The Settlers of Catan was the breakthrough game of the mid-1990's, having much of the same effect on the strategy games industry as Harry Potter did on children's reading.

Players are thrust into a race to build the greatest colony on the Isle of Catan and in doing so be crowned the Lord of Catan.

On each turn, players set about developing their colonies, which start as settlements, by gathering and trading resources. Resources can then be used to lay roads, build additional settlements on those roads, upgrade settlements to cities and purchase development cards which may enable them to gather an army.

The game revolves around the resource cards and these are gained by clever placement of settlements and cities.

The map is made up of hex tiles and each terrain produces one of the five resources. (forest-wood, hill-clay, mountain-ore, pasture-wool and field-wheat)

Each terrain also has a number ranging from two to 12.

At the start of each player's turn, they roll 2 dice and the total determines which terrains will produce resources for that turn. All players who have a settlement or city on those numbered terrains will collect the appropriate resources.

This is a simple yet ingenious system that rewards targeting the most probable numbers.

Of course sometimes the most useful resources will not have favourable numbers and risks must be taken.

The major appeal of The Settlers of Catan is that the game revolves around negotiation. This makes the Settlers a very social game and this is one of it's greatest strengths. (This is true of the board game industry as a whole)

Most games will see players with a critical shortage of one or more resources, so trading with each other and developing trade monopolies can be a critical strategy.

The game is won when a player earns 10 victory points. One victory point is awarded for a settlement, two points for a city and there are two bonus cards for building the longest road and largest army - both worth two points.

The Settlers of Catan is an elegant game.

The use of randomly-placed hex tiles makes each game look and play differently and couples with the fact that there are multiple paths to victory in every game, Settlers offers unlimited replayabilty.