Tips & Strategies (4)
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Star Trek: Catan - Tips & Strategies

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Tips & Strategies (4)

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Kaleb {Avid Gamer}
Mar 12th, 2014| Strategy
60 of 61 gamers found this helpful
“Use your support cards often!”

Each of these cards provides some bonus to the player and can only be used on your turn. Every turn you are not using it is likely a turn someone else IS using it. Be sure to take advantage of this as often as is possible.

When starting with a useless card or one that is hard to activate, still do what you can to use it and exchange for something that will help. Even better if you can grab a new card that prevents someone else from getting the win (like McCoy’s card for getting a final VP development card).

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Paladin
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Sir Gamesalot {Avid Gamer}
Mar 12th, 2014| Strategy
60 of 62 gamers found this helpful
“Replicator Malfunction?”

As with the standard version of Catan, the same basic strategies for winning apply to this version.

My preferred strategy in either version is to push hard to upgrade your outposts (settlements) to starbases (cities) as quickly as humanly (or Vulcanly, in the case of Spock) possible.

Before you know it, those extra resources you get each time the dice are in your favor will eventually start to pour out like Tribbles or a replicator gone haywire.

Coupled with the right support cards (Spock if you’re trying to snag that one tricky resource on the number that never benefits you or Kirk if you’re holding onto too many cards), you can go into warp 9 and leave your opponent choking on your star dust.

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Veteran Grader
Paladin
Strategist
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Sir Gamesalot {Avid Gamer}
Mar 12th, 2014| Strategy
59 of 62 gamers found this helpful
“The Last Starfighter & His Trade Federation”

Okay, why am I mixing movie references with a TV series-themed board game? Because it’s fitting for my strategy and still works with the theme. If you can forgive that offense, I hope you find my strategy useful.

Offer to be the last to place your first outpost (settlement). Why would you intentionally forego earlier placement opportunities? I’m so glad you asked.

1.) The last player to place his first outpost is also the first to place his second outpost, which means you’ll often have a better opportunity to get the starting resources you want.

2.) With the opportunity to place two outposts and two corresponding starships, you have a good opportunity to analyze where your opponent(s) have placed and may be able to cut off valuable resources by taking a preferred placement or a faster route to the next logical area.

3.) In having two consecutive placements, you may be well-suited to take a rare resource and will therefore may be able to potentially force players to trade with you out of necessity at better ratios.

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stratagon {Avid Gamer}
Sep 16th, 2013| Strategy
88 of 114 gamers found this helpful
“Leonard McCoy Support Card: Read ALL the Text”

All the support cards in this game have their purposes. When I first read (and used) Leonard McCoy I assumed his ability was just being able to substitute a resource when purchasing a development card. I entirely skipped over the part about being able to look at three cards and picking your favorite. This extra text makes his card so much better and helps eliminate the feeling of wasting resources on a card which doesn’t help your game at all.

Using him to sift through the deck for bonus points seems like a viable strategy The player that pointed out the extra text to me in my most recent game, won using that exact plan!

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