Catan
Catan, previously known as The Settlers of Catan or simply Settlers, is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag as Die Siedler von Catan. Players take on the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources. Players gain victory points as their settlements grow and the first to reach a set number of victory points, typically 10, wins. The game and its many expansions are also published by Catan Studio, Filosofia, GP, Inc., 999 Games, Κάισσα, and Devir. Upon its release, The Settlers of Catan became one of the first Eurogames to achieve popularity outside Europe., more than 32 million boxed sets in 40 languages had been sold.
Gameplay
The players in the game represent settlers establishing settlements on the fictional island of Catan. Players build settlements, cities, and roads to connect them as they settle the island. The game board, which represents the island, is composed of hexagonal tiles of different land types, which are laid out randomly at the beginning of each game. Newer editions of the game began to depict a fixed layout in their manual and recommend this to be used by beginners. In 2016, editions of the game were released with a conventional fixed layout board in this configuration, the hexes of which cannot be rearranged.Players build by spending resources that are depicted by these resource cards; each land type, with the exception of the unproductive desert, produces a specific resource: hills produce brick, forests produce lumber, mountains produce ore, fields produce grain, and pastures produce wool. On each player's turn, two six-sided dice are rolled to determine which hexes produce resources. Players with a settlement adjacent to a hex containing the number just rolled receive one card of the corresponding resource; cities produce two cards of the corresponding resource. For example, if a player has one city and two settlements adjacent to a grain hex, that player would take four grain resource cards if the corresponding number was rolled.
There is also a robber token, initially placed on the desert; if a player rolls 7, the robber must be moved to another hex, which will no longer produce resources until the robber is moved again. That player may also steal a resource card from another player with a settlement or city adjacent to the robber's new placement. In addition, when a 7 is rolled, all players with 8 or more resource cards must discard their choice of half of their cards, rounded down. For example, If a player has 9 resource cards, and a 7 is rolled, the player must get rid of 4 cards.
On the player's turn, the player may spend resource cards to build roads or settlements, upgrade settlements to cities, or buy development cards. Players can trade resource cards with each other; players may also trade off-island at a ratio of four-to-one resources for one of any other. By building settlements adjacent to ports, players may trade with the bank at three-to-one or two-to-one ratios, depending on the port.
The goal of the game is to reach ten victory points. Players score one point for each settlement they own and two for each city. Various other achievements, such as establishing the longest road and the largest army, grant a player additional victory points.
Resource cards can also be spent to buy a development card. There are five different types of development cards, including cards worth one victory point; knight cards, which allow the player to move the robber as if they had rolled a 7 ; monopoly cards, which allow the player to steal all of any one resource from other players; road building cards, which allow the player to build two roads without paying extra resource cards; and year of plenty cards which allow the player to pick up two resource cards of their choice.
Teuber's original design was for a large game of exploration and development in a new land. Between 1993 and 1995 Teuber and Kosmos refined and simplified the game into its current form. Unused mechanics from that design went on to be used in Teuber's following games, Entdecker and Löwenherz. The game's first expansion, Catan: Seafarers, adds the concept of exploration, and the combined game is probably the closest game to Teuber's original intentions.
In 2020, the Board Game Analysis blog created a mathematical model to evaluate how balanced any particular board layout is, with scores ranging from 0 to 1 and lower scores being more balanced. According to that model, the beginner layout recommended in the game's manual has a balance score of 0.094. They also analyzed a board layout used in a 2016 tournament, which scored a 0.106. A sample of 100 million randomly generated board layouts formed an approximately normal distribution with the majority of boards' scores clustered around 0.25.
Extensions, expansions, and updates
The base game of the Catan series, Catan, is designed for 3–4 players. In 1996, an extension to allow up to six players was released for the base game. As well as extra components to accommodate more players, the expansion adds an extra building phase between turns, so that players can participate in the game outside of their own turn. Players may not trade with other players during this phase nor may they trade in with the bank from their own hand.After releasing the 5- to 6-player extension, Teuber began to publish expansions for the base game. The first, Seafarers of Catan, was released in 1997; it was later retitled Catan: Seafarers. Seafarers adds ships that allow players to cross sea hexes, and includes scenarios in which players explore an archipelago of islands. It also adds gold-producing hexes that allow players to take the resource of their choice.
The second major expansion to the game, Cities and Knights of Catan, was released in 1998. It adds concepts from the card game and its first expansion to Catan, including Knights who must be used to defend Catan from invading barbarians, and improvements that can be bought for cities that give benefits to players. Three commodities can be produced, in addition to the original resources. A 5- to 6-player extension for Cities & Knights was released at the same time. In 2000, a book of variations for Settlers was released.
The third large expansion, Catan: Traders & Barbarians, was released in 2008. Traders & Barbarians collects a number of smaller scenarios, some of which have previously been published elsewhere. The set includes an official two-player variant.
A special edition of the game was released in 2005: a 10th-anniversary collector's edition of the base game and Cities & Knights, with hand-painted 3D tiles and playing pieces.
Mayfair Games released a fourth edition of The Settlers of Catan in 2007, with new artwork, a locking frame, a deeper box, and an insert tray; there was also a minor rule change. Soon after its release, two changes were made to the fourth edition. The robber playing piece was changed from a black to a grey color and the soldier development card was renamed a knight. Fourth-edition versions of Cities & Knights, Seafarers, and the 5- to 6-player extensions were also released.
Catan: Explorers & Pirates, the fourth large expansion, was released in 2013. which introduces new elements for the game including moving ships, new resources, and pirates.
The Catan line was rebranded in 2015 for the 20th anniversary of the series, with the original Settlers game renamed simply Catan.
There are variations of the visual style of the game with subsequent releases. A list of version comparisons can be found here:
Variants and scenarios
In 1998, the first Historical Scenario pack was released, which allows players to re-enact the building of the pyramids of Egypt or the expansion of Alexander the Great's empire using Catan game mechanics. A second scenario pack for Settlers concerning the building of the Great Wall of China and the Trojan War was released in 2001.Die Siedler von Catan: Das Buch zum Spielen was published in 2000. It contained the rules and pieces for 15 new scenarios and many variants.
Atlantis: Scenarios and Variants was published in 2005. Atlantis was a boxed set which collected a number of scenarios and variants published in gaming magazines and at conventions, such as The Volcano and The Great River. The set also included a deck of event cards which replaced the dice in the main game, giving it a less random spread of resource production. The event cards, which were also available as a standalone item, have since been re-released in a modified form in the Traders and Barbarians expansion.
Kosmos, Mayfair, and 999 Games released the first stand-alone "Catan Geographies" title, Catan Germany, in 2008.
In 2009, Schätze, Drachen und Entdecker was published. This was a scenario pack for fans that included six new scenarios and the pieces needed to play them. It was re-released in 2017 with artwork updated to match the 2015 fourth edition of Settlers of Catan. Treasures, Dragons & Adventurers will be available in English as of July 16, 2021.
Catan: Oil Springs is an expansion by Erik Assadourian and Ty Hansen introduced in 2011 designed to draw attention to environmental issues. It is offered as a free download or for purchase from the Mayfair Games website. The scenario adds oil fields that can be used to make other resources and develop metropolises, but disasters can strike if too much oil is used. Oil can also be taken out of the game, for victory points and to prevent disasters.
The scenario Catan: Frenemies was released in 2012. In Frenemies, players are rewarded with redeemable "favor tokens" for "helping" their opponents by moving the robber harmlessly, giving away resources, and connecting their roads to their opponents' road networks. Depending on the circumstances, these favors might not be helpful.
Helpers of Catan is an expansion released in 2013. The computer opponent characters from the PC/Mac game Catan – Cities & Knights return in this scenario as "helper cards", which can be used during gameplay; for example, the helper card for Candamir allows the player who uses it to substitute any one resource when buying a development card.