Official Settlers of Catan out now on App Store
Posted Oct 30th 2009 10:00AM by Mike Schramm
Just in case you missed it, I got my wish from a while back: there is an official version of the classic board game Settlers of Catan, called just Catan, on the App Store right now. I'm still playing Kolonists, the unofficial knockoff that got kicked off of the store for infringement, but if you've got wood for sheep, this official version should get you your portable fix. If you're unfamiliar with the Catan juggernaut, check out this thorough piece from Wired.com.There's hot seat multiplayer gameplay (I assume you just can't cheat by looking at what resources other people have), or a few AIs to tangle with if you don't have friends at hand, and the game includes a scrollable board to play on, game stats to track, and a tutorial for those of you who haven't rolled the dice and tried to build the Longest Road yet.
The game is created by United Soft Media, a German company that's also ported the game to the DS, and while it's not quite as shiny as the Xbox Live port (my personal favorite version of the game, outside of the real thing, of course), the reviews on iTunes say it gets the job done, at least while you're waiting for the next board game night (and while we're talking about board games, can I recommend Dominion? Best table game I've played in years). The game is $4.99 and available right now. Anyone have any ore?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Doug Stewart said 10:28AM on 10-30-2009
Awww crud. There goes any chance of me being productive. EVER AGAIN.
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El Wozo said 10:48AM on 10-30-2009
Hey everyone, I have wood for goats!
What?!? I said I have wood for goats.
Why are you laughing?!?
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Cthulhugus said 12:55AM on 11-01-2009
Is that Wood for Goats joke from Knights of the Dinner Table? I remember reading an issue that was a running joke while playing this game. I didn't know anyone else ran that comic, even though it has ran for over 150 issues.
TheRobber said 10:56AM on 10-30-2009
What you really need is to walk around the airport sporting on these "Got wood for sheep?" t-shirts
http://www.cafepress.com/+got_wood_for_sheep,49347633
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TrevorNYC said 11:02AM on 10-30-2009
Hmmm, I wonder if there is any hopes of having the various expansion packs. I haven't learned anything other than the basic Catan because they never had any expansions on the Xbox version. I bought all of the variants, but all the extra types of things to purchase seemed daunting.
I'll trade you one ore for a brick and a wood.
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gittenlucky said 11:24AM on 10-30-2009
WIN!
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cdogg said 11:35AM on 10-30-2009
Wow. I just played through a game. This is actually not too shabby, just make sure to look at some of the options (fast animations and turn off the "chit chat").
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Ben Swain said 1:09PM on 10-30-2009
I've been playing Kolonists. Does the official version offer anything than Kolonists doesn't?
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mrfragger said 1:22PM on 10-30-2009
Inteview with Jay Tummelson (riograndegames.com Publisher of Dominion)
8:10 in the video http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2407649
Are you looking into video game markets, Xbox Live, Playstation?
I'm currently negotiating or at least looking at the business from several companies to license Dominion and Race for the Galaxy on 'multiple platforms.' Expectation is that stuff will be out sometime in the ?????
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Dreamwriter said 1:34PM on 10-30-2009
I got the game the other day. It's OK, but has some issues - the biggest one is that it's just so slow-paced. After playing the XBox 360 game, I'm used to the computer turns going by fairly quick. Games take f-o-r-e-v-e-r because of that.
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Bob said 2:18PM on 10-30-2009
Kolonists stopped working for me shortly after being pulled from the app store. Figured it was disabled from the mother ship. But it still works for you?
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Ben Swain said 2:39PM on 10-30-2009
I've played it recently without any problems. It's a pretty decent version of the game, so I'm interested to know if there are any differences between it and the official version. Implementing the add ons would be nice.
Bob said 3:02PM on 10-30-2009
In the official version, you get resources when dice are thrown and the number matches that of a resource hex adjacent to one of your settlements; you have a chance of receiving resources on each players' turn. In Kolonists, you get what you're adjacent to when it's your turn, automatically, but only when it's your turn.
In the official version, you can trade with other players, as well as the bank. In Kolonists (IIRC), you can only trade with the bank.
Kolonists will keep a running tally of your "score", accumulating with each game. The official version doesn't do this.
Kolonists is prettier; the official version visually busy.
Kolonists AI players are stoic, silent busts; AI players in the official version are cartoons, and, to me, at least, annoying.
bshigenaka said 3:37PM on 10-30-2009
The XBOX Live version of Catan sure is pretty, but the single-player mode is embarrassingly flawed.
If you play with random dice rolls, difficulty is controlled by making sure that the AI characters get their numbers and you don't. If you set the game to use the "deck" method of insuring that every combination of the dice appears (as their devs recommended to me when I exposed their crutch), the app lamely forces all of the AI rolls to appear early, only hitting your numbers at the very end of the deck.
Think I'm wearing a tinfoil hat? It's not hard to reproduce the pattern I'm describing above: set the game on its hardest single-player setting, use the "deck" method of rolling the dice and don't shuffle the deck until all the cards are used, and play. You'll notice that unless you share all the most common numbers (6,8) with multiple AI players, your numbers will not come up until late in the deck. If you're good enough, you can actually time your strategy around the incredible onslaught of resources you get every five or six turns.
I had quite an argument with the devs about this flaw, which practically ruins the single-player mode of the game for anyone of an advanced enough level. They refuse to admit that's how they gave their AIs an advantage. I'm all for setting the AI players to plot against you (through refusing to trade and placing the robber only on your resources), but lame coding is lame coding.
I can only hope the iPhone version is more robust, but I've given up hope of finding a decent single-player version of this game... I'll stick to playing it live with friends I guess.
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Mark said 5:42PM on 10-30-2009
It's waaay too slow paced. I could probably play an actual game of Settlers in less time.
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TshirtGroove said 6:22PM on 10-31-2009
I'm so stoked about this new app. I'm gonna get it as soon as possible. I don't care about the negative reviews from people here, because this is my favorite board game of all time.
Best day ever = playing this game on my Touch and wearing the "Yes We Catan" Tshirt:
http://tshirtgroove.com/yes-we-catan-tshirt/
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