It's Time to Say Goodbye to Catan (and say hello to three other games)

you know i'm i'm genuinely scared to do this like i i don't even want to do these lines hi i'm efka and i've been reviewing board games for six and a half years and i have been never so terrified to do a video today i'll be talking about katan the board game formerly known as settlers of and despite its monumental status i will not be kind to it katan is not like other board games katan is legendary it became the transcendent board game that reached out to the general populace and became the go-to thing it's also just loaded with nostalgia last week on twitter i asked if katan was people's first modern board game and bear in mind i haven't got the largest twitter following but literally hundreds of people flocked to tell me that yes it was indeed their gateway into a brand new world so when i raised my fist in defiance of katan this is what i'm actually picking a fight with guess what katan was the very first modern board game me and elaine played as well and just for that alone it holds a special place in our hearts i distinctly remember thinking this is board games well sign me up for more today and then some more tomorrow and then some more the day after tomorrow the day after that probably should take a break because can't have too much of a good thing but two days after the day after tomorrow more board games please katan is the definitive introduction to a hobby i so dearly love and despite being a fine game it's the wrong introduction christmas is coming potentially the worst christmas of our lifetimes and if you're thinking gosh i could really do with something wholesome for me and my family who've been locked in for ages a journey into a different world well you clicked on the right video because most people would rather rub their hands on a cheese grater than spend another moment with monopoly katan might seem like a genuinely appealing alternative so on this auspicious 25th anniversary of revere german wood let me take the opportunity to steer you towards something different katan is old like 1994 old bon jovi's always came out in 1994 yet if an alien landed right next to you and said show me an example of a banging tune you won't be pulling out crossroads from your cd rack again i want to reiterate katan isn't a terrible game you won't make a great mistake if you buy it and i wouldn't judge anyone for enjoying or even loving it but some of the culture around katan is tiresome here for example we acquired some footage of a regular person playing a regular game of katan ah i love this game look i know the table's not big enough but no one else in our bubble was willing to step up what did you say to me i'm not gonna risk my life going back to ikea again hey would you like to trade wood for sheep imagine spending five minutes with that guy and now imagine see the box says 60 minutes but we all know that's a lie don't we in short katan is good but we've had 25 years of perfecting the ideas that it introduced and i have three fantastic games to show you that gives you all the goodness that katan ladles out but in more generous portions if you've never played katan if you're new to modern board games this video is perfect for you although at times i will be making comparisons to katan that might not make a lot of sense don't worry about it you should still be able to make a perfectly informed decision about which board game to treat yourself with and if you play katana bunch and you're looking for the next step this video is also a great resource for [Music] you [Music] if you're thinking right now gosh afka this box is green well there's two reasons for it a it's because it's mint fresh and b it's been designed to masquerade under the christmas tree as a perfect trade in castles of tuscany you'll compete against up to three other players to see who can score the most points and you'll score points by building up a hexagonal landscape if you're used to katan and are looking for an upgrade what you won't find here is extra complexity because castles of tuscany is a more approachable game but what you will find here is a lot of familiarity in tuscany your job is simple at the beginning of the game you'll receive free tiles with empty spaces and then you'll build a thing and then all you have to do is fill up these empty spaces with tiles of appropriate colors once you fill up a continuous clump of the same color you will score points and your turn also simple there are three possible actions and you can only do one of them you can either draw two cards from this deck and add them to your hand you can reserve a tile from the general supply and put it in your reserved tile space or if you have a tile reserved you can play it to your player board adjacent to other tiles you've played if you pay the card cost to play a tile first you need two cards that match the color of the hex you want to place it in but what if i haven't got the right color don't worry if you haven't got the right color for any card that you play you can play two cards of any color as if it were a card of that color i'm sure that made sense but if you're spending two extra cards that's the equivalent of one turn where you could be doing something more useful and that would be fine except this game just whooshes right past you it's all way before you know it which is kind of like life if you think about it actually don't think about it and each of the games three rounds wishes by even faster and the scores of each round are cumulative if i scored 10 points at the end of round one that's effectively 30 points over the course of the game however if i score 15 points that's 45 points that's an extra 15 points for free so far we've got a game of fill in the colors and i won't blame you if you're not excited but let me explain why tuscany is a perfect brick to slot into my castle i call the calyx through the prism of katan just like in katan you're gathering cards so you can place things on a hexagonal board they're the stop gap towards you plonking down a house but when you place a house in catan nothing happens you have to wait till someone rolls the dice with the right result until that house can once again produce a sheep credit where credit is due the good thing about katan is that you're excited about other players turns any roll of the dice could be payday but so many turns in katan are boring and worst of all your own turn could be terrible whereas in tuscany ninety percent of your turns are filled with excitement and the other ten are you just drawing cards but even that has a sprinkle of zeus because you might just get the exact right thing you need poo each tile you place has an effect place a great tile get a stone place an orange tile get a worker place a red tile get an upgrade to your player board what can i use stone for oh nothing it's just an extra turn for free but if i place a red tile on my player board first i will be able to upgrade the stone gathering ability and the next time i place a gray tile i will be able to get two stone with one action and that's two free extra turns so much of the energy of this game comes out not from grand strategies or cerebral head crunching but from the satisfaction of finding the right tile that you need because you can only place tiles next to ones you've already placed not all tiles will be useful at all times this game is very clear in telling you this is what you need to do these are your options what is the best you can make out of this situation castles of tuscany is one of those rare games that's incredibly generous so no matter what you do you feel good but because the timer is wound so tight it doesn't feel flabby let's just say if this was 2019 and i was in a gaming shop because that would be a valid thing in 2019 and i saw someone reaching for katana on the shelves i would find it very hard from stopping myself jumping in front of them with this box unless the thing you want from katan is confrontation if you and your family or friends enjoy getting in each other's faces if you enjoyed the shot and freud of someone's hubris get punished by the robber or if you enjoy snagging that last six or eight spot from your opponents then tuscany might leave you cold but for those people we have a worry before i show you iwari let's take another peek at katan [Music] now let's take a look at this [Music] iwari is so beautiful i don't even want to talk over it and why would i this game looks so good it could literally sell itself just gonna get that back before someone steals it in case you're worried that this pastel landscape is too demure let me assuage your fears iwari is meaner than a polar bear on a hunger strike this game is a distilled nectar where the only fruit you've squeezed is a fight over territories once again just like in catan or in castles of tuscany you will draw cards and those cards will let you place a thing on a map either a tent or a tote and just like in castles of tuscany you can spend cards of two different colors as a card of any one color the map is segmented into different territories distinguished by colors the important rule to remember is that in iwari on your turn you can at most play three cards to at most play two things into at most one territory what that means is that each turn you'll be choosing where to take your battle let's say that in my hand i have two green cards and a blue card that lets me either place two tents in the green territory where i was a tent behind from blue and take the lead or if i wanted to place a single tent in the blue territory where i was tying with blue and that now increases my lead what this translates to is what i like to call the three stages of iwari primarily you'll focus on placing tents into territories because having more tents in a territory will score you more points in this way iwari feels a bit like a game of go but with the battlefield already defined imagine spending turn after turn fighting with the green player over this orange territory you put down two tents they put down two tents you put down another tent they put down another tent and then you get to stage one of iwari where you realize that whilst you were busy doing that the blue player has been populating this land with totems much like tents the totems will score you points but only if you have a majority of totems in two adjacent areas unlike tents totems take time to develop and also unlike tents they only score once per game wears tents score twice per game but if you plop a totem down every so often sneakily you might run away with the victory naturally if someone's been building totems you want to stop them and build your own and that's where we advance to stage two of iwari roads if you have at least four tents connected to each other via roads at the end of the game you will score one point for each tent in that clump so whilst you were busy fighting with green over tents and fighting blue over totems red has been quietly building a point-consuming monster and that's when you reach the final stage of iwari where you realize that there's too many fights for you to win all of them and the only way you're going to come out on top is if you pick the right ones but unlike games like go where important battles are hard to define iwori makes it very clear and in a bit of genius design dare i say more interesting anytime you score a region if you have the most tense in that region you'll score points for every tenth in that region yours and everyone else's let's say we're scoring this red region where there are a total of eight tenths yellow is first place with four tenths green is second place with two tenths and both blue and red are tied for third place with a single ten because yellow is first it will score the total number of tails which is eight because green is second it will score the first place's number of tens which is four and because red and blue are tied third they will score the second place's number of tens which is two a similar rule exists for totems if you have the most totems in two separate adjoining areas you'll score for every totem in those piles of totems what that means is that iwari is a game that constantly encourages one thing and one thing only have the most but it'll never let you win for having the most it'll let you win for placing the right piece at the right time if i have four tents in this area and red has two i would be daft to place another one sure i'd increase my score but i would increase their score by the same amount and because this battlefield evolves dynamically opportunities for finding the next smart move are constant in every game of iwari that i played there wasn't a single turn where i didn't have something good to do if you think you haven't got a good spot to place your tent or your totem it simply means you weren't looking hard enough some parallels with katan are obvious you're playing cards to place things you're fighting over territories you're even trying to build a big road but there's one other hidden parallel that might surprise you much like katan iwari is quite an old design and much like katan it used to look bunk iwari is in fact the fourth incarnation of this system and each time it was published it was published under a different name with a different theme and had different artwork and now obviously iwari is gorgeous which you know is better than looking like this i can't help but feel disappointed that katan failed to adapt with the times the only thing that's changed about it is the settlers of part being dropped from its name and the card art got changed a little bit and i thought the name change was cute when it happened katan trying to distance itself from its colonialist overtones but then katan studios which is the publisher currently publishing this game announced an expansion called legends of the conqueror katan you're doubling down in the wrong direction admittedly iwari isn't exactly perfect in that regard visually using totems might seem like a neat idea and that's until you consider that totems are religious symbols for indigenous people and if you don't understand what the problem with that is then imagine that these weren't totems but discs with jesus written on them add to that the fact that the yellow and orange totems have a nearly identical coloring i generally don't struggle with distinguishing colors but half the time i couldn't tell this apart which isn't an issue until you're playing with five players and whilst i love to recommend a product that requires some arts and crafts this could easily be fixed with a new coat of paint and maybe a wash so there you go if you want a gentle game with not much friction castles of tuscany is your go-to and if you want a ruthless tactical battle over territories grab iwari it even works well at 2 and katan just doesn't and both of these games are easier to learn and more fun to master but what if you want something bigger what if complexity doesn't intimidate you what if you want tech trees and trading resources and building fleets of ships well [Music] i'm a big believer that gatekeeping appears in different forms there's a lot of elitism in this hobby but thankfully over the years we've become much better at picking the right introductory games to just smooth people in but you know what's also gatekeeping forcing someone to play an introductory game when they want to go straight to the chewy stuff anno 1800 is a game full of texture and crunch it's a rich beef stew of a board game and it will leave you puzzling for hours in the most heady way excited well there is a caveat anno 1800 is fresh it is in fact so fresh that so far only a german version of this game exists that didn't stop me and elaine from playing it even though we don't speak german because there's a fan translated rulebook on boardgamegeek there's a link in the description and also most of the game is language independent so you can either order a german version like we did and i'll provide some links below where you can do that or just wait till the spring or maybe even as soon as january next year when you can buy the english version or if you're watching this in the future then none of this matters you might be familiar with anno 1800 the video game the latest entry in the anno series a thick city building dumpling bobbing in a resource conversion broth that's a lot of soup analogies i'm sorry i forgot to stock up on some other ones board games have a bad track record with video game adaptations they're frequently clunky underdeveloped or just plain bad thankfully anno 1800 bucks that trend and as a bonus they art assets seamlessly blend into the cardboard counterpart so you'd expect anode to look great and the back of the board certainly does but when you turn it to the front [Music] i know that this looks less like a board game and more like punishment with squares but under this visual card boredom lies the most delightful tech tree i've ever had the chance to toy around with in anno 1800 you'll be building a city and your player board already starts with a number of pre-printed factories that will make you such delights as planks clay spool girders and pigs each of these factories will produce their corresponding resource and those resources will be needed to build other factories so for example if you wanted to make a factory that makes soap you will need pigs and coal why do you need pigs to make soap honestly don't worry about it factory by factory you'll unlock higher tier resources to build higher tier factories that will unlock even higher tier resources to unlock even higher tier factories compressing the entire advancement of the industrial revolution into two hours inside a pressure cooker at the start of each game of anno you will be dealt nine cards seven from this three point deck and two from this eight point deck each card can be played and in addition to providing you with a bonus it will score you points but to play it first you must have the resources depicted at the top so this should now give you an idea on why you do things and how you do things these eight point cards are big scoring cards and they require resources at the top of the chain say you get dealt a card that requires coats you check the board to see what you need to build coats crates sewing machines and lure luro that sounds easy every player can make crates by default at the start of the game and how difficult can toilet paper be well turns out difficult enough because first you need blanks again a starting resource and then you need wool and to get wool you need to get one of these new world tiles that will let you temporarily trade for wool it's not available on any of the factories and then we need sewing machines and sewing machines need steel again a starting resource but then they need brass which needs crates and coal and then they need a purple worker and to get a purple worker you need crates coal steel and windows and windows need oh my god no just stop so that's one of the nine cards covered right no remember that coats are just one of the free resources depicted on this card you still need to get steam cars and cigars okay so to get steam cars you will need rubber steam engines and teeth i think the reason i'm not hesitating to recommend such a rich puzzle in a video that's aimed at people new to the hobby is because it's rich in complexity but it's not rich in rules and also because it's the best strategy game i've played since great western trail and that complexity doesn't come from intricate interactions all you need to play this game well is familiarity when you start a game of anno you're planted into a stable solid base and you're told exactly where you need to end up at the tip of this branch this branch and this branch i know they all kind of look the same but that's the point if you've never examined this tree before it would take time to trace a path but keep coming back here every day and you'll know all the grooves of this tree by heart this snarl of square tiles will become more and more homely as your synapses absorb and remember the pathways for example you learn that beer is a requirement on a huge number of cards but they might be cards you don't want to complete because the bonuses on them protract your ability to end the game and also it won't help you build a single other factory which might make your first couple of games long longer than you might like but after you play this game once or twice it'll be over before you know it just like life really if you think about it yeah i brought that back i recognize that for most people who are starting out in this hobby anna would be an apple too big to bite but you know who you are and if you are who you are don't buy anno but i think it offers something of katan that neither iwari nor castles of tuscany possess both of those are rich in tactics moment-to-moment decisions quick reactions but they offer very little in strategy long term planning the big picture stuff and i think katan is so ubiquitous because it blends both of those together and so does anno i've been sheepishly withholding the best bid in anno 1800 much like in catan you can trade resources meaning if there's a resource you need to complete a card or a factory you don't have to build every factory yourself you can simply trade with someone else in catan resources are cards like wood or bricks and when you want to exchange them you simply ask another player whether they would like to trade wood for sheep and that works great in principle but it's really annoying if nobody wants to trade for the thing that you have anno 1800 does not work like that but to explain trading in anno i first have to explain how you generate resources unlike in katan or most games actually resources are not represented by cards or tokens just imagining the amount of different decks of chit piles you would need would make this game impossible instead these resources are ether ethereal anytime you want to make a resource from one of your factories to let's say play a card or build another type of factory first you need to generate that resource by placing a worker of the appropriate type on the factory that makes that resource so for example if i needed to make planks i would place a farmer on the plank farm let's say you're trying to build a tin soup factory what do you need pig and steel send the farmer to the pig factory a craftsman to the steel factory and there you go delicious delicious soup elaine why does soup keep popping up in this video are we sponsored by like soup no sponsored by skillshare this video is sponsored by skillshare the online learning community that offers thousands of classes on various subjects everything from photography cooking interior design awareness and even board game design who knows maybe you'll be the person to design the next katan recently i watched the humor writing class by mike latcher who advised me to write done things and not worry about it and as you can see i really took that to heart now skillshare offers audio only tutorials great for when you're having a stroll in the park or walking your dog there are no ads no limits to how many classes you can take and it's less than ten dollars a month with an annual subscription the first 1000 of our subscribers to click the link in the description will get a free trial of premium membership so you can explore your creativity today okay let's imagine that scenario again let's say i'm trying to build a soup factory i send a farmer to farm the pig but i've used up all the spaces on my steel factory building other things not a problem as long as i have enough trade tokens i can spend them to use another player's factory they don't lose anything out of it in fact they will gain one gold which they can use to pay their workers overtime and retrieve the worker from one of the factories so they can use that work again and that factory again meanwhile i got the thing that i wanted most importantly there's no negotiation whenever you want to use another player's factory you just use it making anno 1800 the greasiest game in existence as everyone's engines are lubricated by the unctuous trade tokens that power this entire affair and my gosh it makes other players turns so exciting did you just build a sausage factory i wanted to build sausage but wait i can use your sausage what do you mean that's rude let me reiterate this again if this sounds too complex don't buy this game start off with the more gentle entries in this video and work your way up to it but if you want to somersault into this hobby via the deep end you couldn't pick a better springboard and with that we've come to the very end of this video we've given you all the tools all the knowledge all the information that you need to start or continue your board gaming journey without katan which means that you don't need it anymore no don't be sad all good things come to an end as gandalf once said all we have to decide is what to do with the board games given to us qatar had 25 long years in the limelight but now it's time to say goodbye it's time to say goodbye it's time to say goodbye it's time to say goodbye goodbye katan it's time to say goodbye to katan little wave goodbye to katan we've had some fun but now we're done let's all say goodbye to katana let's all wave goodbye to katan it's time to say goodbye to katan goodbye katan i'm standing on my knees to do the shot because i moved the chair already for the next shot oh geez i locked the flipping pieces on the ground

Channel: No Pun Included

Views: 155,539

Rating: 4.8249693 out of 5

Keywords: no pun included, board game, review, npi, boardgames, boardgamegeeks, brettspiel, brettspiele, jeuxdesociete, tabletop, games, juego de mesa, gamenight, 2019, catan, settlers of catan, alternative, comparison, instead, replace, sucks, bad, compare, replacement, anno 1800, castles of tuscany, iwari, goodbye, hbomberguy

Id: d2JmsKdgMkA

Length: 31min 26sec (1886 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/el_doctoro]

This is a nice video. From the title, I thought that Effka was going to propose some obvious alternatives to Catan (e.g. Azul, Quest for El Dorado, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Mission Red Planet). Which would have been fine for people completely new to the hobby (because those people might not know of the existence of the other big gateway games). Instead Effka used the video to introduce people to 3 newish games that some in the hobby might not have been familiar with. And it turns out that all three games might be worth a look (depending on what you are looking for in a boardgame). Iwari I already had, but now I have my eyes on those other two games.

[u/daehx]

I said good bye to Catan years ago. I appreciate it helping get me into the hobby, but I never need to play it again.

[u/CheerfulSunsinger]

(Cries in Sidereal Confluence)

[u/flexfulton]

I never met Catan. Got into the hobby with Puerto Rico and never went back.

[u/9boi]

I'd recommend Irish Gauge as the best alternative to Catan that I've played yet. It has a similar build/payout mechanic, but instead there's a simple share system, and no matter how poorly a player is doing, they can always take a full action. Plus the auction system is WAY faster and more interesting than the negotiation system in Catan.

[u/EddyMerkxs]

I was interested what his alternatives were, but I think his problem was focusing on specific aspects of Catan, and forgetting how abstract those board games appear to non gamers, or how pure euro games are one sided to skilled players. I am the first person to acknowledge the shortcomings of Catan, though I certainly have a nostalgic bias for it, I haven't found a game quite like it for some respects. It isn't abstract (buildings are points), there is a lot of player interaction (but not direct attacking), there is enough luck that it makes bad players feel ok, but there is enough skill that it's still fun for skilled players (mainly the meta conflict). Has anyone found a better version of catan in those respects?

[u/ComingUpWaters]

Meh, the arguments against Catan in this thread are just as tired. Complaining about luck in a widely accessible intro game. Complaining about a runaway leader problem in a game with player interaction every turn. Even the valid complaints could be just as easily levied at the recommended games. Losing the game based on first turn decisions sure seems to fit Tuscany's cumulative scoring. Old outdated mechanics doesn't seem far from the mark with 20 year old Iwari.

These recommendations are more consumerist cult of the new than anything else. Anno looks the best of the bunch by implementing what makes the video game fun, but isn't even out yet. Taking a chance on Tuscany seems silly when there's heaps of well regarded resource games like Concordia and I can't imagine starting someone out on conflict heavy Iwari. I should really just avoid Catan related discussions, its all been said before and there's nothing new to add.

[u/IvorDude]

I have found that Catan is the perfect amount of strategy, luck, and commitment to make everybody hate each other by the end. Monopoly wishes it was Catan. Tears have been shed over my copy, friendships ended.

[u/azura26]

For me, Concordia is the true Catan-Killer. It has the same kind of spatial puzzle, the same kind of indirect player interaction (minus the direct conflict with the robber), and the same sensation of racing to build in a limited space. It is a little more complicated than Catan, but it's oodles more interesting and rewarding to play.