Variant of Settlers of Catan

Game Name: Disasters and Armies Expansion
Designers: Christian Wikkerink, Jason Arndt, Josh Ostrowski, and Grant VanderWall

Description: Disasters and Armies is an expansion that changes the way in which the game of settlers is played. The focus of the game is still the same however the expansion has changed the way that the strategies play. There are two variants of the expansion that allow for individual or team play. The focus of the game is to gain victory points in a similar manner as the original settlers. The difference in game play comes in the strategies used and the way you go about collecting your victory points.

Players: 2-4 with potential for more.

Objective:

1. To individually or collectively with your partner reach the allotted amount of victory points. (10 or 17 respectively.
2.  To gain victory points through developing and expanding your settlements and the collection and management of resources.

So now you’re wondering what does this expansion even do? The difference is found in the ‘robber’ or ‘thief’. We focused on the changing of the importance on development cards and the use of the robber. In the expansion the knight development card can move the robber not rolling a seven. Now when a seven is rolled the player rolls the dice again to determine what special rule will come into play. Depending on the roll of the dice the second time there is a list of special rules that affect until another seven is rolled or only take effect once. This changes the importance of development cards and resource allocation. It also adds an additional factor of chance and how to deal with it as best as possible. We added a catch-up mechanism into the special rules so that it would allow for the losing team or player to make his/or her way back into the game. The game can be played both individually with a normal board set up or with teams in which the board looks like the picture below.

Special Rules:

2.    Nuclear blast- everyone looses a settlement or city (City goes down to a settlement, Occurs once). 

3.    Starvation- Knight gets taken away from the largest army (Occurs once)

4.    Zombie sheep- If you have a sheep in your hand you discard all other cards (Occurs once)

5.    Obama administration- First place gives to whoevers in last only one card (continually happens until another seven is rolled)

6.    Earthquake- The center of the person with the longest road gets taken away (Occurs once)

7.    Bountiful Harvest- Collect a resource of any kind. (Occurs once)

8.    Tsunami- All ports are unusable (Continually occurs until another seven is rolled)

9.    Sand Storm- All tiles touching the desert cannot be used. (Continually occurs until another seven is rolled)

10.  Inflation- everything increases by one. (2:1, 3:1 Ports, and 4:1 trading. Continually occurs until another seven is rolled)

11.  Ore depletion- everyone discards all ore. (Occurs once)

12.  Forest fire- all wood gets discarded. (Occurs once)