Featured Game - Catan: New Energies

Featured games are our way of teaching new games and highlighting something we think our players may enjoy or take note of. We'll explain from scratch how to play the game with a detailed description and demonstrate a few turns, then break into tables to actually play it. Each week it'll be something new, but will run the spectrum of different lengths, complexities, themes, and game mechanics. So if this week's game doesn't interest you, feel free to look again next time around!

Catan: New Energies is a new version of the classic game, now with a theme around sustainable energy. As in classic Catan, each round you'll roll dice, which determine which spaces produce resources, then trade them with other players or use them to build new buildings. New features in this game include building power plants that can produce energy, a new resource, as well as an event deck that rewards players who have a low energy footprint or penalizes players that don't. Players can win by having 10 points worth of buildings or by having the lowest local footprint once the event deck runs out.

This game is for up to 4 players and should take about 1 hour to play. It has a complexity of 2.31 according to BoardGameGeek, making it medium-low difficulty compared to games typically played here. For reference, the original Catan has a complexity of 2.29, so if you are familiar with one, you should be able to quickly figure out the other.

Read the rules here: https://www.catan.com/sites/default/files/2024-04/CN3207%20New%20Energies%20rules%20240409_secure.pdf
Watch a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8aBWj158Y4

If this is your first time with this group, you should see a link to our Discord group once you've signed up for this event. You may join any time before the event begins to get to know people, but once this event starts, we'll typically join the Lobby voice chat, then move to another voice chat once we've gotten started. Note that I, as the game teacher, will share my screen to show how the game works, but all other interaction will be voice only, no video, so no need to look presentable first. The game itself will be played using Board Game Arena - please create an account on this site beforehand.