Players: 1-4
Playing Time: 15 minutes
This new edition of the game features nicer components and a second way to play the game, but it's otherwise very similar to the original edition of the Catan Dice Game. As a result this review is largely based on that earlier one.
The Game Components
The Deluxe Catan Dice Game comes in a plastic clamshell, but is intended to be stored in the dice cup that comes with the game. The actual components just include dice and a game sheet pad.
Dice: Six plastic dice, each side of which is printed with one of the major Catan resources (red bricks, brown wood, yellow wheat, gray sheep, or black ore) or else gold-foiled gold. The dice are pretty easy to quickly and intuitively read, other than the fact that I sometimes confused gold and ore if the light wasn't bright enough.
Game Sheet Pad: A 50-page pad of double-sided sheets of paper. "Island One" is shown on the front of all the pages while "Island Two" is shown on the back; these represent the two different ways to play the game. Each of these sheets depicts the island of Catan along with the things you can build (roads, knights, settlements, and cities). Each page also contains a list of what's needed to construct all the items. Finally, each sheet contains appropriate spaces for you to mark your score.
Unlike in the original version of this game, these sheets are printed full-color and are generally highly attractive.
Dice Cup: A faux-leather dice cup with the Catan logo debossed on one side. It's attractive and useful for rolling the dice.
The dice cup includes with a top which fits snugly over the top. This is quite clever because it turns the dice cup into a carrying container, making it very easy to bring this game on the road.
To make sure that my review was complete, I stored all of the components in the cup for a few weeks prior to my first game. Everything fits well, though your game sheet pad will end up a bit warped. (In fact, the glue came off mine too, causing all the sheets to separate, which I expect is par for the course.) Though the results are not as aesthetic as you might like, I think they're entirely acceptable. It's easy enough to lay your game sheet flat again. And, having a very portable game is quite nice.
Rulebook: A teeny two-sided rulesheet that you have to fold somewhat ruthlessly to make it fit easily into the cup. Like the game sheets, it's printed full color. It contains lots of great illustrations that make it easy to learn the rules.
Overall, the components for the Catan Dice Game: Deluxe Edition are great quality and very good ease of use. The dice are a bit plain, but otherwise everything is quite beautiful. I've given it a full "5" out of "5" for Style as a result.
The Game Play
The Catan Dice Game: Deluxe Edition comes with two sets of rules. The Basic Game (Island One) is the set of rules that I covered in my original review of this product; if you expect to play with families or more casual gamers, I suggest you read that review, as the Basic Game is more likely to appeal to you.
Herein I'm instead going to review the Advanced Game (Island Two), which has many of the same rules, but varies some in what order you can build things and in how you score (and win).
Setup: Each player gets a game sheet.
It shows a map of Catan with potential buildings drawn upon it. A potential road runs around the island, with some branches, connecting up various potential settlements and cities. (I say "potential", because these are all the things that you can build, each in specified places, but clearly you haven't built any at start.) In addition there are nine potential knights--one atop each production hex and two atop each desert space.
There's a staggered start where the first three players roll three than four then five dice, before everyone settles on to six.
Rolling the Dice: On his turn a player throws six (or less) dice. He may then take a second roll, rerolling as many of them as he wants and then a third roll, doing the same.
Modifying Rolls. There are two ways to modify the final roll.
First, any two dice which display the gold nugget may be turned in to get one resource of your choice.
Second, you may use any constructed knight to turn a die into a resource of the type that the knight guards (but only once per knight over the course of the game). If you build both knights over a desert hex, you may use the pair of them up to turn one die into a resource of your choice.
Spending Resources: Once you've got your final set of dice, you can purchases stuff per the usual Catan costs:
- Road: brick, wood
- Knight: ore, sheep, wheat
- Settlement: brick, wood, sheep, wheat
- City: ore x3, wheat x2
Scoring Victory Points: Victory points are earned in exactly the same way as in the original Catan:
- Road: Might increase your road length by one; the player with the Longest Road earns 2VP.
- Knight: Increases your army size by one; the player with the Largest Army earns 2VP.
- Settlement: 1VP.
- City: 2VP.
Ending the Game: The game ends when a player earns 10VP.
Relationships to Other Games
The Advanced Catan Dice Game is a mash of Settlers of Catan and Yahtzee. Unlike the Basic Game, I feel like the Advanced Game really gives me a sense of Catan and makes me want to play the board game again; that's at least one sign that the dice game has achieved some of its purpose.
The Game Design
When I wrote my original review, I said that the Dice Game was a pretty simple game without the breadth of choices (or risk/reward opportunities) of Yahtzee. That still stands, but as I said in my earlier review, this isn't a complaint, simply a statement of the level of complexity for the game.
I did have a complaint about the fact that the Basic Game was completely solitaire and that's well addressed in the Advanced Game. Now, if you're in competition for either the Longest Road or the Largest Army you have to be constantly aware of what your opponents are doing and whether they're within striking distance of victory points you might be counting on.
I also think that the Advanced Game adds a few more options than the Basic Game enjoys. There is now some additional risk/reward when you try and go for one of those competitive victory rewards and you have to constantly weigh whether it's better to get permanent VPs from cities or settlements or to continue competing for points from roads and knights.
Overall, a serious player will definitely enjoy the Advanced Game more than the Basic Game. Though it doesn't remake the Catan Dice Game, it does add a smidgeon of strategy. As such I've given it a high "3" out of "5" for Style: slightly above average and I think a slightly better design than the Basic Game.
Conclusion
Catan Dice Game: The Deluxe Edition is all-around a step up from the previous edition of the game. It's much more attractive and nicely portable. It also contains a more advanced game which increases the interactivity and strategy of the game--though it remains a pretty simple offering.
