The Settlers of Catan - Tips & Strategies

There are many strategies to this game by either having the longest road, largest army, building settlements or cities. I recommend using one or two at max. Building a city can be difficult unless you are on the right numbers. I usually focus on development card acquiring because you can diversify you numbers on the board and have a decent chance of getting the three cards for a development card. By doing this chances are you will acquire a good amount of victory points and have the largest army. Focus only on building cities and settlements as the opportunity arises. I usually win with this strategy.

When I first played Settlers of Catan, I was going by what others told me. It wasn’t until later that I realized we were playing wrong. When you play Settlers with 5 or 6 you have the option to build after every players turn. You can’t make any trades, but you can build.

In this variant you play by the 3-4 player rules, however you hand size is increased. When a seven is rolled you only have to discard if you have more than 9 cards in a 5 player game and more than 11 cards in a 6 player game. I haven’t played with this variant in sometime, and I don’t know if it was an actual rule at some point. I just know we used it, and it seemed to work okay. The reasoning behind the numbers was the formula (N2-1) where N = Number of players. The theory was that this was how more than 7 was established in the game for a 3-4 player game with 4 being the number of players. I.e. 4*2=8 8-1=7. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the variant.

The beautiful thing about this standard Settlers of Catan and all its variants, is that its totally customisable. Players can achieve many different levels of experience and satisfaction by inventing their own methods, house rules etc.

My gaming group use this very simple setup variation in order to spread the resources, peter out the high & low numbers, and to give each player a more equal (in my option) chance of getting off to a good start:

Arrange the terrain hex tiles so that no two of the same kind are adjacent to each other. Then lay out the number tokens in such a way that no two of the same number token are adjacent to each other; AND – so that each different type of number token does not appear on the same terrain hex twice. For example, there are two number 9 tokens; simply ensure that they are both on different types of terrain hexes, and not adjacent to each other. May sound tricky but it can be done!

Go ahead and give it a try next time. Oh, and make sure you spread the 6 and 8 tokens far and wide!

When getting the initial placement down the first time, we often have our most experienced player play ALL 4 colors onto the board. Then we each put a village in a little bag and everyone pulls one out. We have found that this lets the concept of the game sink in, while not creating any stress, because the newbie thinks they may have done it wrong.
Also, we often teach our younger players(10 year olds) to play with 4 people on the 5-6 player expansion. this allows for the basic trade and growth strategy to develop without getting “trapped”. after they get comfortable we reduce the board size and they mostly didnt notice.

It may not win you popularity points with your friends, but taking over a central or key resource tile with your starting setup two city placement can be a great way to screw with your opponent. Not only will having cities on opposite corners of one hex set you up for potential double resources right from the start, but it also creates something that your opponent has to work harder just to get around.

Catan may not have a lot of conflict, but grabbing the right hex during setup can be like getting Boardwalk and Park Place.

Go ahead and twist that knife.