We all agree that our faith should affect all areas of our lives, but somehow games all remain competitive – beat everyone else, become the winner, feel good at others’ expense – somehow doesn’t sound like Jesus! Of course, competition can also bring out the best in us, and it’s good to exercise those moral muscles and learn to be a happy loser, and celebrate other people’s victories … but some day when you’re not feeling up to the moral challenge of a competitive game, why not re-invent your favourite pastime as a co-operative endeavour.
For those familiar with the German game, Settlers of Catan, here are the instructions for the co-operative version we play these days.
1. Set up the island as usual. You will also need a pencil and paper or some way of keeping track of the number of turns that have been played. The object of the game is to score the maximum total number of points in a fixed number of turns. We always play 36 turns, which means 18 turns each for 2 players, 12 turns each for 3 players, or 9 turns each for 4 players.
2. Each player builds their own streets, villages and cities using their own colour, but all decisions are made by consensus with the other players, with the player whose turn it is having the final say.
3. Initially place a total of 6 villages and 6 streets, no matter how many players, and collect the resource cards (wheat, sheep, etc) for any 3 villages agreed by the players.
4. The resource cards are held in a “common purse” and passed on from one player to the next according to whose turn it is.
5. A maximum of 10 cards can be held without being stolen by the thief when a 7 is rolled.
6. If a player rolls a 7, that player rolls again, and the thief is moved to a space with that number (players may choose which space, but if the thief was already on that number, it must move to the other space with that number).
7. The “Monopoly” development card is used to collect 4 cards of any one commodity from the bank.
8. Four knights are needed to earn the “Biggest Army” card (2 points).
9. The longest street card (2 points) can be earned by building a road (T-2) streets long, where T is the number of turns each player has, ie 16, 10, or 7 streets long for 2, 3 or 4 players respectively.
10. At the end of the set number of turns, add up all the points of all the players plus any development cards etc
Our record game so far is 33 points in 36 turns, and we haven’t gone anywhere near it since.
One interesting reflection from this version of the game, is that it usually only takes about one hour to finish the whole game, and we usually make about 20-25 points. In a competitive game, we would take 2-3 hours for one player to win with 10 points. The development of the island is much more efficient when we use our resources cooperatively rather than competitively! Just like real life!
[Invented by the Servants India team]
