Flowery maidens not included.

One of the key things CITIES AND KNIGHTS brings to the game is the ability to produce commodities in addition to the basic five resources. Cities placed on resource-producing hexes (mountains, plains, and forests) yield a resource and a corresponding commodity when their number is rolled. These commodities are used to upgrade your cities using this nifty calendar-like chart that really functions like an abstract tech tree.

As you increase in each of the three areas, the chances of getting to draw a development card from three decks that completely replace the cards from the original game. You’ll be rolling three dice each turn in CITIES AND KNIGHTS including a red die and one faced with the three development colors and a black ship. When the red number matches your development level and the city color is right, you get to draw. These cards have a wide variety of effects—some of which are pretty harmful to your fellow settlers. It all adds some fun, “take-that” excitement to the game and there is also an incentive to reach the fourth level of development and place a 4-point metropolis on one of your cities- quite a feather in the cap of an astute player and a big step toward winning the game. With this development mechanic, SETTLERS becomes closer to a CIVILIZATION-style game where the impetus to advance and improve becomes a key factor in victory.

Cities and Knights adds a bit more meat.

But that, of course, isn’t all. There are barbarians! These black-ship bandits move closer to Catan each time the ship is rolled on the development die and when they hit, it’s doomsday for the Settlers. That’s one of the places where the Knights come into play. Knights come in three sizes and they represent the armed militia of Catan, able to repel the dreaded robber as well as to defeat the barbarians. If the players have more knights than cities when the scofflaws land, the bad guys lose and the person who contributed the most knight strength gets a “Defender of Catan” victory point. If they lose, somebody’s city gets reduced to a lowly settlement. Ouch. Knights also have a couple of other strategic uses, such as blocking a player from building on a certain vertex that you’ve eyed for expansion. The knights and barbarians add a lot of drama and tension to the game at the cost of about two paragraphs worth of extra rules. Sure beats the heck out of collecting those soldier cards.

CITIES AND KNIGHTS is one of the best games ever published, and it is almost certainly the best expansion for any game to date. Yet there are still those who decry the fact that the game takes a little longer (a small price to pay for a deeper, richer experience) and some don’t care for the stronger degree of competition and player interference. I think that’s crazy talk, but the basic game is strong enough on its own and makes for a good family and casual gamer experience but CITIES AND KNIGHTS makes it a much more satisfying event for gamers who like the ratio skewed a little more toward meat than potatoes.

It also adds Barbarians!

There are also expansions for each of these expansions (as well as the basic game) that adds enough pieces for a fifth and sixth player. It’s kind of irritating that they’re sold separately but really, if you love the game as much as I do, you’re not going to be able to resist plunking down the $15 or so a set to get the whole deal. It’s a great game with five and six players although it does get exponentially longer so be prepared. My preferred mode of play is with all expansions to get the fullest CATAN experience possible. Sometimes we’ll play with all the tiles initially face down so players actually have to explore by building roads and ships to see what’s out there before deciding where to build.

Aside from these major, “canonical” expansions there are a number of small ones such as a FISHERMEN OF CATAN giveaway that appeared in gaming magazine and a few minor add-ons that have popped up here and there. Most of these are fairly negligible and do not really add much to gameplay. But I’d definitely say they’re a must-have for completists who want the most possible options to add to their SETTLERS games.

So there you have it. I hope that what you guys have pulled from these two articles is that the board game conversions offered on Xbox Live are great in their own respect but there’s plenty more to explore and enjoy beyond the box, so to speak. Will we see these released as downloadable expansions? Who knows, but for now the best—and only—way to check these out is to round up your friends for some tabletop, face-to-face gaming.