Catan app.

My latest column for mental_floss, a conversation with prolific board game designer Reiner Knizia (the man behind my favorite two-player game, Lost Cities), went up today.

Settlers of Catan remains the top board game on my rankings, even though it requires at least three players; it’s a great game that has simple mechanics, requires players to plan and have a strategy, includes mechanisms to reduce the odds of one player routing the others, and has helped forge a new segment in the U.S. board game market. You can’t overstate its value.

The Catan iOS app costs a reasonable $4.99, with colorful and slightly goofy graphics and an AI good enough to help you learn the game or pass the time, but no AI player strong enough to challenge an experienced player on a consistent basis. The app allows you to play two or three AI players, or to play another person who’s sitting with you, but lacks an online play option. The developers just released the first in-game expansion, Seafarers, today, and I purchased it but have yet to download it.

The Catan app itself works well if you fine tune the options to speed up the graphics and reduce the fake chatter from AI players. The app provides statistics on dice rolls and resource gains for all players, so you see for yourself that the computer wasn’t cheating when it made you roll a 7 when you had 13 resources and were about to build two cities and win the game. The map itself is extremely clear even with the colors and textures on the various tiles, and you can zoom as needed.

On your turn, once the die roll occurs, you click a somewhat-hidden menu buton on the right side of the screen to pull up your options: Build something, buy or use a card, initiate a trade, go to settings, or pass the dice. Building is straightforward, and only items you can build are highlighted, although it would be simpler if it snapped right to the first thing you can buy. Buying a card is simple, but using one requires scrolling to the right until you find the card you already have, at which point the question mark (for a description) changes to a check mark.

The trading engine is simpler to use, and AI players do make frequent trade offers. There’s also an option to decline all trade offers until your next turn, which can be useful when you’re receiving a slew of offers for a resource you know you won’t trade at any likely price. The trade engine screen presents all five resources in a row in the center, and you slide up or down depending on whether you want to give or receive a certain resource in the trade.

The game comes with a half-dozen or so AI players that vary in overall skill and in style of play, some aggressive, some focused more on building internally. But no AI player does much in the way of blocking the human player’s strategy, and they all have a tendency to hold resources too long – I’ve won a few times when the AI players each had 9-13 resources, and there had to be something they could have built with those resources to gain some points.

The Seafarers app doesn’t seem to have added any new AI players, and the game requires that you play a few of the basic scenarios before unlocking the Seafarer ones, even though I’ve played the First Island numerous times before buying the expansion. I’ll report back on that once I’ve had a chance to play it a few times.

I’d recommend the Catan app to anyone who’s been listening to me rave about the board game for years but hasn’t had a chance to try it, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to improve his play. For me – and I am far from an expert at Settlers – it’s more of a fun diversion, not as challenging as some other apps I’ve tried but still fun, probably because I enjoy the underlying game so much. The fact that they’ve issued a major expansion also gives some hope that they’ll continue to develop for it, adding new features and maybe other expansions or AI players along the way.

Comments

  1. Is the Catan app only available on the Apple market, or can you get it on an Android-powered phone?

  2. I believe it’s only for Apple. The game selection on Android is pretty weak – Androminion (Dominion) is the only German-style game I’ve found.

  3. I love the Catan app. It’s helped me pass a lot of time on crowded transit and in airport waiting lounges.

    I am puzzled by the AI’s initial settlement places. I hope that the update can fix the computer’s desire to go for one-resource harbour positions with the second initial settlement.

    There are a few end-of-game stats I’d love to see the app provide. (I’m of course to lazy to track these myself).

    1. Resources Robbed – the number of each resource that each had stolen by the robber

    2. Resources Blocked – the goodies not collected by each player due to that resource-blocking robber shutting down production from settlements or cities.

    3. Ill Gotten Gains – the resources players robbed from others.

    If your crappy job, losing home team or morally & financially bankrupt society is getting you down, this app is the perfect remedy! An experienced player will win almost every time. A little pocket-Catan always cheers me up.

  4. “Island Settlers” for Android is Catan. And it has the added bonus of being free.

  5. So is the Catan app only for use against AI players? Or can you sync up with friends and play your turn as you have time?

  6. Keith,

    Thanks for the link to your amazon store, it’s especially helpful to kindle users like myself especially since many on your top 100 are free. I’m thoroughly enjoying Jane Eyre at the moment.

    I also downloaded the Carcassonne app and have been repeatedly lectured by my wife for playing it too much. It’s a great way to be introduced to these games and to learn the ropes quickly and without the trash talk of my friends who have played the games much more than I have.

  7. There’s a Catan app for Blackberry too. Downloaded it a week or so ago and I’ve been fairly addicted since. They have a “campaign” mode that lets you play a bunch of very interested (non-standard) board set-ups too (I assume the same is available for the other Seafarers apps).

  8. Keith, If I by the app through the links you provide does it benefit you. Just want to get into this habit if it does, as usually I go to the app store on phone/ipad and buy.
    Mike

  9. Mike: Yes, thanks for asking. It’s about a quarter to me on a $4.99 app.

  10. Great, about to purchase right now. Quarters add up and keep the site running.

  11. And the value of a quarter cannot be overstated…
    Hasn’t gotten old yet!
    Maybe it’s a classic, like “that’s what she said”. They may not get it at work, but I can’t be fired for saying it either which is a bonus.

  12. Keith, since you’ve been talking about playing games online recently, I thought I’d share this link (you may already know about it). I’ve only used it once to play Dominion, but the interface seems pretty fantastic once you get the hang of it.

    http://shachiku.com/2010/04/26/tutorial-how-to-play-dominion-online-for-free/

  13. My favorite site to play variations of Settlers online is games.asobrain.com. There are many new and interesting maps and hordes of excellent players. And it’s free.

  14. @kyle. last i check island settlers was taken off the android market due to copy right infringements.

  15. The good news for Android users is that Mayfair has announced they’ll be putting out an Android app in the spring. Can’t wait!!

    http://www.catan.com/gamenews.html

  16. Ron Schaffner

    I was well over 50% winning against Marianne and Jean, but now my percentage is dwindling because Marianne wins so often. How can I beat Marianne more consistently?

  17. Just got the app for IPhone and love playing! But I seem to have less luck with the app than on the actual board game 🙂 The only thing that bothers me is that I do not seem to be able to place the robber onto one of those hex, which have settlements next to it – therefor I never receive any resources by playing the Knight card (or placing the robber after rolling a 7) – it only wants to settle on one of the free hex – do you happen to know if that is somewhere in the settings I have to change or if I am doing something wrong? Thanks for your help!

  18. It seems a bit unfair to play against the AI at this point, its very frustrating to always get robbed from the cheating fkers. They always seem to be able to get good rolls and my rolls always help them out and never me. It needs to be more balanced so the people buying this game don’t get cheated from the AI ganging up on you.