What board game can captivate, challenge, and entertain family members from elementary to adulthood?  A game that is new, exciting and different every time?

Drum roll please…it is called, “The Settlers of Catan“.  This game has boundless possibilities of adventure.

In our home, this game is played daily at the least.  When friends come over they want to play at least twice, sometimes 3 times. 

Then when everyone finds out we have expansions and extended versions of the game…it is quite difficult to keep them contained.

With the premise of the game being, you trying to establish your own settlement by acquiring resources and victory points needed to secure a settlement. 

With Seafarers you add the adventure of water trade. 

Cities & Knights, you try to defend your city with knights.

Then there is Traders & Barbarians…oh my.

The base game that is absolutely needed is Settlers of Catan, the other games are add-ons.  They add more time, more strategy, more fun.  The base game can only accommodate up to 4 players and the expansion can add 2 more, with a total of 6 players.

When we have a group of more than 6 kids, they usually team up.  We just got another Settlers of Catan and will try to add these two together plus expansions so up to 12 people can play. We’re going to have to modify the new pieces to individualize them.

Guys and gals love to develop their strategy and implement plans that will have to be reinvented each time they play. 

You cannot imagine the energy that this game generates in people.  It is truly going to be the stuff memories are made of. When my kids grow up and look back at their childhood I’m sure it will be filled with thoughts of laughter, food, friends and life….ahhhh if we could all have memories like that.