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Comment by JacobAldridge | Hacker News Reader

I've seen Settlers of Catan at my local puzzle store, where they promote its popularity. Any personal experiences here about whether this is worth buying it and introducing it to friends to play (especially over options like Risk, Cashflow, or even Monopoly which has less of a 'I don't know this game' resistance)?

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I play Settlers with friends in Japan on a semi-regular basis. My experience is that it is fun, ladies and non-gamers appreciate it more than many other things we inflict on them, it rewards skill but is friendly to people playing their first game, requests for a rematch are absurdly common, and it is much friendlier to a mixed language group than Scrabble is.

My one pain point is that people who are indecisive about trading make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, since play slows... to... a... crawl.

I second everything you said.

For me Settlers is at the sweet spot for board games where "casual" and "serious" intersect. You can play it with non-gamers, games last an hour and a half (Monopoly never finishes that quickly!), and pretty much everyone enjoys it on their first play and understands it on their second. On the other hand, board game geeks happily play it and the game rewards skill. It scales well with player experience.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Risk and Monopoly have player elimination which is anti-social. Settlers also packs in way more fun per minute of time spent playing.

The rules are no more complicated, either. Just make sure you're getting them right so that balance isn't thrown off, which can make the game not fun. Play a few games online at http://games.asobrain.com/ where the program will teach you the correct rules.

But there is something to be said for player elimination. Sometimes I like to have a graceful way to quit a game I'm certainly going to lose!

Risk and Monopoly take so long to finish that player elimination is a necessity. Games of Settlers where one player has no hope of winning aren't common, as long as players are of relatively equal skill.

I think (without having played Settlers) that in an ideal board game you shouldn't be able to get into a position where you know you're going to lose until the very end of the game. That's a big problem with Monopoly -- it's too easy to die a slow and painful death as you mortgage and sell your properties one by one. The further you are behind, the harder it is to get ahead.

This is why I like skill-based yet luck-dependent games like Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Even if you're 150 points behind in Scrabble, there's always the chance you're going to get two great racks in a row. And even if you're six pie-slices behind in Trivial Pursuit there's always the chance that you'll get a long run of questions you happen to know the answers to.

Out of all the games that we've played, none have been funner than Munchkin.

The diplomacy aspects of this simple card game don't become apparent until you start playing.

And the copy on the Munchkin cards is absolutely hilarious!

The diplomacy is what game fans call "petty diplomacy;" that is, you have to smack somebody and there's no compelling in-game reason to smack anyone in particular, so you default to smacking the guy who smacked you last, or the guy who's ahead. This can be fun, but it isn't exactly the game itself that brought that fun to the table.

As for the humor on the cards, you'll have seen it all in two plays (especially since the game drags on for a while). This explains the healthy market for expansion sets.

I played Munchkin for the first time this summer. By far the most fun I've had playing a game in a long, long time.

Cutthroat Caverns is also a good RPG spoof.

Yes. Board game design has come a long way in the past 15 years-- sort of a silent Renaissance.

I'd also recommend Tigris and Euphrates, Ra, Puerto Rico, and a host of other "German-style" games.

I agree with these recommendations, but if you're trying to introduce boardgames to friends, start with one of the 'gateway games': Settlers of Catan, Ticket To Ride, or Carcassonne. T&E and PR should be saved for later.

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