Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email. Diversify Your Locations. Play hard, but don’t let the others see that you take it too seriously.

Where you place your first roads can decide if you get a flying start or fall behind early.

It’s especially important to access a port if you’re missing a key resource such as ore. If someone is sitting with a lot of development cards, they may be very close to winning, if they have a couple of victory points and a strategic card such as road building or monopoly. For example, if someone has 2 Knights and 3 more development cards up their sleeve and everyone else has a single Knight at most, that player might already have another 2 points in the bag from the special Knight achievement.
Step 1: Placing Settlements 1. You want to point your roads to where you want to build next.

It probably goes without saying, but robber placement should hinder the biggest threat to you and in general, experienced Catan gamers will be understanding if that’s what you do. To stop people from blocking your resources, you may want to provide them with a good argument to why it should be placed somewhere else. So as you go through this list of do’s and don’ts to keep in mind while you’re playing the game, I’d recommend using it as a tool to gauge how well you’ve been playing Catan and whether there are any holes in the strategies you’re using. That’s why it’s important that you grab development cards to acquire knights. Get a good distribution of numbers.

Settlers Of Catan: 10 Strategies To Win At This Classic Board Game 10 Expand Production. 1. Settlers of Catan Strategies Intro. Think of where you can expand to when you place your settlements. Things Everyone Needs to Keep in Mind.

For me, it truly was a gateway that took me into deeper waters where I’d latch on to other faves like Agricola and Power Grid once I discovered how thrilling boardgaming is. Always consider the next moves of your opponents. That tends to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths as they look for retribution. Point out which opponents are getting dangerous and how they can be slowed down. There are many different components, big and small, to Settlers of Catan that can vastly affect your game. Don’t let your opponents get an ideal spot. Sometimes you can get very beneficial trades by pointing out that someone else is about to win, but if they trade you a bunch of cards, you will be able to stop them, for example by taking the longest road. For trades to get approval from both sides, the trade would have to benefit the other person in some way. Placing Your Starting Settlements in Settlers of Catan Dots. Try to maximise your chances by taking the best spots, giving you the best opportunity to get lucky and always be aware of what you need to win the game. Hopefully these tips will help you to build your strategy foundation in Settlers of Catan and help you play better. Invest in knights:


These are some of the considerations to think about.

Ore and wheat to build cities. 5. Encourage your opponents to fight against each other. Knowing what the others have may also help you get better trades and is very useful when you’re holding the monopoly card. There are many ways to win a game of Settlers of Catan, but the essential factor is to be adaptable. I’ve come across many scenarios where people are unable to do so and wind up losing that location to another enterprising player.

Numbers. The more rounds you have a settlement/city, the more resources it will produce throughout the game. Understand which resources are scarce: You get points for each settlement and city, building the longest road, having the largest army and drawing special victory point cards. Try to make them spend lots of resources building roads if you’re not in that race yourself. Or to fight for the largest army, if you’re concentrating on building the longest road.

Because of that, it’s advisable that when you do your initial placement, try to get a variety of starting numbers. Beware of holding more than seven cards. The game rules are clearly described on the game itself and online. If you only place on a few numbers, you will get no cards or all the cards at the same time. If you say yes, just to be friendly, you will likely help your opponent more than yourself, which will decrease your chances of winning. Maximize pips. If you need a specific resource, you want to know who to target. 5. So make sure you’re covering a good spread of the dice roll results and that’ll make things go much much easier for you. If you look like too much of a threat, you will become the main target of the other players.

The roll of the dice decides which resources you get each round, but there is also a lot of skill involved. Ruining your opponents’ plans is an effective strategy throughout the game. Ignore ports:

To navigate your way to victory, you also need to trade with the other players and convince them that you should not be the target of the robber. Most likely, one of your opponents will settle on that spot, and you have wasted a valuable road. For a game that’s about trading with other players, it’s easy to forget just how crucial ports are, especially in the end-game. Pick the best numbers to maximise production. March 27, 2017 Chris Do's and Don'ts, Settlers of Catan, Strategy Settlers of Catan is commonly classified as a gateway game into modern boardgaming. Each number has pips … Initial placement is everything: Leave a settlement spot empty after building the road space(s) needed: So make use of them, get the resources you need for cheap, and laugh as you achieve that final 10th victory point.

Losing an achievement changes the game’s dynamic and the board position can radically change when that happens. That often means stealing from the current leader. Settlers of Catan is a strategic board game, where you build settlements, roads and cities, by using resources of wheat, ore, lumber, sheep and brick.

Not only do knights prevent people from getting the robber to squat in your territory, they’re also useful as threats too, if you can wave it around as a retaliatory measure or to get a trade deal through. Where to next?

Each resource space has a number on it, in addition to a number of dots.

Because of how this game unfolds, everything you do from then on out is based on where you place your first settlements.

Taking the lead is dangerous because it then attracts bandits to try to block your resource generation or steal resources from your warm, living hands. Don’t settle for easy trades. So don’t get caught with your pants down. If you’re so good or wily enough to get a hold of the achievements of Longest Road (2 VP) or Largest Army (2 VP), don’t forget to defend it! Well, what’s not so obvious is the fact that people often only count the raw score that their opponents have without paying to the potential score that they might actually have. Towards the end of the game, people will not want to trade with you because doing so will bring you closer to victory, so you’ll have to rely upon autarky to grind out those last few victory points. Don’t be someone who doesn’t trade. As you place your initial settlements and roads, try not to point your roads towards the middle of the board since that’s where people will rush to colonize, opening you up to hefty competition. And if one of the resources turns out to be rare, expect competition to be fierce! Being lax in defending those achievements is really damaging to your game because losing it results in a 4-point swing in someone else’s favor. The interesting thing in Settlers of Catan is that no matter your strategy, you’ll need every resource eventually. Trade tends to advance the chances of the two players that trade. You can also block a resource that you have plenty of so that people want to trade with you. This lets you predict where it will be open when you place your second settlement. If you’re an ass, you will likely become the primary target for the robber and the others will stop trading with you.

When you control a resource that the others don’t have, you can trade it beneficially (two cards for one), and it may also slow down the development of the others as they are missing a resource. 4. It is often beneficial to do the opposite of what the others do, as there will be less competition for that win condition. But as the board change, you need to shift your strategy accordingly. If your opponent really needs a card, he might give you two cards for one.

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Ports help you in that regard by giving you favorable trading terms at the stage of the game where you’re already producing a lot of goods anyway.

Consider where your opponents will place their settlements. Get one of everything.