Strategy · 1995

Catan

Explore, trade and build on the island: gather resources with every roll, raise settlements and cities, and reach 10 victory points before anyone else.

3–4 players
60–90 min
2.3 / 5 · Light

Set up the game

0 of 8 steps

Tick each step as you complete it.

1Assemble the sea frame by matching the numbers at the puzzle-piece ends, then place the 19 terrain hexagons inside and the 18 number discs on top. For your first game use the fixed island from the rulebook: every hexagon and disc goes where the diagram shows, with the red numbers on the most likely intersections. The desert gets no disc.
The 19 hexagons
Pieces
Discs
Frame
2Build the supply: sort the five resources into face-up stacks in the card trays and shuffle the 25 development cards into the remaining slot, face down. Put the Longest Route and Largest Army tiles next to the board.
Cards
Resources
Trays
Tiles
3Place the robber on the desert hexagon. While it sits there that hexagon produces nothing, and every time someone moves it, it blocks another terrain and steals a card from a player with a building on it.
Hex
Cards
4Each player picks a colour and takes their pieces: 5 settlements, 4 cities, 15 roads and a player aid. With three players the white pieces stay in the box. The rest of the pieces stay in the box too: they are not recycled during the game.
Player aid
Track
Buildings
5First placement round: the starting player puts a settlement on an empty intersection and a road on an edge touching it. Then the player to their left does the same, until everyone has one. The distance rule forbids building within two edges of any other settlement or city.
Track
Buildings
6Second round, in reverse order: the last player starts and the first player finishes. Everyone places their second settlement and second road under the same rules. Treat this placement as the important one: it decides which numbers you will collect for the rest of the game.
Placing the first pieces
7Starting resources: each player takes one card for every hexagon touching their second settlement. A second settlement between forest and wheat starts you with one wood and one wheat. Keep these cards hidden in your hand.
Hex
Cards
Resources
Buildings
8Pick the first player: everyone rolls the two dice and the highest roll opens the game. Turns then pass clockwise until someone reaches 10 points on their turn.
Dice

What it is about

Catan is the game that turned trading between players into a family mechanic. The island is built from hexagons and each roll activates a few of them: whoever has a settlement or city on their corners collects, and whoever does not, negotiates. That dependence on the dice is also the point, because it forces you to trade constantly and to decide which resources are worth keeping.

The game moves forward by building: roads to reach, settlements to produce, cities to double production and development cards to break a shortage. Whoever reaches 10 points on their turn wins, and that is where the tension lives: the 2-point tiles and hidden victory point cards can close the game before anyone sees it coming.

BGG page Official rulebook

Source note

Written from the 12-page sixth-edition English rulebook. It does not cover the 5–6 player extension, the scenarios, or the variable setup in detail beyond the order in which number discs are placed. Images are cropped from the rulebook and the cover is the official CATAN 3D render.

CATAN — The Game, English 6th edition rulebook (CATAN Studio, 2025) · Reviewed: 24 Oct 2026