Catan is a board game phenomenon first published in 1995 and has gone to sell over 32 million copies in 40 languages. Alongside the base game, four expansions were released to varying success. With these kind of numbers, it is hard to find games like Catan, but not impossible.
Table of Contents
- What Makes Catan Unique?
- Carcassonne
- Terra Mystica
- 7 Wonders
- Imperial Steam
- Agricola
- Conclusion: How Easy Is It To Find Games Like Catan?
What Makes Catan Unique?
In order to find games like Catan, we’ve got to understand what makes Catan the game it is. Catan can be separated into three key aspects:
- Map Control: using tactics and strategy to control certain areas of the board.
- Tile Placement: Placing components on the board and building a story around the map.
- Resource Management: Generating, using, and trading in-game resources.
Carcassonne
Carcassonne exemplifies the tile Placement aspect of Catan. Inspired by the French medieval fortress with the same name, this game is all about shaping the French countryside. Turns start by picking tiles from a deck which may include a city, a road, an abbey, grassland, or any combination of these. Tiles can only connect to matching tiles, so a road must match a road, grassland to grassland etc. When you place a tile you may choose to place one of your meeples on the tile. The meeple will become a knight (city tile), monk (abbey tile) or robber (road tile). When the tiles are complete, for example, the road reaches another city tile, the meeple will earn you some points.
The strategy in this game comes from the fact that you only have one tile to place per turn. You need to be careful that you don’t do anything that will help your opponent get points. In addition, you only have 7 meeples, so you need to decide whether it’s worth placing them on a tile or not. To get the points from an Abbey, it must be surrounded by eight other tiles. This can mean that your meeple may be out of action for seven more turns. It’s all about weighing up how to use your tiles and your resources (meeple) in the best possible way.
Terra Mystica
Terra Mystica was directly inspired by Catan, it should come at not surprise that it shares many aspects. The game is all about the player terraforming the seven environments into their home environment. The seven biomes are as follow: Desert, Plains, Swamp, Lake, Forest, Mountain, and Wasteland. Each of these landscape house two races for a total choice of 14.
Players actions are defined by resource management, often through building structures. Dwellings allow more workers, Trading houses makes money, strongholds unlock your race’s special ability, and temples advance your religion allowing you to terraform and travel by sea.
There’s many layers to Terra Mystica similar to Catan. Building near other players may give you more power and help you control that region of the map, but it also makes it harder for you to expand. Its impressive that the publishers have been able to make a homage to Catan, but still unique.
7 Wonders
7 Wonders is certainly one of my top five Fleetwood Mac songs. In a board game context, however, 7 wonders is a card development game in which you need to develop your ancient civilization to build its wonder of the world. Over three ages you must: gather resources, develop trade routes, and build your military. All this is with the aim to conquer the landscape with your wonder that will stand the test of time.
Gameplay takes place through cards received at the beginning of each age. You start with seven cards, but may only play one, passing the rest to the player next to you. This continues until each player has six cards in play from that age. Cards may have immediate effects, like giving victory points, others may provide bonuses or discounts in later ages. It makes you think and consider what the best cards to play in any given situation should be.
Imperial Steam
Imperial Steam is sort of a combination of Catan and the train building aspects which makes Ticket To Ride so enjoyable. This game focuses keenly on resource management during the industrial age of Austria.
Players use workers to lay track, acquire resources and increase their influence by spending money – the game’s victory condition. When players reach industrial hubs, they can deliver resources from their factories to those cities and thereby spread their influence. This is where the Map control element from Catan is best represented. The player’s board keeps a record of their stored resources and worker availability.
Lastly, for those investors among us, the game offers you shares which can be sold for a cash infusion. However, players lose 10% of their final score for each share used. It’s a major risk and reward piece
Agricola
Agricola is like a medieval farm simulator, what strikes me most about it is how similar the pieces and tokens are to Catan. In Agricola you can take two actions per turn, one for you and one for your wife or husband. This may take the form of resource gathering and therefore management, collecting wood or stone to create fences. You may even have your partner make stables or plough fields. If its too much for you and your spouse you can have children in the game to help support around the farm – rather than the love of family! You must be careful though ensuing you have enough food to survive. The final score is determined by size and prosperity of their property.
Conclusion: How Easy Is It To Find Games Like Catan?
Games like Catan are hard to come by. Catan has a truly unique appeal and loved by millions around the world. It’s a tricky act to follow, but not impossible. A lot of modern board games use map control, tile placement, and resource management to define their game. Some focus on one of the three aspects, other try to incorporate them all. Certainly, on this list at least, Terra Mystica fulfils most of the requisites and is a spiritual successor to Catan, only made by a different publisher. Other honourable mentions include Suburbia and Century Spice Road.
