6/4/2023 0 Comments Catan board gamesKlaus Teuber’s game of trading and expansion is considered one of the most influential and important games of all time, sparking a golden age of modern tabletop gaming and shifting more than 20 million copies in the 25-plus years since it was first released. I only wish that placing these beautiful pieces were easier and more purposeful in design.The Settlers of Catan - or as it’s now officially called, just Catan - is a modern classic when it comes to board games. These questions and accompanying strategies are still present in Catan 3D and when the board is full of the game’s unique 3D pieces, it looks amazing. What are they trying to build and what am I trying to build? How desperately do I need the resource they’re offering to trade me? If I accept this trade, will I be helping them more than I help myself? During each turn, a player rolls a dice, everyone collects the appropriate resource cards, and the fun and secretive nature of Catan shines as expected. Players still select their starting roads and settlements, which keeps the start of a match exciting due to variety, and resource cards are doled out as a result. Sure, the figurine will sit atop the hexes but it never felt purposeful, instead leaning this way or that rather than standing atop the hex as if it were designed to fit there.ĭesign issues aside, the actual act of playing Catan 3D is as fun as it’s ever been, but that’s because it’s still just Catan. The Robber Figure here is a sculpted piece featuring three humans and while their feet allow the piece to sit flat, there’s no real good spot for them to sit atop the 3D terrain hexes. Then there’s the Robber Figure, which is traditionally a tall bowling pin-like figure that sits flat atop the terrain hex it has been moved to. Instead, they wobble with every movement of the table or board. Number tokens sit pretty well atop the mountain pieces, almost as if those terrain hexes were designed with the tokens in mind, but on others such as the field hexes, the tokens don’t lay so nicely. Instead, they sit somewhat haphazardly atop the terrain hexes. In the standard edition of Catan, the flat tokens sit on top of the flat hexes in harmony. The number tokens are placed atop the terrain hexes at the start of the match and they essentially dictate every move in a game of Catan. Perhaps the single most frustrating aspect of Catan 3D’s design is that the number tokens and the Robber figure don’t actually sit atop the terrain hexes evenly and flatly as they would in a standard match of Catan. The roads, settlements, and cities still simply sit atop the terrain hexes and in this version of Catan, which is easily the most immersive version yet due to the 3D design, the fact that these pieces still slide, shift, and move when someone’s finger accidentally touches them is a bit of a let down. There aren’t any unique spots for things to snap into place and while that wasn’t necessarily expected considering it’s not how Catan’s layout typically works, with such high-quality 3D pieces, I would’ve liked to see a way for the board to snap together into one ever-flowing piece. Putting all of the pieces together is easy enough, and much like traditional Catan the pieces just sit by and on top of each other. They’re great cards and they work just fine, but it’s a shame the other pieces received so much love only for the cards to remain physically and aesthetically the same. One disappointment is that the cards are essentially the exact same cards found in the standard $40 edition of the game. The harbor, road, settlement, and city pieces are all 3D as well, and the latter three are hand-painted to look antique and match each player’s color (be it red, white, blue, or orange) appropriately. The terrain hexes look as you’d expect - the mountain pieces stretch nearly two inches into the air, the forest hexes are littered with individual tree tops, and the pastures feature flocks of sheep. The six sea frames are a pretty blue, with a scratchy texture meant to mimic ocean waves. The game board is still assembled much in the same way it is in a standard game of Catan, except the traditionally cardboard pieces are now 3D. It comes with a standard game overview and rules pamphlet, as well as a nicely put-together almanac perfect for new players and returning players alike.
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