Catan is one of the most successful and well-known board games in the world. It’s been around for decades and has cemented itself as a cornerstone of the genre. Over twenty years ago I was introduced to it through my post-college roommates and it’s all we played for months. Just over a year ago I introduced it to our household, and over the past few weeks it’s taken over our evenings.
We began with the basic set. My son was nine or ten at the time, I forget exactly, but the simplest form of the game was the ideal introduction for him. Our first game went far better than expected, and he was requesting to play again the very next evening. We played a few times over the following weeks but, eventually, Catan returned to our board game collection where it hibernated for a while. It came out every so often for those “Hey, you know what we haven’t played in a while?” moments, but the lure seemed to fade and I couldn’t figure out why.
Until I made myself the villain.
Catan relies heavily on negotiations and a social aspect, which also makes it notorious for “ruining friendships.” Betrayals are commonplace when it comes to precious resources, and placing the Robber in the wrong place for someone at the right time is a key aspect to victory. But both my wife and my son were “too nice” when they played Catan, and never took advantage of, well, taking advantage of the other players. As a result games would slog on longer than they should, and Catan’s spark never ignited for them.
So I decided to “twirl my mustache” and show them how to really play this game. I began to play aggressively. I would go so far as to talk in a Skeletor-like voice as I stole opportunities and blocked others. And my wife and son responded by teaming up against me. And I’ll be damned if it worked like a charm. Now they weren’t “being mean” to each other. Now they had an opponent to overcome. Now they were playing Catan.
Since I began playing the villain we’ve expanded our Catan collection to two expansions (Cities & Knights and Traders & Barbarians) and my wife 3D-printed custom piece holders for our cities, settlements, and roads. My son, when his ADHD-brain decides to focus, has won several games and once beat us so definitively the game was over in under an hour… and for those who’ve played Catan before you know how remarkable that is.
Catan was the first modern board game I fell in love with, and it’s nice to be reunited with this old friend. The drama it’s notorious for creating isn’t so bad when you decided to be the drama on purpose, and talking like a Saturday morning cartoon villain while you’re doing it certainly helps.