Somewhere around 2010 to 2015 give or take I was invited over to a friend’s house, and they introduced me to the game “Setter’s of Catan.” It seemed fun and before you knew it, I added whole new dimensions to the game. I made hundreds of custom pieces, laid the islands out on a 4x8 sheet of plywood, and the game was to 1000 not 10.

Over a decade went by, a lot of life happened, and I no longer had the expanded set. In 2024, I made another friend who loves Catan almost as much as I did, and now again, do. We started playing for 4-6 hours every Friday night and have taken Catan to a whole new level. The board continues to increase in size, the tables we play on become larger, and we are now only limited by our imagination in creating “The Old World” expansion set while keeping within the spirit of the original game.

I’ll admit, when I am very tired or heavily distracted, I have lost a couple of games, one I lost on purpose because I wanted to learn a new technique could be applied – but when I win, I win big. In the beginning I was getting to about 52 victory points and now my in-person game playing record for 6 hours is 6214, and total for a single turn harvest is 2400 resource off 1 roll.

Each week I add new rules that make the game much more and more interesting. As I have embarked on this journey of expanding the game, you are welcome to come along with me. In addition to playing the physical game and making physical pieces, since I am a software developer, I am in the process of making “The Old World” expansion in Wpf 3D & C#.

So when I make comments like, “What do you mean the game is only to 10?” or “Who says you can’t build on every angle of a hex” – as I show you what I have built in both the digital and the physical world, maybe you too, will want to play “The Old World” expansion set.

What if you could design your own board in the software before you played? What if combat rules were added?

131 hex island with ports

75 hex island with ports