Mayfair Games has completed their flurry of Catan releases with The Struggle For Catan, a 2-4 player multiplayer card game which follows the revised editions of the 2-player-only The Rivals for Catan card game and the Catan Dice Game. All of these new games seek to emulate the Catan experience with a smaller, faster, and less expensive substitute, so how does The Struggle for Catan perform against its peers? Read on for the full review:
Just the Facts:
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
Age: 10 to adult
Publisher: Mayfair Games
MSRP: $15.00
Release: June 2, 2011
The Gameplay:
As is standard for Catan games, The Struggle for Catan is played until one player reaches ten points. They'll go about reaching that goal by collecting sets of resource cards, then trading them in to acquire roads, settlements, cities, knights, and a new type of building, the city expansion. The twist in this card game is that roads and knights, along with the victory point they grant, can change hands at any time.
Each turn begins with a trading phase, which works quite differently than in traditional Catan. Players can perform trades in any combination of the following three ways:
- Swap a card from their hand with an available card in the resource market (a row of five cards kept face-up next to the deck).
- Discard a card from their hand and draw a random resource card from the deck.
- Trade with an opponent by taking a random card from their hand and replacing it with any card from your hand (including the one you just took).
Simply put, when it comes to trading with other players, there is no wood for sheep in this game. Instead, it's wood for whatever I damn well feel like giving you.
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