This is the best board game ever. Period. Now I know what you may be thinking. "But Dorts! What about all those other games? Risk?! Candyland?! How can this possibly stack up to the classics?" To tell you the truth, I've been surprised that more people haven't heard of the game, because everyone I've introduced it to has loved it.

So.. the point of the game. Basically, you try to build as much stuff on a randomly created board which represents an island (of Catan). You build settlements on different areas of the board to gain minerals or resources which you can use to build more settlements, upgrade existing settlements, or roads to connect settlements. It's an easy game to learn, and the great thing about it is that the outcome of every game is different due to the randomly created board. No one person ever has a stark advantage at being "the man" when it comes to Settlers. This gives it a huge replayability factor.

One of the problems with some of the great board games is length. A game of Risk can take upwards or several hours, a game of Diplomacy could probably last a week if you went all-out. Settlers once again has an advantage here: it takes roughly an hour or hour and a half to play a full game.

So Settlers of Catan is fun as all hell, has a great replayability factor, is easy to learn, and is relatively quick to play. Are there any downsides to playing this game? No.

Go out to your nearest board game vendor and pick this game up. You'll be glad you did.