The number of players that have devoted a long night to the game is in the double-digits—including most of the team’s starting offensive line, among others.... The game’s object is to build settlements on the board using “resource” cards. Think of it as a fantasy version of Monopoly. “At first we’re like, ‘What the hell is this? Brick? Wool? What kind of game is this?’” said starting center Corey Linsley....You can buy the game at Amazon, here.
“Everyone is super competitive, so when you first start playing they don’t tell you all the rules. So you start your moves and they say ‘well, actually you can’t do that’ and it sort of screws you in the game,” [Packers center Garth Gerhart] said. “They get very salty.”...
The game’s popularity among the Packers is due in part to the lack of other things to do in town. Green Bay is the smallest town in the NFL. “We’re always looking for something to do, it’s cold. No one wants to go outside, better find something,” Flynn said. “And this is a great game.”
January 16, 2015
The Green Bay Packers are "completely addicted" to the board game "The Settlers of Catan."
The Wall Street Journal reports:
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My neighbor's kids play it (and my kids have too, on occasion). I've never bothered to learn the rules. It just seems too much.
Every couple that my wife and I ever had over to dinner and then played Settlers as an activity afterward has gone out and bought their own copy of the game the following day.
Best review I saw of the game shortly after it came out in the 90's: "Just buy it. Trust me!"
Yes, those 2 short sentences were the whole review. And yes... it really is that fun.
We play Catan, Jr. with our 5 an 9 year old boys. The 5 year old is pretty good, and perhaps the most bloodthirstty of all of us (in the sense of pressing an advantage, the game is quite tame otherwise).
What happens to the indigeous peoples?
" Backup quarterback Matt Flynn said he was interested in the game because it was “a nonviolent version of Risk,” referring to Parker Brothers’ notoriously lengthy game of world domination."
How is Risk violent? It's not like there are real armies.
I've played Catan for years....my favorite variation is Starfarers of Catan...lots of plastic toys!
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1897/starfarers-catan
"Kristian Holvoet said...
We play Catan, Jr. with our 5 an 9 year old boys. The 5 year old is pretty good, and perhaps the most bloodthirstty of all of us (in the sense of pressing an advantage, the game is quite tame otherwise)."
I've been playing it with my 5 year-olds since Christmas. It's ridiculously fun.
I grabbed it after I saw Wil Wheaton's Table Talk episode where they play The Settlers of Catan. Not a bad way to learn the rules.
Yes, I am a nerd.
Can it be played by only two people?
Yes, it can be played by two...get the setters card game! Best for that.
Thanks, Ron.
We've been playing it for a couple of years with our 20-something kids and their friends, but we haven't figured out how to beat them yet. Late nights on the deck in the summer, sipping wine, traiding wheat for sheep or bricks for wood, building towns and roads, thwarting the leader's plans with the robber...what fun and what fond memories. Finding out the Packers play is double-sweet! As representatives of the Packer faithful in Seahawk territory, with a Wisconsin bloodline that bleeds green and gold, we are pleased to have discovered another way to emulate our team and annoy the surrounding fan base!
"'Everyone is super competitive, so when you first start playing they don’t tell you all the rules. So you start your moves and they say ‘well, actually you can’t do that’ and it sort of screws you in the game,'"
Unsportsmanlike conduct.
Given how everyone in Football ends up in piles, I'd think that either Pick Up Sticks, or the French version, "Mandarins" would be more interesting.
Had to look up "Settlers of Catan," as I don't do much online social stuff. Is it like "Carcassone (an analog board game)?"
furious:
A) There aren't any.
B) The same thing that happens when the American Indians displaced the original indigenous inhabitants of North America.
One or the other.
Hey Packers, as an alternative, get COD MW3 for XBox, hop online, and prepare to get your lame asses kicked. By me.
"Cannonfodder557"
Settlers is probably a step up in complexity from Carcassone, though it's not quite at the level of something like Agricola or Through the Ages.
It's a gateway drug...before long you'll be playing Pandemic at parties.
Had to look up "Settlers of Catan," as I don't do much online social stuff. Is it like "Carcassone (an analog board game)?"
"Settlers" is an "analog board game" too, in case that was unclear from the context.
Curious George is going to kick the Green Bay Packers offensive line's asses.
It's been nice to know you, CG.
"I've never bothered to learn the rules. It just seems too much."
I'm learning a new programming language right now. Probably should keep it at that.
For the Love of Pete! We have "Forbidden Island," "Tigris & Euphrates," "Power Grid," "Agricola," and "Carcassone" here.
Housemate belongs to a gaming group where they're more interested in playing things like Euchre, or Cribbage.
Am more of a word game person, myself, but... don't mind Cribbage (or Senet, for that matter).
In other geek news, Aaron Rodgers was spotted at practice today throwing pine cones and shouting "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!"
but we haven't figured out how to beat them yet.
Place your first two settlements carefully. Get the high probability spaces with the highest number totals. Go for wheat and ore. Focus on getting cities ASAP. Trade early and often.
We play Catan. It's a fun game, but you've got to play with the kind of people that won't drive you crazy. I can't play with one of my family members, because I don't want to hear to hours of, "Do you have any brick?" every thirty seconds.
My spouse got into this game after Catan, but alas, my nerdiness will only go so far. I refuse to play.
"Original Mike said...
Curious George is going to kick the Green Bay Packers offensive line's asses.
It's been nice to know you, CG."
You don't read too well, do you?
I read just fine.
Try reading this.
Carcassone is an excellent game as well...
Two more recommendations:
Fresco, the game of Renaissance Fresco painting! (not kidding!)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/66188/fresco
and Twilight Struggle (excellent Cold War US vs Russia game)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12333/twilight-struggle
It's a great game, with interesting strategic choices, and not requiring players to be total game geeks or rules lawyers; you can read the rules in a few minutes.
The quintessential dumb Settlers joke, based on the resource trading phase of players' turns, is "I have wood for sheep." There's even a t-shirt. . . .
Reggie White, because of not in spit of, what he said in the Capitol that day (Tammy thanks you again Sir!) made Green Bay cool.
Championship level cool.
Good thing no college towns with all that college money didn't locate in cold climates, otherwise there would be nothing to do for the athletes; and, oh yeah, the kiddies' studies.
Got it for my daughter last fall. She loves it and I enjoy playing it with her.
I play sometimes with my daughters (w/boyfriends) and enjoy it except that my oldest daughter has an unwavering focus on getting longest road in such a creative way that its hard to stop and usually kills your chances of accomplishing much. Victory is getting to 9. Alas
Oh oh the genius is poor haha he ain't genius!
Haha.
Lotta little shits round these parts think 'science' means something and relates to them.
Easy way to tell the elderly foolish from those wired.
Mostly what is important for us is the delegation of power.
No one entity, even one so vast as "the American electorate" could even begin to possible suffice.
We need God.
He doesn't need us and there is no ting to that yang, and nobody is sorry; not that way.
What if I am the best online sniper?
Buliett in head if I compare myself to Kyle.
You know to whom I refer to, as if the man were an object.
Like a computer might soon at 2100 yards procure America's dominion.
Okay gaslighting.
As I have staed before, those whom take time to gaslight me have unbeknownst gaslighted.
How bout that Swifting Taylor?
Sides the leftist cultist killing, Inlove Red.
That's what people say!
I'm a big fan of those euro style games. Only settlers of catan is Old (though classic). My friends and I have moved on to other games since then. (Not that I play all that frequently any more)
Rivals for catan is the 2 player card version of settlers and is on iPhone. (As is settlers). It doesn't really play the same way at all, but it is a fun game. And you can play wihout having to meet up with friends, which is always convenient.
How about War in Europe by SPI. This game added the game War in the East. Back then, 70's, you played with paper maps and chits. There were so many maps you hand to play it in a pole barn. This game is a legendary monster game. Anyone know what I'm talking about?
It makes sense that a center would love playing it; O line players are the brainiest in football, followed by quarterbacks.
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