In last week’s column, I responded to the announcement of the River II expansion for the Xbox Live edition of CARCASSONNE with a critical stroll down CARCASSONNE Boulevard, where laying tiles and dropping meeples are a way of life. I think it’s interesting that the Xbox Live version of the game has been popular enough to warrant expansion and with such a variety of add-ons available I’m hoping some of the more digitally inclined gamers out there might be interested enough to check out some of them and start practicing for those online competitions when and if the expansions become available. This week, we’ll do the same thing but with a focus on the “other” Xbox Live board game: SETTLERS OF CATAN.

As of this writing, Microsoft hasn’t announced any intention or plans to expand the electronic edition of CATAN which is really a damn shame because as great as the basic SETTLERS game is on its own, the expansions open the game up dramatically and provide a much more detailed, engaging experience. When I first bought SETTLERS back in 1996, I had no idea that there were expansions for the game and when a little Internet research revealed that the German edition had a couple of them I immediately imported all of them at a ridiculous price…finding out too late that my US version of the game had completely different artwork, not to mention the fact that the game was completely auf Deutsche and had to be played with a printout of the English translations! We’ve got it at little easier these days with Mayfair Games releasing all of its expansions in English and with matching art to boot.

XBL Catan.

Like CARCASSONNE, SETTLERS is also a Spiel Des Jahres winner (1995) but the franchise that has followed the release of the original game is even more of an established brand; there are several CATAN spin-offs, some of which are quite good and some which are completely dreadful. Some are barely recognizable as CATAN series games beyond a few rudimentary mechanics. There’s been historical variants, a book of small expansions, add-on cards to eliminate the die rolling (for those who are allergic to them), a science fiction edition (STARFARERS OF CATAN), even a special edition made specifically for a German Whiskey distiller. And there’s also a 2-player only card game with its own expansions that is every bit as great as the board game but with a neat, CCG-like feel including customizable decks. But I’m getting way ahead of myself: a lot of you folks reading this might not even have picked up the basic game yet. Do so now before you proceed.

I’ll wait here.

Sunbathing native women not included

Got it? Good. Now get your friends and family to stop playing it long enough for you to have a look at where this game can go from here. SEAFARERS OF CATAN was the first expansion and rather fittingly, it really opens up the game tremendously by virtue of adding sea tiles, ships, and the possibility to take gameplay off of one big landmass and onto smaller islands. It doesn’t sound like much, and really the ships are pretty much the same thing as a road (except that it can move and you build them with wood and sheep— don’t ask…) but the scope of the game really takes off when you’re looking at possibly exploring islands for resource-rich tiles in addition to the routine duties of a Catanian civic planner.

Seafarers spreads things out a bit.

There’s a black pirate ship that functions like a robber and prevents ships from moving and there’s also a few gold mountain tiles that produce whatever your heart desires. In all, it’s really just a few add-ons that don’t really change much rules-wise but I really like the sense of a larger game world SEAFARERS creates. The rulebook includes several scenarios and setups but really the fun is in coming up with your own maps. Before long you won’t miss that single, hex-shaped landmass at all.

CITIES AND KNIGHTS, the other major expansion, is to the base game what THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is to A NEW HOPE. That is to say, it’s a continuation of themes, motifs, and concepts explored in the original but taken to a much richer, detailed, and ultimately more satisfying level. I think that CITIES AND KNIGHTS is very much the full flowering of the potential offered by the game system and honestly, I can’t imagine playing without the expansion particularly after over ten years of play. When my friends and I played with CITIES AND KNIGHTS for the first time, it was really a revelation because as much as we loved the basic game we all felt that it lacked the detail and specificity of the games we were playing prior to discovering the world of CATAN. What’s more, we thought the game lacked real, meaningful conflict between players. CITIES AND KNIGHTS addresses all of these things in a package that does increase the complexity of the core game but remains logically and systematically within its established boundaries.