How Settlers of Catan changed board games forever

Oct. 24, 2024

Looking back at almost 30 years of the iconic Eurogame

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With over 40 million copies sold worldwide today, The Settlers of Catan is one of the most successful and arguablybest board gamesever to land in the tabletop gaming space. Designed by the late Klaus Teuber,Catanstarted as a passion project that, over its 29 years of existence, has branched off into a sea of expansions, spinoffs, scenarios, adaptations, and themed series', as well as card games and digital adaptations. But what started it all off? How deep does the Catan iceberg go, and where does it stand today?

If you’re looking for a brief history of The Settlers of Catan, this overview should give you an idea of just how expansive the game has become, and how much care and attention went into its design.

Overcoming the Mickey Mouse hurdle

When the idea for Catan struck in 1990, Teuber was at the height of his career leading a dental laboratory in Darmstadt, Germany. In the evenings, he would spend his time designing board games in the basement of his family home. “Developing board games was a little bit of a refuge for me,” Teuber notes in an interview withGreat Big Story. It was little more than a hobby, though that hadn’t stopped two of his previous games – including high-fantasy clay moulding game,Barbarossa(published by Kosmos) – from snapping up the Spiel des Jahres prize. That’s Germany’s Game of the Year, and a big deal in the board game world.

With the Spiel wind still in his sails Teuber found himself inspired once again, this time by the economical struggles of the Viking people’s journey to Iceland. Over the course of the next four years Catan took shape with the help of his two sons, Guido and Benjamin, who acted as his most trusted playtesters. “Sometimes he put a Mickey Mouse comic next to my chair so, in case the game was boring, he knew that I would read it instead of playing the game,” Benjamin tells GBS. Considering Benny’s interest became something of a rivalry with his dad over who was the best player, it’s safe to assume that Mickey Mouse comic still sits untouched on their dining room table today.

You could say that modern board gaming found its origin in Catan; it kickstarted the ‘Eurogame’ genre, which introduced multiple ways to win, less reliance on randomness, and less player conflict overall. This is one of the most enduring and populartypes of board gamestoday, so Klaus Teuber’s classic irrevocably changed the industry.

Once The Settlers of Catan was finally in a state to publish, it was picked up by Kosmos in 1995. In its first year the game enjoyed incredible successes, winning Germany’s Deutscher Spiele Preis and bagging Teuber yet another Spiel des Jahres award, as well as the Essen Feather prize.

At the time, the game was considered a little more grounded than other big games in the space. With less sword and sorcery, more historical accuracy, it was able to enchant a wider, more mainstream audience. Today, countless players consider it their ‘gateway’ board game – The one that got them into tabletop gaming – for just this reason. Thanks to this mass appeal, The Settlers of Catan quickly became a household name in Germany.

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For another jaunt down memory lane, why not check outhow the first edition of D&D conjured magic from a mess, and changed gaming forever. As for something new to play, don’t miss theseboard games for adultsor thebest classic board games.

Katie is a freelance writer covering everything from video games to tabletop RPGs. She is a designer of board games herself and a former Hardware Writer over at PC Gamer.

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