Games
Catan Base Game - House Rules
Introduction
In the 80s and early 90s, we were really avid board games fans. We started with Tactics II, but Pat didn't enjoy it at all. Then, through John, I started playing Diplomacy with a whole bunch of people I didn't know, via telephone (a very early "cooperative" game). Of the many games we played, my favourite has to be Kingmaker. Most of the others we tried took absolute ages to complete, so disappeared into various cupboards with time.
Towards the end of lockdown, John introduced us to three new games, Century Spice Road, Splendor and Catan. What I like about these games is that rules are relatively simple (especially when compared with some of the games I mentioned earlier). The rules of Century Spice Road and Splendor work quite well as is, but the rules of the Catan Base Game need a bit of tweaking to make it more challenging, especially with two players.
Here are a couple of changes that we have made to make the Catan Base Game more interesting.
Board Layout
The rules are very vague when it comes to laying out the board. We decided to formalise this by adding a method for placing the tiles.
- Place the outline pieces according to their numerical order.
- Shuffle the tiles either like a deck of cards (in batches) or place them all face down and shuffle them around.
- Place the tiles in a stack still face down.
- Now determine where to start packing the tiles by rolling a die. The player packing the tiles will either have a side or a corner in front of him or her. This will be position 1, then count sides (or corners) in a clockwise direction until the number on the die is reached.
The left board with a side at the bottom, the right with a corner at the bottom
- Tiles are now packed face up around the edge, starting at the die roll number, in a clockwise direction, in circles, until the middle is reached.
- Tiles are not rearranged to spread the resources around. Some players like spreading the resources around, but we prefer playing with the tiles as they are placed. If you don't like this, then you should be playing with the beginner layout!
Is this a really horrible board??
We follow exactly the same procedure for determining where to start laying out the "hex number tokens". These tokens are then laid out in the same manner as the tiles, but in an anticlockwise direction (as per the rules).
We use this method of laying out the board to avoid any possibility of preferential layouts by someone (like me) who remembers where the nicer numbers are on the number tokens.
Victory Points
2 Player To make the two player game more interesting, we have increased the number of victory points to 15. This means you can no longer win by just placing structures on the board. Development cards can play an important role in obtaining the required number of points.
3 Players Victory points increased to 13. The initial placement of houses are important in both the obtaining of resources, building the longest road and blocking your opponents. We did try a 15 point game but this was very difficult.
Initial Placement
In a two player game we place three house/road combinations instead of two. The order of placement is AB BA BA, where A is the player who won the toss. No resources are collected on the first placement, but are collected on the second and third placements.
Development Cards
Development cards are vital in games with a bigger victory target.
- All development cards, except the knight, may be hoarded or played immediately;
- A knight card must be hoarded for at least one turn (see victory);
- One development card may be played per turn (see victory);
- Victory A player may buy a card and use that card, with others in his or her hand, to declare victory during his or her turn. He or she may show a maximum of two knight cards to claim the largest army card (meaning he or she must already have at least one knight card face up).
Concluding thoughts
These additions to the rules make the game more challenging for us (especially the two player game). It takes about an hour to complete a game so is still short enough for players not to lose interest.
(updated: 21 June 2023)
