Today, we’re going to talk about board games, but instead of trying to trace their histories, which we’ve already covered a bit of in ep2 on ancient games, we’re going to look really closely at just two board games - Monopoly and The Settlers of Catan. These two games have been played by millions, and we’ll talk about why they’re so popular (and controversial), but more importantly these two games have helped define two approaches to board game design: the American style board game and the European style board game. Now these two different “styles” of board games are mostly just over-generalizations about board game mechanics and there’s a ton of overlap, but with the recent resurgence in board game popularity they help us more clearly define two discrete time periods in board game popularity and discuss how these approaches have been defined by the times. All attributed imagery was found on Flickr and licensed by cc by 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Want some Crash Course Games merch? Check out our beautiful Snake-inspired mugs! http://store.dftba.com/collections/cr... Also, Crash Course is on Patreon! You can support us directly by signing up athttp://www.patreon.com/crashcourse Thanks to the following Patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever: Alyssa Nolden, Mark, SR Foxley, Kristina Lavoie, Sandra Aft, Eric Kitchen, Simun Niclasen, Eric Knight, Ian Dundore, Brian Thomas Gossett, Nicholas Bury, Daniel Baulig, Jessica Wode, Moritz Schmidt, Caleb Weeks, Tim Curwick, Alex S, Brian Roberds, Mayumi Maeda, Jeffrey Thompson, Montather, Noora Althani, Steve Marshall, Kathy & Tim philip, Robert Kunz, Jason A Saslow, Jirat, Jacob Ash, Christy Huddleston, Chris Peters, and Sheikh Kori Rahman. Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet? Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashC... Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse Tumblr - http://thecrashcourse.tumblr.com/ Support Crash Course on Patreon: http://patreon.com/crashcourse