Feeling board?

Participants of the game

In Yuval Noah Hararis's excellent book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, he charts out how our species came to be the most dominant living force on the planet. The key, he writes, was the transformation of human beings from hunter-gatherers to farmers. When we were hunter-gatherers, the world was our oyster since we were free to roam as we pleased without any notion of one place being home. But once the agricultural revolution took place and we started farming, we started building settlements for small groups of people.

We started tilling the land and devised ways to keep out all sorts of intruders, including animals, pests and rival human groups. This later led to the formation of towns, cities and kingdoms till, millions of year later, we eventually reached the stage we are in at present. Farming and creating settlements thus lies at the root of our social existence.

The Catan board

Which is what makes Catan such a fascinating board game. The idea behind it is for four to six players to create settlements and cities with the resources they have at their disposal. "Think of it as a type of advanced Monopoly," says Riddhi Dalal, founder of Creeda Board Game Café in Fort, where an annual Catan championship will be held, adding, "Instead of buying properties like it is with Monopoly, in Catan, you place them to win points."

What this does is improve a person's negotiation and social skills, since you have to interact with your fellow players to trade resource cards, which you can spend and buy assets to build cities and settlements. The game also teaches people to manage their resources better given the fact that you plan your strategy depending on what you require. But things can get heated up. It's a constant game of one-upmanship. "Not everyone remains friends after playing a round," Dalal jokes.

Riddhi Dalal

She adds that when this championship was first held in 2016, she immediately got calls from the board gaming community from across Mumbai. She says, "But this time we have opened it up for outsiders, too. The format of the event is such that we have qualifying rounds, followed by semi-qualifiers and the final. We are expecting around 50 people to sign up and the prizes involve board games worth '5,000 to '7,000, sponsored by FunSkool, which imports Catan [a German game] to India."

Dalal adds that Creeda also hosts other competitions, such as one for Azul, another popular board game. But the reason she chose Catan for the inaugural championship is that it's the most popular of the lot, which isn't surprising, considering how it caters to some of our most primal instincts, handed down to us all those millions of years ago by the first batch of farmers post the agricultural revolution.

On January 12, 12.30 pm
At Creeda Board Game Cafe, New Excelsior Cinema, Wallace Street, Fort.
Log on to insider.in
Cost Rs 450

Also try these out

Drop by this weekend at a café called Chai and Games in Powai to try your hand at a bunch of games like Abalone and Splendor.
On January 4 and 5, 6 pm
Call 9769573347
Cost '400

Think you're a wordsmith? Prove it at a scrabble competition that will be held this Sunday at Doolally in Kemp's Corner.
On January 5, 12 pm '
Call 48931314
Cost Rs 300

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