Simple Variants

From World Of Catan

The following simple variants to The Settlers of Catan allow for more playability or better use of aspects of the game. Most can be used in all the official expansions and variants.

[edit] Desert Resources

A way of making the game easier is to abolish deserts. Instead of collecting nothing, make deserts a resource hex that collects either brick or ore (keeping the option open).

You need to take a spare blank number chit or a chit from an expansion and add it to the pool of number tokens and distribute it along with the others. This is easier to do if you are using the random method of number chit allocation.

[edit] Absolute Trade Route and Largest Army

The Longest Trade Route is ONLY retained by the player with the LONGEST trade route. If two players tie for longest trade route, the card is returned until a player gains the upper hand.

The Largest Army card is ONLY retained by the player with the MOST soldier cards. If two players tie for largest army, the card is returned until a player gains the upper hand.

[edit] Docks

This is an adaption to The Seafarers of Catan created by Björn Weng.

During the build phase, a player may buy a dock for 1 wood and 1 brick. A dock allows a player to build a ship without having to build a settlement. A dock does not produce goods or serve any purpose other than to allow a road to connect to a ship. The author created the cut-outs at right to support this game.