All Catan News
Here you can read all the news from the world of Catan. In addition you find our last activity on Facebook and Twitter in the "Socal Media" section. Have fun reading and browsing!
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July 16, 2009
Catan – an Introduction to my American Journey
My wife Emily (then girlfriend) and I had arrived in Charlottesville, VA, the charming and historically significant city of Jefferson, Monticello, and the University of Virginia. Two days earlier, on July 23rd 1997, I had stepped off a plane in New York, arriving from Germany and ready to start my new life in the USA. …
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July 8, 2009
Favorite FAQ
“What does your father do all day long as a game inventor?” People have asked me different versions of this question all my life. Everyone who has ever used a rolling pin more or less knows how a baker works, and you don’t need to have a green thumb to know how the workday of a gardener might look like. …
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June 29, 2009
What do you do for a living?
“So, …what do you do for a living?” New acquaintances always seem to ask this kind of question. Over time, I have tried different responses. At first, I used to say: “I’m in the board game business.” Usually, people reacted with a wide-eyed “Oh ….” I always wondered what people meant by “Oh ….” Perhaps they meant to say, “Oh … I am so sorry,” or maybe, “Oh … can you really make a living this way?” Indeed, the more generously inclined often gave me a compassionate look, as though they were equating the board game business with a state of long-term unemployment. …
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June 22, 2009
How Good Should an Artificial Intelligence in an Electronic Catan Game Be?
If someone had asked me this question roughly half a year ago, I would have answered: Of course it has to be as good as possible. A computer opponent can never be a substitute for a human player in a Catan game on a real game board, so it should at least be able to play well. What’s missing in a game against computer opponents are emotions: …
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June 16, 2009
The Vikings and Catan
When I started developing “The Settlers of Catan” in the early nineties, I was inspired by the Vikings. The story of the men and women of early medieval Scandinavia had already captivated me as a child. Maybe those high-quality plastic Viking figures manufactured by the company Hausser were to blame for it; I received them as a gift when I was 10 or 11 years old. …
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April 17, 2002
Two brothers: “Entdecker” and “The Settlers of Catan”
Early in my childhood, I was extremely fascinated by discovery stories. Since I began designing board games, I felt the desire to experience the elements of discovery and development (settlement) in a game. I began to explore these themes with increasing intensity. Finally, in the early Nineties I started out with the development of my first prototype. …
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April 5, 2002
How Obelix Turned into a Squirrel
I am a huge Asterix fan, so you can imagine that 10 years ago, I was very proud when Ravensburger Verlag published one of my games under the title "Asterix und die Römer" (Asterix and the Romans). And of course, the objective of the game was to beat up as many Roman soldiers as possible - did you expect anything else? …
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