

There’s also a blank desert hex where the robber starts the game. Through this page, I’ll stick to the official names. In bold, you’ll see the official title for each one, and in brackets, you’ll find what many casual players refer to them as. There are five different resources spread over the map, as I’ve listed below. The more resources you collect, the more infrastructure you can lay down, and so on. The base game of Catan, as we usually simplify it to, involves building roads, settlements, and cities on resource “hexes”, which are gathered at the roll of two dice. Its simple rules and inherently competitive nature make it one of the best options for settling down with friends and family. Settlers of Catan is one of the most popular board games around. Cover Your Assets Game Guide - March 15, 2022.Quacks of Quedlinburg Guide - March 27, 2022.Best Travel-Friendly Board Games to Play During Long Layovers - June 20, 2022.In short, don't just build more and more roads because they're easy to build. Otherwise, it's probably better to focus on building settlements, cities, and even buying development cards. The best way to claim the longest road bonus, in my opinion, is (1) in the mid- or end-game, after establishing a good resource engine with multiple settlements (and therefore multiple resources / numbers), (2) when other opponents are not focused on attaining the longest road, and (3) when you have an excess of wood and brick and other players aren't willing to trade at a good rate for either. Roads are easy to build since they only require two resources, but also provide the fewest benefits. In my experience, many beginners go for the 2 VP from the longest road. Longest road is nice - when no one else wants it But make sure to evaluate the potential drawback of using (in particular) ore and wheat for a development card instead of a city.

Road Building, Year of Plenty, and Monopoly are nearly always useful, except perhaps for a late-game Road Building.
BEGINNER CATAN BOARD FREE
Soldiers (the most common card) provide you with a resource, deprive an opponent of a resource, free your number (if blocked by the robber), block an opponent's production, and can potentially provide 2 VP. Placing the robber on a player with an unplayed development card might not be the best move, since it is relatively likely that the player has a soldier to move the robber away. But if that player has settlements on 8-wood, 6-wood, and 4-wood, it might give him too much of an advantage. Trading a card to a player so that he can build a settlement on a wood port before his neighbor can might be a fine move, even if it upsets his neighbor a bit. Sometimes a trade that in other situations would be relatively even will give one player a large advantage. Make sure you consider the consequences of your trades

The placement of your initial settlements is very important.
