Book Realm * Closing for a while

Our first baby was born healthy and well on 18th March, 2007; a girl!

With this new edition to the family came a tough, and yet at the same time easy, decision... to close Book Realm and become a stay at home dad.

Thank you to all who have supported me through the years, and brought interesting conversation and great laughter to my shop.

New Start for Book Realm

A friend of mine is looking at starting up Book Realm in the future - whether near future of further down the track is unknown. Once the new location and opening date known, they will be announced on this website.

However, to save you checking regularly back to this website, if you would prefer an email be sent of the announcement instead...

Email: search at bookrealm dot com
(Email address not linked and broken up to help fight spam.)

Settlers of Catan

For those of you who where looking for the house rules we used for the board game "The Settlers of Catan":

    Outline of the official Robber rule:
    When moving the Robber due to rolling a "7" or playing a "soldier card", the player moves the Robber to a numbered hex of his/her choice and takes one resource card from any one player who has a settlement or city adjacent to the hex now occupied by the Robber.

    Here's our twist to the Robber rule:
    ... the player moves the Robber to a numbered hex of his/her choice and takes one resource card from either:
    1. any one player who has a settlement or city adjacent to the hex now occupied by the Robber (official rule), or
    2. the resource pile which matches the terrain hex now occupied by the Robber, as long as the hex is not adjacent to an oppontent's building else the official rule is used


Two Player Version
And, even though Settlers is a 3-4 player game (3-6 with expansion), we did have a two player version.


1st: Alternate goes at placing first settlements.

    In a normal 3 or more player game, the first player would place a settlement (getting the best spot) then the next player, and the next all the way to the last player.

    The last player gets to place both his/her starting settlements at the same time (allowing for more strategy).

    Then in reverse, each other player places his/her second settlement, all the way down to the 'first' player (whose second placement is on one of the worst spots... this evens out his/her first best spot placement.)

    In a two player game the balancing out of placement advantage does not seem to work. If the second person places both his/her settlements at the same time, there is too much of an advantage.

    Thus, alternating is best. Player 1 places, then player 2, then back to player 1 for second placement, then finally player 2.


2nd: Increase the points needed to win to 15.

    We found that in a two player game 15 points for the win was good. Building all your buildings would get you 13 points:

    (settlements [1 point each] * 5 + cities [2 points each] * 4)

    So, you needed to gain the other 2 points by either longest road, largest army or point cards from the developement cards.


3rd: Use the house rule for the robber (see above).

    Especially at the beginning of the game, the two player version game can get very boring and slow if 'sevens' are rolled (or soldiers used) from the start of the game.

    One player can effectively be knocked out of the game before it even gets going; not much fun.