Price: $26.99 - $15.99
(as of Dec 02, 2024 00:10:09 UTC - Details)

Build your domain to best your Rivals. The Rivals for Catan puts you in charge of one of the two factions developing newly-settled Catan. Use your under card mix to create your own principality. Explore and settle new lands, acquiring resources through card play and the luck of the dice. Use gold, response combinations, and trade to develop your domain. Expand your settlements and cities recruit heroes, and defend your lands through politics, invention, and intrigue. Your cunning and a dash of luck decides who will be Prince of Catan. The Rivals for Catan contains:. 180 Cards. Production Die. Event Die. Commerce Token. Knight Token. Rules and Card Index.
CREATE YOUR PRINCIPALITY: Immerse yourself in the world of Catan as you take charge of one of two factions striving to develop the newly-settled island. Use your strategic prowess and cunning to build your own principality and shape its destiny.
EXPLORE AND SETTLE: Navigate uncharted territories, acquire vital resources through card play, and embrace the unpredictability of the dice to expand your domain. Every move you make impacts the fate of your principality.
BUILD AND DEVELOP: Utilize gold, resource combinations, and trade to construct settlements and cities, recruit heroes, and fortify your lands. The path to victory lies in your ability to develop your domain through politics, invention, and intrigue.
THRILLING THEME GAMES: Dive into three exciting "Theme Games": The Age of Gold, The Age of Turmoil, and The Era of Progress. Each presents unique challenges and opportunities that will test your strategic prowess and decision-making skills.
CUNNING AND LUCK: Will you emerge as the ruler over Catan? Your cunning strategies combined with a dash of luck will determine the fate of your principality and lead you to victory in this captivating card game.
Reviewer: Luke Devlin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Game for Catan Vets
Review: Ever want to play Settlers of Catan but you only have one other person to play with?If yes, then buy this game.The Rivals for Catan takes the basic elements of Settlers (roads, settlements, cities) and some of the expansions (trade ships, barbarians, heroes, city improvements) and creates an almost entirely different game. There is no board, just several cards, a standard die, an event die, and two tokens.Without going into the gameplay much, I'll say that the goals and mechanics are similar to Settlers: collect resources, expand your colony, and claim a certain amount of victory points to win. Also, as in Settlers, the competition in Rivals is often indirect. It's more of a race to get victory points than a one-on-one battle, though one of the themes gets a bit nasty (more on that later). However, many of the games I've played have kept the opponents neck-and-neck, so the tension of Settlers is still prevalent.Strengths-The basic game comes with three themes (Gold, Turmoil, and Progress). These are supplements to what is called the Basic Set. Each theme brings its own unique cards to the game and one's strategy must change depending on what theme is chosen. While they don't carry as much nuance as a Settlers expansion might, they certainly prevent the game from getting old. You can even combine all three themes for what is called Dual of the Princes. Mayfair Games sells more themes separately, too.-There are a variety of strategies you can take, regardless of theme decks. You can build a resource-efficient colony with grade trade ships, focus on strong heroes, or just expand as widely as possible before your opponent does, since you share the same pool of settlements and cities.-Many of the cards have special abilities that are a lot of fun to employ. Once you get to the second half of the game or so, your abilities have dramatically increased, adding even more variety to how you approach victory.-Games can range from 15-45 minutes, so it's shorter than typical Settlers.Weaknesses-You can't trade. Well, you can, but there's almost no point. Mayfair removed it from the rules when they revamped the game. Since trading is about 30% of the gameplay in Settlers, it feels like something is missing in Rivals. The bartering, begging, alliances, and betrayals aren't here.-Unless you're familiar with Settlers, I wouldn't recommend you play this game. The rule book will explain everything but I think the game would feel overwhelming. The game was essentially designed for people that already play Settlers.-While very portable, the game takes up a lot of space. There are several draw stacks and a lot of cards get played, so you might need more than a two-by-two foot table.-You may need to develop some house rules. It's hard to explain unless you've played a couple times, but there are a couple mechanics that can make the game very uneven.Overall: a wonderful Catan fix for two players and a very fun game.

Reviewer: Christopher Barrett
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An incredibly fun 2 player version of Catan ~
Review: I never played the previous 2 player card game version of Catan, but from what I read - this is a fair improvement. The cost is currently $20, and when you open the box you might be thinking "I just paid how much for this???" But the real value is in the incredible depth of the game rather than in the inclusion of several trinkets.Oh and an important note: In the rule book they keep talking about the shield icon or some such. My version has a knight icon instead. So after a few frustrating minutes, and the possibility of having to contact Mayfair, we realized the new piece just had a different icon! Update the rule book guys!I won't get too in depth into the rules. Basically the game is a card based strategy game. You take a starting set and lay out your territory. Then you select some cards for your hand. You then take turns rolling two die, one for a resource and one for an event. You have events such as plentiful harvest (players gain resources), bandit attack, draw event card, and celebration. Each has a unique function. The 1 - 6 die determines which resource(s) the players acquire.Next the active player uses resources or cards from their hand (typically costing resources). One can either build additions to the kingdom, or play action cards or lay out building or character cards. The action cards typically give the player an immediate bonus (a few can be used before rolling dice or before selecting cards for their hand or drawing region cards and so on). Green cards typically give a permanent bonus and are played on the town or city upgrade spaces. The final two actions are drawing cards up to three (or more if you have bonuses allowing more) and then exchanging one card with another random card from one of the draw piles.The game has a lot of complexity and a little luck. I would say the luck factor is much lower than people estimate. With smart planning, a character can acquire resources they need or exchange for those they need. There are a few strategies for winning, but the game is won when a person acquires seven victory points and ends their turn. Newcomers might find it easier to build up towns and cities for the inherent victory points. I found gaining trade the most fun and interesting method.Included are three small expansions. They all add an interesting dynamic to the base game despite just having a handful of cards each.It's an interesting and immensely fun two player card game with a lot of variety. I highly recommend it for fans of Catan and Dominion. It's easy to learn the basics, but has enough depth that it appeals to players even after several games. The box states 45 - 60 minutes, but I find that most games run about 30 minutes once the rules are well understood. But the length of each game varies and players will play at their own comfortable pace. My only one drawback if there is one is that the square cards are tough to shuffle.Highly recommended!

Reviewer: Domika Clarke
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I've played the original Settlers of Catan for quite a while and am surprised I don't much miss the board and pieces for this card version. It's very fun. It will take a bit of time to learn if you're not used to Catan but the game makes it very easy with increasing difficulty until you are ready to play the full version with all cards included. Highly recommend as a longer, more advanced 2 player game that won't cost you a fortune in expansions and has endless replayability.

Reviewer: Mr. P. J. Morton
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great version of the game! My wife and I love to play a quick 40 minute round. I think the mechanics work a bit better than the original, lots of handy dynamics to build resources and move along play. Very easy to learn and has built in expansion-type decks to build the game once you've mastered the basic version. Lots of replay-ability and great for the Catan vibe if you haven't got more than two people to play the full version.

Reviewer: Yezmin
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Ordene el juego por los buenos comentarios que recibí de el, sin embargo no es un juego que me sirva pues las tarjetas son muy pequeñas y no alcanzo a leer su contenido a un y con lentes. Por eso sólo le doy tres estrellas.El envío fue rápido y llegó en excelentes condiciones.Lástima!!

Reviewer: Chantelle Kennedy-Bremer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Love catan

Reviewer: Silvia Schumacher
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Eines der wenige Spiele die auch zu zweit Spass machen. Kann ich nur jedem empfehlen der Spass an Startegiespielen hat.