Trade partners variant

From World Of Catan

The trade partners variant to The Settlers of Catan was created by Jon Ivar Toennesen to better balance the game, especially the two-player variants. It is designed for 2-3 players and requires the base game but can be played with any additional official expansions and some variants.

Setup

If playing with 2 players, set up a standard board setup. If playing with 3 players, set up a standard 5-6 player game setup. Each player picks 2 colors, 1 for the player and 1 for a trade partner.

Variant Rules

This variant follows the standard base game rules except in the following cases:

Each player places their settlements/cities and roads/ships in turn as normal (A-B-B-A or A-B-C-C-B-A). Then each player places the same on behalf of their trade partners, in the same order. The trade partners must have the same number of roads and ships as their owners (if player A starts with placing 1 road and 1 ship then he must place exactly the same for his trade partner). The trade partners The trade partners produce resources as normal players. The trade partners are played with face-up resource- and commodity cards. The trade partners do not build anything on their own. Cards may not be stolen from the trade partners. Monopoly does not affect the trade partners. Trade The players may trade with each other as in the original rules. A player may not trade with another player's trade partner. A player may buy resources and commodity cards from his own trade partner in a 2:1 ratio. He may buy any resource or commodity card at the price of 2 cards (identical or not). A player may use a harbour owned by his trade partner. Turn overview 1: Rolling the dice. 2: Resource production or moving of a black piece. 3: Trading and building own buildings. 4: Place roads/ships and buildings on behalf of the trade partner so that the active player's trade partner has an equal amount of these as its owner, if possible. If it is impossible the remaining pieces is placed during a later turn, as soon as possible. Example: A player builds a road continuing one of his own roads and then builds a settlement. Then he places a road on behalf of his trade partner in a way that a settlement cannot be placed (distance rule). If the player in his next turn builds a road and places a road on behalf of his trade partner so that it is possible to place the missing settlement, then it is done immediately. 5: Next player. Dice roll 7 As in the original rules, but with the following addition: When the dice roll is 7 the trade partners lose all their resource- and commodity cards. Attack of the barbarians As in the original rules, but with the following addition: When the barbarians attack the trade partners lose all their resource- and commodity cards. The cities of the trade partners are not counted when calculating the strength of the barbarians. All active knights is counted when calculating the strength of Catan (the trade partners do not have knights). Winner The winner is the first player to accumulate a given number of points (or more) during his turn. (Proposal: 15 points).