Pro/Con Review | Die Siedler von Catan - Kartenspiel: Ritter & Händler

Crazy Adam, 55378008

(freechinanow)

Canada
Toronto
Ontario

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Hopefully this writeup will offer a short and helpful pro/con review for those trying to make their mind up about playing or purchasing this expansion.

GAME: SETTLERS OF CATAN CARD GAME (1996)
EXPANSION: KNIGHTS & MERCHANTS
PUBLISHER: RIO GRANDE GAMES

PROS

- Interesting Knight events and actions. As the title suggests, a main part of this expansion is the extended focus on Knights. From the Lady Imelda card that woos a Knight away from your opponent (to the discard pile) to the power of the Raid that allows the player with the strongest army to destroy one of their opponent's buildings, these new events and actions get players to really focus on the expansion of their army. Another intriguing card, Border Dispute, allows the player with the largest army to exchange a Region card of their opponent's with one of their own (as long as each player has at least two of that type of Region). With these cards in the stack, the largest army is no longer just worth a victory point, but can decisively win the game through actions and events.

- Walter the Minstrel. Armed only with a lute, Walter the Minstrel spurs his Army with nothing more than a song. Apart from awarding his controlling player with 6 Tournament points, his savage-soothing songs prevent the Black Knight from taking him out. Neat!

- New buildings to beef up your Knights. There are new buildings introduced that introduce a variety of benefits to pursuing a large Army. Some will reduce the costs of Knights, other will enhance the Tournament points of your entire Army.

- Enhanced Commerce powers. New cards give the player with the largest Commerce points the ability to steal resources. Other cards will increase your Commerce points if you decide to become the strongest Merchant in the game. Like the new Knight cards, these Merchant cards give new urgency to the Windmill Token.

- The Palace. I like this new building. With it, you have the ability to take a card from the discard pile into your hand when a Year of Plenty is rolled, instead of taking one resource. Things in the game can turn when you can dust off Action cards and use them again against your opponent.

CONS

- High screwage. Most of the interaction in Settlers of Catan Card game is screw-your-opponent abilities. Fortunately, it is not too heavy in the base game. The K&M expansion adds that much more screwage to the game. I find in the base game, most players fight back and forth for the Tokens, as 1 to 2 extra VPs can bring the game to an exciting conclusion. With K&M, if your opponent has the tokens and has managed to entrench them with all the new building powers, you end up spending the rest of the game counting the clock until you are inevitably pulverized. Obviously, you can't disregard the Tokens, especially using K&M. But having the power to steal from your opponent every second turn can be demoralizing for your opponent, and in the end I was just stealing gold just so my opponent didn't feel so down-trodden.

- Peasants. It could be personal, but the Peasants Unit card (that gives you strength points based on how many grain resources you have beside it) is a bit much to deal with. This is especially so when you are close in number to the strength points of your opponent. You have to keep counting every time you use your grain, and you might find yourself having to give and take back the Knight token every turn. With so much already to keep track of in SOC:CG, this one card adds a whole other dimension of keeping track. An interesting idea, but not my cup of ale.

FINAL COMMENT

If anything can be said for Knights & Merchants, it is that it makes the wooden tokens that much more necessary. While 1 or 2 VPs and an occasional resource steal might be all that you regularly need, this expansion does have the effect of changing your strategy, not just adding more of the same to the base game. However, the additions to your abilities by controlling the tokens gives you more powers to screw your opponent, which can make for a nasty game. For me, the benefits of the tokens without the expansion are enough. I would include this expansion in my game if I wanted to shake up the routine strategies. But for playing against somebody who is not all too familiar with the base game, I know that the "beat-you-when-you're-already-down" powers of the new cards might make for a sad game. For those of you who play the Tournament game, there is a card unique to those rules, so you might want to check that out. Overall, I think K&C can shake things up for those who are tired of the same old strategies, but might shake too much up for those who still marvel at new strategy discoveries in the base game.

(Note: This expansion includes some cards already in the base game to balance out the new cards, and there are other new cards included that I did not reference in this review.)

Posted Thu Jul 29, 2010 7:00 am
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Kyle W.

(Woelf)

United States
Up Nort' Der
Wisconsin

...and furthermore, tipping answers in GeekQuestions should be fixed.

Me Grimlock teach Hulk everything he knows about smashing.

Great review!

We've had the set with all of the expansions for while, but K&M is the only one we haven't actually played yet. Just from flipping through the cards it looked like the screwage factor could be high, and you've just confirmed that. My wife almost definitely won't like this one, but a friend of ours that has also played the game most likely will.