Settlers of Catan: A Beginner’s Strategy Guide

Settlers of Catan is one of the first Euro-style games to come to America, and has won countless awards. If you’re looking for tips on how to improve your game, the most important place to focus is on your initial two settlement placements. These two decisions, often made in a minute or so, can have as much impact on your chances for victory as a half-hour’s worth of turns later in the game.

Initial Placement

Numbers
The most obvious thing to consider, and most important, the dots associated with each number. The dots on each number indicate how frequently it is likely to be rolled. Consequently, you should be sure to place both of your settlements at intersections with a high number of surrounding dots. The red numbers (6 and 8 ) have five dots each, so obviously, you’re much better off playing on an intersection of 6, 9, and 3, then of a 4, 5, and 11.

Another thing worth paying attention to isn’t just the total of dots, but the different sorts of numbers you have as well. If you place your initial settlements on two 4s, two 6s, and two 9s, then unless someone rolls a 9, 6, or 4, you aren’t going to get any resources, and can prepare for a long, boring defeat. Diversifying your initial settlement numbers increases the chance that you will get at least something from every roll. And that’s a good thing, because even if it’s not the resource you wanted, you can always trade it for one you do need.

Resource Types
Pay attention to the types of materials available in the game. There are more sheep tiles than any other resource, so sheep tend to be less valuable. The other resources have the same number of tiles – but not the same availability! If two of the three brick spaces have low-dot numbers (like 2 and 11), there will probably be an early brick shortage as players attempt to build roads. This makes a settlement on the single high-dot brick space (a 6 or 8 ) a strong opening placement.

Try to have settlements that gain you compatible pairs of resources, such as wood and brick, or ore and wheat. Wood and brick will allow you to quickly build roads in the early game, working towards more settlements. Ore and wheat will allow you to upgrade your settlements into cities, thus increasing resource production. Either can be very strong

Location
Try to avoid playing both of your initial settlements in the same corner of the map, unless you can guarantee that you won’t get boxed in. It may be tempting to connect your two settlements and get a head start on longest road, but more often than not this strategy won’t work.

Consider the ports. Starting on a port is probably a bad idea because you’ll want your initial settlements on 3-resource intersections. However, being close to a port is important, because building to one early in the game will give you more trading flexibility.

During the Game

Expansion
Move to a port early, if possible. The 2:1 ports are great if you have high production of the associated resource, otherwise not so much. You’ll want lots of room to play new settlements and possibly reach for longest road, so try to expand towards underpopulated areas. If you’re competing with someone else for the same area, move to block them if you can, but don’t sink roads into going towards somewhere you can be blocked out of too easily.

Development Cards
If you started with decent ore and wheat production, grab a few sheep and buy some development cards. At worst, these are a soldier, sometimes a victory point, and sometimes a special card that will allow you to swing the game in your favor later. Holding lots of soldiers leaves you in a good position to keep the robber off of your property, and sets you up to gain the largest army bonus later in the game.

Resource Cards
Try not to sit around with more than seven cards in your hand, because the robber will be rolled fairly frequently. This means that you should often build something when you can (cities, new settlements, development cards, or even roads). Don’t be afraid to use the ports if you have a large hand of cards; shipping three sheep for a brick may seem like a bad deal, but if it gets your hand back to reasonable size and gives you resources you need, go for it.

Trading
And don’t forget about trading with other players. Most people won’t trade with you unless they gain a boost to their position, so be sure that any time you trade, you are also gaining a boost to your position as well. Trade on your turn to get resources you can use immediately.