Catan (Settlers of Catan)

Catan (formerly, Settlers of Catan), invented by German Klaus Teuber, won the Speil des Jahre in 1995. It is one of the most popular board games in the world, selling over 32 million copies and is available in 40 languages. This is a trading and resource development game where players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they settle the island of Catan. A few expansions are available, and many variations of the game have been produced based on different themes.

Expansions available for Catan base model: Seafarers, Explorers & Pirates, Traders & Barbarians and Cities & Knights.

Additional scenarios for the base game: Crop Trust; Oil Springs; Big Game, Big Honor; Helpers of Catan; Frenemies; and eleven regional varieties.

Alternate stand-alone games: A Game of Thrones Catan, Starfarers, Rise of  the Inkas, Family Edition, Settlers of America, and Rivals for Catan (which has its own particular expansions: Age of Enlightenment and Age of Darkness).

There are also a few portable versions: Catan Traveler, Struggle for Catan, Catan Dice Game, and Catan Logic Puzzle.

See a video on game play of Catan here.

Click to view video

Monopoly

Probably the biggest selling commercial board game ever. As of 2015 it had been estimated that 275 million copies of the game had been sold. It has been translated into 47 languages and is played in 114 countries. Like Scrabble it was invented during the depression though much of the game's form was derived from The Landlord's Game that was created 30 years earlier.

There are dozens of variations on the game: 007, Avatar, Back to the Future, Batman, Big Bang Theory, Bob Ross, Disney Theme Park, Fortnite, Friends, Game of Thrones, The Godfather, Godzilla, I Love Lucy, Jurassic World, Lord of the Rings, Mandalorian, Millennials, Monopoly Junior, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pixar, Pokemon, Queen, Schitt's Creek, Scooby-Doo, The Simpsons, Sopranos, Space Jam, Spiderman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Super Mario, Toy Story, Transformers, WWE, etc. There are also many local and regional editions: Arizona, Brooklyn, Canada, National Parks (US), Lake District (UK), etc. A partial list of the huge range of Monopoly version can be found here.

Monopoly Deal is a card game version (that would make a good travel game).

Most of these variations are the same size as the original, just varying the names of the properties and changing the Chance and Community Chest cards. But there is now an enlarged version of the game called Monopoly Mega with a board 30% larger and the number of properties increased. There are also three dice and three piles of draw cards.

The range buildings has also expanded. Besides the houses and hotels there are train depots for the railroads and skyscrapers for the properties. Download the Monopoly Mega rules here.

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The Landlord's Game:

Click to enlarge.