The Settlers of Catan

I guess it was Mother's Day/Tom's Birthday weekend or some such hullaballou. Chad and Megan were passing through, enroute to NY, and spent an evening with us. The next day Barry came to town. Barry is one of the nomadic twenty-something males who sleep on my couch with or without my knowledge. Sometimes I kiss them goodnight (no, not really), sometimes I find them there in the mornings and sometimes I surprisingly bump into them in the dark of the night as I get some water or do laundry or jot down a note about my strange dream. Whatever. So I remember Barry was here that weekend.
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In his excitement, Tom gave me my Mother's Day present early -- The Settlers of Catan, also called "Los Colonos de Catán," "Osadníci z Katanu" and "Колонизаторы," depending on where you live.
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The point of the game is to collect resources with which to build communities on the island of Catan and become a mutant mix of Donald Trump/Saddam Hussein and win the game.

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Think:

Risk + Monopoly = Catan.

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In this example, one person was red with three houses and two roads (perhaps it was me) and one person was white with two houses and one whimpy li'l road (perhaps it was Tom), one person was orange & one, blue. The gameboard octagons are "grazing fields," "ore," "timber," & some are shipping docks.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to finish our game. Sadly, we haven't played it since. I really do want to play again, but we need playas and time, neither of which have we found.
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Now, there's a couple of things I have to tell you about this game:
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1. The instructions are in magazine format, many pages long and difficult to interpret. The game would be appropriate to come with a lawyer player to settle disputes.
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2. Advertised playing time is 60-90 minutes. Plan on 2 hours minimum. Hope for 4 hours.