And we shall call this land... This Land.

So, the greatest board game of all time. Well, I did promise. Its a hard choice, less because my choice is slightly obscure and very good, and more because I'm afraid someone will show me up with their even-more-obscure-and-even-better alternative.

No, it's not Diplomacy, though that was on the short-list. It's not Zendo either, though I'd very much like to play more of it if I could find people interested. In which case, it must be...

Settlers of Catan. Greatest Board Game of All Time.

What is it? And more importantly, what makes it great?

First off, Settlers of Catan is a game about competing groups of colonists (or perhaps, settlers) establishing a new colony on the previously-uninhabited island of Catan. The game board is made up of a series of hexagonal squares (erm... hexs?) which each represent a certain type of terrain, and more importantly, the resource which is produced by that terrain. The hexs have numerical values from 2 to 12 (skipping 7) assigned to them.

Each player, representing one group of settlers, controls a network of roads and towns built on the edges and corners of these hexs. During each player's turn, two dice are rolled, and the hexs containing the resulting value generate one Resource Card of the appropriate type to any player with a town bordering that hex. The players use these resources to build further roads, towns, and cities, or to purchase Development Cards, which have a variety of effects. Players are also free to trade amongst themselves, allowing them to obtain resources to which they would not otherwise have access.

Part of what makes Settlers great is the (relative) simplicity of the rules. Alright, its a little hard to explain in words, but any kid could learn to play in five minutes with the board in front of them. Despite this simplicity, however, the game dynamics are complex and multilayered, varying from game to game.

Part of this is the board design. The hexs are seperate from one another rather than part of a traditional 'board', allowing them to be shuffled and arranged randomly. Likewise, the numerical values are printed on seperate tokens, allowing them to be similarly randomized. In this way, each new game requires different tactics, as different resources become abundant and different regions gain importance.

More importantly, the trading mechanism generates a vital social element which likewise add complexity to the game. Even in a two-player game, opponents still have incentive to trade with one another in mutually beneficial ways (just like in real life), and with more than two players it is easily the most common way to secure scarce resources. Playing board games is, at the fundamental level, a social experience, and Settlers embraces this in a way only a few other games do.

Speaking of the game's social aspect, it should be noted that Settlers manages to tread the thin line between competitive and cooperative, striking a strange but satisfying balance between the two. This is because there is no direct conflict between players. Sure, you might wish you could send your knights to march into the other guy's town and burn it to the ground, but the game's called "Settlers of Catan," not "Barbarian Holocaust." The nastiest thing you can do to another player is either send the Robber to block one of his hex's production, build roads where he wanted to build roads, or steal a couple resource cards.

At the same time, you're definitely not on the same side, and the trading can be quite fierce, depending on the group of people with whom you play. However, there are marked advantages to be had by at least cooperating to some extent, and thus players are forced to be somewhat more diplomatic. The fact that no one can be eliminated before the end of the game and that the player in last has the advantage of not being anyone's primary target (allowing more favorable trade and less shenanigans) makes Settlers very 'loser-friendly', and since every game must have a loser, its important that that person is also having fun.

In conclusion, Settlers of Catan succeeds as a board game by doing exactly what these games are meant to do: helping a group of people have fun together. At the same time, its rich complexities make is a game not quickly discarded, and Settlers of Catan can be enjoyed just as much on your first time playing as it can your four-hundredth.

So, anyone up for a game?

Next Time: Rene Descartes & A Beginner's Guide to Terminator Detection