A must buy addition to Settlers of Catan !
Written: Nov 17 '03 (Updated Dec 07 '05)
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Pros: Progress cards add a whole new feeling, attacking barbarians and city construction make expansion harder.
Cons: VERY addictive, board edges don't always work well, no direct attacking allowed by players.
The Bottom Line: If you like Settlers but are looking for more of a challenge, Cities-&-Knights is just what you need. If you have lots of friends get the 5-6 player expansion.
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| openroad's Full Review: Mayfair Games Cities and Knights of Catan Expansio... |
----- Overview -----
In case you don't know, Settlers of Catan is the wildly popular city building and resource trading game from Germany. While Settlers is a perfect balance of strategy and bluffing, it lacks any type of combat or random events. This is where Cities & Knights comes in handy.
Mayfair Games describes C&K as the Culture, Politics, and Warfare Expansion for Settlers of Catan. Three major additions to the game are: Barbarian attacks from the sea, commodity cards, and progress cards. I'll explain these more in depth later in my review. For now I'll just say C&K turns Settlers into a much more complex game, and for my gaming buddies that's a good thing.
For the rest of my review, some understanding is required as to how the basic Settlers of Catan plays. If you have never played Settlers, take a minute and browse my review of (Settlers of Catan). If you don't want to read my long-winded game description, just skip to My Comments at the bottom.
----- Commodities -----
Commodities are a new addition to Cities and Knights, and only can be drawn when you build a city. The only purpose of commodities is to help you flip over sections of your city progress tracker. Each player gets a tracker, and each tracker has 3 sections. Each section is devoted to one stack of progress cards, and is color matched to that card stack. Below I will explain the different types of commodity cards and what they do.
Books (Green cards) Books are aquired when you have a city bordering a wood hex. Instead of taking two wood cards like you do in the standard game, you take one wood card and one book card. Books are used to flip the construction section of the progress tracker.
Coins (Blue cards) You can draw an ore and coin card when you have a city next to an ore hex. Coins are used to flip the politics and war section of the tracker.
Cloth (Yellow cards) A cloth card is drawn when your city is next to a sheep hex. Cloth is used to flip the merchant and trade section of the tracker.
The tracker controls how easy it is to get progress cards. One of the two white dice in standard Settlers is replaced by a red one. There is also a six-sided dice that factors into the equation. Three of the sides show a barbarian ship, in which case the barbarians sail one space closer to attacking. The other three sides display one of the three progress card colors.
If the red dice matches the number on your tracker and the 3rd dice lands on a color you have paid (with commodities) to activate, then you may draw a matching progress card.
The tracker is also designed to give all players a quick visual reference to see how advanced you are in the card race.
Progress Cards
Green cards are the construction and building cards in C&K. Road building cards, free city walls, cheaper cities, and other useful stuff can be found in the green stack. Several unique cards also make their home in the green, first is the Alchemist who allows you to choose your dice roll numbers, and the Inventor which lets you switch any two numbers on the board. This card is quite powerful, and can change the game for some players. One victory point card is hidden for a lucky player to draw.
Blue cards are the most powerful, and are generally fought for the hardest. In the blue deck you'll find cards dealing with road elimination, defense, city sabotage, and knight funtions. There is also one victory point card in the blue deck.
Yellow cards are mostly populated by merchant and trading cards. These cards allow a player to trade 2-1 at his leisure, or inspect an opposing players hand and take two cards of his choice. Various other trading cards also reside in the yellow stack.
The Metropolis
Progress cards are very important in Cities & Knights, and you should plan your expansion carefully in order to have access to all three card colors. Another feature integrated into the progress tracker is the Metropolis. There are three metropolis pieces, one for each card deck. The first player to flip the progress tracker to the fourth level may place a metropolis on one of their cities. This gives them an extra two points for a total of four points for that city. A city with a metropolis may not be destroyed by barbarians.
----- Barbarians and Knights -----
The only real purpose of Knights in C&K is to defend against the barbarian attacks. Each player has a total of 12 knights divided into 6 tokens. Two level 1 knights, two level 2 knights, and two level 3 knights. Effectively you just count your active number of knight-levels on the game board and that's your knight power. Each knight requires a sheep and ore to place on the board, but you still can't use it yet. First you must activate (feed) your knight with one wheat. This makes him ready to move, defend, or fight another knight. Each knight token has two sides, a gold side and a silver side. When a knight is active his gold side is face up. After using him you must either pay another wheat card or turn him over to the inactive silver side.
The barbarian ship starts far from the main island, but every time the dice is rolled on a black ship it moves one space closer. When the ship reaches the attack space, player stop and count all cities on the board. If no players have any cities, the barbarian leaves and begins a new movement cycle. If there are cities, the total number of cities is the attack strength of the barbarian horde.
Every player must now count their active knights. This means ONLY knights with the gold side facing up. Each player may commit all, several, or none of their active knights to the defense of Catan. If the total number of committed, active knights ties or exceeds the attacking number of barbarians, Catan is defended. If Catan is defended, the player who committed the most knights receives a Defender of Catan victory point card. If two players tie for the most knights committed, both players may draw a progress card of their choice.
Other knight actions are described below.
* To break a longest road held by another player, simply move your knight somewhere in the middle of that players road. His road is now split in two, and each section is counted separately.
You can't actually kill an enemy knight, but you can displace him. You must have a knight at least one level higher than that which you are trying to displace. If you do, you may move to the space the knight was occupying. That knight's owner must move it to an empty space on his road network, and if no space exists that knight is removed from the board.
* To block an opposing players expansion, place a knight at the intersection of his road network. You may place roads beyond your own knight, but he cannot unless he displaces your knight with his own.
----- City Walls -----
City (or settlement) walls are purchased with two brick cards. You place your new wall under a city or settlement that you own. Each player may have a maximum of three city walls, and their function is this. Normally when a robber is rolled (on a die roll of 7), if you have more than 7 cards in your hand you must discard. If you have one city wall you are safe up to 9 cards. One more wall makes you safe up to 10 cards, and the maximum of three walls lets you hold 11 cards safely.
----- My Comments -----
My long description of Cities & Knights doesn't begin to do it justice. I have played at least 50 games of C&K this year, possibly more! My group of friends are completely addicted to Cities & Knights, and call me up to play anytime we are all in town.
Settlers is a great game in it's basic form, and its simplicity makes it a great game to pick up and play. However, this simplicity also makes for a weak spot in re-playability. There just isn't a lot of possibilities for how the game will play out. In standard Settlers, at least 80% of our games had a lone player way out in front with all other players trying to catch him. Usually he would end winning and we could do nothing to stop him. C&K eliminates that in a big way, and actually moves the gameplay to the other end of the spectrum. Almost all our games of C&K ended with 3 or more players within two points of winning, leaving the outcome seriously in doubt. This gives the game a much more exciting feel than basic Settlers, and makes a re-match seem worth playing for the losers.
I'll tell you a little secret about our gaming group, we actually keep track of our game results. In my Settlers box is a chart with all our names, game dates, and finishing positions. We keep track of winning streaks and position averages. Yeah, were geeks... but that's okay! :)
Instead of 10 points, Cities & Knights games are played to 13 points. Since there are so many new ways to get VPs, this makes the game a bit more stable. Game times do become longer than Settlers, and can stretch up to 4 hours with 6 players. For my gaming group, the average game is played with three people and lasts just a touch over 2 hours. This is a reasonable time frame for a week-night game, and not near as bad as Risk or other swords and dice games.
I can honestly say I can't find a single fault with this expansion pack. Granted, I'm a Settlers addict to the core, but the fit and finish of this game is excellent. I paid $22.00 for my C&K expansion, and that is pricey for a game add-on but worth it in my opinion. You get at least 50 painted wooden pieces, over 100 beautifully detailed cards, 4 progress trackers, and well-written instructions.
It really comes down to how satisfied you are with the basic game. If you really enjoy Settlers as a now-and-then game, maybe Cities & Knights is a bit too complex for you. If you're willing to add a 1/2 hour or so to game times and throw in a big dose of strategy, treachery, and subterfuge then activate your Ebay account and start bidding!
Seriously, Ebay is the best place to find any of the Settlers series. Since no local game stores carry Settlers in my area, I don't feel guilty about running to the internet to save 20% or so.
Seafarers of Catan is the other expansion for Settlers, and while it does change the game quite a bit, I don't like it near as much as Cities & Knights. It keeps the simplicity of Settlers and still lengthens the game at least as much as C&K. Like I stated before, it really depends on the game experience you're looking for.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Cities and Knights adds so many new pieces to the game, a storing solution is demanded. ZipLoc 1/2 sandwich bags are the answer. You can find them in any grocery store under the name snack bags, or small storage bags. Put your cards in them, store the game pieces in them, in fact I have everything stored in baggies! It takes a bit longer to put away, but after lugging the game to a friends house for a party, it's alot faster to set up without a muddle of parts!
The holiday season is coming up, and nothing makes a better gift than any version of Settlers! Cities & Knights is complicated enough that kids under the age of 10 or so could be a bit bored. In my experience, teens and adults love the game.
If you want to know more, check out the links below for more info on Settlers and Cities & Knights. Here is the link to my Settlers review.
Fun Again Games user review page for Cities and Knights:
http://kumquat.com/cgi-kumquat/funagain/scan/se=customer/sf=source/se=11245/sf=gameids/fi=review.asc/sp=results_reviews/va=sku=11245/ml=200?EBkvmEM6;;53
Fun Again Games user review page for Settlers:
http://kumquat.com/cgi-kumquat/funagain/01167?EBkvmEM6;;211
P.S. Here is a little optional house rule I play with my friends. We allow attacking of settlements by Knights, but not cities. The dice roll required to destroy the settlement is the level of the knight. A level 1 knight requires a one rolled on the die to destroy the settlement. A level 2 knight needs a two or less on the dice, and a level 3 requires a three or less. If the knight loses, and does not destroy the settlement, the knight is removed from play. The makes it about the same losses for either side, and reduces the amount this rule is used. It can however be very useful if there is that one pesky settlement you just can't stand. :)
---( Other game reviews that might interest you: )---
Axis & Allies Pacific
Axis & Allies Europe
Axis & Allies Classic
Axis & Allies Revised Edition
History of the World
The American Civil War Board Game
Settlers of Catan
Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment!
Openroad
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 22
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Kids to Teens
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