Customer Reviews

Settlers of Catan River Tile

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The River Tile is a nice, affordable accessory at about $5 (incl. shipping), and does add a new dimension to the Settlers of Catan. The River Tile adds 1/3 Point on each road, settlement, and city built along the 3-hex River Tile, so you need 3 of any kind to reward you with a point towards winning the game. However, the rules suggest playing to 12 points, rather the normal 10, to make the game run about the same duration. I'm not sure we'd use the River Tile every time, but it does makes things interesting when used every so often.
One drawback (which I have not seen mentioned by anyone else leaving reviews): the River Tile is slighly undersized, roughly 1/8", relative to the other Settlers tiles - I bought the 4th and latest Version of Settlers in April 2009 (box dated 2007) from Amazon, and the tile from a Amazon seller about 2 weeks later. They should be compatible, but aren't quite. It's not just the way the cardboard is cut - the printed graphics of the tile are just slightly smaller. Consequently, the tile is a loose fit in the Settlers board matrix, and tends to slide around when roads and settlements are placed on it. A minor nuisance. Hopefully correctable in a future release of the Tile (I'll probably end up adding some cardboard around the tile and taping along the edges to "beef" it up.). I'm curious if anyone else has found this to be the case.

For $3, you can't get any better than this. It adds a different dimension to the game without changing the basics. The only knock on the item is that it didn't fit precisely within the rest of my set, but if that's my biggest problem of the day I should be happy. 1st get this one, then get the fisherman mini expansion.

The river tile adds nicely to the Settlers of Catan. It didn't change how we played the game to much and was actually relatively simple for a beginner player to learn. I had never played any of the Catan games and found the river tile to be fun and interesting.

Aside from making the game take a little longer to get going, this didn't really bring much to the table. You can't immediately build on the 3 new tiles. This, in essence, makes the beginning board function as though there are 3 desert tiles instead of just the 1, which limits initial play spaces and also makes certain resources more scarce. This can be a good and a bad thing. Bad for obvious reasons. Good because there's generally a player that takes off at a running start and looks like the clear winner in most rounds of Catan. This levels the playing field a bit in the beginning. There are bonus points to be won for playing on the new tiles later in the game. But, again, this didn't add much depth or change the overall strategy, the way (for instance) the excellent and cheap Fishermen of Catan expansion does. Two more things that irked me about this expansion were the facts that the addition of the 3 new tiles makes for a board that doesn't fit together as snuggly as the original and (most importantly) that the instructions for this expansion are printed on the back of the 3 new tiles; making it almost impossible to know the rules in the middle of a game without deconstructing the board momentarily. All that said however, this is still Settlers of Catan and this expansion makes for an interesting change of pace; even if it's rarely going to be used. There are better expansions to be had. But that doesn't make this terrible. It's merely so-so comparatively.

I bought this expecting it to add to the Settlers of Catan experience. It didn't really enhance the game at all.I was disappointed. I think I played it once before giving it away.

As far as durability goes, it's a single cardboard piece that can be bent easily. Furthermore, the directions for this are printed on the BACK of this cardboard piece. How dumb is that? You have to scan or copy it if you want to refer to it during the game.

NOTE: You do not need to buy this addition if you plan to buy the Traders and Barbarians expansion, as it is included in that, along with the Fishermen of Catan addition.

This is a great addition to any Catan game and my family loves to use it. The only problem we have with it is that the three-hex tile is slightly smaller than our game hexes. Granted, we have the latest edition of Catan & Cities & Knights and the River Tile may be from an older edition... but it doesn't fit quite right with all the rest of the hexes so there's little gaps between it and the rest of the game. Also, don't let it get bent, it's very hard to get it to lay flat again once it's bent! Other than that it's great piece and we enjoy it very much!

This item replaces 3 pieces in the standard Catan set-up, adding the element of gold mining - an interesting twist on a great game.

We liked playing with the variation offered by the river tile, just to make the game a bit different. Make sure you make a copy of the rules, written on the back of the tile, so you have this to refer to as you play.

this expansion is a good addition to the Catan game. It adds a useful element of depth and strategy that was previously missing.

We found this expansion plays better when we play 5-6 players rather than 2-4. (Fishermen, on the other hand always plays great- 5 Stars for that) Since players can't set up on the three River tile inserts, it eliminates a large part of the 19 hex tiles to work with. With the 30 tile 5-6 player game these three hexes aren't so significant in the initial set-up.
These Gold bonus hexes will usually produce about 5-6 victory points with one player taking 3 VP and another 2 in an average game. The real key to how agressively players pursue these Gold VPs is the numbers in the hexes. If those numbers are 5,6,8 & 9 the rush will be fast. If the numbers are 2,3,4,10,11& 12 the rush will be proportionally less.
I'd say for the ocassional player, they could take-it or leave-it on this expansion. But for avid weekly players Rivers is a "must have" $3.00 piece of cardboard.