Research into Catan

The board game I am choosing to analysis is Catan, the reason I have chosen this game is because personally I really enjoy the gameplay and how the game flows. This probably one of the more interesting board games that I have played, and I can fully have fun playing it mainly if I played with friends or family.

Catan is a strategy board game where your objective is to collect 10 victory points by building houses, cities and potentially getting points from development cards. In this game you collect resources based around where you put your houses and cities and you use them resources to build even more houses, cities and roads. Houses are worth 1 point and cities are worth 2 whereas roads aren’t worth any points but can be used to earn points by getting one of the two special points cards which are mini objectives within the game which get you 2 points for each one, one being longest road which is achieved by building 5 roads in a row with no breaks. How you gather resources is when you place your buildings next to the different lands, they all have numbers on them and if that number is rolled you gain 1 resource for every house next to that land or 2 pieces for every city next to that land. There is a card every player gets that tells them how much materials you need to build a certain thing. In this game you can also trade, this is done after you roll the dice and people gain materials, and during the trading you can ask other players and make deals such as 2 wood for 1 sheep etc. Lastly is development cards which cost resources and cant be used on the turn you brought them, when these cards are used they have different things they can do based on what the card says for example, build 2 roads for free, move the robber or gain a victory point.

 

All these game pieces work very well within the game, and all are used to create an enjoyable game experience. I believe that all these pieces work well and that they are put in a way that is least confusing. Within this board game there’s many player interactions such as trading and building and blocking people’s pathways, meaning you as a player will need to use your decision-making skills lots to figure out what the best path to victory is either teaming up with someone else or by quietly waiting to create your empire. This game has a very simple scoring system as shown on the cards given at start of game to each player and the victory condition is very simple as well. The turn is laid out simple which is roll, trade, build that’s the order you go in and each step to your turn is very simple as the rolling mechanics is a simple step where people gather their resources and trading is done through players meaning you guy can make it simple or as hard for yourselves as you like. With the flow of the game your turn makes it simple, and the flow of the game goes at a nice pace and each turn flows into the next. There are many strategy elements within this game like knowing what resources to get and who to potentially team with and what to build. The only kind of randomness in the game is what resources you will get as its based on a dice roll so your numbers might never come up no matter how more likely they are to show up, also what development card you get is also very random chance maybe you get something good maybe it’s something else it’s a gamble, but your play style may revolve around that kind of gamble.

The strengths I have identified for in this game are the flow of each players turn, the resource cards and trading. The flow of the turn is a big strength as its very simple and laid out in a way most people would understand making the game very beginner friendly when reading the rule books. The resource cards are another strength as it adds many possibilities to the game your arnt like a normal game just moving around the board or buying things instead you can collect resource cards to either use to build things make cards which have alternative effect or more so to trade. Talking about trading, that’s another strength within this game as it  allows you to gather resource you have no connections to and build trust with other players helping each other. Where there’s strengths there are also weaknesses within the game such as the robber as I believe it shouldn’t hinder everybody, but it does by cutting peoples cards in half also stealing of others and preventing certain resources from being gathered. Personally, the way I would improve the robber would be just to steal the hand of one other player.

What I believe makes the game enjoyable is playing with friends and just having a laugh together making ridiculous trades and teaming up against others for a laugh. The intractability within this game is why its so enjoyable having fun with others not just playing a boring quiet game where you don’t interact at all. There are also things that can be a little frustrating for others as well such as a teaming up aspect which could make someone not like all the ganging up or things like people who don’t trade fairly. A main thing that could be frustrating in this game is probably the setup getting it all set up getting people to cooperate and just play a good game instead of all the teaming up leaving people out just overall buying the one person as that can ruin there fun and they may never want to play the game again, but I wouldn’t necessarily blame the mechanic its more the openness of the mechanic which allows people to do this.

There are a few improvements I would make to the game such as remove a rule or two from the robber, adding the mechanic of natural disasters or adding new pieces into the game with their own set rules. From the robber I would like to remove the rule which half’s your cards and prevents the land from being used as I feel like they aren’t the greatest things, that’s why I would change them and say instead no cards are halves from everyone as the robber doesn’t affect everyone and you can choose one player inhabiting that field and steal all their resources. For the robber I would also remove the rule where what land he’s on doesn’t produce materials and have it where they still do but there’s a chance, they won’t depending on another variable yet decided upon. For the new mechanic of natural disasters, I was thinking that randomly during the game you could damage land and remove buildings etc. Finally, I would add new things to the game like new land and new things you could build although not too much comes to mind as off yet but its something many could think about.

How these improvements could be applicable in the framework of the game currently is they would make the game have more surprising elements and they are in the background whilst you’re playing your game you could do this yourself at home if you wanted. How I would add say the mechanic I came up with into the game is by adding a random buzzer which goes off randomly (As you would presume) and when it goes off something new happens in the game like roads are destroyed but each square gets something different.

An additional thing to add about Catan is that it says on the back of the box its age rating, player count and the rough time it takes to play a single game of Catan these being;

·         Age rating: 10+

·         How many people can play: 3-4

·         How long a rough game takes: 60+ minutes

 

All in all, I believe my changes won’t affect the age rating, but could affect play time to make it slightly longer possibly. Although the demographic age rating could increase as the changes might appeal more to an older age group due to how complicated the game is already how it might get even more complicated.

Overall through much analysis and research into the game i believe the potential impact of the improvements I have suggested to the game could be massive as this allows for a new feel to the game and really add different elements to it, but you could also return to the basic game as well this suggestion would potentially just be an expansion pack that players could choose to use if they want to spice up there game. This could go well with other expansion packs as well such as the one which adds oil fields and surrounding waters.