melaniekatip

When our family began enthusiastically playing Settlers and Cities and Knights, we were excited to research different strategies for the game. My dad found a book on-line called “scenarios/variants box set.” The description said that it was full of variations of the game as well as strategies. To our surprise, “Die Siedler von Catan: Das Buch zum Spielen” was completely in German. My dad had a German exchange student who was living with a friend translate part of the book. One of the variations that we really enjoy playing with is with the volcano.
The volcano hex(es) replace the desert(s). A 5 or 9 token is placed on the hex. Similar to a gold, if a player is built on the volcano, the player can pick up whatever resource(s) they would like. Their is a catch! On each vertex is a number (1-6). When a 5 (or 9 depending on what token is placed on the hex) is rolled, the player built on the volcano first picks up their resource(s) of their choice. Then the player who rolled takes one die and rolls it again. If the number rolled is the number that someone is built on, that settlement burns down and is removed from the board. If it is a city it is burned down and replaced with a settlement.
This adds a nice addition to the game. Their is risk and reward for building on the volcano. One last rule is that you cannot build on the volcano with your initial pre-game placement of your settlement and city.