Catan has been known as the euro game that introduced the mainstream citizen to euro gaming. It’s one of the only games people recognize when I give them a list of the types of games I play (Ticket to Ride is another one). But Catan uses dice-an element of chance-whereas Concordia uses none. The only random thing about it is what cards come up next in the queue of new cards you can grab.
So you’re probably asking the question: which game do you prefer? Catan or Concordia? If someone had a copy of both and asked you which one you’d like to play, which would you pick? I would say Concordia.
In Catan you’re waiting for a while in between turns. Turns in Concordia are really fast. Usually it’s just trading goods with the Mercator card that takes the longest. But because there are no die rolls, I can just start my turn as you’re finishing up yours.
You feel like you’ve accomplished more. In Concordia your score can go all the way up above 100, as opposed to Catan’s 10 points. Plus, in Concordia, scoring is more interesting and there are several different routes you can take to get a high score, depending on what god/s you focus on.
Although there’s no trading resources in Concordia, there’s still plenty of player interaction and not being able to trade makes the game go quicker (see above). In Catan, if someone blocked you off you were doomed. In Concordia, you can still build there, it just costs more money.
Both games take about the same amount of time to play, I’d say. But once again, in Concordia you feel like you’ve accomplished and done so much more.
In the end, I give Concordia my recommendation. The rules are super simple (and can all be learned in my eight and a half minute video above), the turns are fast, what you can do on your turn is literally spelled out for you in the cards in your hand, and there are multiple paths to victory due to the differently scoring gods. In the end, Concordia is like Catan. But better.
