Game of the Week: Catan Cities and Knights

This post could be titled The Perfect Game. Last week's game of the week was our all-time favorite game, Die Siedler von Catan: Städte und Ritter or The Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights. We were introduced to this game by our dear friends, the Kennedys, and we've been playing it since our first days in Germany in the early 2000s. The Settlers of Catan (the original base game) was released in 1995 and kind of revolutionized the board game world. And Settlers is an amazing game, but the 1998 Cities and Knights expansion is board game perfection.

The idea behind the basic game is that the players are settling an island called Catan and they get points by building settlements, cities, knights, and roads. Those are built with cards representing different combinations of resources that you collect based on the dice roll. You can also get bonus cards from commodities which are produced by the cities you've built on commodity producing spaces. Bonus cards make it easier to build settlements, cities, knights, and roads and they give you trading advantages as well.  The first player to get to thirteen points wins!

Image from www.kosmos.de
What makes Cities and Knights the perfect board game? It's just a great mix:
  • Participation - even when it's not your turn you're part of the game through collecting resources and trading with other players 
  • Luck - sometimes there will be an unlucky run of dice rolls and you don't get the cards you need to build. or they are and you've got too many cards and that's when a "7" is rolled and you have to give up half your cards (that's the worst)
  • Strategy - there are lots of different ways to get the points you need to win the game. Even if you get boxed in and can't build more settlements or cities, you can get points by building knights or turning in commodity cards. 
  • Learning curve - we've been playing this game with our kids for quite some time. I think the official age range on the box is 12+ but our kids have generally started playing younger than that. Even though it's a game that can be complex (not difficult though!) it's a game that anyone can have fun playing and it doesn't take too long to learn how to play.
  • Aesthetics - this is a good looking game. The different land formations (brick, wood, wheat, rock, and sheep), the colorful wooden playing pieces, the illustrations on the bonus cards, the city calendar that's used to track commodity purchases - it's all really visually appealing. 
Image from www.spiele-akademie.de
Because this is a game that can take a while to play (the box says 90 minutes) it's not one we have time to play most school nights. We did still manage to fit in three rounds last week and had a different winner each time. Jared and I each took a game and Abigail won the final game last week. I think it was her first time ever winning this game and that's kind of a big deal. She took an early lead and we did all we could to catch her but we could only really slow her down.  We love this game. It's the game we keep returning to even when newer games catch our interest for a while. It's the game we make room for in our suitcases and bring along on vacations. It truly is the perfect game.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is Faith?

Image
What would you say if someone asked you what faith is? In Hebrews 11, Paul defined faith as "the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The assurance of things hoped for - faith is knowing that because of Jesus Christ, we can hope for a brighter future. I feel as if hope and faith are one and the same. Life can be heartbreakingly difficult sometimes and even though I know that challenges are there to help us learn and grow, I sure wish I didn't have to go through those hard times. When I have felt surrounded by struggles and I couldn't see any way that things would ever get better, the only thing that has kept me moving forward is hope. Not the kind of hope that is sort of wishful like hoping your team wins a World Cup game, but hope that is sure because it is based on Christ. Having faith in Jesus Christ is having hope and knowing that His promises are sure.  The evidence of things not seen - faith in God grows when we see Him working in our...
Read more

Anxiety, Friendship, and Insecurity

This post has been kicking around in my head for a while now. My emotions have been closer to the surface lately - which can be both good and bad.  For a couple of weeks last month it was a bad thing and I found myself crying at pretty much everything and feeling alone and friendless even when I was surrounded by people. You'd think I'd be better at making friends after almost forty years of moving and having to form new connections at each new place. Instead, the older I get, the more difficult the process becomes. Even after I make friends deep down I question if we're really friends. I think these feelings of insecurity are part of what makes me willing to do almost anything for my friends. If I do nice things for you maybe you'll continue to tolerate my presence? I think I do a pretty good job hiding my insanity. I can fake confidence really well - smiling and laughing and making small talk. And then I go home and overanalyze and question every little thing I said...
Read more

Four Decades

Image
Birthdays are markers in our lives. Moving from one decade to another is a milestone that is not marked by an accomplishment or an important decision, but simply your age. That's something you can't control as time keeps moving forward whether we're ready for it or not. I can honestly say that I'm not bothered by turning forty and that I still look forward to my birthdays. But there's no denying that those milestone birthdays (you know the ones, they end in zero) are a big deal. A time that, for me, leads to some looking back to see if I've accomplished anything worthwhile in the previous decade of my life or in any of the decades of my life.  So I found photos of myself at all those other ages that end in zero. Maybe if I take it a decade at a time it will be easier to see what I've learned? Seriously, whose dog is this? Italy, 1981 Okay, this first one is already breaking the rules as it's not from a milestone birthday. I have two pictures...
Read more