Cities & Knights of Catan is a wonderful addition to an already classic game, and adds strategic depth without sacrificing any of the basic game’s simplicity. The first thing you’ll notice about Cities & Knights is the presence of the Barbarian Horde tile. This special double-hex tile replaces one of the standard water hexes at the edge of the island, and is used to track the progress of the barbarian fleet as it approaches Catan. Every time the special Event die comes up with the black ship (3 of the 6 faces), the barbarians move a little bit closer to Catan.

To combat the barbarians, players must build up a force of Knights. When the barbarians reach Catan, the strength of their attack (equal to the number of cities) is compared to the strength of the Knights’ defense. If the barbarians are stronger than the Knights, they will pillage a city belonging to the player who contributed the fewest Knights to Catan’s defense. But if the Knights manage to hold back the Barbarians, the player with the most Knights is named Defender of Catan, and receives a victory point.

The other thing that Cities & Knights adds is a different way of handling cities. In the basic game, upgrading a settlement to a city doubles the settlement’s production. In Cities & Knights, cities now produce “commodities” as well as resources. These commodities can be spent to purchase city upgrades along three different paths, which eventually lead to the three great metropolises of Catan. A metropolis is worth two additional victory points (the game plays to 13 victory points), so competition for the metropolises can be fierce…especially in a game with 4 people, where someone isn’t going to get one.

The old development cards have been eliminated from the game, and replaced with “progress cards.” Players no longer spend resources directly to buy progress cards; instead, the cards are distributed when the Event Die matches a type of city improvement that the player has built. Some of the progress cards are quite powerful, such as the Inventor, which allows its player to swap two of the numbered chits that control production. Most of the cards, however, are very well balanced, and make the game more unpredictable without sending it careening out of control.

This expansion isn’t entirely perfect, of course. For one thing, it makes the game last substantially longer; I’ve played only one game of Cities & Knights that lasted less than 2 hours, and most last close to 3 hours. Compared to the original Settlers of Catan, where an hour and a half is a “long” game, this factor may turn some gamers off to the expansion. More problematic is the fact that someone who gets behind at the start of the game tends to remain far behind for the rest of the game. This was a problem in Settlers of Catan too, but it’s far more pronounced in Cities & Knights, when (due to the barbarians) it’s actually possible to lose cities.

In all, however, Cities & Knights is a wonderful addition to an already classic game. If you’ve played Settlers of Catan, you owe it to yourself to try Cities & Knights at least once.

The boxed set of Cities & Knights of Catan (which is an expansion kit that requires the purchase of Settlers of Catan) sells for $38.00 from Mayfair Games.