In my fourth blog post, I originally wanted to present the Introductory Game. However, it will still take some more time to finish all cards of the Introductory Game, and Michael Menzel sent me an interesting report on the development of the card “City.” So I spontaneously decided to dedicate my fourth blog post to the history of Catan and the card illustrations influenced by this history.

The Fictitious History of Catan

When I developed the Card Game in 1995, I didn’t think much about the illustrations. Sure, the game was meant to have a medieval setting, and the card titles were already chosen. But there weren’t any further specifications for Franz Vohwinkel, the illustrator of the old Card Game.

The Settlers of Catan - The Novel

Now it’s 15 years later, and many things have happened since. The novel “Die Siedler von Catan” (The Settlers of Catan) by Rebecca Gablé gave Catan its storyline – or at least the story of its discovery and first settlement in the 9th century by men and women who were expelled from the coast of Norway.
In the novel, the story ends with the settlers being in discord and separating. Candamir and his followers found a new settlement in the island’s south, while Osmund and his loyal ones stay in the north.
Of course, many wanted to know how the story continues, and I was no exception. So I thought about it from time to time and outlined the further course of the history of Catan.

Except for its large active volcano and occasional earthquakes, Catan was paradise for the settlers. Fertile fields and pastures, an abundance of building materials, and ore deposits in the mountains allowed the settlements to prosper. A hundred years later, the two settlements had spawned many settlements on the plains and in the valleys of the island.

The island in the Atlantic Ocean was big enough for everyone; therefore, despite religious differences between the devotees of Odin in the north and the Christians in the south, almost no conflicts occurred. This period of the first Catanians is the topic of the Introductory Game. The cities do not have expansions yet, and the buildings look similar to the houses that the Catanians’ forebears used to build in their Nordic home country. There weren’t any knights either – only heroines and heroes such as Siglind, Osmund, Candamir, or Harald, which some of you may already have met in Rebecca Gablé’s tale.

If Catan were a large island in the area of today’s Azores (the Azores were not discovered until 1427), chances would not have been too bad for other seafarers to reach the island. And indeed, in 960 the Viking prince Carl Gabelbart lands with a large fleet on the shores of Catan. Carl didn’t actually want to sail to Catan but was on a Viking journey heading south; however, a storm set in and carried his longships filled with warriors off course, far to the west.
Carl is impressed by Catan’s beauty and fertility and decides to conquer the island and become its ruler. But first it is necessary to boost his men’s morale and satisfy their most important need: women.
One can imagine that this need led to conflict with the Catanians. Therefore, cards such as Carl Gabelbart, Traitor, Arsonist, Feud, and Riots characterize the Theme Set “Times of Turmoil.” After the Carl Gabelbart episode is over, the Catanians rebuild their destroyed farms and villages. The brisk shipping traffic between the north and the south is an expression of the reinvigorated trade, and after a couple of years the horrors of Carl’s attack are a thing of the past. Now the era of gold begins, which is reflected in the Theme Set of the same name.

In subsequent sets such as “The Era of Progress” or “The Era of the Merchant Princes,” Catan has contact with continental Europe. On the one hand, the new relations are beneficial for Catan’s development, but on the other hand, they also entail the danger of being attacked by gold-hungry barbarians who are quite similar to the Spanish conquistadores. The history of Catan ends at the beginning of the 16th century. Whether or not it ends with the island being conquered by Spanish soldiers of fortune – that is something we ourselves decide in each game of “Cities & Knights” or in the subsequent Theme Game “The Era of the Barbarians.”

Catanian Architecture

Well, I don’t want to delve further into the fictitious history of Catan. Ultimately, I wanted to show that the history of Catan – divided into eras – is reflected in the Theme Games. And this brings me back to the artwork, because it is meant to visually bring Catan’s fictitious historical background to life. While the buildings of the settlements are still simple and follow the Viking or Nordic architecture, it can be assumed that a unique architecture arose in the cities that later developed on Catan. How could such an architecture have looked like? I got together with Michael Menzel, and we conjointly developed the basics of a Catanian architecture. We opted for some Gothic mixed with typically Viking elements such as gable crosses or dragon heads and roof constructions that reminded of longships or also of Nordic stave churches. On the not yet finished card at the right (the text box will look different) you can see the mix of the different stylistic elements. The hexagon typical for Catan also found a place at the front of the town hall.

Catanian Fog

The Card game actually isn’t a card game. It’s basically a game with cards that are placed side by side on the table – meaning that it is more a tile-based game with the characteristics of a strategy game. Placing the cards on the table creates a settlement structure. We wanted this structure to result in a harmonious whole or, respectively, to convey the impression of a continuous landscape. Therefore, each card motif appears out of the fog. The cards are the relevant segments of a principality. In reality, there may be large distances between the cards. However, since we are not interested in the areas between the cards they disappear in the fog.

The following illustration shows that the placed cards – by means of the fog, the depiction of the buildings in isometric perspective and the approximately identical size of all buildings – convey the impression of a continuous settlement structure. The “6″ on the regions is only a placeholder, and the transparent text boxes on the Foundry, the Abbey, and the Garrison are still missing.

Development of the Catanian City

How is a card developed? How does the illustrator proceed? I’m sure these are questions that you, dear reader, are also interested in. Who could be more qualified to satisfy our curiosity than the illustrator himself? I’m pleased that Michael Menzel has agreed to show us, in the following, the individual steps in the development of the card “City” and to comment on it.

I’m pleased to be able to write some brief explanations for you regarding the development of the city of “Die Fürsten von Catan” (The Princes of Catan).
For my work, I use Photoshop and a graphics tablet. Photoshop allows painting in various layers. The term “layer” will be used a couple of times in the following text. You can imagine those layers as various sheets of tracing paper stacked on top of each other.

In the first sketch, I’m trying to “find” the right shapes. This can be done with a pencil on paper or digitally, as I did here. I gradually approach the right shape of the houses, so to speak.
All buildings of the Card Game are drawn at the same angle. There is no foreshortening, meaning that the buildings in the foreground are of the same size as the ones in the background. This “Iso” perspective can often be seen in the area of computer games. That way, all cards visually fit together when placed side by side. During the course of the game, the cards thus become a large continuous landscape. To be able to always keep the same orientation, I draw the angle on a separate layer (light blue). This serves me as a reference during illustration.
As soon as the drawing is good enough, I apply colors in an approximate fashion. At this point, sharp contrasts shouldn’t be used yet. The result is a “swampy patchwork of colors.” In Photoshop, it is possible to paint on a layer below the sketch and, thus, to not paint over the lines of the sketch.
From now on, I also consider the position of the light source. It is important to always maintain the same illumination and make sure that the shadows are always cast in the same fashion, so that afterwards the impression of a large landscape can be created.
Now the finishing touches can be added. At this moment, I zoom in closely and model the right contours out of the “swampy patchwork of colors.” Now I add hard shadows and highlights. This process is very akin to painting. Here, computer, program, and graphics tablet are simply new tools for painting.
Afterwards, the color contrast is increased in Photoshop and matched with other, already existing regions and buildings.

Then I add small human figures to the city. These “miniature people” are not just for decoration. I think that they are the ingredient that makes the city a city. They give it sounds and liveliness. Finally, I draw the flags. They add wind and movement to the picture and nice splashes of color that make the picture more enjoyable.

The entire process takes between 3 and 6 hours, depending on the motif’s richness of detail.

Michael Menzel

In my next blog post, I will present all the cards of the Introductory Game “The First Catanians.”

Klaus Teuber

During the second half of 2008, when the future of the Card Game seemed uncertain due to decreasing sales figures, I thought about what could be improved to lay the foundations to reposition the Card Game.

I often had given the Card Game as a present during the past years – primarily to couples who usually didn’t play very often, and when they did, they played among themselves. The feedback I had received from the presentees gave me an idea where the problems were arising in the Card Game and where to begin in order to improve it. I arrived at the following conclusions:

1. The game takes too long for beginners
   The first games may easily take 2 hours. That way, the gaming night is basically over for many players, and a second round is rather unlikely. Even if the players have mastered the game, it still may take up to 90 minutes to finish it, which for some players is also too long.
   Objective: Shorten the duration of the game in general, and in particular for beginners.
2. High complexity due to card variety
   A player who plays the Card Game for the first time is confronted with a great number of cards whose function often is not understood until the second or third game.
   Objective: Beginners should initially be faced with less cards.
3. Game slowdown
   Many cards may not be played during the first third of the game. For instance, City Expansion Cards and most Action Cards may initially not be used. This causes the flow of the game to slow down. A beginner who, for example, receives only red City Expansion Cards and non-playable Action Cards will feel less motivated to continue the game.
   Objective: Beginners should be able to play all cards from the start, and all cards should be immediately usable.
4. Potential to provoke irritation
   There are some destructive cards such as Arsonist, The Black Knight, and Civil War that may lead to unpleasant surprises and irritation, especially in the first game, when players do not yet know how the cards interact.
   Objective: Beginners shouldn’t have to deal with too strong “irritation cards.”
5. Extensive rule
   Some rule details, such as the requirement for the trade advantage, are not intuitive. To receive the trade advantage, a player must have more Commerce Points and must also have built a city. Many players are not aware that a city is required.
   Some rules are not necessary, such as the rules of how to trade with one’s opponent. In practice, experienced players do not trade with each other in the Card Game.
   Objective: Unnecessary rule details should be removed.

Each item of this list reduces the fun of playing the game already on the first try. To properly reform the Card Game, I had to find ways of designing it in a more beginner-friendly fashion – without taking away its appeal as a game. I knew that this wouldn’t be an easy thing to do.
The basic idea for the first concept I developed was to offer, in one game box, a simple Introductory Game for beginners and three Theme Games for advanced players. I needed around 180 cards for this. When choosing the cards, at first I only considered the cards of the Basic Game and of the old Tournament Set.

The Introductory Game

For the Introductory Game, I selected Action Cards without requirements and omitted City Expansion Cards. That way, all cards could be played without restrictions from the very beginning.
I stocked the four Expansion Card stacks with 36 cards (versus 62 cards in the old Basic Game). Each stack, therefore, consisted of only 9 cards, which should be enough for beginners.
I decided the victory condition to be 7 victory points. I expected this to provide a substantial reduction in the duration of the game, and I was right on target. Subsequent tests revealed that the Introductory Game mostly took between 25 and 30 minutes.
After two or three Introductory Games, players should be sufficiently familiar with the basic cards and rules of the Card Game and thus be ready for the actual game with its larger number of cards and more victory points required for winning. However, the way I saw it now was that the “actual game” should no longer be one game but three games on equal footing that are clearly differentiated in terms of theme and strategy.

The Theme Games

And so the Theme Games took the place of the old Basic Game and the expanded Basic Games. I took the cards I hadn’t used for the Introductory Game and some entirely new cards to put together three thematically different Theme Sets. At the current state of development, they were called “The Era of Gold,” “The Era of Heroes,” and “The Era of Progress.”
When choosing the cards, I didn’t include those that had proven unattractive in the old Card Game. I modified existing cards or also developed new ones to obtain a smoother game flow and strengthen the selected theme. For example, some mighty knights were scrapped.

I provided each Theme Set with 24 cards for the Expansion Card stacks and also with some Event Cards. Playing a Theme Game required the cards of the Introductory Game and the cards of the respective Theme Set. The supply of Expansion Cards and Action Cards for both players consisted of five card stacks. The three stacks with the cards of the Introductory Game as well as the two stacks with the cards of the respective Theme Set contained 12 cards each.

A Theme Game, therefore, had a total of 60 cards making up its Expansion Card stacks, 2 cards less than the old Basic Game (which contained 62 cards) and many cards less than the old expanded Basic Game (which contained 85 cards and more). These numbers are currently still unchanged.
The following tests showed that it mostly took between 45 and 60 minutes to finish a Theme Game. Even the more aggressive Theme Game “The Era of Heroes” often took no longer than one hour. This was owed to the fact that the cards were more target-oriented and that some accelerating game elements were also added while developing the game.

Development

I felt that I had reached my objectives, and at the end of 2008 I presented my concept to the publisher Kosmos. It was accepted, and so the course was set for repositioning the Card Game. Our American Catan partner Mayfair also liked the concept, meaning that the future of the Card Game could now be shaped for English-speaking countries too. I was happy that I could use my experience of the last 12 years to, in a way, redevelop the Card Game.

The relaunch was supposed to occur in two phases. The German publication of the Card Game under the title of “Die Fürsten von Catan” (The Princes of Catan) containing the Introductory Game and three Theme Sets was scheduled for fall 2010, and an expansion containing all other Theme Sets was planned for 2011.
Sebastian Rapp at Kosmos and I agreed that we should get some reinforcement for the editorial work. We asked Dr. Reiner Düren and Peter Gustav Bartschat – both of them experienced Card Game players from day one – if they wanted to join our team. I was very glad they agreed, because when people work together for an extended period of time, not only expertise is required – the chemistry between those involved must be right too.

So I crafted 7 prototypes based on my concept. Three of them I sent to my team members, one went to Michael Menzel, the illustrator who would create new illustrations for the Card Game, and Arnd Beenen and Sebastian Mellin each received another one. While Arnd was drawing up an adaptation of the game for the Catan Online World, it was Sebastian’s task to program the game.
The year 2009 was all about development. Each time one of us had tested the game and written a test report, we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of individual cards in our forum. Some cards were modified, and some also were canceled and substituted by new ones. Afterwards, I sent the modified cards to my team members for more testing.
Maybe some of you will now ask themselves, “And what’s happening with the Tournament Game?” Well, the Tournament Game wasn’t our first preference during development, but we always kept an eye on it. It certainly is possible to play the Tournament Game with the cards of “The Princes of Catan.” However, it is likely that the attractiveness of the game will fully reveal itself only after the expansion containing additional cards comes out in 2011.

Two princes in a test duel during the Catan Weekend 2009 in Bilstein, Germany (Photography by Roland Hülsmann)

During development, a new, alternative way to play the game emerged that may very well be regarded as a precursor of the Tournament Game. We have called it the “Duel of the Princes.” More information on this alternative will follow in one of my next blog posts.

Meanwhile, we have finished development of the Card Game for now, and I have started with the concept for the expansion. Until April, Sebastian Mellin will have completed programming. Then we will have sufficient time to test “The Princes of Catan” online with a larger circle of people and to make some smaller modifications before the finalized cards go to press.

In my next blog post I’ll present the cards and rules of the new Introductory Game, and I’ll also show you some illustrations.

Card game reform: Road and settlement

To begin with, I am presenting you, dear reader, the new road and settlement that in the future will provide the basic framework of the new Card Game. Please don’t be surprised about the settlement without victory point. The victory point will definitely be added.

Klaus Teuber

In 1997, the “Tournament Set for the Card Game” was published as the first Card Game expansion. My inspiration for this expansion came from “Magic, the Gathering,” during the mid-nineties a cult game in Germany. Although the rules of the two games are totally different, they do have one thing in common: both games can be expanded by means of new cards.
I liked the concept of Magic, where each player assembles his own deck from a selection of cards to compete against his opponent. I adopted this concept for the Tournament Set I wanted to develop especially for ambitious gamers: the players no longer replenish their hand with cards from shared stacks but from their own stacks, which they assemble from the cards of the Basic Game and the cards of the Tournament Set before the actual game begins.
Now, with one’s own card stacks, it was much more effective to pursue a certain strategy. However, each player needed a Basic Game and a Tournament Set to ensure a satisfactory selection of cards for the respective strategy.
I didn’t adopt Magic’s trading card concept. A player who – in Magic and in all other trading card games that came after it – wants to get new cards must buy so-called “booster packs,” which are small expansions containing randomly integrated cards. These small expansions include more common and less common cards. If a player wants less common cards, that is, good cards, he has no choice but to purchase some booster packs to get those cards.
Of course, a lot of money can be made with a trading card game, but I thought that the concept didn’t go well with Catan, and I also was a little afraid that I would be compelled to continuously invent more cards to fill the small booster packs with new cards.

The Tournament Set for the Card Game

Therefore, the Catan Card Game did not become a trading card game. The tournament fun didn’t come cheap, though – after all, each player needed his own Basic Game and his own Tournament Set. Although a corresponding note in big letters was showing on the back of the Tournament Set box, many buyers overlooked it and were understandably disappointed that the Tournament Set in combination with their Basic Game wasn’t enough.

Dissatisfied gamers are an anathema to every game author, and the publisher Kosmos wasn’t happy about the complaints arriving every day either. Therefore, I came up with a variant that allowed playing the Tournament Set with only one Basic Game: the expanded Basic Game was born. Already in the second edition, this variant was integrated into the rules of the Tournament Set. A third edition was not published because the Tournament Set paved the way for individual Theme Sets.
With each Theme Set, an expanded Basic Game – that is, a Basic Game with additional, theme-related cards – was possible. At the same time, each Theme Set offered ambitious Tournament Game players the possibility to use additional cards for developing new strategies or decks.
The Theme Sets appearing in October of 1998 were called Wizards and Dragons, Politics and Intrigue, Trade and Change, Science and Progress, and Knights and Merchants. They comprised the cards of the Tournament Set as well as new cards whose basic ideas people had sent to Kosmos in the context of an ideas competition.

The Theme Sets (1998)

This ideas competition developed into a giant project for me that kept me busy for almost nine months. Over a thousand letters came in, and some contained novel ideas. Now the task was to integrate those ideas with the already existent cards and my own ideas about the theme-related sets.

Testing isn't such a dry affair after all. - Testing the game with my older son Guido (1998)

When the prototypes of the new Theme Sets were ready, I mainly tested them within the circle of my family and with members of the Kosmos staff. At the time, I also received support from Brigitte and Wolfgang Ditt who tested the new sets and provided valuable tips and suggestions. As is the case with tests, shortcomings came to light. Cards were rejected or modified and changed over to other Theme Sets. Then the testing, rejecting, and modifying continued, and later there was more testing…

When the Theme Sets finally were done, I heaved a sigh that probably could be heard beyond the walls of our house. I was relieved to have concluded the work, but I was also satisfied with the new Theme Sets and hoped the gamers would be too.

Since the Theme Sets sold very well, I assumed that people liked them. In 2001, the company USM published a PC version of the Card Game – including a small expansion called “Tournament Cards 2002″ – and simultaneously created an Internet platform that enabled players to compete in the Tournament Game online. Every once in a while, I also played there and soon found out that some cards were actually too strong, while other cards were almost never used in a game.

Originally, I hadn’t planned on developing another expansion for the Card Game, but somehow I couldn’t stop thinking about the shortcomings regarding the interplay of the cards when playing in Tournament mode.

Barbarians & Traders (2003)

In 2003, therefore, the sixth Theme Set was published. It was called Barbarians and Traders. On the one hand, with the theme of this set I wanted to seize the idea from the Board Game expansion “Cities & Knights,” where the players jointly defend themselves against the invading barbarians. On the other hand, there were – as mentioned before – some cards in the old sets that allowed for overly powerful decks and other cards that were irrelevant. In combination with a minor reform of the old cards, the new Theme Set was meant to reduce the potential of overly strong deck strategies and strengthen the variety of strategic directions of decks.
After I had created the first prototype, I asked some experienced Tournament players I had met when playing on the Internet or at the Catan weekends in Bilstein, Germany, to help me test the game. At this point – given the great variety of existing cards and their possible applications in the Tournament Game – I no longer thought myself capable of keeping track of all eventualities or recognizing all possible shortcomings of the cards.

After six months of intensive collaboration, my previous prototype had changed its appearance. The basic idea had survived, but some of my cards had been eliminated, and my fellow testers’ card ideas had found their way into the set instead – an example of this being the Scribes Offices, a card the card gamer community can hardly do without nowadays. The testing team had become a development team. (More information about the development team can be found here under “Barb. & Handelsherren” – German language only.)

In the meantime, the annual sales figures were declining considerably. Sebastian Rapp, meanwhile responsible for Catan at Kosmos, and I agreed that the Tournament Game was the culmination of the Card Game – but nevertheless reached only a relatively small number of gamers. Therefore, the next new set, titled “Artisans and Benefactors” and published in 2007, focused on the expanded Basic Game.

Artisans & Benefactors (2007)

For this set too, I presented a prototype whose central theme was the satisfaction of the subjects to the well-tried development team established in 2003. Once more, a very constructive development phase ensued. The end result was a set mainly suitable for gamers who found the Tournament Game too elaborate and time-consuming and who wanted an exciting expansion for their Basic Game, but it also contained cards that were interesting for Tournament players. The set actually received very good reviews, and many gamers rated it the best Theme Set for the expanded Basic Game.

However, the new Theme Set unfortunately couldn’t stop the sales figures from declining. Unlike the Board Game, which year after year shows rather constant sales figures, the Card Game sales dropped considerably each year. It was foreseeable that Kosmos sooner or later would have to remove the Card Game from their game portfolio. So, at the end of 2008, the question was what to do next. Two possibilities were discussed: either to let the Card Game die or to revive it.
I agreed with Kosmos that a revival shouldn’t just concern the graphic art but should also include a revision of the game’s content. The fact that it was more and more difficult for the Card Game to win friends surely had its reasons.

In my next blog post I will specify those reasons and describe my thought process that laid the ground for the revision of the Card Game.

Klaus Teuber

A revised version of the Catan Card Game with new content and graphics will be published in fall 2010 under the title of “The Princes of Catan” (working title).
In this blog and the following ones, I will talk about the background to this revision and introduce the new card illustrations as we go along. To make the reasons for revising the game easier to understand for you, dear reader, I will go back a bit and first tell you something about the origins of the Card Game.

In 1995, the board game “The Settlers of Catan” was presented at the game fair in Nuremberg, Germany, and that very same year it was nominated Game of the Year 1995. Very soon, an extension for 5 and 6 players followed, so that a larger circle of people could also play the game. What many players were missing, however, was a 2-player version. Sure, with a few rule changes the Board Game can be played by two players as well – but that won’t allow for the same kind of fun people experience when trading and switching allies in a multiplayer game.

Therefore, at the end of 1995 I already was desirous of creating a separate card game version of “The Settlers of Catan,” based on the underlying ideas of the Board Game. Why cards? Well, the wooden houses and little wooden sticks of the Board Game perhaps lent themselves to spark the imagination, but – except for the Development Cards – they otherwise revealed little about the life of the settlers, knights, and robbers on Catan.

A pure card game, however, offered the chance to take a closer look at the settlements’ and cities’ houses and at what’s going on around them, and watch the inhabitants of Catan perform their daily tasks. I was fascinated by the possibility of being able to observe Catan through a magnifying glass, so to speak.

A selection of cards from the first prototype.

I started developing the game in fall 1995. Unlike in the board game, I did not include the aspect of spatial competition as part of the players’ expansion of their settlement structure. The players should each have their very own little realm – a principality – to be expanded at their convenience. Competition would rather emerge through the tactical and strategic use of cards. What’s the best way to expand my principality, so that I get resources faster than my opponent? Is it better for me to follow an expansionist strategy when building roads and settlements, or do I rather focus on expanding my cities with buildings that yield victory points? Do I prefer a trading strategy that enables me to get resources out of my opponent, or do I strengthen my knights so that I can spoil my beloved neighboring prince’s efforts?

I designed the process of building a principality in a rather simple fashion: Road cards alternated with Settlement cards. The Region Cards above the roads with their painted-on dice roll numbers – reminiscent of the Board Game – took care of the resource supply. The resources could be used to add new roads and settlements to one’s principality, upgrade settlements to cities, or expand the settlements and cities by means of buildings, knights, and trade ships. Expansion Cards were placed above or below the settlements or cities. Like in the Board Game, the turn sequence consisted of harvesting, trading, and building. Trading admittedly didn’t quite get an equal share though, because unlike in the Board Game, it makes little sense to trade with each other in the Card Game.
That’s the way things were right from the start. There were still some changes to come regarding the building costs and the function of some individual cards, but the basic structure of the game didn’t change anymore. The largest modification was a formal one. Initially, I used rectangular cards – that is, a normal card format. However, since the regions had to be rotated to modify the resource inventory, the square format I was already using since the second prototype almost imposed itself.

A selection of cards from the second prototype.

The card illustrations were created by Franz Vohwinkel, who had already designed the visual appearance of some of my games to my entire satisfaction.

The Card Game was published in September 1996, in time for the game fair “Spiel ‘96″ in Essen, Germany. Its success caught us all by surprise. In the very same year – that is, within a period of only three months – the publisher Kosmos sold 87,000 Card Games. To date, almost 1.5 million copies have been sold in Germany alone.
The Catanian 2-player game also appealed to reviewers and ambitious gamers. The game made it into the selection for the Game of the Year 1997 and, in the same year, took second place in the “Deutscher Spielepreis” (German Game Prize) competition.

Box cover of the first edition (1996)

Box cover of the second edition (2006)

An expansion of a successful game is a very natural thing today, but in the mid-nineties it was almost a novelty. The Seafarers expansion for the Board Game had already been published in 1997. The tournament option for the Card Game was released later that same year, providing more possibilities of playing the Card Game.

In my next blog I’ll describe how the Card Game expansions came about.

Klaus Teuber

When people ask me what I do for a living, they interestingly don’t inquire that much about what a “Product Manager for Catan” does. Much more frequently, I get asked how you become one.

This may be related to the fact that, professionally as well as privately, I have a lot to do with people who are interested in games and for whom “Catan” is, of course, a household name. And for those people it is more exciting to hear how you come to deal with games professionally – because “games editor,” for some, is a kind of dream job. And perhaps I’m not totally wrong in assuming that this also goes for many readers of this blog. It was definitely the case for me, almost 10 years ago – which is why, in my first blog, I would like to tell how I came to Catan. What it actually means to be a “Product Manager for Catan” or, respectively, a “games editor” – and if, as such, one really spends the entire day exclusively with games, or maybe playing games – that’s something I’d rather tell you on a later occasion.

Shelf with Catan games

First of all, let me answer the question of how to best prepare oneself in terms of education, in order to gain a foothold in the gaming industry: preparation is quite easy – because it pretty much doesn’t matter. Well, all right, it matters a little bit. Having attained an academic degree is helpful, since it means you already have (or should have) proven that you can handle written language and have text comprehension skills. Academic studies are definitely not necessary, though – but text comprehension and the ability to express oneself in writing are indispensable.

Catan and a dictionary on the desktop

Apart from reliable spelling skills, one needs especially one thing: enthusiasm for games. And one also needs either luck or connections. However, it’s not about “connections” in the conventional sense, such as being a great networker and having a thousand contacts at LinkedIn or similar platforms. The board games scene is small, and everyone knows almost everyone – at least in Germany. In fact, it’s not that difficult to get to know games editors. It may happen at gamer meetings or during game nights, but also at Brettspielwelt (a German online portal for online versions of board games) or during an internship at a publishing house – actually, it may happen wherever people play games, so long as it occurs in a fairly public environment. However, games editors can only rarely be met at one’s own living room table; that would only happen if one already has met them somewhere else. Once you know a games editor, you almost inevitably are in contact with many other ones as well. And if publishing house A is looking for a new staff member, and an editor at publishing house B knows someone he considers interested and capable – even though it’s not half the battle, it surely is an advantage.

Now I know all this.
10 years ago, I didn’t know it.
That’s why I was just plain lucky.

I have been into gaming my whole life, and after I began my studies in 1990, I played a lot – particularly games from the US, but also German games, of course, provided that they were sophisticated enough. Before 1994, German games of the latter type were kind of difficult to find, but luckily, this changed when the Settlers of Catan appeared in 1995. (Yes, I have one of the rare first editions that show the black logo of the publisher Franckh but no “Game of the Year” reference, featuring an additional, orange-colored set of game pieces – bought right after its publication!) I was member of a game club; since 1991, I went to the Essen game fair each year; I participated in the German Board Game Championship; etc. Nevertheless, I had almost no contacts at all.

Then I graduated; it was the beginning of 1998, a time when start-ups sprung up like mushrooms. At first, I struggled along in a start-up whose specialty were play-by-mail games, which at the time were already dying out. But it was a start, and in 1998, for the first time I went to Essen not as a visitor but as an exhibitor. Things went well for a little more than one year, then the company slowly but surely ran out of money, and I was forced to start looking for another employer. But even back then, job offers for specialists in German studies and cultural scientists were kind of few and far between, especially those I would have been interested in.

Catan games on the desk

Therefore, I was exhilarated to find a KOSMOS employment ad offering a trainee position in the area of books for children and young people. Although children’s books were not at very the top of my list of interests, I could definitely imagine myself working in an editorial office, particularly at KOSMOS, because like everybody else, as an adolescent I had read many stories of “Die 3 ???” (“The Three Investigators,” whose German version was published by KOSMOS). However, far more interesting for me was the fact that it was a job at KOSMOS. KOSMOS was the publisher that had been instrumental in making it possible for “genuine gamers” to once again being able to play games from Germany, and in addition to that, KOSMOS was based in Stuttgart. The fact of the matter was that I really wanted to work for a game publisher, and even better, for a game publisher based in Swabia, which is where I lived.

To cut a long story short: They didn’t even invite me to the job interview in the area of books for children and young people, because my application documents seemed to make me more suited for a job in the games division, which – at the time – still belonged to the same department the area of books for children and young people was part of. And as chance would have it, at that moment a trainee position was available in the Catan area, which seemingly had not been officially advertised yet. Therefore, I was invited to a job interview – and afterwards, the search had apparently come to an end, or rather, it didn’t start at all.

Sebastian Rapp in his office (Foto by Krauti)

After less than six weeks, I was already working at KOSMOS. And that’s where I still am today – although I’m sitting in a different office now.

Until next time!

Sebastian Rapp

Chapter Two: Hopelessly Addicted

Being unaware of the American gaming market, I had no idea that Mayfair had been publishing The Settlers of Catan in English for years. So, I had my brother do some shopping for me in Karstadt before he returned to the states in the spring of 2000.

Catan - Cities & Knights - 1st German edition - Scary-looking Catan

Deciding that maybe the game wasn’t as scary as the box was, I asked him to purchase Städte und Ritter (Cities and Knights), plus the PC versions of Die Siedler von Catan – Das Kartenspiel (Catan Card Game) and Sternenfahrer (Starfarers) for which I used Babelfish (at altavista.com) to translate into English. I even scanned and Photoshopped the SuR rulebook and reprinted it with my color printer in English just for my own use, and continued begging my family and friends to play with me.

Cities & Knights Almanac translation: Lots of work with Photoshop here.

My nieces and nephews were getting older, so I found a few more opponents, but it still wasn’t enough – especially since I lived in New Jersey with my wife and son, and they were in Indianapolis. I invited friends and relatives over to play the game, and took it to family reunions. I bought a movable poker table top (an octagon, very similar to a Catan hexagon – see photo below) that was covered in green velvet so I could move the game bodily from the dining table to the coffee table, then back to the dining table when the meal ended, and I recall my wife throwing around the word obsession during this time.

New collection: Städte & Ritter (Cities and Knights) and the PC version of "Die Sternenfahrer von Catan" (Starfarers) became part of my collection.

A highlight of the German PC card game was the online site where people could meet, share IP addresses, and play together. I wrote a favorable review of the game at boardgamegeek.com, and someone who read the post sent me an email, telling me that he had translated much of the game to English and then sent me the file. By this time, I had found Mayfair Games, so I took this file and improved it by using the actual text from the English version of the card game. This file was eventually used as the base for the current English version of the card game on the COW. My new friend also told me about a fan’s website where the PC game, Catan – Die Erste Insel (Catan – The First Island), could be played for free. For the first time I had plenty of opponents to match wits with!

PC CD Collection: The electronic Catan collection (at the time)

I happily played the card game and the PC game on these sites for several months, filling my days while being temporarily unemployed and between careers. I found the people online to be very friendly and accommodating to my faulty German, and I even fooled a few by writing responses in the little bits of German I knew: getreide (grain), strasse (road), ja (yes), and so on. Of course, I had to reveal myself as an American as soon as someone wrote a complete sentence in the chat window and then waited for a response, which I couldn’t deliver in German. After confessing, I was usually met with, “What are you doing on a German website?”

The answer was one they could relate to: “I’m hopelessly addicted to this game, just like you!”

Around December of 2002, the partly fee-based Catan Online World was launched as a joint venture between Klaus Teuber’s company Catan GmbH and the German Internet provider T-Online. I would have paid the fee, but the money for it was attached to and pulled from German phone bills. I even asked one of my brother’s German friends if I could send him money every month for the fee, but he didn’t like the idea. The number of opponents on my beloved free website shrank more with each passing day until I finally gave up. Again I had to suffer with begging my family to play whenever we would get together for holidays, and to fill in with the much-overplayed computer game and card game. My quest for opponents began anew.

Jim Plane

As many gamers know, finding opponents isn’t always easy. Family members are often our favorite foes, but let’s face it: if you’re into gaming, you just might be a little more aggressive than they are, and they just might get tired of playing with you because of it. Ring any bells? It is exactly this situation that compelled me to become the only English-speaking Catan player on German websites before any were translated and available in English. This led to a position as a moderator for the Catan Online World, then to demoing games at GenCon in Indianapolis, and finally, I’m happy to say, to employment as a community manager for the COW. It has been quite a journey, and it all started with my brother, who in December of 1997 introduced me to a really cool game that was quickly gaining popularity in Germany, which he called “Die Siedler.”

The Settlers of Catan - 1st German edition

In early 1997, my brother’s wife, Erin, visited a close friend who had recently brought “Die Siedler von Catan” (“The Settlers of Catan”) back from Germany to his home in Oklahoma. When Erin visited Germany later that year, she brought back a copy of the game, too.

The English translations were made by scanning and altering the original with Photoshop, then sticking the revision to the originals' backs.

Then while visiting our family for the holidays, she and my brother Mark introduced the game to all of us. I won our first match, a six-player game, much to the surprise and dismay of my very competitive brother.

“How did you do that!?” he exclaimed.

“I just built settlements by numbers I didn’t already have.”

“That was your whole strategy?” It sounded simple then, and it sounds simple now. When we got together, my family played the game on and off for the next couple of years, but I was the one who became hopelessly hooked, trying to get all of them to play more often than they wanted.

In fall 1999, I visited Mark and his family in Dortmund, Germany, where Erin was teaching literature on a Fullbright scholarship. When he asked if there was anything I wanted to do while I was there, I said that I wanted to bring home my own copy of “Die Siedler”. Much to my surprise, I found an entire section devoted to the game in a department store called Karstadt. They stocked a computer game, a space-themed game, a card game, a seafaring game, and even a scary-looking spiel with advancing armies on a dark orange background, titled “Städte und Ritter.” I left with “Die Siedler von Catan” (“The Settlers of Catan”), “Die Seefahrer-Erweiterung” (“Catan Seafarers”), the five-six player extensions for each, and the “Catan – Die Erste Insel” (“Catan – The First Island”) computer game.

This is what I came home from Germany with.

Of course, I spent most of my time with the computer game, which featured opponents who played, argued, and traded in German while word bubbles floated above their heads. Armed with a pocket German-to-English dictionary, I learned a few key German phrases which would come in handy later.

Jim Plane

Every so often I refrain from mentioning the exact name “Catan Weekend,” because it doesn’t mean much even to those who, in principle, know what I do for a living. That’s why I’m using this opportunity to place a corresponding reference here in our Catan blog, for future inquiries.

Kosmos Verlag has been hosting the Catan weekend since 1998. At that time, it was an exclusive reunion for members of the then still existing “Siedler-Club” (“Settlers Club”), but after the club’s dissolution in 1999, it turned into an open Catan weekend for everyone interested. Ever since, it takes place every year at the Hotel Faerber-Luig in the rural German town Lennestadt-Bilstein, County of Olpe – located in the heart of the Sauerland and, in all four cardinal directions, far away from the next autobahn.

Hotel Faerber-Luig in Lennestadt-Bilstein / Germany

Many Catan fans know nothing at all about the event, even though – apart from word of mouth – it is also promoted via the Kosmos website and the German version of the Catan newsletter.

The core activity of the Catan weekend is the big Catan Board Game Tournament each attendee may participate in (it’s not mandatory, though). Generally, three different Catan games or scenarios are played on Saturday – usually the current new release and at least one of the “classics” such as “Cites & Knights.”

Klaus Teuber taking part in the Catan Board Game Tournament

Every year, Klaus Teuber himself also takes part in the tournament, meaning that each participant has a real chance to defeat the author in a game of his very own creation. And for a couple of years now, there is also a Catan Card Game Tournament taking place already on Friday.

The best ranking players in the tournaments win valuable non-cash prizes that are handed over on Sunday morning. Should Klaus be on the victory podium (which may totally be the case), he donates his prize – sometimes to the youngest player, sometimes to the last-place player. Participating in the tournaments is, therefore, definitely worth it.

Prizes at the tournament award ceremony

Of course, besides the tournament activities there’s also time to “play freely.“ For this purpose, since the year 2000 Kosmos Verlag brings along many other games from its portfolio. After the games have been opened and the attendees of the meeting have played them, on Sunday, shortly before everyone departs, the games are sold to those present – partly well below their catalog price.

As a particularly exclusive offer, game prototypes not yet commercially available can be tested, too; that way, they are subjected to a “semi-public beta test,” so to speak. The respective game authors are enormously interested in the feedback from the game testers, which is why each tester can, and should, fill in a questionnaire after playing the game. Sometimes, when the game in question is put on the market the following year, it features a game mechanics that, thanks to the test reports, has been tweaked considerably – or, in case of an extremely scathing criticism, the game might go straight to the closet and never be presented to the general public.

Tournament game activity

Catan Online World members are also catered for: on one of the evenings, an open roundtable discussion with the COW moderators and us from the Catan GmbH takes place, and everyone interested is invited to participate. In addition to reviewing past year’s events, we use this occasion to present an exclusive preview of the plans outlined for the coming year. And of course we’re also happy to discuss requests and suggestions for improvement put forth by the attendees.

Anything else? Well, someone who accompanies his or her spouse and is not that into gaming will find beautiful scenery surrounding the hotel that invites to hike and explore. And in the basement of the hotel, people can enjoy a wellness area that includes pool, sauna, and massage tables. So, you don’t have to be a Catan enthusiast to spend a wonderful weekend in Bilstein – although it certainly helps a lot.

So far so good. Did the description above explain what the Catan weekend is about and what makes it attractive? I hope so. However, such a comprehensive explanation rarely can be done in three sentences as an aside, when someone asks, “Catan weekend, huh? Tell me more about it!”

Thus, I meanwhile have concocted an alternative explanation that represents all this by means of a different, widely known phenomenon: the Catan weekend is a bit like a Star Trek convention. The die-hard fans meet for a couple of days at a conference center to indulge in their hobby and, in the process, take a look behind the scenes to meet the attendant “guest stars” of the participating companies in person. – Just with a smaller crowd and, above all, without pointy ears and Vulcan mind meld.

Gero Zahn

You all have probably experienced it at some point: the year has days where you know in advance that they will be good.

This year, October 22 is such a day for me – the day the SPIEL 09 [International Game Convention in Essen, Germany] will open its gates. It’s always impressive to see the great number of people gathering in front of the entrance as early as nine in the morning. Sometimes it is so packed that we as exhibitors have a hard time working our way through the crowd. And then, at 10 a.m. sharp, the doors open and people start running as if the first one to arrive at the venue were awarded a prize.

Essen Exhibition Center

Shortly after, the next performance test is due: will the rules explanations and the games meet the players’ expectations? That’s where my dilemma begins…because I’m the one who has to give it some thought beforehand.

For me, all this already starts in spring, when I ask the game instructors of the previous year if they have time and would like to instruct games for us again. Explaining the games well is very important to us, and the people we ask have really convinced us the year before. At this point, kudos to last year’s team of game instructors! You all were so good that you’re recruited again this year.

Once I get the feedback from the core team, I seek out other game instructors to fill the vacant positions. Sometime at the end of June / beginning of July, our team for the next SPIEL is complete.

The Kosmos booth

At this stage, my female colleague at the game convention planning department and I are already thinking about how we will design the booth. What are the highlights of this year’s SPIEL? Do we have to remodel the booth? Do we need special decoration? Do we make changes to the procedure? Which games will be lent out in limited numbers, which in large numbers? Do we have to subdivide the games into different categories? Easy, difficult, taking a short time, taking a long time… Will there be a reception for the game instructors again? Will there be giveaways? What will the Catan shop carry? … And there are many, many other things we discuss during this time. As you can see, life before the game convention is full of question marks.

But all these issues are gradually resolved, and we still find new question marks, which we convert, each time faster, into exclamation points. Don’t worry: up to now, we’ve always made it, and if we didn’t make it a hundred percent – the conventiongoer wouldn’t be able to tell…

The KOSMOS games portfolio is so big that we can’t lend out all games we have. That’s why we are limiting ourselves to new releases in 2009 (spring and fall) and a few classics this year. We even had to select among the spring releases, because they were still too numerous. I think, however, that our selection came out pretty good. When we determine which games to include, we also consider the visitor profile. The visitor profile in Essen is different from the visitor profile at the game convention in Stuttgart 3 weeks later, so our focus will be different there.

Then the game instructors receive the first package with the games available at that moment. Unfortunately, these are not yet the novelties for Essen – after all, they will not be available until the SPIEL 09 in Essen.

Game Instructors

So they get the spring releases and the classics, because maybe one of the game instructors doesn’t know them… but that’s relatively improbable, because our instructors love games!

Meanwhile, game convention planning continues. What would look particularly good at the booth? Yes, exactly – an author or graphic artist who signs his games. So I contact the authors and some graphic artists of our games and ask them whether they would be available for game signing. Happily, they’re all very nice people who look forward to give autographs at our booth. This year we will be able to welcome Klaus Teuber, Stefan Stadler & Michael Rieneck, Wolfgang Kramer, and Michael Menzel.

Crowds at the convention

Apart from the planning of a big anniversary for next year, the game convention is the main focus of my work at the moment. The order of the day for Arnd Fischer (who trains the game instructors) and me during the next weeks: playing games and trying to structure them in a meaningful way, so we can explain them to our team of game instructors on the Sunday prior to the SPIEL 09. Yep, in Essen we’ll lock ourselves up in a youth center for a whole day and study the games … well, no, it actually won’t be that bad. We’re all having fun, and this year, the game instructors can read through the rules and ask questions much earlier than usual. They’re making ample use of this opportunity, and a very animated communication is taking place on the forum for game instructors, which is where we (Sebastian Rapp and I) answer all questions regarding organization and game rules.

And then … it’s Wednesday evening, and Sebastian and I will meet with friends from Canada for a Mongolian barbecue and “German bowling.” That’s something I look forward to during the entire year – we made this appointment already last year in Essen.

And then … the moment has come: one of the most beautiful days of the work year begins, and as always, I’m very excited. And that doesn’t change when the familiar convention routine kicks in – attending one appointment after another, looking at other booths, answering questions, and managing our booth. After four days, it’s all over – the SPIEL has finished, I’m sitting on the train home, and I think to myself, like I do every year, “That was a nice time again, and a good game convention.”

I’m looking forward to see you all in Essen!

Carol Rapp

The Story of the Game

… is something I would never have given away at that time! It seemed so red hot to me that, after each revision, in strict observance of safety precautions, I locked it away in my secret closet, next to my chewy candies and my savings in the amount of 6.50 German Marks (a rough estimate). But I think that now, after almost 20 years, I can disclose the secret. So, once again …

The Story

Three or four players are playing the role of Kuni of Kuniburg. Four players playing the same character wasn’t something I regarded as problematic then. Thanks to cloning, a couple of years later Dolly the sheep would be in the making anyway.

The objective of the Kuni clones was to save a damsel.
“Not so bad, that story,” I thought to myself. “But there’s more to it!” And so the 3-4 Kunis were also given the task to collect as much gold as possible along the way and eventually find a treasure.
“What a stroke of genius!” I thought and rubbed my hands with delight. “Now the storyline is done!” I felt more than satisfied. Knights and the whole topic of “Middle Ages” were a top issue for me and, in my view, equally attractive for the rest of the world.

The Game Mechanism

Now it got down to the nitty-gritty – the game mechanics. In an issue of the Mickey Mouse comic book series, a game had been presented once where the players roll the dice, move their meeples, and face all kinds of odds, such as “Goofy got stuck in the sink with his long nose while he was brushing his teeth. Now the plumber must come for help. You lose one turn.”
The first one to reach the finish wins the game. Common knowledge.

My game was to revolutionize all conventional rules! So I opted for a 3-sided die instead of a 6-sided one.
“That’s quite something for a start,” I thought while I was sitting in my room, probably hunched over in a position similar to “The Thinker” by Rodin. I knew, however, that this alone wasn’t enough. Therefore, I developed the “Kuni coins,” which allowed the players to skip a field. I was quite certain to have discovered a game element without precedent – at least it hadn’t occurred to the game designers of the Mickey Mouse comic book.

Find the Treasure and Get Rich!

Elaboration

I labeled the special event fields with symbols. For example, the Kunis could periodically stumble over shrubs and roots, which caused the player to lose a turn. Players who lost their coins had to go back three fields.
All things considered, the players arrived at the top of the castle with 2-3 Kuni coins in their pockets. Even in those days, one wouldn’t have been able to buy more than a tin bedpan for it.

“Now there’s only one problem left – who’s gonna write the game rules for me?” Before I reached school age, my brother had already taught me some letters, but my accuracy on a typewriter strongly reminded of throwing darts after having ingested 8 cans of beer. So I finally decided to ask my brother. However, I made it clear from the start that profit sharing with him was not an option for me. His docile and cheerful acceptance looked extremely suspicious to me at the time.

Lastly, I put my 4 plastic Kuni meeples, the paper Kuni coins, my brother’s game rules, and the hand-drawn, DIN A4-format game map into an oversized package (the game components would have fit in it 50 times) – and my creation was accomplished! By the way, it was called “Find the Treasure and Get Rich!” Quite witty, wasn’t it? I guess “Save the Damsel, Look for as Much Gold as Possible Along the Way, and Find the Treasure!” was simply too long for me, notwithstanding the package’s size.

Marketing

Now I only had to somehow launch the game. So I tucked the box of almost my own size under my arm and went to my father. Had there been PowerPoint at that time, my presentation would certainly have taken a slightly more professional course. Given the situation, however, we restricted ourselves to a test game.

After about 2 turns, I already asked him if he was going to take it to an editorial, and what chances he was seeing for the game. I vaguely remember him mumbling something about an ice cream in the refrigerator. When I kept insisting, he said that he recalled already having seen a similar thing somewhere else, but that the approach was really good. With a little bit of editing, one could probably find a slot for it someday. I was actually quite pleased with that! Since then, I haven’t received any updates though …

Now that I think about it – it’s a good moment to go and ask!

Benjamin Teuber