So the player order is: 1-2-3-4 4-3-2-1 Example of settlement placement in a 4 players game When this is done, they all place a second settlement-road combo, but in reverse order. In the beginning, each player place, in-turn, one settlement, and one attached road. They need at least one empty settlement position between them. Settlements cannot be placed next to each other. Roads are placed on the side of hexagons and are used to connect settlements. And thus are associated with between 1 and 3 hexagons, depending on where they are placed. Settlements are placed at the corners of hexagons. The first step in the game is to place initial settlements on the board. They allow an exchange rate of 2 cards of the harbor type against 1 card of any type (Noted 2:1 on the map).įour harbors are neutral harbors allowing exchanging 3 cards of one type against 1 card of any type (Noted by 3:1 on the map). The harbors allow players to trade resource cards at a better exchange rate than the default.įive harbors are of a specific resource type (one for each resource type). Each connects with two hexagon corners, and are placed with at most one harbor connection per settlement positions around the island.ĭuring her turn, a player can exchange 4 resource cards of the same type against 1 resource card of her choice. Harbors are placed around the island as if they were on their own sea hexagon. The only restriction on how the numbers are placed is that high probabilities number, like 6 or 8, cannot be on adjacent tiles. Each settlement around those tiles will produce one resource card for its owner (2 resource cards if the settlement was upgraded to a city). The sum of both indicates which resources tiles will pay out. Here is a preview of my new metric, the Catan Island Balance Index:ĭuring the game, at the beginning of each player’s turn, the player rolls a pair of dice. Have a look at different initial boards and even have a peek at extreme board setups!.Find an objective way to measure if a Catan island is well-balanced.Establish the difference between a balanced setup and a fair setup.Quickly look at what is the Catan Island initial setup.

In today’s post, we will address the initial setup of the game, and try to answer the following question:Īnd to get started on this, we will do 4 things: You see, we already have a good mystery on our hands! What to expect in this article The winner is mostly determined by starting position (and mostly unaffected by what follows.) The winner is determined by the luck of dice during the game It is easy to spot an apparent contradiction: The game is unfair, starting position usually determining who will win from the start.The initial setup of the island is often unbalanced, making some resources hard to get.The game relies too much on randomness, with too many dice rolls.If you are familiar with online board game communities, you’ll often read criticism of Catan among the following lines: Here are my previous articles about Catan:

The settlers of catan board