Settlers of Catan, the german way.

A couple of days ago we played Settlers here in Germany. my first time since the Ad fontes battles, and I have a few comments to make about some rules these crazy Germans play by.

1. The beginning

Right from the start they made a mess by changing the normal way of placing the first towns from "the player who got the highest dice number first places one town, then the player to the right until the end and back"-system, to a system where the highest dice was followed by the second highest and then down to the lowest number and back. In a totally random order! I mean come on, Germans, ordnung muss sein, right?

2. Almost pointless robber

All right. The robber was not totally useless by their rules, but you were not allowed to steal anything from the players connected to the field you moved it to! This is half the fun of the robber! It is still a cause of frustration and friend loss, but not in the excellent way it normally is. To be fair though, you could still steal when you played the knight card.

3. I had to fight the "Largest Army"-rule into the game...

4. The development cards

You could use them the same round as you got them... Not just the victory points, but the Knights, Roadbuilding and everything! This is really getting frustrating.

5. The german played with open cards

A noble thing to do, but it reveals all your strategy and all your plans and makes everything much more difficult to accomplish. People could not be persuaded to deal in a reasonable manner.

In spite of all this, my team won the game destroying almost no friendships in the process.

*No violence was used during the playing of Settlers of Catan (this game).

Itj fårrå nålles

- Mr. S