The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension
5-6
12+
60+
Publisher
"White Glove Demo"
An overview of the 5-6 player extensions.
4:54
Extend your The Settlers of Catan game to include more players and more scenarios. More tiles, more resource cards, more development cards, and components (settlements, villages, roads) for two additional players.
Allows for two additional players to be added to The Settlers of Catan.
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It seems that after your initiation with the base game, you have decided to introduce more people to the hobby. It is great, then, that Settlers can be played by up to 6 players with this expansion. Right? Let’s see…
The rules: the rules are the same as the base game. The only addition is a step between turns, during which any player may choose to build. In this way, the downtime until the next turn of a given player comes is a bit shortened, and this is also a means to decrease the risk of losing cards because of the robber.
The opinion: the game with 5 and 6 players definitely takes a lot longer to complete. As a result, it can become quite tedious and boring, especially for someone who is left behind and has no chance of winning. Although my first games of Settlers included this expansion (as my usual gaming group consists of 6 people), I now no longer play with more than 4. If your gaming group is larger than 4, perhaps you should spend the money on a different game and not take this expansion. On the other hand, some people may feel that 5 and 6 player games mean even more negotiation, thereby enhancing the experience. Proceed with care.
Be ready to take a hit on the game time when you add this expansion. I still like this expansion, but you have to factor in the added time of more players trading and analyzing their options. You can add up to two more players with this “extension”.
Some complain about the extra build step that everyone gets after a player’s turn, but that is so you’re less likely to get hit with the robber when you hand starts to pile up waiting for your turn. 5 or 6 rolls of the dice between your turns can create a lot of resources for you in the late game was you expand. I can see why they added the new build step, but that also adds to the play time. If you lose a big hand due to the robber, you more than likely didn’t take advantage of the extra build step, so shame on you.
Overall, I like this expansion, but it can take a while to finish a game.
This expansion is great to allow more players to play the original Settlers of Catan game at once. Even if you don’t have more players, the additional tiles let you expand the game area, so players aren’t struggling as much to expand.
This game comes with additional components and tile pieces to accomodate up to two more players (up to 6 total). Adding additional players can make the game last longer, but there is a rule to account for this; at the end of each players’ turn, everybody is allowed to build in player order. This helps both prevent the long downtime between turns, and also to cut down your hand size in case if the robber gets rolled. This latter part is very important because otherwise you would get so many cards before your turn came, that you could fill up your hand and otherwise not have the opportunity to avoid a robber if it came up on your turn or just before your turn.
When it comes to Gateway Games – the games that you can get out and play with family and friends with aim of offering a play experience beyond the dreariness of Cluedo, Monopoly, and Scrabble – there is a trinity of titles that every gamer should have at least one of, if not all three. They are, in order of publication, The Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and the relatively more recent Ticket to Ride. Yet whilst the latter two support a reasonable number of players – between two and five, The Settlers of Catan handles either three or four, no more, no less. In order to expand the game and add more players, The Settlers of Catan needs The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension.
As its title suggests, The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension allows a fifth or sixth player to The Settlers of Catan. It does so by providing the wooden pieces for the two new players; new terrain hexes – including a second Desert or an extra home to the Robber Baron; new resource cards; new Development Cards; two “Building Costs” reference cards; and twenty-eight numbered tokens – with which to mark the terrain hexes; and the rules. Essentially everything to expand your Settlers of Catan game from four to five and six players, including what they can harvest, what they can build, and the extra terrain they can build across.
The only change to the rules between The Settlers of Catan and The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension is that the players get an extra action, one that they can do between everyone else’s turns. This extra action is building. Simply, a player can build in between his opponent’s turns, though this must be done in player order around the table.
This change is necessary because otherwise, whilst a player awaits his next turn, he can quickly accumulate a handful of resource cards as his opponents roll the numbers on the hexes that he has his towns and cities alongside, so generating resources. This would not be a problem were it not for the fact that there is every chance of a seven being rolled on the game’s two six-sided dice, thus bringing the robber baron into play and forcing every player to discard half of the resource cards in his hand.
So far, so good. For what you have with The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension is the perfectly serviceable means to expand the base game, with little change in the rules or mechanics. If you have played the basic game, then playing with this expansion is neither challenging nor does it present very much more of a challenge than is present in the basic game.
What challenges that The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension does present come in the form of more competition for the locations that will bear desirable resources (does The Settlers of Catan have anything else?); the opportunities to build the Longest Road (well, the island of Catan just got bigger, so the Longest Road can now be a whole lot longer); and more opportunities for trade. That said, even with the rule about players being able to build between turns, one of the things that The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension does add to the game is time. Not just in terms of overall playing time, but also in terms of waiting time between a player’s turn because there are more players who want to trade and then everyone will want their opportunity to build between turns.
Ultimately, there are faster and easier Gateway Games for five players. Not for six players though. The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension does add that option, and it does it reasonably well. True, the joins between the base game and the expansion do show in their ability to slow game play down, but if you can overlook this, The Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension extends a classic as best it can.
This is a short review for the Settlers of Catan – 5-6 Player Extension set.
To make any use out of this set, you will need the following:
The Settlers of Catan
This 5-6 player expansion allows another two players to join the fun. The set comes prepared with all the components necessary to ramp the ‘The Settlers of Catan’ game up to six players, and provides two new coloured sets of playing pieces: Green and Brown. I like this because you now have the extra colours to choose from when playing just the basic game. It also provides extra Resource and Development Cards to cater for the added players.
The ‘Special Building Phase’:
The main difference between this expansion and the basic game is that all players get a ‘free build’ stage in between each player’s turn. Say you’ve just finished your turn – all other players are then allowed to build Roads, Settlements, Cities and Development Cards using only the Resources they have in their hand. No trading is allowed. Nor are players allowed to play Development Cards during this stage. The reason for this new phase is beacuse people are picking up many more cards than usual due to the added players, and this means you are discarding half of them more often when the seven is rolled. So it basically allows you to get rid of some of those cards so that you don’t get caught short.
The only drawback to this new feature is that it slows the game down considerably and the basic game can already take an hour or longer sometimes. With 5 or 6 players and the free building stage in between everybody’s turn, it can sometimes take AGES for it come back around to your turn again. But this is the only drawback. And if players wish, I’m sure they could do away with this rule altogether…
I am very happy with this expansion set. The quality of all pieces and components is again, brilliant and it’s great to have the two new colours. This set is an essential for all Catan fans who want to expand to five or six players. Buy it today, it rocks!
With this expansion you can have more players enjoy the settling of the familiar island. Tiles are added to create a bigger island than before, while the basic rules are unchanged.
So you still start out with two villages and two roads and have to carefully select your starting places. After that the dice decide if you receive the resources to build villages, cities and roads.
One big change to the rules is the extra building round. Emphasis is on build, for you cannot trade in this extra round. After a player’s turn, but before the dice are thrown by the next player everyone (in clockwise order) gets the chance to build something with the resources they have. So you have to watch out when someones passes the turn. When he or she has enough resources roads thwarting your plans may be build outside that player’s turn.
In my opinion it is a wise rules change. The probability of no 7 with five players is only 40% and it drops to 33% with six players. So without the extra building round the game would consist of throwing resources away a lot. It also helps players that need just one more resource to build without having to wait 5 or 6 turns. That gives more balance to the game and rewards players for good placement of their initial settlements and shrewd trading during the game.
Of course you don’t need this expansion if you never have five or six people playing Settlers of Catan. However, organizing game days and nights usually involves more than four people, so this expansion makes it possible to still put Catan on the table!
When I first started playing Settlers, we would introduce the game to different people, many of whom would want to play more often. Eventually we had more players than the 3-4 the base game can handle wanting to play at one time. We were pleased to discover a 5-6 player expansion existed.
Until we played it.
The expansion itself is not bad, and does just what its name suggests; it allows 5-6 players to play Settlers at once. This is achieved primarily by adding an extra ring of tiles to make more space (and more cards to support the new players).
The general gameplay varies little. There is a phase after each player’s turn where any player can build, since more players mean more chances to gather resources (and get hit by the robber). In practice, the increased time to play due to this phase coupled with more players overwhelms the benefits of getting more people to the table.
I have played this with groups that are more social, and don’t mind spending the evening playing one game. The ability to sit around one table, socialize, and have a good time makes the expansion beneficial. For groups that want to maximize their gaming time, the expansion makes the game take too long. Especially if you have 6 players, you’d be better served playing two 3-player games, if you have the ability. The downtime is enough that, with five people, I prefer to play on someone’s team to allow playing with the base game under 4-player rules.
The 5-6 player expansion has its place, and does what it sets out to do. Unfortunately, groups I’ve played with generally wish they hadn’t gotten their wish of 6-player Settlers, once they’ve experienced it.
Do you like Settlers of Catan? Want to play with a few more friends and spread the love around? HEY! This is the game for you!
Like an island rising from the ocean, the land of Catan has grown to accommodate 5-6 more settlers. Included in this expansion are eleven more land tiles to wrap around the island offering more space for extra players, and of course the player pieces necessary for those extra settlers.
The one additional factor that you will have to take into account when playing with this amazing expansion is the Special Building Phase. Between the turn of each player, every player has an opportunity to build, build only! They can build roads, cities, development cards, whatever their heart’s desire. However, they cannot trade with other players.
The reason for this additional phase? Due to additional players you will be collecting resources more readily with your turns spaced further apart. Meaning more likely you will be collect over seven cards and have the theft rolled causing you to discard half your commodities.
I know the score on this is a little high. I scored this a while ago and am only now writing the review, but the real reason is because Catan is the game that started it all for me. Other than the fact that they probably should just include this in the original game, it flawless as an expansion goes.
If you’re already familiar with Settlers of Catan then you’ll like this expansion. In my opinion, the more the merrier!
Gameplay:
This game functions the same way as the original game, but when playing with 5 or 6 people, every player is able to build between turns. This is to decrease the chance that you will lose half of your cards to a 7 on the dice roll. Although this takes more time, I think it helps keep the game moving as players are able to accumulate points faster, and thus be in more even competition.
Pros:
Having extra people means more opportunity to trade with other players as well as having more people oppose the early power house who has been getting favourable rolls. This keeps the game more neck and neck, which I really appreciate.
Potential Cons:
As with any game, the more players you have, the longer the game takes.
Overall:
I really like this expansion, and have played it for years. The more friends you have around the table, the more enjoyable the experience!
Adding this 5-6 player expansion turns a decent game into a totally painful experience. By allowing everyone to build after every players turn drags the game on for an additional hour or two.
Additionally, you will be collecting a mitt full of cards with every dice roll, making you much more susceptible to the robber before you even get a chance to use all your cards on your own turn.
Building spots will be at a premium, even with the additional resource tiles included in the box. Expect a few players to be trapped or blocked out from expanding during the game and therefore losing interest half-way through.
All-in-all this expansion should be avoided. Play the base game with the recommended 4 players and save your money to buy a different game.