r/Catan

Hi, all. This is a version of the Seafarers expansions’ ability to break the original Catan island into several smaller ones and give plenty of use to its ships mechanic. The original rulebook’s “Through the Desert” scenario already amounts to what we could call five “islands”, but one of them, the actual “through the desert” bit can be reached by road too. Here we do five actual islands, one for each of the four players, plus a fifth one in between. Here’s how it works.

First, build the frame of the board using every available frame piece from the Base game + the Seafarers expansion. Then, fill it with the tiles as in the picture, except for four 5-tile spaces at each corner of the map. This is where the players’ islands will be.

Next, players choose one of those 5-tile spaces and receive 5 tiles to fill it with, one for each basic resource (1 clay, 1 lumber, 1 ore, 1 sheep, 1 wheat). Players can place these tiles on their space in any disposition they want. Also, each player has got 5 number discs: a 1-pip disc (a 2 or a 12), a 2-pip disc (a 3 or an 11), a 3-pip disc (a 4 or a 10), a 4-pip disc (a 5 or a 9) and a 5-pip red disc (a 6 or an 8), which they can also distribute on their tiles as they prefer. Each island is completed with a 3:1 port at one of the ends. This will be each player’s native island. Then, in turns, players place two settlements on their island ONLY, according to normal Base Catan and Seafarers rules: distance, roads, ability to start with a ship if any of the initial settlements are on the seaside, etc (in the picture, in the southeast corner, you can see an example from the White player). Finally, players receive a starting hand of FIVE CARDS, ONE CARD PER RESOURCE, regardless of where they settled on their island.

The remaining pieces after building the four players’ island will have been used to build a fifth island in the middle of the map featuring one more tile for each resource, plus the two gold rivers, plus two of the three desert pieces. The third desert piece is flipped around and used as an extra sea piece. In the pictures you can see as close to a fully-balanced distribution as can be made, but players can agree to other ways of distributing the tiles and numbers: placing one tile each player, or fully random, or foggy, or misty (you can see the numbers but not the tile under them), or numberless until the first player touches/settles it and they choose an available number disc, etc.

The remaining ports afer set-up, which start out of the board, having not been built yet, are all the 2:1 ports and the fifth 3:1 port. Each time a player settles on a new island, that player can choose one of the remaining ports and place it at the site of their new settlement. This is a mechanic that we've been trying in other set-ups, and we're quite liking it as a way to shake things up.

And as an extra touch, and because there will be one number disc left after set-up, the first player to settle on one of the desert spots gets to put the remaining number disc (a 3 in the picture) on that desert tile and decide what resource it yields, turning it effectively into a sixth tile of that resource in the game. To indicate this, you can place a card of that resource from the bank on the hex, between the tile and the number. After that, any time any player builds up on that desert tile (be it a new settlement or be it a city upgrade), that player can change the resource the tile will produce from then on (so, the same player who chose the first resource when settling there can change the resource produced if they build a city on the same settlement spot or build a new settlement). If any player then builds up on the other desert tile, that player will move that number disc form the first desert to the second and choose the resource it produces, rendering the first desert tile unproductive again. Thus, only one of the two deserts can produce resources, the one with the number disc currently on it, and the resource being produced (as well as which desert actually produces anything) is likely to change several times over the game.

Example: Red places a settlement on the northern desert, puts the remaining number disc on it (for example a 3) and chooses wheat. That means that Red will collect a wheat card from the northern desert every time a 3 is rolled (if that tile is not blocked by the robber). Next, Blue settles on another corner of the same northern desert and changes wheat to ore. Now this former desert will produce ore, both for Red and Blue. Then, Blue upgrades his settlement to a city and changes the resource again, to sheep this time. Now the tile will give Blue two sheep and Red one sheep. After that, White settles the southern desert. White then moves the number disc to the southern desert, leaving the northern desert unproductive, and chooses clay as a resource. Then, White will get a clay from the southern desert when a 3 is rolled while Red and Blue don’t get anything. Then, Red upgrades his original settlement to a city and takes back the number disc to the northern desert, changing the resource back to ore, which Red now prefers, leaving White with no cards collected from the southern desert when a 3 is rolled. And finally, Orange is late to the game, but manages to settle in both deserts, so whenever anyone builds, the number disc will move accordingly, but Orange will always get something.

So, is there a play where you can get a new settlement, 2 VPs, a port of your choice and a tile that yields whatever you want, all at the same time? Yes, there is, although the latter bit might be taken away from you by any of your opponents.

The game in itself follows the usual Seafarers rules, with a pirate and a robber, and 2 VPs for settling in a new island (you can settle at your opponents’ islands too) and a win awarded to the first person to reach 14 VPs, like the “Through the Desert” original scenario.

Cheers and, as always, if anyone tries it, let us know how it went. And, as a puzzle question, how would you choose to place your resources and numbers in this scenario? And which do you think is the best-placed island to start from, and why? (We tried to keep it balanced, but some asymmetry is inevitable)

Other scenarios from RoAndVic:

Formula 1 Catan (for 2 players)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catan/comments/1r8a7zv/yet_another_homebrewed_2player_catan_formula_1/

Catan’s Landing

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catan/comments/1rmbx5a/catans_landing_a_settlefromtheports_scenario/

Cycle of Life, aka Catan For All Seasons

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catan/comments/1ry57gl/a_catan_for_all_seasons_diceless_and_numberless/

Smallville

https://www.reddit.com/r/Catan/comments/1sk5yju/comment/ogshk14/

I've never seen a 12 point win. I thought it was a glitch at first and then I saw it...

I was playing with expansions and forgot to activate the knight.

(I lost the city

For context I was playing a game against computers while I was bored. I set the points needed to the highest, part way through I realized I could land lock them in. There was no way for them to progress, and all the development cards were eventually gone (I couldn’t steal largest army without winning, so I had to hang onto the knight cards). I would then roll and skip my turn, and the computers would do the same since they couldn’t build anything, and this is the end result from about 12+ turns with no seven.

Made a Catan board. fun project and learned a lot.

I can finally rest now!

Let me know if I should continue making these with slight modifications so that every hex is different than the other 😁

Reels are here link

Anyone else see this adorable player glitch and what do I have to do to get it

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I bought this game for $60 + however much the expansion pack was for a white elephant and my friend's gf saw what my gift wrapping was and from a different time remembered that I give nice gifts due to wanting to give a gift id want to receive. that was a little over a year ago now but finally getting to play the game for the first time in a long time "because every time we want to play the gf says no or purposely throws the game because they don't like how long this game can be" but the original game is is missing 3 side pieces, 2 of the expansion pack bad water damage, the blue is missing a road and longest road card is missing.

Another one down 😅

Reel is here

Hey there! I am recently wanting to get better at Catan so I played a round and got this field.

I was 2nd and chose 10/8/5 first for the most points and then afterwards chose the 8/5 later as a sheep port and high numbers but there are only 2 fields and the numbers are the same as the first settlement. Was this ok or should you usually go for differnt numbers for better dice chances?

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