everything everyone says about it tells me we should love it but need to know how to play

June 2, 2009 6:10 AM

looking for a good settlers of catan tutorial

i recently purchased the travel version of settlers of catan so that i could introduce it to my board game group to see if we like it before i invest in the full version expansions et all

i am reading the rules and just not quite able to get it reading alone or trying to play a me playing all players test game< so i am looking for a tutorial that could teach me the basics so that i can know how to play the game and we arent blindly playing for our first game

i am just looking for something that can give me a basic idea so that i can learn the rest as we play this evening

posted by mediocre to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

The rulebook for the board game version has a quick-set-up guide for new players and a sample couple of rounds laid out. Settlers looks a little intimidating at first, but it really goes pretty quickly (relatively speaking) once you get the hang of the production/build cycle. I've considered picking up the travel version, but my understanding is that's 2-player only.

There is also an online tutorial for new players. Good luck! I picked it up a couple of years ago and now our oldest 2 kids are old enough to play (10 and 8). They love it. In fact, we're overdue for another game, so maybe I'll pull it out this weekend.
posted by jquinby at 6:24 AM on June 2 [2 favorites has favorites]

It might help to watch games online.
posted by ignignokt at 6:24 AM on June 2

The instructions were quite confusing to me too when I first tried reading them, but when I jumped into a game with experienced players I quickly caught on. Watching online will probably be useful.
posted by Midnight Rambler at 6:42 AM on June 2

There seems to be a bunch of You Tube videos on Settlers, one of those should do the trick. Just looked at this one and it seems to cover the basics.

Your best bet is probably just diving in and referring to the manual when you're unsure on a point. That was my plan of attack, and it seemed to work pretty effectively.
posted by backwards guitar at 6:57 AM on June 2

> I've considered picking up the travel version, but my understanding is that's 2-player only.

The card version is two players only. The travel version is just like the normal one, except that everything is a bit smaller and the numbers are fixed to the board (the resources are cardboard cards that can be moved around).
posted by bjrn at 6:59 AM on June 2 [1 favorite has favorites]

so that i can know how to play the game and we arent blindly playing for our first game

Actually, this is the best way to do it, IMO. I'm assuming that since your group hasn't played Settlers before that they're not familiar with the more abstract "Euro" style of gaming in general- as a result, no matter how thoroughly you teach the rules, the first game is going to be a learning game. Not until you actually see a game played out will you realize the importance of initial position, road placement, development cards, trading, etc. SoC is a quick enough game that you can get through a learning game or two without feeling like you've wasted the entire evening.

Here's the one thing you need to know- SoC is a game of odds. The best positions on the board are the ones that straddle 6's and 8's, since those will statistically be rolled more often. If everyone understands that concept and you avoid people dropping their first settlement on the intersection of a 2, 12, and 11, the game should flow pretty smoothly.
posted by mkultra at 7:40 AM on June 2

I would also recommend just jumping in. As board games go, Catan is not complicated.

But as always, Board Game Geek has your back

- Tutorial program

- visual setup guide

- catan probability for young players

- rules summaries, including expansions

- turn summary

I haven't looked at most of these myself, just did a quick look through of the files section for Settlers of Catan on the site, and this is what seemed useful.
posted by utsutsu at 7:55 AM on June 2 [2 favorites has favorites]