Maybe for a family game night or an evening in with friends, but chances are, we have all played Settlers of Catan at least once. First introduced in 1996, the board game is an American classic.

What is the Settlers of Catan About?

The game involves settlers exploring uncharted lands. A player must use their luck and their wits to explore and settle Catan, the mysterious island. Aside from beating opponents, you need to use the terrain tiles to generate resource cards and use them to expand their settlement. Settlers of Catan also relies on development cards like victory point cards and progress cards to make the gameplay more interesting.

Using Cards to Settle Catan

Each has its demarcated colour and specific use when you play Catan. For example, the latter is a one-time-use card. Progress cards are typically green in colour and help amp up your settlement progress. Unlike resource cards, these pieces come with instructions.

Following these guidelines, you can activate benefits that let you temporarily exert a monopoly over the island. A progress card can even be used to collect double the resources in a single turn. Doubling your resource card intake is essential as it can make it easier to win against other players.

Importance of Upgrading Your City

This is because upgrading your settlement to a city is key when you play Settlers of Catan. Each city is worth 2 Victory points, while settlements are worth just 1 point. And to do this, you need the resource cards from the terrain tiles. To develop a single city from a settlement, you require 3 Ores and 2 Grains. You will also need Brick and Lumber to build roads connecting settlements and cities.

Benefits of Resource Cards

Resource cards activate benefits that accelerate these expansions. For example,

• “Year of Plenty” lets you pick 2 resource cards from the supply store
• “Road Builder” allows you to construct 2 free roads on the board. This progress card makes it easier to acquire the “Longest Road” bonus awarded to the player who constructs three roads first.
• “Monopoly” lets you collect resource cards from your opponents by naming your preference

Using the Knights’ Victory Point

The first player to collect three knights gets the special “Largest Army” bonus. Getting this card helps your quest progress, as it also comes with 2 coveted victory points. Knight cards also force the robber to move from the desert hex.

After getting displaced, the robber piece moves to a tile near an opponent’s settlement. Here it will hinder their resource production. You can also activate this card by rolling a seven on the dice.

What Does the Settlers of Catan Game Board Extension Contain?

Settlers of Catan is, therefore, an exciting way to explore and settle on uncharted lands. The well-developed gameplay lets you execute in-game tasks like group and harbour trade. However, the base game has one central issue – it supports only 4 players.

Improvements/Additions Made by the Game Extention

Fortunately, the expansion pack rectifies this error by allowing 2 extra players to embark on their Catan journey. The extended setup is very similar to the original and uses many of The Settlers of Catan basic set components. However, since the gameplay is designed for more players, the game board extension also features the following additional pieces

• 11 Terrain Hexes (1 Desert, 2 Fields, 2 Forests, 2 Pastures, 2 Mountains, 2 Hills)
• 2 Frame Pieces with Harbors (1 Generic 3:1-Harbor, 1 Wool 2:1-Harbor)
• 2 All-Sea Frame Pieces
• 2 Extra Harbor Pieces (1 Generic 3:1-Harbor, 1 Wool 2:1-Harbor)
• 2 Sets of Wooden Playing Pieces, including 10 settlements (5 of each of two colours), 8 cities (4 of each of two colours), 30 roads (15 of each of two colours), 25 Resource Cards (5 lumber, 5 grain, 5 wool, 5 brick, 5 ore), 9 Development Cards (6 Knight Cards, 1 Monopoly Card, 1 Year of Plenty Card, 1 Road Building Card), 2 blank cards & 1 blank hex (for fun or replacements)
• 2 “Building Cost” Card(s)
• 28 Circular Numbered Tokens

Catan Expansion Packboard: How to Play Catan with More Players

The general rules for the Catan expansion pack are the same as the base game. As with the original, you can set up the game board by following these steps

1. Ensuring all board game components are available
2. Using the sea frame pieces to create the board outline
3. Adding the terrain tiles, including the additional 11 pieces
4. Placing round tokens on the hexes
5. Distributing the pieces evenly among the players
6. Adding the robber to the desert tile
7. Getting the card stacks ready, including resource cards, building costs cards, and development cards (victory point cards, knights, and progress cards)

Important Changes in the Extension

However, the expansion pack differed from the base game on two counts. Since it involves 2 additional players, the game must accommodate

• A larger board
• More game pieces
• A special building phase

How to Assemble the Base Game Extention Board

The Catan base game extension features many additional hexes, game pieces, and sea frame parts. So, setting up the board correctly is important to the gameplay. At the beginning of each game, you will need to construct the board. This should be easy as the extended version uses a style very similar to the base game.

Why Does the Catan Extension Pack Have More Components?

For example, the 5/6-player game uses the same 19 terrain hexes as the original. However, on top of this, it adds additional 11 tiles to accommodate the extra players. The game board frame also must be larger to hold the additional hexagonal tiles and harbour pieces.

For this reason, the extended game features additional Sea Frame pieces as well. Like the land hexes, players have to use all these pieces from this extension as well as the sea frame components from the standard Catan game.

Setting Up the Frame Joints

However, the 4 additional frame joints provided in the base game extension must be placed in the following manner

• An all-sea frame piece – between the “2-2” joint.
• The 2-1 wool harbour frame piece – between the “3-3” joint.
• The 3-1 harbour frame piece – between the “5-5” joint.
• An all-sea frame piece – between the “6-6” joint.

How to Setup the Round Number Tokens

Additionally, when setting up the number tokens, you must follow an alphabetical order. These pieces must exclusively be from the extension set. Moreover, the tokens must be placed in an anti-clockwise position, with the end running toward the center of the board.

The pieces used for this purpose must also have the following letters printed

• A to Y/Za/Zb/Zc).

How to Set the Terrain Tiles

Additionally, you can refer to the following guidelines when using the 30 terrain hexes to construct your own island of Catan

1. Before setting them, you need to shuffle all of the terrain tiles without looking. Next, you should place the tiles face down on the board.
2. Now you need to turn the pieces over in the following order

• First – Center row of six
• Second – Five rows right/left of the center
• Third – Four rows of hexes on either side of the above
• Fourth – Remaining three rows

Why You Should Not Ignore the Special Building Phase

The additional building phase is the most crucial difference between the original and the extended gameplay. Since the latter version features more players, it is necessary to refer to the new rules instead of the ones described in the base game.

Limits of the Special Building Phase

The Special Building Phase happens between the players’ turns. During this period, each player can use their resources to create anything they like. However, developmental Cards are not allowed during this phase. Maritime or Domestic Trade is also off-limits.

The players may only use the resources they own. They can use their resources to build roads, settlements, and cities and/or to buy Development Cards.

Last Updated on August 26, 2023 by soubhik