The game is very poorly balanced for current standards. If you choose the start location poorly you automatically lose. Then due to the 'robber' mechanic you c

The game is very poorly balanced for current standards. If you choose the start location poorly you automatically lose. Then due to the 'robber' mechanic you cannot follow any strategy, since you randomly lose resources. To add more: trade is almost never worth it. I think some expansion introduced small currency coins to try to facilitate more trade. After 2-3 hours the game ends since somoene managed to buy the cards that give victory points. This didnt happen due to any grand strategy, they were just lucky not to lose their resources to the robber. Those cards are a built in timer. Cathan could have been good in 1995, but now mechanically the game is very outdated and there are much better 'gateway' games. For example Carcassonne, which has very elegant mechanics. Cathan has this problem that your decision options are very limited: trade is often worth it only for one side - so the common strategy is to never trade; then you cannot do any long term strategy, since if you try to accumulate resources you randomly lose them to the robber.