Settlers of Catan

I think the biggest problem with this game is that the box probably puts people off.  It doesn't look much fun or terribly interesting but it's one of the nicest/most addictive games I've ever played!

As you can see by this pic it looks a bit more exciting. You have 4 teams (although I have a 5-6 player expansion for when we are at camp and there are more people to play ;-p)

GAME PIECES

You pick a colour, eg blue.  You get 5 settlements (little house), 4 cities (church looking one)  and 15 roads (look like match sticks).  

The resource cards are what you get when the dice are rolled and you have a settlement on that resource with that number and what you use to buy roads, settlements, cities and development cards.

GAME BOARD PIECES

You have production hexes which form your island

The green is wood x 4

grey is Ore x 3

yellow is wheat x 4

light green is sheep x 4

brown is brick x 3

creamy colour is desert (you get nothing from this) x 1

Each hex will be given a number - see picture above for how they look on the hexes

The dots under the number indicate how many combinations of a throw of the dice will result in that number.  6 and 8 should come up the most often as they have the most possible combinations when you throw your dice ie. 4+2, 3+3, 1+5 etc for 6.  These are the hexes you want to build your settlements on because at every throw of the dice you will get a card of that type ie wood, sheep, brick that you have a settlement built on so it is more likely that you will get one on numbers that statistically occur most often. (In our experience though, this doesn't actually happen and the throw of the dice seem to be a lot more random lol)

SETTING UP YOUR PIECES

Once the board has been set up and the numbers have been allocated to each hex you can decide where you want to put your first 2 settlements and roads. The spots you put your settlements are important as they will have a big influence on helping you win. Throw the dice to see who goes 1st (highest roll) and go clockwise from there.  The 1st person gets to place the 1st settlement with a road attached, then you go round and each person places their settlement and road.  Then the last person gets to place their settlement and you go counter clockwise so the 1st person places their 2nd settlement last, this allows for a fair shot at the good hexes.

Settlements must always be two roads or spaces (sides of a hex) away from each other.

This is actually a bad example as you shouldn't have 2 hexes with red numbers next to each other, distribute them more evenly to allow for a fairer game.  Also try not to have the same resource next to each other.  One of the nicest features is you can change the lay out of every game so it is different, not like the usual static boards of boardgames.  Once you get expansions like sea farers and cities and knights it becomes really exciting!

Try and place your settlements on an intersection of 3 different resources, eg. wood, brick and sheep and the next one on the other three eg. ore, wheat and another wood or brick if you can as these are the most needed, especially to begin with.  Whatever three hexes you place your 1st settlement on are the 3 cards you start the game with so blue (below) will get a brick, wood and wheat. Brown will get a wheat, ore and wood.

Blue has placed their first settlement on wood 11, brick 6 and wheat 4

2nd settlement wood 8, brick 11 and sheep 10

Blue rolls the dice and gets an 8.  Blue gets a wood and brown gets a wood as they both have a settlement on the 8 wood hex.  Even though it's not your turn you still get a resource card if the number is rolled that you have a settlement on.

HOW TO PLAY YOUR CARDS

So blue now has brick, wood and wheat from the 1st placement and another wood from the 1st roll. The first thing you have to do is build a road so you can get to other hexes to build more settlements to get more resources and each settlement is worth 1 victory point.  Blue pays a brick and wood back to the bank  and places a road adjoining one of the other two roads.  You always have to attach your road to another road or a settlement to make it continuous, ie. you can't place them randomly around the board.

Looking at the picture above there were 2 options for where blue could place their road.  You could either place your 1st road between the brick 6 and wood 11 so that the road you build now can be placed between the sheep 2 and the wood 11.  You would then technically be able to build a settlement on the junction of the sheep 2, brick 3 and wood 11 but I would wait and build another road between the sheep 2 and brick 3 so you can build a settlement on the junction of the wood 6, sheep 2 and wood 3. 

The chances of the wood 6 being thrown is higher than the 2, 3 and 11, which are all the lowest numbers. Chances are red will try and beat you to that spot though but they will need the resources for a road and settlement to do so.  

The other option is leaving the road where it is and building your 2nd road along the coast so you can build a settlement on the harbour. (see lower down for the advantages of this)

TRADING CARDS

You may ask the other players if they would like to trade a card if you are short for building something when it's your turn.  

Eg. After spending the brick and wood to build a road blue still has a wood and wheat card left.  Blue could offer the wheat card to the other players in exchange for a brick.  If one of the other players needs a wheat they will make the trade but you don't have to trade if it is not to your advantage.  

You can trade with the bank at a 4 to 1 ratio ie. you have 4 wheat cards and want a brick to build a road you may trade that with the bank.  There are harbours around the edges where you can build a settlement.  At the tip of the wood 8 hex where blue has built 2 roads there will be a harbour 

This picture may be a little clearer as to where the harbours are.  (although their position will change with each game as you change the layout of the board)  So if blue were to build a settlement on the harbour it would give them a trading advantage.  The harbours can be a 2 to 1 of a particular resource eg wood.  If this is a wood harbour it would help blue as they have 2 settlements on wood so likely to get quite a few wood cards.  So he would give the bank 2 wood cards in exchange for another card that he needs.  There is 2 to 1 of every type of resource so head for the one that you seem to be getting the most of.  There is also a 3 to 1 of any resource, which is the one with the question mark.  This means that you can trade 3 brick, or 3 wood etc for 1 resource that you need.  Please note they have to be the same so you can't trade 1 brick and 2 wood.

 GAME PLAY CONTINUED

Brown rolls a 3 and gets an ore and red gets a brick (you can see the red settlement on the 3 brick hex a bit further up). White gets an ore.

So brown now has wheat, ore and wood from the 1st placement of their settlement and another wood from the 1st roll and an ore from the 2nd roll.  

Brown could build a road along the 8 wood and try and beat blue to building a settlement on the harbour.  He can spend the wood and brick to build a road.  He now needs a settlement which costs a Wood, Brick, Wheat and Sheep.  He has Wheat, 2 Ore and a Wood.  He could offer to trade the 2 Ore for a Brick and a Sheep to be able to build the settlement but it is unlikely that players will be willing to trade at this time as they won't have many cards themselves.  As he already has 2 Ore and 1 Wheat he could save up to convert a settlement to a city but then he risks losing his harbour spot to blue. As you can see, there is a lot of strategy that goes on in making decisions about what to trade and build.

NB All settlements have to be 2 roads apart from any other settlement

Red rolls a 4 but doesn't get a resource as they don't have a settlement on a number 4 hex.  Blue gets a wheat and orange gets a sheep. 

This should give you an idea of how the resources are dealt out on each round. 

Cities

A city costs 3 Ore and 2 Wheat to build.  You should build one as soon as you can as it yields you double the resources. Cities are worth 2 victory points

As you can see white has a city on the 2 wheat, 8 wheat and 9 wood.  So every time a 2 or 8 are rolled they will get 2 wheat instead of 1 and for a 9, 2 wood instead of 1.  As you can see, this gives you the advantage in building quicker.  You can only replace a settlement with a city, you can't just build a city outright.  When you have replaced the settlement you may then build that settlement somewhere else.

Development Cards

These cost 1 Sheep, 1 Ore and 1 Wheat to buy.  it's a lucky draw basically as to what you will get as the pile of cards is kept face down with the banker.  There is a 

Resource Monopoly  You can use this card once.  You name a resource eg wood and all the other players who have wood have to give it all to you.  A handy card to have but make sure you play it strategically ie you know when players have stockpiled that resource or you would have wasted the cards it cost you to buy it.  You don't have to play it when you buy it, you can keep it for later in the game when you are sure of your return.  Once you have played it you give it back to the bank and it goes at the bottom of the pile.  

Road Building You get to build 2 roads using this card.  Once you have used the card it also gets returned to the bank to be placed at the bottom of the pile 

Year of Plenty  You can chose 2 resources of your choice and then return the card to the bank to be placed at the bottom of the pile. (basically a waste of what you spent to get it lol)

Victory Point These are obviously the best ones to have as they count as an additional point for you at the end of the game.  Keep it face down next to you until the end of the game.

Knights These are handy and annoying at the same time lol.  Annoying because they make up the bulk of the cards in the pack but handy because they help you move the robber from off your hex and whoever has the most nights face up at the end of the game gets 2 Victory points for Largest Army

The Dreaded Robber!

You may have noticed that there is no no.7 on the board.  This is because when a 7 is rolled the robber attacks! All players holding 8 or more resource cards in their hand have to lose half of them to the bank.  The person who rolled the 7 gets to then place the robber on someone else's hex.  This then prevents that person from getting that resource until he either rolls a 7 or uses a knight card to move it.  You then take a random card from that person, ie. they hold up their cards facing away from you and you pick one.  (Just to add insult to injury ;-p)

Any knight cards you buy from the development pile are put face down next to you.  If the robber is placed on one of your hexes then when it is your turn you may turn the knight face up and move the robber to someone else's hex and steal a card.  

That knight is then in play for largest army at the end of the game.  ie. any knights that are still face down and haven't been used to move the robber are not counted.

As you can see by the picture above the orange player will now not be able to receive wheat when their number is rolled.  This is great for the other players as orange was obviously getting a lot of sheep from this hex, given the 2 cities.  This gives the other players a chance to 'catch up'.

We have actually decided not to play the robber when we play as it causes too many fights! lol. Losing half your cards is bad enough!  In the last game we even changed it so that you don't lose your cards but instead chose a resource card! lol It's your game, have fun with it!

You could be fair and say each time the robber is moved it has to move to a different person, that way the same person isn't targeted every time. 

WINNING THE GAME

The best part about Catan is you can make it as long or short as you like.  You can set a target ie. the first person to get to 10 victory points or you can set a time limit.  Ie. we'll play for 3 hours and then add up everyone's victory points to see who wins.

Have fun! And once you have mastered this version get the expansions!