Settlers of CatanFollow

Anyone ever play this board game?

A friend of mine brought it over this weekend and we played a couple of games. It's simple yet complex and the replay is pretty good. Apparently it's been out for a quite a while and is fairly popular.

I'm thinking of buying it and its expansions and was wondering if anyone had any insight as to which to purchase first. Which expansion is a must and which ones are okay?

I downloaded it on Xbox Live, it was pretty fun for a while.

I don't think I'd care for an electronic version. There's just a certain appeal to playing certain board games as opposed to their electronic counterparts; ie Monopoly, Risk, etc. It's just not the same.

I might check it out later if I remember. Right now I'm a little too busy at work and also getting ready to go on vacation.

The other thing I forgot to mention about the website I linked is that it has a large number of maps, some of which are sort of like scenarios (resources hexes are in specific positions, and sometimes the numbers are also preset). One map that I find fun is one that has nothing but forests, and is covered in 2:1 trading ports. Others involve an island with desirable hexes (i.e. gold mines with a 6 or 8 - if you don't know what a gold mine is it is a resource hex that lets you pick whatever resource you want when that number is rolled), separate islands for each resource type, and many more. It's a good way to offer variety and interesting gameplay strategies from the normal game (while still staying true to it).