Catan – Where the hobby began

Origin Story

This section is about my personal thoughts of the game, and my experiences leading up to where I am today. Feel free to skip to the next section for the bits about the game!

The Settlers of Catan. Wow. I’ve had a long journey with this one. I remember when I was young, my Grandpa and my uncles would play it with me all the time. We basically played Risk, Conquest of the Empire (classic rules), Car Wars, and Catan. Catan has helped me make and keep so many memories with friends and family over the years. In early 2009, when I was in college, CoolStuffInc.com had a huge Settlers of Catan sale. My dorm roommate and I each ended up buying the base game, Seafarers, Cities & Knights, Traders & Barbarians, and the 5-6 player expansions for all of those! For a long time, Catan was pretty much the only game I owned.

When I moved to Florida and started working for NASA, I made some friends and my gaming group was formed. They were really big into Sid Meier’s Civilization at the time and taught me how to play. I eventually convinced them to try the Settlers of Catan (one friend was particularly hesitant!). This is kind of how it all began for us. Over time my collection started getting larger and larger. I was storing the games at the top of a small coat closet and my friends and I would have game nights almost every weekend.

Yuna, my beautiful girlfriend at the time (now my beautiful wife who helped me start this blog), hadn’t played many board games growing up. She played a few while we were dating, but after we were married and she joined me in Florida is when the hobby really started launching! Now that we have so many games, we don’t play Catan as often as we used to. However, every time we do, it is still a treasured opportunity and just as fun as I knew it would be. Okay, enough about my silly past, that’s not why you’re here!

The Game

I know this game has been out since 1995 and has had numerous reviews, but I’ll provide my take on things. There are tons of different Catan expansions and spin-offs. This post will specifically talk about playing Catan + Cities & Knights. If you are interested in hearing about the other expansions, let me know in the comments! Enjoy!

The Settlers of Catan (now simply, Catan in later versions) is a game where you obtain resources, build new structures, and expand your village. You start the game with one small settlement and a single city. It is your job to build roads to far away lands, build more settlements, upgrade your settlements into larger cities, and protect your assets with your chivalrous knights (or you know… steal some)!

One of my favorite parts of Catan is the lack of player elimination. As I mentioned earlier, I played Risk and Conquest of the Empire quite a bit in my early years. I’ve spent a lot of time not playing board games because of it! I love the concept of producing resources and building things. The goal of the game is to be the first player to reach 13 Victory Points (VP). This number is different depending on which expansions you are playing with.

Settlement: 1 VP

City: 2 VP

Longest Road: 2 VP

Defender of Catan: 1 VP

City Improvement Metropolis: 2 VP Each

Merchant token: 1 VP

Progress Cards (x2 available): 1 VP Each

Victory Points

Building

Each player has 4 cities and 5 settlements available to them. However, every settlement/city (of all players) must be at least 2 road spaces apart. If you’re playing with 4 players the small island of Catan will immediately feel quite cramped before the game has even begun! As soon as a player has built 5 roads in a continuous line, they receive the Longest Road, which is 2 VP. They will keep this until another player builds more roads than the owner of the longest road. Protect your openings, longest roads will be broken when an opponent builds something between two of yours.

Defending

Throughout the game a barbarian ship will slowly make their way to the island of Catan and wreck havoc on any unprotected cities. This attack can be defended against by building knights along your roads. Make sure you feed them though, a hungry knight is quite useless. When the evil ship arrives, count up the active knights and the number of cities from all players. Catan is saved when there are more active knights than cities! The player who had the most knights active receives the ultimate title, Defender of Catan, that is worth 1 VP. Rinse & repeat.

City Management

Each player has a development flip-chart to manage their city. During the game players will be able to spend commodities to build these city improvements. If you can be the first player to build the fourth improvement in one of the three areas (bank, cathedral, or theater) then you’ll earn a metropolis token that sits nicely on top of your city token. That city is now worth 4 VP (2 for the city, 2 for the metropolis). However, if another player manages to build the fifth and final level of that area, they will steal the metropolis forever.

In the set of banking progress cards are some merchants. If you play one of these merchants you get to place a purple merchant token next to one of your settlements, on a hex. From now on you’ll be able to trade with the bank at a better rate for that item than usual. I’ll discuss more on trading later! There are more than one merchant card in the deck though, and if another player plays the card then they get to take the merchant from you and use it for themselves! Not only do you get the trading benefit, but the merchant is worth 1 VP.

Lastly, the other two areas of progress cards (cathedral/theater) each have a single card in the deck that is an instant victory point. Whenever you obtain a card, there’s a small chance you’ll be able to snag the easy point. If you get it, display it proudly for all to see!

Turn Overview

Roll the dice Production Build and Trade*

* The rules separate trading from building as separate phases for beginners but recommend combining them for advanced players. Trade, build, trade some more, build again, etc.

Roll the dice

There are three dice to roll: 2 standard 6-sided dice (one yellow, one red) and 1 special 6-sided die. The special die has three castles on it (1 yellow, 1 blue, and 1 green), a barbarian ship symbol, and 2 blanks. When it is your turn you roll all three dice together. First you’ll look and see what the special die is. If it is a castle then all players will look at their development flip chart and see if they’ve unlocked a building that matches that castle and red die combination. This can earn a progress card of that color! If the die has a ship on it then you’ll need to advance the barbarian ship one space closer to land, ultimately causing an attack.

Production

The total value of the dice will map to the number tokens on the hexes where you’ve built your settlements and cities. If you’re settlement is touching that numbered hex you’ll receive 1 of those resources. A city will generate more resources and provide the ability to earn commodities (for purchasing city improvements). If the roll adds up to 7 though… then the robber will steal from someone! The player who rolled the dice will move the robber token to another hex, stopping all resource production from that hex, and steals a random resource card from their hand.

Build and Trade

The last thing you do on your turn is trade your hard earned resources with other players and build the things you desire. You might even be able to convince your opponent to trade you the cards you need to block him from that beach front property you’ve been eyeing. This is also a time when you’ll generally be able to play your progress cards for some cool effects (such as getting free roads or swapping two of the number tokens!)

Player Interaction

One thing I enjoy about Catan is that you’re almost always talking to the other players. If it’s your turn you’re trying to make good trades. Otherwise you might be trying to convince the active player to trade with you instead of the others. Not all player interaction is rainbows and sunshine though! You may be carefully observing resource production and play progress cards to steal some for yourself! You may also use your knights and roads to block other players from expanding to where you want to go. Much of the player interaction will be full of laughter, some will be a collective sadness when people have to lose their resources from the darned 7 roll, and some players will be trying to keep a poker face while they execute their perfect plan.

Final Thoughts

Catan has already been around for almost 25 years and I know it will continue to be one of the favored board games for many years to come. It’s a proven game that has many expansions, variants, and themes. I cannot wait to share this game with my own children and grandchildren in the future. Maybe they’ll make and hold onto some of the same precious memories that I’ve made.

Designer: Klaus Teuber

Publisher: Catan Studio