had a possible quick build to an 8 ore.

Ron next went to some more ore, and had immediate access to everything except wheat, a strategy I strongly discouraged. With a little luck he could build to a 4 wheat and compete, but I hate to be wheat poor in this game.

Chris got access to some wood and sheep, Shane took the 8-brick - brick port, and Steve went for some wood, too.

The first roll was a 7, targeting my 5 wood and stealing my wheat. Lucky me. From there the game progressed forward slowly. It took a while to get the robber off of my 5, but thakfully my 11 wood came up often enough for me to keep pace with the others. Soon it was Chris in the lead with longest road, 3 settlements and a city. And he owned the number 9 everywhere on the board. Shane had 5 points with 2 cities on the brick and his brick port working overtime. I had 4 points with access to a 6 wheat and an 8 ore now (all settlements). Ron languished at 3, and Steve trailed, trying to build to the unused 4-6-12 ore-ore-wood.

Then the 7's started rolling, with the brick becoming a favorite target to slow down Shane and still target me. (Targeting me has become a common theme.) Thanks to a sheep port, a couple 3's rolled where I had 2 setttlements on sheep, and a roadbuilding card, I was able to cut Chris's longest road off before it became insurpassable. In the process, I got access to more wheat on the 4-10-11 wheat-wheat-sheep. This, coupled with the fact that 11 was a popular roll and I was receiving an occassional brick lead me to take longest road away never to relinquish it.

In short order I got to 9 points, with one soldier played and a 15-length road. Then everyone else bought development cards and rolled 7's, effectively keeping me without any resources. This allowed Chris and Ron to catch up. Chris started to threaten, reaching 8 points with 2 soldiers used and one in the hole ready to play on his next turn. Thankfully, the special builder phase allowed Steve to buy a soldier after Ron's turn, then play it 2 turns later, giving him the largest army first.

Now everyone feared Chris, who was able to get a 2nd development card in the hole, He just needed 2 more of his turns to attempt to get the largest army away.

He almost did it, too. But while he was waiting for a chance to play that fourth soldier, I was finally able to get enough resources to build a settlement to win with 10 points.

All in all, it was a satisfying game, albeit a little frustrating for those few rounds where I was unable to hold onto a resource. Isn't that always the case with Catan, though? Early ownage truly means nothing in the game. I was especially satisfied that I was able to eschew my normal plan of collecting ore and wheat early and tryto trade for the other commodities in lieu of better numbers that allowed me to take longest road and build to an 8 ore and a 6 wheat.

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EndersGame — 2008-11-14T23:43:58+00:00

Product information for French edition by Filosofia

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EndersGame — 2008-11-14T23:39:42+00:00

Product information for French edition by Filosofia

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rober — 2008-11-14T09:43:31+00:00

overview

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Ikarus — 2008-11-09T23:14:38+00:00

Spanish Edition (Back)

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Ikarus — 2008-11-09T23:10:03+00:00

Spanish Edition (Front)

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zackdale — 2008-09-21T14:43:51+00:00

Everyone thinking hard

Thread: Reviewing an expansion...this should be fun...yay boardgame night at GamePlanet!

MasterGeek — 2008-07-30T14:11:44+00:00

Intro

Well, for those of you who didn't read the session report, I'm a volunteer/event coordinator at our FLGS, GamePlanet. We'd played Settlers a few weeks in a row, and last night was the first time we had enough people to break out the expansion. I'll be examining this review from the point of view of someone who has played the core game (as you have to play it to use the expansion). We all had a great time, and hope to keep it up every week.

Theme and Audience
Theme of the game, hmm? Well, it's Settlers. The theme is a group of people settling the land of Catan. I'm a big fan of civilization building, even on such a small scale. The audience of this is obvious, people who enjoy playing Settlers and want to play with a couple more.

Basic Info
Number of Players--5-6
Difficulty/Time to learn--not a lot if you played the original before getting the expansion, other than reading how to setup the board and reading the added special building rules. For those who never played Catan, but wanted to jump in with 5-6 people, still a fairly simple game to learn. Within a few rounds, you pretty much have it down.
Time to play--Depends on starting layout but probably 60-120 minutes. The expansion definitely adds time to gameply.
Theme--Building the best civilization in the land of Catan before the other players did.
Mechanics--randomly-placed gameboard, resource-gathering, build to gather victory points
Strategy/Luck--This has always been my only issue with this game. When just looking at it, it seems very strategic, but the dice rolls occur so often, that luck is a MASSIVE factor, as they determine what resources you get.

Components
Playing Pieces--I think we all know the pieces by now. In addition to white, orange, red, and blue, the expansion adds brown and green. Obviously all the pieces are wooden. The game also adds a few new ports, open sea places, and a large group of tiles including a second desert. While the desert we pulled out of the box was a bit warped, I'm sure that was just luck of the draw.

Board--Card-board tiles placed within a frame of sea pieces. The expansion adds several more resource tiles, a second desert piece, two new sea tiles, and two harbor tiles.

Rulebook

Just a few pages listing the new components, as well as another breakdown of the turn segments to illustrate how the new building phase occurs.

Set-Up

The same as the original game, only longer as there are more tiles. For our game, we built the frame, randomly placed tiles in a clockwise direction, then places the number tokens counterclockwise. I started, so I placed my first settlement. It went clockwise around the table for initial placement until we got to the last player, then he placed his second tile and it went back around counterclockwise until we all had two settlements.

Gameplay

Ok, this is where my particular review gets confusing to me. If you're reading this review, chances are you played the core set. However, I don't want to completely assume that. So I'm going to just give an extremely brief breakdown of how Settlers in general works, and then mention where the expansion differentiates.

The 5-6 player add-on doesn't add a whole lot. When I get to the change in the rules, I'll point it out. Otherwise, here is Settlers. As with the core game, first player to 10 Victory Points wins.

Resoure Gathering--After setting the game up, the first player rolls the dice. Everyone who has a settlement touching a tile sporting the number that came up on the dice gathers whatever resource is produced by that tile. This is the first phase of every player's turn.

Trade/Building phase--Each player then gets a chance to offer trades to other players in an attempt to get resources they need. This can be a fun part of the game, with a lot of haggling going on. Players can also trade in the harbors, based on what kind of harbor. Then each player spends resources to build roads, settlements, cities, or development cards. Briefly, roads=0 VPs, but 5+ roads nets a player the longest road (2 VP), settlements=1 VP, cities=2VPs (as well as causing each tile to produce double), and development cards can either give VPs, build extra roads, get a player knights (the first to three knights gets largest army for 2 VP. after that, whoever has the most knights gets the VPs), etc.

Pass the dice--This constitutes the end of the turn. This is where the expansion adds a new rule, the special build phase.

Special Build Phase--Before the next player rolls the dice, each person going clockwise gets a chance to build with whatever resources they have in their hands. No trading with players or harbors is allowed. You can build anything you want, but no development cards may be played at this time. I actually like this new rule. Play moves a little bit quicker, and it gets rid of resource cards as with so many players one can end up with a lot in a hand.

Other than the Special Build phase, the gameplay is exactly the same. The only difference is with the extra people, you can end up with a much larger hand than in the core game, thus the new phase.

My Rating
These will all be rated out of 10.

Components--6 well made wooden piece, nothing extravagant, but you can tell what piece does what
Board/Map Tiles:5 nothing terribly fancy, but even tiles that produce the same type of resource look slightly different from each other. I'm giving this a 5 because the expansion adds nothing new to the game.
Cards:5--again, nothing new added here, just more development cards.
Average: 5.25

Luck--8 I actually used to think this was lower, but playing with the expansion just illustrated just how much of every decision is based on a roll of the dice
Strategy--5 I rate this average because where/how you build and teaming up with others to keep yourself in the game does offset the dice factor a bit.
Fun Factor--8 Haggling and bickering over trades is always a blast!
Gameplay--8 This is always a fun game, and very easy to play, while still feeling strategic
Theme--5 nothing amazing, but not completely horrendous.
Replay Value--6 This game is fun, but even with a different board setup, can definitely get old after a while

Overall--8 (Note, this is not an average of the above scores, as I personally place less importance on several of the issues I rated than on others. This is just overall how much I enjoyed this game).

Conclusion
Settlers is a classic, and is great for bringing in people who don't play a lot of games. The expansion simply allows up to two more people to play, but the real benefit is the special build phase. This actually added a lot more to the game than I thought it would at first. It bumps up the strategic portion as each player has multiple options of when to build, how long they should wait to build, etc. Overall, if you liked the core game Settlers of Catan, chances are you will enjoy this expansion.

Thread: Board Game Night at GamePlanet---My first session report

MasterGeek — 2008-07-30T13:16:14+00:00

Ok, so here we go with my first session report. A little background here. I first played Settlers when it came out, then promptly forgot about it. Then, this year I was sucked into the hobby of boardgames and stumbled across this amazing store in Duluth that not a lot of people were aware of. I started hanging out there, bought some things, and ended up speaking to the owner about the possibility of starting a boardgame night to liven things up a bit. He promptly put me in charge, and now I'm an official volunteer/event coordinator.

Introduction of Players

This report involves 5 players: Nick, a gentleman who was new to the store, who played blue (this was his first time at boardgame night...also a BGG'er, so if you're reading, come back soon Nick!), myself playing red, and the Pirates Kids. The Pirates Kids are a group of kids that come in every Saturday at noon for Pirates tournaments and just learned Settlers last week. The Pirates Kids consist of Aidan (sp) playing orange, Justin (or JT) playing as brown, and Brandon playing white.

Setup

We set the board up randomly, placing the number tokens in a spiral around the board. I rolled highest, so placed first. I saw a 2:1 wheat harbor bordering a wheat tile with an 8 on it, as well as a brick tile. I immediately placed my first settlement and road there, knowing the cheap trading would come in handy with all the wheat I should be getting. (I'm afraid I don't remember what everyone's tiles were, the session report is going to be more about the feel of the game than the exact mechanics, so be warned)

Nick placed next, grabbing a landlocked group of tiles towards the bottom of the board. Brandon picked up some tiles towards the top that consisted of a wood and some ore. JT placed on a 3:1 harbor not far from myself, but hurt himself as he was on a tile that would only come up on a 3. Then Aidan placed, one in the south, touching two wheat anda forest, one of which was a 6, and his other on brick and some wheat. JT placed another on the left side of the board, again on tiles with low-likelihood numbers, Brandon put his towards the south, not far from Nick, Nick places another towards the left, and then I place my last piece bordering two wheats and a forest.

The Game

The game started out with a kind of road race, won soon by Brandon, who quickly netted himself the longest road VPs. Nick bided, his time, building sparingly and hoarding cards, trading slyly and as needed. I quickly moved in on a forest and built a settlement there while JT, who had little luck with rolls, basically sat and watched Aidan throwing down a road or two haphazardly.

We all (save JT) purchased a few development cards. I myself immediately pulled a VP and kept it hidden, hoping to get a chance to use it. Nick pulled a monopoly card and called out for wood, which no one had at that point. Brandon built a settlement, JT fumed, and Aidan built his road up to six and stole longest road, as well as having a couple of cities in play by turn four.

I started building a few more roads in an attempt to take longest road from Aidan, who now already had eight points. A trade embargo was called against Aidan, as all he needed was two settlements or a settlement which could then be upgraded to city for the win. Luckily, every time he had enough cards in hand that this was a concern, a seven was rolled by someone and he would end up discarding half of his hand.

Everyone that could purchased development cards, and whenever there was a knight, used it to steal something from Aidan. Save for JT, who was still having little luck, save for a couple of roads, we were always within a couple of points of each other. Brandon and I were racing to take longest road back from Aidan when he built two roads on his next turn and plopped out the place two roads development card, bringing him up to 11!

Not only did Aidan have the longest road, but he had it down at the bottom of the board, completely surrounding a settlement of Nick's and a settlement of Brandon's, blocking them in and preventing any kind of development on their part down there. They were stuck building off of their settlements up top. Nick built some roads from the left towards the center of the board, placing a settlement not too far from my longest road, and Brandon was doing the same. We were all building in attempt to stop Aidan from coming further north. I build a city and was at six points.

Aidan built a settlement on one of his open squares. He was one settlement away from winning. The embargo continued, and I was racing to pull enough cards to get myself one more knight and a settlement, so I could use my VP development card to steal the win. Brandon wasn't having such good lucky by this point, as Aidan had singled him out as an enemy. JT still hadn't built more than a couple roads, and Nick appeared to have something up his sleeve with a decent amount of cards and a couple unrevealed development cards.

The game was fast and furious, everyone fighting each other except when Aidan threatened, and we would gang up just to squash his attempts down long enough for one of us to steal the lead when he proposed a trade for wheat. Nick got a sly look in his eye and accepted, miscalculating that Aidan needed something else even with the trade to win. Sadly, this was not the case, and Aidan placed his last required settlement, bringing him to 10 VPs and a win.

I always liked Settlers, but it's even more exciting bringing it to a group of kids who have never experienced anything beyond general board games and CCGs. Even though we lost, it was a great game for all, and everyone seems interested in returning for board game night next week. I'm hoping we get more people coming, so I can post session reports of other games as we get to play them!

I didn't think to take notes during the game, so this report is as best I can remember from the top of my head. Feel free to let me know where I can improve for future session reports.

Edit--The Preview button is there for a reason

Thread: Re: Start up

freduk — 2008-07-28T17:36:12+00:00

We've played 6 player loads of times and it's not really been a problem. random setup is our preferred choice.
We also sometimes go with the fast-start rules (2nd placement is a city, not a settlement, followed by one further road-placing round before the start).

Thread: Start up

stephenpaget — 2008-07-28T17:11:00+00:00

I've read a few posts commenting on the 5th and 6th players getting poor starting positions. Is there an even start up layout provided with the expansion as there is with the base game?

Thread: Re: length using tournament rules

ackmondual — 2008-07-15T20:33:18+00:00

On Sea3d, a std 4p TSR game finished quickest at 10 min with an average at 23 min. With 5p-6p TSR game, quickest IIRC was 35min and average was 48 min. Of course, the online version sets up the board, allocates the cards for you, and automates other stuff, but that oughtta at least give some basis for comparison

Thread: Re: length using tournament rules

jbetz45453 — 2008-07-14T22:53:45+00:00

I would probably not play the 5-6 player without using those rules.Using the tournament rules that you mentioned seems to knock about 30 minutes off the playing time.So regular settlers is listed as 90 minutes but using the tournament rules the games are usually done in 60 minutes or less.I think the 5-6 player playing time is 120 minutes so you should expect the game to be around 90 minutes average.

Thread: length using tournament rules

skrebs — 2008-07-14T22:22:55+00:00

Has anyone played six-player Catan using the tournament rules of placing one settlement, one city, and an extra road (three in total)? If so, how long do your games run?

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wizhyun — 2008-07-11T06:05:30+00:00

Catan 5-6 player expansion Korean Edition by Korea BoardGames

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weevol — 2008-06-28T11:31:15+00:00

the banking payout takes longer in the expansion with 3 number fives than with 2

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weevol — 2008-06-28T11:21:21+00:00

the 5-6 player expansion pack hit the table every night at the family reunion

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weevol — 2008-06-28T03:36:51+00:00

everyone cringes until the road is placed!

Thread: Re: when can we play dev. card bought "between turns"

zespri — 2008-03-12T21:43:34+00:00

In my rule book it;s explicitly noted that you CAN'T by development card in between turns, you can only build.

Thread: Re: Too long, too boring, too unfair (and I won)

Zimeon — 2008-02-24T09:28:26+00:00

Exactly my feelings about the 5-6 player game. It's slightly better without this expansion, really, if nothing else because it's shorter.

Thread: Too long, too boring, too unfair (and I won)

Barticus88 — 2008-02-23T23:44:04+00:00

I'll begin at the end. I said, "No one will trade me a rock when I'm about to win." The player in second place replied "What makes you say that?"

It was a Saturday gaming day. 15 people had said they might come, but I was only the fifth person there. I watched while they finished a game of Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, then we started a game of Settlers. I wasn't eager to play Settlers, but I was going along with the group.

I was fourth. I put my first settlement on a 6 wood. It was near a brick port, and I was hoping to build on the paired brick spaces with my second settlement. Unfortunately, the fifth player jumped on the brick. The commodity destined to be plentiful was sheep, so I should have had my eye on the sheep port.

Shortly after we started, a sixth player showed up. She wanted to get into the game quickly, without disrupting the game, so we let her build two settlements, and continued the game. She built her settlements close to each other. This is a common mistake; a player will put their two starting settlements close together, because it makes it a little easier to get longest road, but in reality, it just means you have less options.

The sixth player and another player promptly boxed each other in, while white surged out to an early lead. I abandoned the idea of building a brick port, and built a 3:1 port instead. I was going to have lots of wood, but I was nowhere near the wood port. The red and blue players both rolled 7s and hit white with both robbers. This allowed me to build into a strong second place. By 45 minutes into the game, it was clear that only white and I had a decent chance of winning.

Rock and sheep were coming out in large supply, so I bought two development cards. I used a soldier to get a robber off one of my settlements, and on the next turn used a road building card to seize longest road from white. We traded longest road back and forth a few times, but eventually he had nowhere to extend, and I took longest road for good. I was at 9 VP, and rolled a 10 which scored five cards leaving me with 11 cards. I had two wheat, three wood, five sheep and a brick. I could trade three wood for a rock, and three sheep for a second rock, and that would leave me with two sheep and a brick, looking for my third rock.

So I said, "No one will trade me a rock when I'm about to win." White replied "What makes you say that?" He proceeded to trade me the rock and I built my city to end the game.

This game illustrates what I don't like about Settlers. After less than 30 minutes two players were already out of it, and by 45 minutes it was a two player game. It is simply unfair to expect players to hang play for more than an hour after they are essentially eliminated. The game had already run past two hours, and white (with 7 VP, I believe) had a very, very slim chance to beat me. He had space to build another settlement (but he couldn't get longest road), he had settlements he could upgrade. He had only one soldier and no development cards, so longest army was unlikely. I was going to have two wheat, two rock, and three miscellaneous cards. Even if I gained one card, then lost half on a 7, I would still have two rock and two wheat. The odds were very slim that he would score 3 VP before I got my third rock, so he gave me the rock so that we could get this long boring game over with.

A seventh player had arrived by then. Three of them played something else while four of us played Power Grid.

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

Salt-Man Z — 2008-02-20T03:24:31+00:00

The "special building phase" is especially a must if you play with 7 or 8 players. There'd be way too much downtime without it.

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

ackmondual — 2008-02-20T00:30:46+00:00

is "brigant" some European word for robber or 7-roll?

For me, I choose whatever the dynamic of the group is. We played a 5p game of Settlers, and 2 ppl were new, so to keep things simplier, we hocked the special build phase and upped the card limit to 9 before you need to discard to a 7-roll. The game lasted a LOONG time, but there wasn't much downtime in where we talked between our turns. It was also a social night as well as for games.

Otherwise, if I join a group and many people are comfortable or used to the special build phase, I go with that.

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

JockiB — 2008-02-15T13:51:18+00:00

I would never play any 5-6 player Settlers game (regular, Seafarers or Starfarers) without the added building phase. The added downtime without it would bore me to tears.

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

kalevi1999 — 2008-02-15T13:31:52+00:00

bazik123 wrote:
I always preferred to increase the hand limit to 8 with 5 and to 9 with 6 players rather than use the special building phase...

you mean if you have 9 cards in your hands Brigant still doesnt affect you but if you got then you are forced to give away 5 cards? you mean that?

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

Great Dane — 2008-02-15T13:30:11+00:00

kalevi1999 wrote:
So I think there's no point in the special building phase in the end. What you think about it?
I think that the designer and the developers introduced the rule with good reason. And the fact that it has survived 10 years and numerous editions without being changed confirms this.

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

Zark — 2008-02-15T12:55:46+00:00

I prefer the 5+ buuiling rule as it means the robber is less active and the game is therefore less random. There is still some effect though as you can only build, not trade (except with the active player) so you have to have the exact cards to build.

We also play that the robber is not active for the first two rounds (in 3 or 4 player games as well), as to have the robber put on you before you have had a chance to produce anything can be crippling and ruin a game. If a 7 is thrown the player re-rolls.

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

bazik123 — 2008-02-15T12:38:20+00:00

I always preferred to increase the hand limit to 8 with 5 and to 9 with 6 players rather than use the special building phase...

Thread: Re: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

JokerOne — 2008-02-15T11:44:45+00:00

Hi!

First of all I must admit that I have not played Settlers for ages. Anyway, I do remember that I liked the special construcction phase in the 5+ player game as it speeds up the game. In 4 player games it often happened that a card deal failed as the not-active player argues like " lets wait for that deal for my turn" (so I build with the dealed cards). With the special construction phase there is no reason for that as all players may build in the very same turn.
So, I recommend playing with the special construction phase for that reason. I do agree that the Brigant does not play a major role concerning to the special construction rule.

Thread: 6 PLAYERS GAME WITHOUT SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION PHASE BETWEEN TURNS??

kalevi1999 — 2008-02-15T11:28:50+00:00

Since we lost instructions from 5-6 expansion box we always played without special construction phase. Just recently we discovered this special rule for 5-6 players game (still we havent used it yet). This way a lot of time it happens you have too many cards in your hand but still I think is rather enjoyable Sometimes it happens you have to give away 2 cards (or more) even if u dont want becaus 7 could come out.

Brigant has a role which is important as much as it is in the original 4 players game: in fact 7 comes out not so often (but really depends on the game). I read many reviews saying rarely Brigant takes away cards from big decks during 6 players games since everybody always builds before having too many. Our longest game lasted 2:30 and most games end in 2 hours or less. So I think there's no point in the special building phase in the end. What you think about it?

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

Sidewynnder — 2008-02-13T18:03:18+00:00

It isn't that the game is bad, but if you don't have a group of 5 or 6 people that are going to be consciously moving the game along than it will take a lot longer to play.

There are just other 5-6 player games that are more enjoyable in most circumstances. I gave this expansion a 7, but I only play it when we are in the mood with the right players.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

Zimeon — 2008-02-12T11:15:36+00:00

Once you get used to the extra building phase the game progresses quite fast, much faster than Cities and Knights 4 player. I've even seen the trading phase being rather eliminated as people always can build something directly, so it's more risky to give people cards. However, I have also experienced that the fifth and sixth player get rather crappy starting posistions, so you'll have to be ready to rearrange some tiles and numbers if you set up the island randomly. In extreme cases ther might not be place left for the poor 6th player.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

ackmondual — 2008-02-12T03:33:51+00:00

laxnbakpakr wrote:
From my experience i rarely enjoy a 5 or 6 player game. the special building phase and increased time for trades is a significant detractor for me. I still find 4 player to be the best. there are many other games i enjoy better with 5 or 6 players such as power grid and puerto rico(5 only). I've considered playing where you lose cards when you have more than 9, rather than more than 7, and eliminating the special building phase. i think that plan might get rid of some of the annoyance i find when playing the 5 and 6 player game. That's how one online version does it. There's an option to turn on the special build phase, but no host ever does that.

I've played some 5/6 player games of SoC where we decided to up the limit to 9 as well, since we had a few newbies and special build phase would've been too much.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

clearclaw — 2008-02-12T01:43:10+00:00

Sidewynnder wrote:
So, when thinking about whether or not you should buy this expansion, heed this warning, if you are at all wary of a two and a half or three hour game of The Settlers of Catan, stay away from this game.

Perhaps we are excessively orderly, but I find that 5/6 player games of Soc only take an extra 15-30 minutes. Trading is just as fast and orderly as it is in the base game.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

WhiteKong — 2008-02-11T23:47:02+00:00

The most significant impact on the game is the fact that generally, there is at least one player (if not two) locked out from the very begninning of the game. The spots available to the fifth and/or sixth player are awful, unless one of the first four players has made a terrible mistake. Now add that to a two or three hour gaming experience and you've got at least a couple of frustrated players. In my experience, 5 and 6 player games are only enjoyed by about 4 players.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

wmshub — 2008-02-11T22:36:52+00:00

I don't find that 5-6p takes much longer, as long as everybody is actively trading. With more players, it is more likely that somebody has what you want (and wants what you have), so you are less likely to get stuck with a handful of something useless. Yes, turns take 50% longer with 50% more people, but because of the trading you win in slightly fewer turns, so overall I actually prefer the game with 5 or 6.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

laxnbakpakr — 2008-02-11T22:18:14+00:00

From my experience i rarely enjoy a 5 or 6 player game. the special building phase and increased time for trades is a significant detractor for me. I still find 4 player to be the best. there are many other games i enjoy better with 5 or 6 players such as power grid and puerto rico(5 only). I've considered playing where you lose cards when you have more than 9, rather than more than 7, and eliminating the special building phase. i think that plan might get rid of some of the annoyance i find when playing the 5 and 6 player game.

Thread: Re: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

COMPNOR — 2008-02-11T21:45:30+00:00

How does a Settlers of Catan with 5-6 players stand up against other games with 5-6 players? If the time taken up is the same, then it really doesn't matter if a Settlers game is now longer, as if you played something else it could be equally as long. So its not really a fair judgement?

As for trading, the only way I can see it being an issue is if its an issue with 3-4 players.

Of course, I can just be talking out of my ass as I've never played Catan with 5-6 players(tonight might be the first night). I just don't really see the downsides as being any different from any other game with that many players.

Thread: An expansion that may or may not meet your needs

Sidewynnder — 2008-02-11T20:49:33+00:00

Note: I have a review of the base game that can be found here http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/291187. Use this if you have any questions about the base games game play. This review will cover this expansion only.

So, you have The Settlers of Catan but now you have more than four players, then this expansion could be just what you need! This expansion for the base game of The Settlers of Catan allows for five or six players to join in the game instead of the usual three or four. However, this comes at a substantial price, play time. While the base game usually plays in about an hour or an hour and a half, this expansion will definitely add about an hour to the game.

Provided in the box are some more resource tiles and cards and a few more development cards, as well as two more player colors. In addition to this, you also get a five to six player rulebook which will explain the rules in more detail than I will go into here.

There are really only two substantial changes in the game. The first is that you now have a bigger board with more people trying to spread across it. The second is that you are now allowed to build in between the other players turns. Obviously, these two changes are the culprit in the game time going up substantially. However, if the trade off, being able to play with five or six instead of three or four players, is worth it to you, than you probably won't mind.

There isn't much to say about this expansion other than it is the base game with an extra phase in between the players turns and the allowance of more players in exchange for an increased play time. But, there is one other thing to note. The trading in this game can get very bogged down if done in a non orderly fashion. Unless everyone takes turns making an offer to the current player than it will be a pointless 10-15 minutes of players arguing over each other about who has the best deal to offer. This is part of what makes the game take so much longer. Perhaps if you have a very orderly group, you could cut the play time down a bit. But it is not likely, as it will still take longer to reach a winner with six players vying for that position.

So, when thinking about whether or not you should buy this expansion, heed this warning, if you are at all wary of a two and a half or three hour game of The Settlers of Catan, stay away from this game.

Thread: 6-tile modules for uberfast setup

origamifreak — 2008-02-08T13:26:31+00:00

I've figured out a way to speed up setup, with photocopies of 6-tile sets:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/298681

Just in case anyone finds this helpful...

Thread: A bit of a suprising win

pertm — 2008-01-20T02:11:20+00:00

I played a game with 6 players where one of the players was almost new at it. When we started I was second player so I got my first settlement in a good position. The second settlement I should not have gotten in a good position, but since I took a placement by the sea I got better placement that would have been expected and in the process stopping the plan 2 players had for building to that place.

All though timber was not on any bad numbers, there was mostly in the game a shortage of timber. Some other resources were drawn a lot, like brick where all the cards were out at one time in use.

I did not look like the fastest in the beginning a was last of all players with my first city, but I got enough soldier cards that it started to be highly unlikely that somebody would take those 2 victory points from me. I was the player who built least roads and settlements, but I had lots of development cards which I used when there was a lot of ore out for ore. With the help of a generic harbour and one wheat card I managed to build 2 cities on one round.

This was however not the end of it since we was playing for 12 points. I had a bit luck in the last few rounds that the holder of longest road shifted hands to a player who total had fewer points than the guy losing it. My grain field had mostly the robber and I lost on it 12 wheat plus a few other cards from my hand. Oh well it did not stop me from getting 11 ore cards so that I could build my last city and having 12 victory points with a development card with a victory point.

All though I have been a bit sceptical to Settlers with 5 or 6 players this was a surprisingly fun game, and went a lot better than the other times I have played Settlers with so many times. All though I was partial blocked it did not feel bother so much since I did not after building 3 new settlements not have a plan to expand my road net and get new settlements.

Thread: Re: Meeting New People through Settlers

eightbit — 2008-01-10T13:53:13+00:00

I don't like that house rule about losing half your cards when you play a soldier. That seems like it could extend the game by a lot.

Thread: Re: Settlers Catan ext - w/spec build phase and children

eightbit — 2008-01-10T13:50:33+00:00

If the tiles were shuffled and then laid spiral in they were still set up randomly. This is a common method of setup.

The chits being laid down in alphabetical order is one way of setting up the game, you can shuffle them an randomize them as well, thats not something unique about the 5-6 player.

I've never played a game of any number of players with a designated banker to me that would slow the game down far to much and give the banker an unfair advantage. If people are going to cheat then the banker is going to cheat. This also puts it on each person to pay attention and if they don't collect their cards on that turn its their own fault. We often split the resource cards into 2 piles even with 4 players but do keep the dev cards in one stack.

The 5-6 player expansion doesn't come with extra dice I wouldn't want 2 sets of dice on the table that would lead to confusion and everyone should be using the same set.

Not sure what to tell you about you not getting many resource cards through the game. Thats not related to it being a 6 player game that can happen as well in a 4 player game even if you have the best numbers on the board. If green got longest road and largest army then it doesn't sound like he wasn't getting resource cards, he just choice to use them differently.

With the special build phase we play that you signal the end of the turn by passing the dice, when you pass the dice you call special build phase if no one speaks up then the next person rolls the dice. We try to keep a good pace on the game and if someones not paying attention then they miss the opportunity to build. In my opinion SBP is needed with 6 players to keep the game from being 3 hours long.

Thread: Settlers Catan ext - w/spec build phase and children

ackmondual — 2008-01-09T21:15:26+00:00

Never played a 5/6 player game of Settlers in real life (IRL) before, so even though I played many of these games online, I jumped the opportunity for a 6p game.

Unlike with my previous IRL group, there were several things that were done differently with this game....
==the tiles for the board were shuffled and setup in a given order (in this case, spiral coming from the outside)
==the chits however, were assigned spiral from the center in alphabetical order. Recall that in Settlers Of Catan 5/6 player extension, the chits are also assigned a letter from A through Y and the 26th, 27th, and 28th chits being Za, Zb, and Zc respectively. I've always just shuffled the chits and assigned them randomly, being sure to keep red chits (6s and 8s) and single-pipped chits (2s and 12s) apart
==After each roll, each player gets their own cards, as opposed to having a banker do all of that. Some people may try to take extra cards if it appears others aren't paying attention, but it didn't seem like the group I was with would do that. The burden it takes off the banker is definately worth it
==Since the expansion provides us with 34 of each resource cards, we split them up into 2 decks and put them on each side of the board so that people on the other side wouldn't need to reach over to get what they needed. Dev cards were left as a single deck/stack though.
==I don't know why there were 2 pairs of 6 sided dice, but they were there. One was the wooden set that comes with the game and another that's the "fiberglass/plastic" (standard ones like you'd find in Monopoly and allaround), but these have numbers on them instead of pips. I'm thinking either so that a single pair of dice didn't needed to be passed around, to preserve the wooden dice since they're more prone to chipping, or to better mimick the physics and aerodynamics of the "real", plastic dice

Me and green (to my left) didn't get much resource (rsrc) cards. We never had enough to discard when a 7 roll came around (limit at 7). With us, it was a typical unluckier game where the numbers you choose get rolled less so, so we sat there for countless rounds with 0 to 3 rsrc cards. To boot, our starting spots weren't that good either. I had a 4-8-10 and a 2-3-10. 4 unique numbers since 2 doesn't come up too often. Green had a 3-8 and 3-5-8. I ended up with 5 pts, 3 settlements (setts) and a city (which was more work than it should've been given my good spots for ore aft expansion). Green had 3 pts (all setts), but was actually 7 counting Longest Road (LR) and Largest Army (LA).

Orange ended up with 6pts (2 cities and 2 setts), red with 5pts (1 cities and 3 setts like me), blue had 6pts (2 cities and 2 setts), and white won with 4 cities and 2 setts. These were the players who had 5 to 13 cards more of the time. For dev cards, I only got a soldier and road building card (of the latter I never got a chance to use). Other players got MUCH more dev cards than I did, and I know some of the scores I've mentioned above were better, but I don't remember who got how many VP dev cards at this point.

Some particular features with this game include....
==we had a couple of preteen kids play with us. In fact their mother was in the same game. It's nothing I didn't expect. They knew the rules and had probably about a dozen games under their belt, so age didn't detract from the flow of game at all.
==the group was more mild in play. When activating the robber, 1 through 3 pipped tiles are blocked instead of the clearly more useful and settled 3 to 5 pipped tiles. At least I was able to convince a potential robber to steal someone else's card. Even though I had more cards, I only had 2 setts then, whereas 3 other players alr had 3pts from city/sett combo.
==first time trying out the special build phase (sbp). Online, the card limit is bumped to 9 and optional sbp is always omitted since vets agreed that while it may work IRL, it doesn't work well online. Here we stuck to the 7 card limit and did the sbp. Although it's slightly annoying to look around and ask ppl if they're building anything for this sbp, it is a nice change of pace to be able to dump your 2 wheat and 3 ore to get a city now rather than 4 turns later (potentially more rsrc and less worry of the 7 roll), and buying a dev card 1 normal turn bef your own meant you could use them in under waaay less than a round of turns!!

Despite the bad luck, a nice session.

Thread: Re: Does the new edition come with frame pieces?

kowalskie — 2008-01-01T19:16:20+00:00

it sure does

Thread: Does the new edition come with frame pieces?

bobm174 — 2008-01-01T19:08:28+00:00

I just picked up the 4th edition of Settlers which I love.
I am wondering if the 5-6 player expansion comes with new frame
pieces to hold the extra hexes together?

Bob

Thread: Re: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

Don Mitchell — 2007-11-30T04:24:35+00:00

The placeholder concept is an interesting one (thanks jentinma!) and convinces me that there's a way to do this trade that doesn't violate the letter of the rules. But do you guys think it violates the spirit? I'm still not sure whether to characterize this type of trade as clever or as just sneaky, utilizing a loophole.

perfalbion, as for the usefulness of this type of trade, wouldn't it make sense to do if you wanted to build a settlement in a specific location and you were afraid that if you waited until your turn the location would be unavailable, even if that settlement didn't give you an immediate victory?

Thread: Re: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

perfalbion — 2007-11-29T17:11:27+00:00

You're misinterpreting what I mean by a three-way trade. If the cubs trade a shortstop to the Red Sox, the Red Sox trade an outfielder to the Angels, and the Angels trade a pitcher to the cubs as a single transaction, that's a three way trade. In a single move, three parties are involved.

That's what your original post appeared to describe - Player A trades four cards to player B, who trades them with a port, who sends the results of that trade back to player A all as a single transaction.

The rules on trading aren't long, but they're pretty clear - the player who is taking their turn announces what they want to trade, what they're willing to accept, and other players agree or don't. That's a description of a two party transaction. If the active player wants to play "middle man" between two other players, then they need to do it as two different transactions. Another poster already pointed out the "placeholder" card as a way to make this legal, and that would be correct.

On the second point - I'm glad to hear I read your post wrong.

On the third point - I'll be happy to hang on to what I've got, risk the robber, and dilute the chances of losing something that I want (by having a hand full of garbage). You're effectively giving away resources, so unless it's positively critical that you get that sheep right now, there's little reason to do so. Unless another player and I are both on the verge of winning the game and the transaction would put me over the limit, it doesn't make sense to me to do (and if that's the case, why would the port owner do it?).

Throw in the placeholder, and it "works" under the rules, but I don't see it making much sense.

Thread: Re: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

jentinma — 2007-11-29T15:30:20+00:00

I'm going to side with Don Mitchell on this issue, but not completely.

wmshub summarized all legal trades that can be made at any given time.

wmshub wrote:
*ALL* trades involve the player whose turn it is and either:
- ONE other player
- OR one port at 3:1 or 2:1
- OR the bank at 4:1

That being said, the trades proposed by Don Mitchell can be accomplished in a serries of 3 separate trades.

1. Two players trade cards: The player whose turn it is (Player 1) receives 4 cards from another play, but they must return a "placeholder card" to player 2.

2. Player 1 trades with port.

3. Two players make a second trade: Player 1 trades the card aquired in trade 2 to player 2 for the placeholder card.

The placeholder card is required for the trades to be legal. Player 1 gains 1 card and player 2 makes the desired trade.

This could conceiveably be done in the 3-4 player game in order to reduce hand sizes to avoid the possibility of losing lots of cards to the robber, although the player would likely just chuck the cards they are trading anyway. That being said, this would likely only be a good move in rare circumstances when players are racing for a spot or there are many people still to play before their turn comes around since anyone can trade 4:1 on their turn.

Thread: Re: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

wmshub — 2007-11-29T06:35:57+00:00

The rules are pretty clear:

*ALL* trades involve the player whose turn it is and either:
- ONE other player
- OR one port at 3:1 or 2:1
- OR the bank at 4:1

Goods must go BOTH WAYS. (IE, "I'll trade you three wood for...nothing" is not allowed.)

Only the player on the port can trade with it. Yes, trading with a port is how you use it. You can't do a trade that "involves the port." You trade WITH the port, and ONLY when it is your turn, and ONLY if you have a settlement or city on the port.

And yes, you always have the 4:1 trade option, no matter how many players.

Your trade system there just doesn't make sense!

Thread: Re: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

Don Mitchell — 2007-11-29T06:21:00+00:00

Thanks for your reply, perfalbion.

I don't see anything in the rules that specifically prevents three way trades as long as the player whose turn it is is in the middle and the two other players aren't directly trading with each other. Am I missing something?

Regarding your second point, I wasn't trading with the port, I was trading with the player whose turn it was. Yes, a port was traded with, but by the player whose turn it was.

As for your third point, I admit that I'm still relatively new to Settlers, but as I mentioned in my original post I do believe that there are good reasons for wanting to do this between turns. It gets cards out of your hand so you don't end up losing half of them to the robber, and it also ensures that one of your needed cards won't get stolen. It can also allow you to build a settlement, for example, that may not be available to you by the time your turn comes around due to crowding.

This sounds argumentative and I don't really mean for it to. I do tend to agree with your bottom line -- that these trades (probably) shouldn't be allowed. I just wish the rules provided more solid reasons for not allowing them.

Thread: Re: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

perfalbion — 2007-11-29T05:53:03+00:00

First - if the player was taking cards from the other players, then trading with the bank, and then returning a card they were breaking the rules. You trade with what you have on hand, and three way trades aren't permitted.

Second - Only the player who's actually taking their turn may trade using ports. The rules are quite specific that everyone else is barred from doing so.

Third - Why on earth would anyone do this? Even in a 5-6 player game, you can trade 4:1 on your turn. If you weren't allowing this, that was an error.

So from my perspective, this sounds like it was wrong all the way around.

Thread: Question on Trading Rules for 6 players

Don Mitchell — 2007-11-29T05:19:17+00:00

In a recent 6 player game, one of the players held a 3:1 port and used it to effectively collect a "commission" on trades. It wasn't clear to us whether this should be permitted or not. Can one of you experts help?

Basically, this person would say, "I'll trade you one of whatever you want for four of whatever you have." Then, they would use three of the four cards to obtain from the stock the card desired by their trading partner, and pocket the fourth card -- i.e. their commission for facilitating the trade.

Of course, this would have no value in a 3-4 player game as there is no intermediate building phase and anyone can trade 4:1 with the stock even if they don't have a port. But it DID have value in our 6 player game because it allowed players with a lot of cards to obtain the right combination for a build and reduce the number of cards in their hand. It also removed the possibility that someone would steal one of their key cards when moving the robber.

Opinion on the propriety of this move was divided. When we were playing I supported the idea and considered it to be a clever trading strategy. (I even did a couple of trades of this nature with the port-holder.) But on further reflection, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be allowed since it requires an intermediate trade (via the port) before the terms of the first trade can be completed. Plus I think it gives disproportionate value to the 3:1 port.

Your opinions would be much appreciated! Surely somebody else has thought of this.

Thread: Re: Instead of extra build phase...

Phil Fleischmann — 2007-11-10T00:07:50+00:00

OzGamer wrote:
These are all fair enough points, but for me it comes down to the fact that I would like a 5-6 player game to be as similar to the 4 player game as possible.
It depends on what you mean by "similar". As I see it, trading is a very important part of the game - far more important than the rule about only building on your turn.

boochihuahua wrote:
I don't like the rule of each person getting to build once ONLY if the current player builds. This is against the nature of the game. On your turn, you should not have any influence of someone's hand size. Yes the next person might or might not roll a 7, but you shouldn't have control in any way if someone has a large hand size and can or can not discard before the next roll.
I guess you're right. Nevermind what I said before.

Thread: Re: Instead of extra build phase...

ackmondual — 2007-11-09T23:31:05+00:00

I've seen this done on Sea3d. No one plays with the special build phase b/c ppl i've talked to say while it works in real life, it's not as practical in the video game version of it.

9 cards for the new threshold for when to discard during a 7-roll works out well IMO. With an extra 1 to 2 turns before your move, that's an even better odds that you'll have to discard cards.

Thread: Re: Settlers of Catan Expansion scenarios?

ackmondual — 2007-11-09T23:25:47+00:00

Basically what Joni said. When you buy Seafarers Of Catan, the box comes with the instruction manual that includes scenarios for Seafarers.

If the instructions are online somewhere, I can't find it anywhere myself.

Thread: Re: Can Victory Point cards go into effect "off turn"?

ackmondual — 2007-11-09T23:16:32+00:00

My take is no, you canNOT win. Reason is according to the rules concerning the special build phase, you may NOT do player trades, bank trades, nor use dev cards. Dev cards which IMO includes VP cards.

However, this has never came up since in the online version of SoC that I play, the hosts have always disabled special player extension trade rules and stuck with 9 cards as the max you may have bef having to discard half on a 7-roll

Thread: Re: Can Victory Point cards go into effect "off turn"?

Great Dane — 2007-08-24T19:32:52+00:00

According to the Maestro himself can you not win out of turn.
His reasons are decribed in the official FAQ:
http://www.siedeln.de/faq/187_135_de.html

Why can you not win out of turn?
This rule makes sense because it prevents many unclear situations and further questions about the rules.

Example:
All versions: Player C needs 1 point in order to win and breaks Player A's Traderoute, so that Player B now has the longest Traderoute as well as enough points to win.

Without the rule would the question be: Has Player B won the game? Or may Player C end his turn by building another Settlement and thus receive the point he needs?

With the rule there is no question: C may try to make his final victory point.

Cities & Knights: Two players with an equal number of players each receives a VP card as reward (Constitution and Bookprinting). Now both have 13 point.
Without the rule: who is the winner now?
With the rule it is clear: the one who will first have his turn.

In a game with 5 or 6 players will it often happend that one or more players will reach his 13th VP (or 10th in the basic game) in the common Building phase.

Last changes to the artikel: 2005-11-07 20:45
Author of the artikel: Klaus Teuber

The FAQ includes answers to 3-400 questions about the Settlers board game alone.
It is a shame that someone doesn't run a similar FAQ in English

Thread: Re: Can Victory Point cards go into effect "off turn"?

jentinma — 2007-08-24T18:01:39+00:00

Regardless of how you get your victory points, you can only win on your turn. During the building phase, you can buy a development card, steal the longest road, build settlements, or build cities that can get you to the 10 points needed for victory, but you cannot claim victory until it is your turn.

This can result in players trying to steal your longest road or largest army along with the general point grab that can be made before you get a turn.

I think the most I've seen a player get and still lose is 12 points. They were able to claim the longest road and upgrade a settlement to a city, but the player before them managed to get to 10 points after buying a victory point.

This rule also holds true for Catan: Cities & Knights, but there are other ways to get points in that variant.

Thread: Can Victory Point cards go into effect "off turn"?

Eddy Bee — 2007-08-24T17:49:51+00:00

Let's say I build a settlement durinng the special off-turn build phase, bringing my on-board score to 8 points. I also hold 2 Victory Point development cards. Can I declare victory now, or must I wait until my turn?

Or, let's say I have 9 on-board victory points, and I purchase a Victory Point card during the special off-turn build phase. Can I declare victory now, or must I wait until my turn?

My group ruled that, even off-turn, victory can be declared immediately, since the Victory Point cards don't behave like other development cards (they go into effect immediately when they are purchased and multiple VP cards can be "played" at once).

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your wisdom...