Settlers of Catan, And Seafarers and Cities and Knights Options

[Mercer]

My weekly game has a pregame where those of us that don't have dayjobs (house husbands and graveyarders mostly) get together for lunch and board games until the rest of the group gets there. We usually play a game of Arkham Horror followed by a round or two of Catan depending on how much time we have.

I like Arkham, although with the expansions it has become fairly grim. (Honestly, how do you win with gate bursts and the new old ones?) But Settlers and it's expansions are consistently enjoyable. We've been playing a lot of Seafarers lately, both because of the more random setup and we haven't had the time for a good Cities and Knights.

I would say the best strategy for Catan is to pick numbers that come up a lot, but as my friend's table continually wags its genitals in the face of probablity, this is harder than it sounds. (We've had games where the 12 and the 2 have come up as much as the 8. I played a game last weekend where the only difference is starting numbers between my friend and I was he had an 11 and I had a 10, and 11 came up once a turn for the first five turns.)

I enjoy the world-building aspect of it as well. I've had similar experiences with Axis and Allies, where it's fun to try to win the game but it's also fun to build the world. I guess I enjoy the resource management of it as well.

Any love for Catan out there?