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I've only ever played it on Xbox, but I like the game just fine. tl;dr - many Packers players enjoy playing Settlers of Catan ... but someone refers to it as a fantasy version of Monopoly ... that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read about anything ever. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-packers-of-catan-green-bays-board-game-obsession-1421346102The weekly schedule of an NFL player is jam-packed and controlled to the millisecond. There are appointments that cannot be missed. There’s practice, film study and time in the cold tub. In the case of the Green Bay Packers, there’s also board-game night.
There may not be a more unusual bonding tradition in the NFL than the gang of Packers who get together regularly to play a board game called “Settlers of Catan.” For the past two months, it’s been the talk of the locker room. The number of players that have devoted a long night to the game is in the double-digits—including most of the team’s starting offensive line, among others. And don’t let the words “board game” fool you, this is not Candy Land.
Any player in the locker room will readily admit that it’s a nerdy endeavor. The game’s object is to build settlements on the board using “resource” cards. Think of it as a fantasy version of Monopoly. “At first we’re like, ‘What the hell is this? Brick? Wool? What kind of game is this?’” said starting center Corey Linsley. But that quickly faded. “We are completely addicted to it, we play it whenever we can,” said tight end Justin Perillo.
On any day in Green Bay’s locker room, you can find starting tackle David Bakhtiari, who introduced the game to the team, rounding up players for a Settlers get-together that night—and there’s no shortage of willing participants. But players may not know what they are in for. Backup quarterback Matt Flynn said he was interested in the game because it was “a nonviolent version of Risk,” referring to Parker Brothers’ notoriously lengthy game of world domination. But Flynn said the players take it so seriously that when he stopped by to play for the first time after a win last month, he was shocked by what happened when he attempted to turn on some celebratory music.
“I was just trying to play some music—some Pearl Jam, and [Bakhtiari] wouldn’t let me. He wanted to hear the players talk and strategize. He was very serious,” Flynn said. “They take it to a different level.”
The competitive nature of the Green Bay’s Catan tradition is now legendary in the locker room. Two weeks ago, Linsley won the game, but Bakhtiari, who typically hosts the games at his house, had briefly gone outside to cook a chicken for the group. He furiously protested Linsley’s victory because of this. “He put an asterisk by it. I didn’t,” Linsley said. Backup quarterback Scott Tolzien is famous for slamming the board in frustration when he loses.
The rules of the game can be complex—making it all the funnier that the Packers have embraced it. Players must build “settlements” on hexagonal tiles using “resources” like brick or ore. The more you build, the more points you get, until one player reaches 10 points.
Packers center Garth Gerhart was intrigued by the game, because teammates were “talking about it all the time, all the different strategies.” He wasn’t expecting such cutthroat competition until he sat down with them two weeks ago and, he said, longtime players ensured his failure. “Everyone is super competitive, so when you first start playing they don’t tell you all the rules. So you start your moves and they say ‘well, actually you can’t do that’ and it sort of screws you in the game,” Gerhart said. “They get very salty.”
Perillo said each player has very specific strategies down by this point. “I obviously try to build as many cities as I can, that’s two points,” he said. “You just try to strategically place an emphasis on whatever the cards give you.”
The game’s popularity among the Packers is due in part to the lack of other things to do in town. Green Bay is the smallest town in the NFL. “We’re always looking for something to do, it’s cold. No one wants to go outside, better find something,” Flynn said. “And this is a great game.”
The game night became so popular, Perillo said, that Bakhtiari bought an extension for six players to play at a time. Games typically take around 90 minutes but can take much longer on a six-person board.
As the Packers learned to love the game, something started to happen. Perillo, in passing, mentioned on a local radio show that he and his teammates had played the game the night before. Pat Fuge, who runs Gnome Games, a Green Bay game store, was flooded with texts and calls about it. Packers have occasionally come into Gnome Games—where the events include Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering releases—but those players were there to buy backgammon or other basic games. “Jordy Nelson bought a chess set,” Fuge said of the Packers’ star receiver.
Fuge said most of the gamers are Packers fans, but the store is one of the few local businesses that don’t allow Lambeau Field parking on game days—because many of the customers would like to play board games on a Sunday and not necessarily watch football. But when word spread that the Packers were playing Settlers, people started pouring into the store. After Perillo mentioned it in December, Fuge said, he sold “double what I expected.” He usually orders too many for the Christmas season, but this time he had to restock in mid-December. “When the average person sees the Packers doing it, it becomes a safe thing. That it’s not the kids in mom’s basement anymore,” Fuge said.
The Packers’ embrace of the game become such a phenomenon that the store put a sign up that said “Be cool like Justin Perillo, play Catan!” The Packer players quickly noticed it. “We thought it was hilarious,” Linsley said.
There are plans to go to Gnome Games soon, because this week, disaster struck when Linsley unsuccessfully tried to pour water out of a filtered water jug on Monday night, less than a week before the Packers play the Seahawks in the NFC Championship.
“It went all over the board, it dried out the cards,” Perillo said. “He has to buy Bakhtiari a new game.”
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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George
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