Cities and Knights

Having a hard time looking for threads on this Catan expansion. Is this the good one? I assume so because it's the one they packaged with the 300 dollar edition. How does it make the game beter? It reads a bit like they turned up the complexity all the way to 11. The fact that some cities produce double resources and some produce commodities, depending on the tiles they are on irks me.

kookoobah wrote:

Having a hard time looking for threads on this Catan expansion. Is this the good one? I assume so because it's the one they packaged with the 300 dollar edition. How does it make the game beter? It reads a bit like they turned up the complexity all the way to 11. The fact that some cities produce double resources and some produce commodities, depending on the tiles they are on irks me.

It adds new ways to screw with your opponents and new things to buy. It's either essential or a travesty, depending on whom you ask.

The "development cards" of the base game are completely replaced by:

- knights, which can do battle on the board (though this might occur only rarely, depending on your group's style of play)
- an invading barbarian ship, which will reduce a city to a settlement if the players have not collectively contributed enough to the defense of the island
- a kind of tech tree for cities -- advancements are purchased using commodities (paper, textile, coins)
- lots of "take that"-style card play

If you ever found yourself wishing you could Ameritrash-up Settlers, then you were wishing for this. It makes the game longer, more complicated, and meaner. If you want a version of Settlers that demands deep contemplation and silent chin-stroking, this is not it.

Starfarers of Catan is another take at an Ameritrash version of Settlers.

One of my favorite games of all time.

But a lot of people hate it. Most for some bullshit reason, but I have heard a couple of reasonable points. They're still morons though cause it rules.

Some strategies that work in the base game do not work well in Cities and Knights. Newbies who try to win by dominating bricks are going to get shafted and then declare the game broken.

When players select their initial settlement and city, they will need to ensure that they have access to wheat, ore, and wool. Without these, you can't build knights, so you're in peril of losing your city. Anybody whose city is sacked during the first barbarian invasion is going to HATE the game. For one thing, it's a huge setback: 1/3 of your production capacity is lost. For another, if the reason that you couldn't get a knight was that you had no access to wheat or ore, then that same problem will prevent you from rebuilding your city.

If you don't have a city, and you can't afford to build knights, then you will NOT have fun. The game is called Cities & Knights for a reason. You'll be playing the base game, while your opponents will be using all the wicked kewl elements of the expansion to kick your ass. You'll want to feign death, just to get out of the game. Trust me, falling head-first out of your chair and twitching on the floor is a lousy solution; the guys at work WILL ask you about the rug burns on your forehead.

Make sure that newbies understand the crucial importance of having a knight early in the game, or there will be bitterness and resentment. And rug burns.

What everyone else said. It ups the complexity, the interaction, and the screwage. It can get straight up nasty; I've had games of this that have come close to table-flipping. It also ups the length if that's a concern for you. Personally, I find it hard to take the base game seriously having played the awesomeness that is C&K.

Is it different enough to comletely change an opinion of the base game? I really don't like Settlers -- but the sounds of higher interaction and screwage sounds appealing.

Depends on what exactly you don't like about Settlers. The core mechanics are largely the same; the resource values change slightly because of the early importance of Knights, and there are a few more build options with commodities in the mix. But it's a game with a lot more weight and tension - it plays similarly but to me it feels like a different animal.

Juniper wrote:

Starfarers of Catan is another take at an Ameritrash version of Settlers.

Starfarers of Catan and Starship Catan are different games, right? And Starfarers is OOP for some reason?

Starship Catan is a 2 player card-based game (similar to Settlers The Card Game).

Starfarers is 4 players (expandable to 6) and is indeed OOP. One of the main attractions of Starfarers is the "mothership" each player gets, but the production must have been fairly expensive (and would be even more so nowadays) and they fucked it up by having the plastic be too rigid so parts would frequently snap off.

This defInitely the expansion to get. We won't even play without it now, although we were getting tiered of the base game. It doesn't make it that much more complicated, it just seems that way when you read the rules for the first time. Everyting is implemented quite organically and some of the knight abilities are fuckin awesome. Like being able to move the robber, or, and this is mean, purposely activating one of your knights so you can't beat the Barbarians, but knowing you still have more then the jerk across the table who wouldn't trade with you last turn and by default forcing him to loose a city to the hordes... Fuckin mean.

The "tech tree" for cities is damned cool too, some of the abilities really rock, like being able to collect two resources of your choice when your numbers don't come up, or trading any commodity with the board at a 2:1 ratio.

Don't be scared by the complexity, this is a much better game by far.

It's a great expansion, and it's only downside is that it makes a one our game into a 2-3 hour game. It essentially ups the screwage, the interaction, and the complexity.

Space Ghost, it is probably more for people who almost loved Catan, but felt it needed a little more of an "epic" feel to it. If you flat-out didn't like the base game, this may change your mind, but I doubt it.

JonJacob wrote:

Tpurposely activating one of your knights so you can't beat the Barbarians, but knowing you still have more then the jerk across the table who wouldn't trade with you last turn and by default forcing him to loose a city to the hordes... Fuckin mean.

One of my favorite moves in all games. It's so awesome when you start to do it and whoever is going to get screwed starts to recognize what's happening to them. But I also like to incorporate that into my trading... oh by the way, I'll let barbarian's eat your face unless you hook me up with this one sided trade...

Maybe I just haven't played Cities & Knights enough, but I wonder whether the added complexity deepens the strategy at all. I suspect that much of the variety and interest that the expansion brings to the game is tactical in nature, not strategic.

The tech trees, for example, introduce tactical decisions about *when* to buy an advancement, but there are no decisions about *what* to buy. In fact, it's not accurate to call them tech trees: they're more like upgrade paths, since there are no branches. The only strategic "what to buy" decision occurs when you first select one of the three upgrade paths.

Furthermore, some strategies that work in the base game (like the all bricks, all the time strategy) don't work well in Cities & Knights. For that reason, I think that the expansion replaces some strategies with others, but the net number of viable strategies may not actually increase.

I think it's clear, though, that the expansion fills the game with new tactics, like the brutal "flip a knight so that the barbarians land on the island" trick that's been discussed above. One of my personal favorites is the card that allows you to exchange the position of two number chips on the board. That one can be devastating if you use it in the right situation.

One of my personal favorites is the card that allows you to exchange the position of two number chips on the board. That one can be devastating if you use it in the right situation.

Say what you want about the "Deactivate Knight -> Burn Someone Else's City" move, it's got nothing on this card.

This move WILL end marriages and is so delicious to do. Especially when you take that number you wanted at start but that someone took before you could go.

Or, alternatively, when they steal your number and then that number never comes up again.

Is this the best expansion? Between Seafarers, Traders and Barbarians and Cities and Knights, which should I pick up?