#board-game  Catan, also known as Settlers of Catan, is a popular strategy board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It involves resource management, trading, and building settlements on an ever-changing island board. The objective of the game is to be the first player to reach a certain number of victory points. ## History Catan was first published in 1995 and quickly gained popularity due to its innovative mechanics. It has since become a best-selling game and has spawned numerous expansions and variations. ## Gameplay Here is a brief overview of Catan's gameplay: 1. **Setup:** The board is set up with various terrain hexes, each producing a different resource. Players place settlements and roads on the board, and each player starts with two settlements and adjacent roads. 2. **Turn Sequence:** Players take turns clockwise and perform the following actions: - **Rolling the Dice:** The active player rolls two six-sided dice, and the corresponding terrain hexes produce resources for players who have settlements or cities adjacent to them. - **Resource Collection:** Players collect resources matching the numbers rolled. - **Trading:** Players can trade resources with each other or with the bank to acquire the necessary resources they need. - **Building and Development:** Players can build roads, settlements, and cities using resources. Development cards can also be purchased and used for various effects. 3. **Victory Points:** Players earn victory points by building settlements, upgrading to cities, and achieving certain development cards. 4. **Trading and Negotiation:** Players can negotiate and trade resources with each other to acquire resources they need or to gain an advantage. 5. **Robber:** When a player rolls a seven, a robber is moved to a new hex, blocking resource production and allowing the active player to steal a card from another player with a settlement or city adjacent to the robber's new location. ## Strategy Some key strategies in Catan include: - **Resource Management:** Balancing resource production and ensuring a diverse range of resources is crucial to support ongoing building and development. In the first round, try to put your settlement so that you will have number 4,5,6,8,9,10. Also, try to get more land on brick and wood because you need them to buy road and settlement. Then quickly path your way to sheep, wheet and rock, especially wheat and rock because you want to upgrade your settlement to city. - **Expansion:** Expanding early in the game allows you to secure valuable locations and increase your resource production. Usually your initial placement is the best, as long as you have resource to upgrade the initial city, always do that. That will always be the best option. When you have nothing to do but have too many cards on hand, buy the development card. - **Trading and Negotiation:** Effective trading and negotiation can help you acquire the resources you need and create mutual benefits with other players. - **Longest Road and Largest Army:** Obtaining the longest road or largest army development cards can provide additional victory points, so planning and timing your moves accordingly can be beneficial. - **Robber Management:** Placing the robber strategically to disrupt opponents' resource production and steal from weaker players can be useful, but be mindful not to become a target yourself. Catan offers numerous strategic choices, and the optimal strategy may vary based on the game's dynamics and player interactions. Experimenting with different approaches and adapting to changing circumstances is key to success in Catan. > [!info] See also > [Dice Odds for Settlers of Catan (stanford.edu)](https://cs.stanford.edu/people/nick/settlers/DiceOddsSettlers.html)