The Settlers Of Catan

Settlers of Catan is an essential board game. It deserves a place on the shelf more than Monopoly, Cluedo or Scrabble and actually rivals most modern board games with it's simple but elegant design. Catan is about trading. The board is full of hexagons representing different types of resources.

The Settlers of Catan by Rebecca Gable is a historical fiction novel based on Klaus Teuber’s popular board game Catan. The novel was first released in Germany in 2003 and was translated to English in 2011.

The novel takes place in 850 AD and follows the story of a seafaring Norse community who set out from their village of Elasund to discover the mythical island of Catan.

Background[edit]

Klaus Teuber first released The Settlers of Catan board game in Germany in 1995, and three years later the concept of a Catan novel took seat in his mind. In 2000, he read a book by award-winning German historical novelist, Rebecca Gable, called The Smile of Fortune which takes place during the Hundred Years War in England. Partway through reading the novel, he was convinced that Rebecca Gable must be the one to write the saga behind the Settlers of Catan.

Teuber met Gable at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2000 and proposed his idea to her. Gable accepted, and the two collaborated in developing an outline for the story.^[1][2]

The novel was published in Germany in 2003. It was translated to English and released in America in 2011.

Plot[edit]

The story is broken into four parts: Elasund, The Voyage, Catan, and Hagalaz.

Part I: Elasund[edit]

The year is 850 A.D. Candamir and Osmund are two close friends who live in the coastal Norse fishing village of Elasund with their respective families. The village is attacked by Turons - people of a neighboring region - who burn as many men and boys as they can, while taking many of the women as slaves. Among the dead is Osmund's wife, Gisla.

The people of Elasund grow anxious as their poor harvests and meager fishing catches are barely enough to last them through the harsh winter. On the brink of starvation, the villagers - especially Candamir, Osmund, and Osmund's uncle Olaf - entertain thoughts of setting sail for new shores.

Olaf, an experienced merchant and the wealthiest man in Elasund, shares information of an unnamed island that he accidentally discovered years ago. Olaf had been caught in a twelve-day storm before landing upon this island somewhere southwest of the “Land of the Franks”. The island's temperate climate boasted short winters and fertile crops.

When spring finally arrives, the three men attempt to rally enough support for the voyage. However, it is not until the village witch Brigitta gives an oracle that most the Elasunders are convinced to leave their homeland and embark on the risk of a voyage.

Part II: The Voyage[edit]

The emigrants’ first stop is in the Cold Islands where they pause their voyage to trade. They strike a deal with the local king to give him wool in exchange for dried meats, fresh water, and mead. However, at the feast that night, the king secretly poisons the guests’ mead with the intention of raiding their ships early the next morning.

The king's beautiful wife Siglind, who has suffered abuse at her husband's hands, sneaks aboard Candamir's ship and warns him of the plot. Her only request is that she be taken with them. Under the leadership of Candamir, one of the few remaining sober leaders, the Elasunders immediately set out and successfully flee their pursuers.

Candamir has a slave named Austin who is a young Benedictine monk from the land of the Saxons. As they sail past the coast of Wales, Austin considers jumping overboard to escape servitude and return to his family. However, his desire to convert the Elasunders to Christianity keeps him from the attempt.

The Elasunders continue to sail southwest, hoping to hit the mysterious storm described by Olaf. They eventually do, but the storm only lasts for eight days, leaving the fleet of ships in an unknown expanse of water with no wind. With the water supply quickly dwindling, many of the voyagers and livestock on board become ill.

Brigitta sends out her three black ravens, one each to the southwest, northwest, and northeast, with the hopes that one will not return and thus indicate the direction of land. When all three return, many of the voyagers blame Olaf for their misfortune and threaten to take his life.

Before a civil war can break out among the crew, a second storm approaches, this one fiercer than the first. After several days, it shipwrecks them upon an unknown shore. Candamir's ship was destroyed, but they discover that most of the ships have made it intact.

Part III: Catan[edit]

The new shores boast temperate forests, sandy shores surrounded by rocky caves, and most importantly of all a freshwater stream. It appears to be uninhabited.

The Elasunders encounter a large flock of white ravens, which they ecstatically interpret as a good omen from the god Odin. The white ravens evoke their well-known Legend of Catan, leading them to believe that Catan is the shore they now walk upon.

Shortly after landing, Candamir's slave-girl Gunda bears him his first-born child, Nils, whom he names after his sister Asta's deceased husband. Several of the voyagers travel inland to explore the terrain. From a lookout they discover that Catan also boasts rocky mountains, verdant pastures, a great river, a desert wasteland, and a vulcani or “fiery mountain.”

After discovering that they can successfully bring ships from the coast up the river, the settlers decide to build their new village at a place where the forest, river, and fields meet. Use your words room code.

The blacksmith Harald and his wife Asi explore the mountains in the east, but Asi accidentally dies falling from a cliff. The mountain is named in her honor. Harold eventually remarries to Candamir's sister, Asta.

With most of his supplies destroyed in the shipwreck, Candamir scrambles to procure enough seed for the coming harvest. He and his household begrudgingly enter into temporary service of Olaf to build him a new house, and in exchange Olaf promises to give him seed.

One night, Candamir's 14-year-old brother Hacon is on shepherd duty when Gunda comes to him and invites him to have sex. He loses his virginity that night, and upon waking discovers that several of Olaf's sheep have been eaten by wolves.

Olaf brings Hacon before the village for punishment - a dozen lashes for each of the five lost animals. Hacon is halfway through the lashings and dangerously close to death when Candamir steps in, offering to take the remaining lashings in his brother's stead.

The monk Austin gradually nurses Hacon back to health. Despite having saved his life, Candamir is still very bitter toward Hacon for sleeping with Gunda. Because of this, Hacon goes to live and apprentice with Harold the blacksmith, and in exchange Harold's bitter son Godwin goes to apprentice as a carpenter with Candamir.

Osmund and Candamir both are attracted to Siglind, but she has devoted herself to the Christian God. Osmund proposes marriage to her, but she refuses, saying she has sworn off all men.

Osmund instead marries Inga, a 13-year-old girl. Brigitta, Osmund's grandmother-in-law from his first marriage, deems them anointed and secretly prophesies to them that their firstborn will be king of Catan. Furthermore, Inga is to one day take Brigitta's place as the priestess of their religion, while Osmund will be ruler of the island.

The people of Catan progress in building their village and constructing a temple to Odin. Attempting to take advantage of the change from Elasund, Candamir makes repeated efforts at the Thing (community meeting) to update their traditions and laws to be more civilized - in particular abolishing the law of blood feud. Austin continues to convert more of the settlers to Christianity, including Asta and Hacon. Candamir is not converted, but grows more tolerant of the Christian beliefs. He is not particularly devout in the Norse religion either. Despite their different beliefs, Candamir and Siglind fall in love and begin a secret relationship.

One day, upon returning from gathering honey, Candamir, Osmund, Siglind, and Jared stumble upon a shocking scene in the woods: Olaf is raping his male slave the Turon. In order to prevent them from telling anyone, Olaf tries to kill them but is unsuccessful. They bring Olaf before the people of Catan who determine that he is to die by “snakebite” - a process by which a snake is inserted into a reed which is placed down the victim's throat; the snake enters the man's belly and eats him from the inside.

The night before Olaf's execution, his son Jared visits him at the tree where he is bound and guarded. Jared is attacked by his brother Lars, who frees their father. Olaf, most of his children, and a number of slaves flee into the wasteland. Lars ties Jared to the tree in place of Olaf, where the townspeople discover him the next morning. They send out a band of warriors to hunt the party, but they are unsuccessful. In the meantime, the Turon slave is overwhelmed by shame and commits suicide.

Time passes, and Candamir and Siglind are married. Osmund is not jealous, for he thinks Siglind's belief in the “Carpenter God” is foolish and dangerous.

One night, Olaf and his party of bandits return to the settlement to steal crops, livestock, and slaves. While Candamir and Siglind are sleeping, Olaf sneaks into their bedroom and tries to rape Candamir and kidnap Siglind. However, before Olaf has his way, Austin fights him off. In gratitude, Candamir offers Austin his freedom.

Part IV: Hagalaz[edit]

Six years have passed. Candamir and Siglind have added four daughters to their family, with female twins on the way. Candamir's son Nils and Osmund's son Roric are seven years old and good friends. As a free man, Austin now has his own small hut in which he spends his time writing an account of the Catanian settlers and growing herbs for healing.

The Catanians continue to cultivate the land around them, discovering a clay pit south of the wasteland, and building an outpost in the mountains for mining ore. Olaf and his band of robbers continue to occasionally raid the settlement, with varying success. The settlers are puzzled as to how he is surviving in the barren wasteland to the south.

Brigitta dies, leaving Inga as her successor. Under her rule, the people of Catan experience a resurgence in old rituals such as drunken festivities in the temple centered on animal sacrifice.

During a terrible storm, Olaf returns and attempts to kidnap Hacon for his skill as a smith. Candamir attempts to fight him off, and during their brawl, a bolt of lightning strikes a tree which falls on Olaf and kills him. However, Olaf's son Lars leads the rest of the robbers in kidnapping both Hacon and Candamir.

Lars leads the two captives to their hidden underground settlement in the wasteland, and Candamir nearly dies on the forced march. Hacon and Candamir discover that the rebel community has been able to survive in the desert because of an underground spring. Over the following weeks, Osmund leads several search parties through the wasteland to rescue them, but is unsuccessful.

A volcanic eruption combined with an earthquake allows Candamir and Hacon to escape through the roof of their prison cave. During the strenuous march back through the wasteland, Candamir collapses and Hacon carries him the rest of the way to the forest. While they are travelling back to the settlement, Lars and his men make another raid on the village.

Gunnar, Lars’ brother, defects from the band of thieves and attempts to rejoin the peaceful settlers. However, Osmund believes that it is a scheme and tortures Gunnar by burning his feet. Austin steps in to put an end to the torture, so Osmund attacks the monk and wounds him.

Upon returning to the village, Candamir and Hacon discover that there has been growing tension between the Christians and those of the Norse religion, a roughly even split in the community. A strong rift grows between Candamir, whose own wife is Christian, and Osmund, whose wife is the temple priestess. Osmund believes that Austin is a curse on their community and needs to be put to death; Candamir strongly disagrees since Austin is now his friend. Osmund disallows his children to associate with Candamir's children.

Upon returning from a fishing trip, Candamir discovers that the “Hagalaz” rune has been painted on his home. The “H” symbol stands for both the destruction of hail, as well as loss, pain, and discord. Candamir later discovers that Osmund has painted it there.

One night, the volcano again breaks out in a violent eruption. Osmund and Inga's followers believe it to be a sign of Odin's displeasure for the unbelievers among them. Shortly after Austin says Mass, they kidnap him and bring him to the island temple. They plan to burn him alive on their altar as an offering to appease the gods.

Just before Inga is able to murder Austin, a ball of fire crashes through the roof of the temple, lands in the sacred spring, and continues to burn. The people panic, and the sacrifice is disrupted. It is discovered that Siglind had climbed the roof and thrown the missile through the ceiling. Candamir and Hacon send off Austin to flee into the woods to a particular meeting point on the coast. The entire temple burns down.

The following day, a Thing is called to determine Candamir's punishment for orchestrating the burning of the temple. Osmund lobbies for a holmgang with Candamir, a duel to the death. Candamir refuses, and instead places himself in exile. He is voluntarily joined by Siglind, Hacon and Gunda, Harald and Asta, Jared, Gunnar, and about half of the settlers.

They depart in two days time, and after picking up Austin at the meeting point, sail around the island to the south coast of Catan. In accordance with Norse custom, Candamir drops a bundle of posts from his high seat overboard, and they follow the drifting posts to see where the currents cast them upon land.

The settlers head ashore and discover this new region of Catan. Candamir decides he will build a great house atop the cliff overlooking the sea.

The Legend of Catan[edit]

Within the novel, the 'Legend of Catan' plays a central role to the culture of the Elasunders. This legend was created for the novel by Rebecca Gable, but she attempted to follow the storytelling structure of actual Norse mythology.^[3]

As the legend goes, when the world was still young and before the gods did battle with the giants, Odin was walking through the land of the fairies one night. He caught sight of the daughter of the fairy king standing beside a brook, and was stricken with longing for her. Her name was Tanuri which means “Daughter of the Starlight.”

Eventually Odin approached her and made advances to her. She turned him down for she was already betrothed to another. Odin said if she broke her promise, he would fulfill her every desire. She thought it over for three days, and upon returning to the brook told Odin that she would accept his hand if he gave her a land that was perfect.

Odin asked the giants for their help in constructing a perfect land - an island in the sea with no winter or drought, no sorrow or pain, with mountains rich in minerals, valleys full of fertile soil, and groves of trees, beautiful flowers, and sweet fruit. Odin rejoiced in this perfect land and brought Tanuri there.

After inspecting the land, Tanuri complained that there was no snow, which is white and pure. So Odin summoned a large flock of white ravens and they settled at Tanuri's feet like a covering of snow.

Then she complained that there was no fire, in its purity and perfection. And so Odin thrust his spear deep into one of the mountains, causing it to spew fire.

Odin asked Tanuri if she was now satisfied, but she scoffed at him. The land still had no sorrow or pain, so how could it be perfect? Perfection, she said, lies in the balance of all things, good and evil.

Tanuri left Odin, who remained on the island and was overcome with grief. Thus the land became perfect, but too late. In Tanuri's honor, Odin named the island Catan, which in the language of the fairies means “Land of Starlight.” Odin then moved the island far out into the sea so that no mortal might ever reach its shores.

Historical accuracy[edit]

While the island of Catan and the people of Elasund are entirely fictional, many of the Norse rites and customs described in the novel are historical fact. These include using ravens to search for land, collective urination after the Thing, painting the temple walls with sacrificial blood, and throwing posts of the high seat overboard to see where they drift. In addition, the description of ships, houses, weapons, clothing, and articles of daily life are accurate to the time period.^[4]

References to the board game[edit]

Many subtle references to the board game are found throughout the novel, mostly in the way the settlers trade with one another. Osmund is known for having the best flock of sheep, Candamir is known for his lumberjack and carpentry skills, and Harald and Hacon are known for their work as ore smiths.

The most obvious reference is that of the Robber, which in the novel is represented by Olaf and his band of thieves who routinely raid the settlers’ village.

The novel also gives a shoutout to the board game's volcano variant, with the fiery mountain playing a significant role in the storyline.

Critical reception[edit]

The novel holds a 3.9 / 5.0 star rating on Amazon based on 104 reviews.^[5]

Preston Derosiers of CatanMaps.com called the book a satisfying read, saying it 'manages to weave in imagery from the game in a way that is restrained enough to retain its independence as a rich and entertaining piece of historical fiction, while still undoubtedly earning its title.'^[6] Lee Chadeayne of the Historical Novel Society said, 'Gable’s main strength is her ability to write in a way that creates conflict in the novel and at the same time brings out the goodness and unity among all the characters, thus making the story more realistic and in sync with a time period where people were rigid about laws for kindness and goodness laid down by their gods.'^[7]

Tie-in products[edit]

The Settlers of Catan novelization sparked its own set of spinoff board games known as the Catan Adventures series, which carry a similar theme to the original game but very different mechanics. Candamir: The First Settlers was published in 2004 and Elasund: The First City was published in 2005.

Movie or television adaptation[edit]

In February 2015, Variety announced that producer Gail Katz had purchased the film rights to “The Settlers of Catan.” Katz said, “The island of Catan is a vivid, visual, exciting and timeless world with classic themes and moral challenges that resonate today. There is a tremendous opportunity to take what people love about the game and its mythology as a starting point for the narrative.”^[8]

It is not currently known if a future movie or television adaptation would use Rebecca Gable's novel as source material.

References[edit]

1. ^Teuber, Klaus (2011). The Settlers of Catan foreword. AmazonCrossing. pp. vii–ix. ISBN978-1-61109-081-9.
2. ^'Interview: Author Rebecca Gable & Settlers of Catan Creator Klaus Teuber'. Amazon. Amazon.com. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
3. ^Gable, Rebecca (2011). The Settlers of Catan endnotes. AmazonCrossing. pp. 605–607. ISBN978-1-61109-081-9.
4. ^Gable, Rebecca (2011). The Settlers of Catan endnotes. AmazonCrossing. pp. 605–607. ISBN978-1-61109-081-9.
5. ^'The Settlers of Catan paperback'. Amazon. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
6. ^Derosiers, Preston. 'Settlers of Catan Novel Reviewed'. CatanMaps.com. Catan Maps. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
7. ^Chadeayne, Lee. 'The Settlers of Catan'. Historical Novel Society. Historical Novel Society. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
8. ^McNary, Dave. ''Settlers of Catan' Movie, TV Project in the Works'. Variety. Retrieved 10 August 2015.

External links[edit]

• Catan GmbH's The Settlers of Catan website
• Bastei Lübbe's official website
• Rebecca Gable's official website

One German genius has engineered a faster, smarter board game. Photo: Baerbel Schmidt. In 1991, Klaus Teuber was well on his way to becoming one of the planet's hottest board game designers. (pronounced 'TOY-burr'), a dental technician living with his wife and three kids in a white row house in Rossdorf, Germany, had created a game a few years earlier called, a sort of ur-Cranium in which players mold figures out of modeling clay while their opponents try to guess what the sculptures represent. The game was a hit, and in it won the prize—German board gaming's highest honor.Winning some obscure German award may not sound impressive, but in the board game world the Spiel des Jahres is, in fact, a very, very big deal.

Germans, it turns out, are absolutely nuts about board games. More are sold per capita in Germany than anywhere else on earth. The country's mainstream newspapers review board games alongside movies and books, and the annual Spiel board game convention in Essen draws more than 150,000 fans from all walks of life.Released in 1995, The Settlers of Catan only recently caught fire in the U.S Because of this enthusiasm, board game design has become high art—and big business—in Germany.

Any game aficionado will tell you that the best-designed titles in the world come from this country. In fact, the phrase German-style game is now shorthand for a breed of tight, well-designed games that resemble Monopoly the way a Porsche 911 resembles a Chevy Cobalt.But back in 1991, despite having designed a series of successful German-style titles, Teuber still thought of making board games as a hobby, albeit a lucrative one. 'With all the games, we would sell 300,000 the first year and then next to nothing the next,' he says. So Teuber stuck with his day job selling dental bridges and implants, struggling to keep afloat the 60-person business he had inherited from his father. At night he would retreat to his basement workshop and play. Every once in a while, he would bring the new game upstairs to test it out on his family. They would play along, but Teuber could tell that the game wasn't working.

Sometimes, in the middle of a match, he would notice his youngest son, Benny, reading a comic under the table. Other times his wife would suddenly remember a load of laundry that needed immediate attention.

After each of these sessions, Teuber would haul the game back downstairs for further refinement. He repeated this process over the course of four years.Eventually, Teuber whittled his invention down to a standard pair of dice, a handful of colored wooden houses that represented settlements and cities, stacks of cards that stood for resources (brick, wool, wheat, and others), and 19 hexagonal cardboard tiles that were arranged on a table to form the island. He had hit on something with this combination—the enthusiasm on family game night was palpable. During nearly every session, he, his wife, and their children would find themselves in heated competition. The game was done, Teuber decided.

He called it Die Siedler von Catan, German for '.' Released at the annual Essen fair in 1995, Settlers sold out its initial 5,000 copies so fast that even Teuber doesn't have a first edition. That year, the Spiel des Jahres and every other major prize in German gaming. Critics called it a masterpiece. Fans couldn't get enough, snapping up 400,000 copies in its first year. 'It was a maturation of the form,' says, a board game scholar at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia. 'It wasn't until Settlers that the whole thing broke wide open.'

Since its introduction, The Settlers of Catan has become a worldwide phenomenon. It has been translated into 30 languages and sold a staggering 15 million copies (even the megahit videogame Halo 3 has sold only a little more than half that). It has spawned an empire of sequels, expansion packs, scenario books, card games, computer games, miniatures, and even a novel—all must-haves for legions of fans. And it has made its 56-year-old inventor a household name in every household that's crazy about board games, and a lot that aren't.Most impressive of all, though, Settlers is actually inducting board-game-averse Americans into the cult of German-style gaming. Last year, Settlers doubled its sales on this side of the Atlantic, moving 200,000 copies in the US and Canada—almost unheard-of performance for a new strategy game with nothing but word-of-mouth marketing. It has become the first German-style title to make the leap from game-geek specialty stores to major retailers like Barnes & Noble and Toys 'R' Us. Settlers is now poised to become the biggest hit in the US since.

Along the way, it's teaching Americans that board games don't have to be either predictable fluff aimed at kids or competitive, hyperintellectual pastimes for eggheads. Through the complex, artful dance of algorithms and probabilities lurking at its core, Settlers manages to be effortlessly fun, intuitively enjoyable, and still intellectually rewarding, a potent combination that's changing the American idea of what a board game can be.Klaus Teuber took four years to create what some have called the perfect board game. Photo: Baerbel Schmidt Board games have been around for millennia: 5,500-year-old examples have been found in Egypt, playing cards were imported to Europe from the Muslim world in the 1300s, and chess has existed in its modern form for at least 500 years.

But the mass-market board games we know today were born during the Great Depression, when Monopoly took off in the US. Over the years, new icons were established: in 1949, Risk in 1959, in 1967.Board games have continued to thrive for a simple reason: Whether for adults or children, they are—like poker nights, softball games, and bowling leagues—an excuse to hang out and interact with friends and family. As, a ludologist, or game expert, at MIT explains, they create a communal experience that brings people together. Who won the last time and how, some interesting tactic, or a particularly remarkable stroke of luck all produce a shared memory.Yet in the US, only a few types of games have really taken off.

There are so-called lifestyle games, like Scrabble and chess, intellectual skill-based games whose devotees are interested in playing little else; party games like Trivial Pursuit and Jenga; and traditional strategy games like Risk and Monopoly, which are generally seen as child's play or possibly something to do while trapped in a snowstorm without power—just before you eat your own foot. But part of the reason we don't play much Risk and Monopoly as adults is that those are actually poorly designed games, at least in the German sense., a garrulous former Wall Streeter who cofounded the Web site in 2000 after discovering Settlers, explains it this way: 'Monopoly has you grinding your opponents into dust. It's a very negative experience.

It's all about cackling when your opponent lands on your space and you get to take all their money.' Monopoly, in fact, is a classic example of what economists call a zero-sum game. For me to gain $100, you have to lose $100. For me to win, you have to be bankrupt. Gouging and exploiting may be perfect for humiliating your siblings, but they're not so great for relaxing with friends.

Monopoly also fails with many adults because it requires almost no strategy. The only meaningful question in the game is: To buy or not to buy? Most of its interminable three- to four-hour average playing time (length being another maddening trait) is spent waiting for other players to roll the dice, move their pieces, build hotels, and collect rent. Board game enthusiasts disparagingly call this a 'roll your dice, move your mice' format.Unfortunately, Monopoly still dominates. 'It's the Microsoft of our world,' Solko says. 'If I could wave a magic wand and replace all the copies of Monopoly out there with Settlers, I truly think the world would be a better place.'

German-style games, on the other hand, avoid direct conflict. Violence in particular is taboo in Germany's gaming culture, a holdover from decades of post-World War II soul-searching. In fact, when Parker Brothers tried to introduce Risk there in 1982, the government threatened to ban it on the grounds that it might encourage imperialist and militaristic impulses in the nation's youth. (The German rules for Risk were hastily rewritten so players could 'liberate' their opponents' territories, and censors let it slide.)Instead of direct conflict, German-style games tend to let players win without having to undercut or destroy their friends.

This keeps the game fun, even for those who eventually fall behind. Designed with busy parents in mind, German games also tend to be fast, requiring anywhere from 15 minutes to a little more than an hour to complete. They are balanced, preventing one person from running away with the game while the others painfully play out their eventual defeat. And the best ones stay fresh and interesting game after game.Teuber nailed all these traits using a series of highly orchestrated game mechanics. Instead of a traditional fold-out board, for example, Settlers has the 19 hexagonal tiles, each representing one of five natural resources—wooded forests, sheep-filled meadows, mountains ripe for quarrying.

At the beginning of every game, they're arranged at random into an island. Next, numbered tokens marked from 2 to 12 are placed on each tile to indicate which dice rolls will yield a given resource.

Because the tiles get reshuffled after every game, you get a new board every time you play. The idea is that players establish settlements in various locations on the board, and those settlements collect resource cards whenever the token number for the tile they are sitting on gets rolled. By redeeming these resource cards in specific combinations (it takes a hand of wood, brick, wheat, and wool to build a new settlement, for instance), you expand your domain. Every settlement is worth a point, cities are two points, and the first player to earn 10 points wins. You can't get ahead by rustling your opponents' sheep or torching their cute wooden houses.One of the driving factors in Settlers—and one of the secrets to its success—is that nobody has reliable access to all five resources. This means players must swap cards to get what they need, creating a lively and dynamic market, which works like any other: If ore isn't rolled for several turns, it becomes more valuable. 'Even in this tiny, tiny microcosm of life, scarcity leads to higher prices, and plenty leads to lower prices,' says George Mason University economist, who uses Settlers to teach his four children how free markets work.Wheeling and dealing turns out to be an elegant solution to one of the big problems plaguing Monopoly—sitting idle while other players take their turns.

Since every roll of the dice in Settlers has the potential to reap a new harvest of resource cards, unleash a flurry of negotiations, and change the balance of the board, every turn engages all the players. 'The secret of Catan is that you have to bargain and sometimes whine,' Teuber says.Teuber also made the game as flexible as possible, with numerous means of earning points. Building the longest road is worth two points, for instance, and collecting development cards (purchased with resource cards, these can offer a Year of Plenty resource bonanza or straight-up points) also brings you closer to victory. Having options like this is critical. The games that stand the test of time have just a few rules and practically unlimited possibilities, making them easy to learn and difficult to master.

(Chess, for example, has 10 120 potential moves, far more than the number of atoms in the universe.). Finally, the game is designed to restore balance when someone pulls ahead. If one player gets a clear lead, that person is suddenly the prime candidate for frequent attacks by the Robber, a neat hack that Teuber installed. Roll a seven—the most likely outcome of a two-dice roll, as any craps player knows—and those with more than seven resource cards in their hand lose half their stash, while the person who rolled gets to place a small figure called the Robber on a resource tile, shutting down production of resources for every settlement on that tile. Not surprisingly, players often target the settler with the most points. 'When a lot of us saw it, we thought this was the definition of a great game,' says, CEO of Mayfair Games, Settlers' English-language distributor.

'In every turn you're engaged, and even better, you're engaged in other people's turns. There are lots of little victories—as opposed to defeats—and perpetual hope. Settlers is one of those perfect storms.' Settlers may be the Mona Lisa of the board game renaissance, but Teuber makes for an unlikely da Vinci.

He's balding, slight, and surprisingly modest. Each year, he makes an appearance at the Spiel convention in Essen, Germany's board game mecca. At an autograph-signing session there in October, a small line of teenage boys, middle-aged women, and starstruck 9-year-olds clutched copies of Settlers for Teuber to sign. Dressed in sensible black shoes and a blue shirt, he was so soft-spoken that fans had to lean in closely to hear him when he signed their games. He hardly comes across as the rock star he has become.Teuber got into board games for one main reason: to entertain his wife, Claudia.

The two were married in 1973, and that same year they had their first son, Guido, and moved to western Germany so Teuber could fulfill his mandatory military service. Not knowing anyone in town left Teuber with a lot of free time. 'We played chess, but my wife always lost—and that's no fun,' he says. 'So I looked around for things we could both play.' This quest eventually lead Teuber to Germany's game culture and ultimately to creating games himself. Though he spent a few years studying chemistry before going to work for his father's business, Teuber doesn't have the academic pedigree of the other big names in German board games., for example, a prolific designer who has created hundreds of titles, holds a PhD in mathematics., another frequent Spiel des Jahres contender, studied software engineering before deciding to make games full-time.Teuber tends to build his games organically—introducing an element here, tweaking an element there—until he's developed a fast, balanced, refined experience. The end result, however, is every bit as mathematically intricate as those of his colleagues.In 2006, a founder of Maryland software company and the programmer who developed the AI behind the addictive computer classic Sid Meier's Civilization II, set out to make an Xbox 360 version of Settlers.

To help programmers develop the game's AI, Teuber spent months exploring the mathematics of his most famous creation, charting the probability of every event in the game. The odds of a six or eight being rolled are almost 1 in 3 for example, while the chance of a four being rolled is 1 in 12. There is a 2-in-25 chance of drawing a Year of Plenty development card. Teuber created elaborate logic chains and probability matrices in a complex Excel spreadsheet so the videogame developers could see how every possible move and roll of the dice—from the impact of the Robber to the odds of getting wheat in a given scenario—compared. The end result was a sort of blueprint for the game that gave Big Huge Games a head start and showed just how complex the underlying math was. 'It was the biggest, gnarliest spreadsheet I had ever seen,' Reynolds says.But even with such a precise outline, success isn't easy to repeat.

Teuber has now made millions of dollars with Settlers and its multitude of offshoots, but the glass trophy shelf in his Rossdorf studio is getting a bit dusty: He hasn't won a major German board game prize since 1997. When asked about this, he seems genuinely unperturbed. 'I don't have a secret recipe,' he says. 'I'm really lucky to have discovered such a great game once.'

Once may be enough. Settlers has become so successful in the US that other German-style games are starting to ride in its wake, even in the midst of the recession. New Mexico entrepreneur licenses, translates, and imports German mass-market hits like Carcassonne alongside more offbeat titles like Galaxy Trucker by Czech designer. His company, Rio Grande Games, sold half a million of these titles in 2008.

'We're growing at 30 to 35 percent a year, compounded,' he says. 'In the US, most of my customers this year weren't my customers two or three years ago. They didn't know these games existed.' Even the mass-market giants are starting to pay attention. To make Monopoly more competitive with German-style games, new editions are reemphasizing an old rule that no one paid much attention to: If a player lands on a property and chooses not to buy it, that real estate immediately goes up for auction. This engages everyone at the board and pushes property into the mix much faster, cutting the 74-year-old game's playing time by more than half. 'It makes the game more intense and much quicker,' says Helen Martin, Hasbro's vice president of global marketing for Monopoly.

'And we know that people who play that way play more often.' Hasbro similarly revamped Risk to speed up play; new rules make winning the game possible in less than an hour. That makes it tough for a foreign import with an odd name.

'Settlers isn't mass-market yet,' says, Hasbro's senior director of product acquisition. 'Could it be? Anything's possible. But Settlers can still take over an hour to play, and it has a lot of rules.'

Teuber's plan for overcoming this challenge is, oddly enough, computers. He hopes that digital versions of Settlers will help conquer (sorry, liberate) the US market.

He and his son Guido are convinced that moving the game online and onto platforms like Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS is the best way to win converts outside the board game world. The idea is that after getting to know the game and its rules on the PC and game consoles, people will be more likely to buy the analog version—still the most fulfilling and social Settlers experience—to play with friends.In 2007, Teuber launched the English- language version of, an online community that draws 15,000 or more players a day from around the world. The US audience is the site's fastest-growing segment. That same year, Big Huge Games released a of Settlers for Xbox 360. And a PC version of the game and its expansions will come out in English this spring featuring multiplayer and AI smart enough to challenge the strongest players.Will it be enough to take on the likes of Hasbro and become the go-to game in every American's hall closet? That's certainly the plan.

'The challenge is to stay at a high level for years, to catch up to Monopoly,' Teuber says. 'It's a very, very high goal.

If we could come into the neighborhood, that would be great.' Only a few billion wheat-for-sheep trades to go.