A fabulous step up from Monopoly Game 2012

This game has provided us endless hours of family fun as we've played this with our three sons ages 12, 9, and 7. We are a TV-free family, so we look for games that have high-repeatability. We also purchased the expansion pack so we can play with up to 4 players.

The basics:
1. The board is made up of hexes that form an island. Each player is playing a settler of the island and starts off playing placing settlements (or settlements and cities if playing by tournament rules) at the corners of these hexes and placing roads along the sides of the hexes.
2. At the start of each turn, the dice are rolled. As long as a 7 isn't rolled, everyone who has a settlement or city adjacent to a hex that has the # that was rolled collects the appropriate resource. (Settlements give 1 of that resource, cities give 2 of that resource.) If a 7 is rolled, the robber is activated and the roller of the dice gets to move the robber to a new hex, which shuts it down (doesn't produce resources while the robber is there) and allows the person to steal a resouce card from anyone who has a settlement/city adjacent to that hex.
3. After collecting resources, people can offer trades of resources to the active player (whomever rolled the dice) or the active player can trade them in to the bank at a 4:1 ratio (trade in 4 of the same resource to get 1 other one back) or use a port (generally offers either 3:1 trades or 2 of a specific resource:1). The active player can then buy settlements, roads, cities, or bonus cards (give extra pts., resources, or ability to move the robber without having to roll the dice). The dice are then passed on to the next player who becomes the active player.
4. The game is played to 10 pts. Settlements = 1 pt. each, cities = 2 pts. each, plus some bonus cards and special circumstances (ex. having the longest contiguous road on the board is worth 2 extra pts.).
5. The game is for 3 or 4 players but you can get an expansion that will allows up to 6 to play it.

It is a really light game that is a lot of fun. The board is not fixed, so for each new game, you can "build" a new island with different configurations. It's a great social game that I've played in a tournament setting as well as with my nieces as it is very easy to pick up. Unlike Monopoly, which just drags on, this has a clear end point (10 pts.), which isn't hard to acquire. Even if no player will trade with you, you can always trade with the bank or a port, so there is never really a situation of being denied a resource (just a question of how economically feasible it is to get said resource). It isn't as deep as a game like Caylus and doesn't take anywhere near as long to play.

Bottom line: If you're looking for something a bit more engaging than Monopoly, this probably is the game for you. It still allows luck to play a factor (w/ dice rolling) but doesn't generally dominate the outcome of the game. It offers a lot of player interaction and is great for both new and seasoned gamers.

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