An expansion for the classic
board game The Settlers of Catan, which mixes in some of the ideas from the
card game. It comes with some special cards, a new tile for the land, and some nice new wooden pieces to build replica
Eifel towers with while you're waiting for your turn. Cities and knights has a few more concepts and ways to win:
- Knights, rather than just moving the robber, become actual military units which you can deploy in Catan to guard your settlements and drive away the robber (adding a slightly more confrontational aspect to the game)
- Barbarians, which periodically attack Catan and can only be driven away by the combined force of all the knights (adding a fun prisoner's dilemma-style subplot)
- Social advancements in military technology, agriculture and city building. Cities and knights adds three commodities, cloth money and paper, which are earned in cities and act like normal resources, but can only be used to pay for the advancements. The most advanced player in each of the three sections can build a metropolis, worth victory points, and they also allow the players to draw special cards, which are more interesting and varied than in the original Settlers.
Cities and Knights is more complicated than Settlers, and the games take significantly longer, but it still retains most of the feel of the original. And yes, it still has sheep (everybody likes sheep - sheep go baa). If you like Settlers (and who doesn't?) then you'll like this - which is lucky, because even if I told you it was terrible you'd probably still go out and buy it.
See also: The Settlers of Catan, The Seafarers of Catan, The Spacefarers of Catan