Is Settlers of Catan the “board game of our time” as Monopoly was eighty years ago?
the great board game of this era is The Settlers of Catan. That game, which came out in Germany in 1995, is not a household name like Monopoly, and given that electronic games have eclipsed board games, it may never be. But it presents a world in which resources are limited and fortunes are intertwined, and serves as a model for solving contemporary problems such as trade imbalances, nuclear proliferation, and climate change. If we are reaching the end of a period of American supremacy, a winner-take-all game such as Monopoly teaches bad habits.