The Starfarers of Catan

Complexity Medium Cost £50 Duration Long Players 3-4 expands to 6 Producer Mayfair Games (Kosmos) Size Large

Premise

The Catanians leave Earth and colonise space

Review

This game is probably the finest produced German game, and possibly the best ever. This is of course reflected in the steep price. The quality of the game components is quite outstanding in almost every respect and strikes you immediately when you open the large heavy box (not one for delivery by airmail :).

The aim of the game is to get 15 victory points, which you get by establishing colonies, trade missions with the four alien races, building spaceports and even by becoming famous. Although the game is a board game (with a large pretty board), the centrepiece of the game is the four large plastic motherships with their collection of snap-on upgrades. The motherships also contain four coloured balls visible in the transparent bottom part. These are used to determine how far your spacecraft move in a turn, and whether you have an encounter (by rolling a black ball). The picture doesn't really do them justice. Their size is quite amazing. You add to the mothership by cashing in resources, two carbon equals one cannon etc.

Game setup is straightforward, but takes a while if you don't keep the components sorted. The game plays in a similar manner to the original Settlers. You roll for resources - every colony next to a planet with that number gets the associated resource for that planet. If you roll a seven, anyone with more than 7 resource cards loses half, and you get to take a random card from another player.

You can then spend your resources to buy mothership improvements, new ships, space ports etc. If you have less than 9 VPs you also get a free random resource. As in Settlers you can exchange 3 of a kind for any one resource (2 of a kind for trade goods). You can also trade with other players.

Then you roll the mothership to see how far you move or to see if you get an encounter. If there is a black ball you get an encounter and a base move of three. Otherwise you add up the values of the colours, add in any bonuses for boosters etc. and move all of your spacecraft up to that distance.

If you roll an encounter, the player to your left takes one of the pretty encounter cards. This is a programatic question/answer. e.g. You meet a trader, how many resources (upto 3) do you give him. Your answers determine the response (usually). Many of the cards are similar, so you may in fact get a generous trader or a pirate, in which case you have to fight. Often you will have your mothership compared with another players, which means that if you fall too far behind in the mothership upgrade stakes, you can come a cropper in the encounters.

When you get to a planet, you will find a numbered disc on it, just like Settlers, except that it is face down and only turned face up if someone colonises it. There are also ice worlds and pirate worlds, which require your mothership to have a certain number of freight rings, or blasters before you can inhabit. If you do "fix" these special worlds you gain a VP and draw from a special reserve for the numbered disc.

The real way to win however, are the four alien starbases. To gain their favour (and their victory points), you establish trade centers on the five numbered spaces around their starbases. Each time you establish a base, you get to choose from a pack of special ability cards. You also get the 2 VP friendship disc if you have the most trading centres there (earliest breaking ties). In all there are 8 VP available which is certainly enough to make sure you win the game if you can get all four usually. One problem you will have however is that the higher cost spaces require you to have a corresponding number of freight rings before you can occupy them.

The only thing I really don't like is the split of the rule book, which is beautifully laid out in colour on high quality card, and the almanac which has various examples and the more complex rules. I think it would have been better to put all the main rules onto the card, adding a third page perhaps, and to potentially eliminate the Almanac which is a historical hangover from the original Settlers series of games. The player help sheets could have contained much of this information too on their unused backs.

These are minor quibbles however, and the game manages to be visually appealing without sacrificing game play. If you've played Settlers a lot, you may find the game a bit limiting after a while, but for most people this will not be a problem. Note that the game does not suppport one or two players, although it is possible to play Solatire reasonably easily if you screen the text on the encounter cards.

Expansions

5-6 Player Expansion

This expansion is available in German and English. From all accounts, it slows the game down a bit without significantly enhancing the game.

The expansion isn't cheap, but it does include two more motherships and associated parts, and a collection of removable overlays for the board.

Die fürsten der Völker

There are also five 2.5 inch high plastic figures available to replace the alien friendship tiles. These are extremely good value and enhance the game. The UK price is about £15. The figures can be used with any version of the game as they do not change any rules.

Rating

Back to Home Page