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The following covers rules for the game as well
as the BSW interface for English-speaking players. Errors in the
game flow or rules are halyn's.. send comments to
gandolfi@ca.ibm.com
Object of the game: To get to 10 points first,
points being cumulative and obtained for:
Settlement (1 point each; maximum of five)
City (2 points each; maximum of four)
Longest Road (2 points)
Largest Army (2 points)
Victory Point Cards (1 point per appropriate card)
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| 1.
Components | |
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The big map is the Island of Catan, with its 5
hexagonal land types (Brick, Wood, Sheep, Wheat and Ore), as well as
a single desert tile. Each tile has a number on it, from 2 to 12
inclusive. On the periphery of the Island there are places showing a
2:1 or 3:1 mapping. These are ports - more on them later.
When you begin the game, you will see at the
NE, SE, NW, and SW corners the names of the players in their
colours.
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These colours match the colours of their roads,
settlements and cities, as well as their points score marker. The
points score shows 0 0 0 initially, and the current active player
is shown as a bright colour for the score marker.
The scoring markers just
discussed can provide other useful information. If you click on
a player's score marker, a little window shows a listing of
(from top to bottom):
(a) the number
of resource cards they possess
(b) the number of special cards they possess
and have not played yet
(c) soldier cards they have played.
Why is this useful? If you
want to rob them, they need to have reosurce cards. If you are
competing for largest army, you want to keep track of soldier cards
played to date. If you see they are holding several unplayed special
cards, some may be victory points and as such their real score is
higher than they show. | |
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The bottom right area shows your resource
and special cards.
There are two rows of 5 circles each. The top row indicates how many
of each resource type you own. A little 3 by the round
counter with the sheep drawing means you're holding 3 sheep
resource cards. You need to keep track of these to know what you
can build or trade,
and to know when you may be in trouble of losing some of them if the
robber comes. More on the robber later.
The row just below the resources are the
special cards. Special cards can be played any time after the
beginning of
the turn following the one they were bought, and only one card per
turn (except Victory Point cards which count immediately).
Going left to right, the types are:
(a) Soldier (b) Victory
Point (c) Monopoly (d) Happy Times (e) Long Road.
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(a) Soldier: This can be
played any time during your turn. It lets you do three things:
(1) moves the robber to a location of your choice,
(2) steal a resource from a player who has a settlement or
city on the new location, and
(3) adds a soldier to your army.
Yes, you get all 3 benefits at once.
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(b) Victory Point: you get an automatic victory
point, but your opponents don't know that
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(c) Monopoly: you get all the opponents' cards
for the resource you specified - you clean them out :-). Click one
resource on the "want" ("suche") box as if you were trading, then click
Senden. | |
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(d) Happy Times: you get two resources of your
choice from the bank. Click two resources on the "want" ("suche")
box as if you were trading, then click
Senden. | |
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(e) Long Road: you get to add two road segments
at no cost. | |
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| 2. Trading -
this is the hard part.. pay attention:
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There are two sets of boxes, your own set up
top (white), and several sets (yellow, blue, red) below. The white
set is what you are offering for trade and want in return.
The box at the left ("biete") is what you
offer, the box at the right ("suche") what you want back. So,
to offer 1 wood to get 1 wheat,
you would
1) click on
the "biete" box - this makes the box active
2) click on wood (dark
green square)
3) click
on the "suche" box - this makes that box active
4) click on the wheat
(yellow square)
5) Click
"Senden" (this sends the offer to your opponents)
You have just sent a
trade.
What next? You opponents can
(a) accept the offer by
clicking on the offer that they see in your colour in the lower
set of three pairs of boxes,
(b) decline the offer by
clicking "Nein" next to your offer, or
(c) counter-offer by
going through the same process you just have
Notice to the right of your trading boxes
are some very little squares, as many as you
have opponents. If an opponent accepts a trade, the little empty
square will fill with the colour of the opponent who accepts.
To complete the deal, click on the coloured square (you could have
more than one player accept, so by clicking you select who you deal
with)
If an opponent declines
the trade, you instead see an 'X' on the little square, or they
may have typed "0" on the chat line. | |
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If an opponent offers you a counter trade
(following the same procedure you did), it will appear on your
screen as a resource offer (they give on the left, "gebe"; they
get on the right, "erhalte") on the set of boxes of their
colour. If you accept, you click on the resources on the right of
their offer.
If you
decline, you clink on the vertical bar on the right where it says
"Nein". Or type '0'on the chat window.
You will also run into players who say "mehr"..
that means "more". Greed above all... ;-)
Note: Sometimes you can only trade with the
bank. The bank accepts all trades at 4:1 - for example you must
offer 4 wood for 1 brick in return
to you. If you have a settlement or
city on a "3:1 ?" port, the bank accepts 3 resources of the same
type for one resource to you, You could also have a settlement or
city by the port showing, for example "2:1 wood". This means the
bank will accept 2 wood from you and return you a resource of your
choice.
You can only initiate trades on your turn. But
you can accept trades or do counter-offers with the active player,
when it's their turn. | |
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| 3. Construction area (above trading): | |
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This area in the top right is for choosing
what you would like to build. From left to right you may buy a
City, Settlement, Road or Special Card. Whatever is in
highlighted white is what is currently selected for buying/building.
To select
something else just click on it. The little numbers indicate how
many of these things you have left to build - there are only so
many settlements, road pieces, etc.
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On your turn, you will see that your scoring
marker is very bright (e.g. it changes from blue to bright blue).
The dice
have rolled and playes with settlements or cities on hexes with the
rolled number have received 1 or 2 resources respectively of that
resource. | |
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You will see this double arrow symbol in the
big oval top right of the scoring markers indicating that you may
initiate trading. | |
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Click on the big arrow
again after you finished trading and the big oval now shows hexes
representing your building phase.
Now if you have the
resources, you can build cities, roads, or settlements, or buy
cards.
| Settlement | 1 wood, 1 brick, 1 sheep, 1 wheat
| | City | 2 wheat, 3 ore | | Special Card | 1 sheep, 1 wheat, 1 ore | | Road | 1 wood, 1 brick
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You build by clicking
on what you want and making it active, then placing it on the map on
a legal location (settlements and cities at intersections, never
closer than two spaces from each other, always on your road unless
it's the game's Initial Placement; roads on segments between
intersections, starting from an initial city or settlement and
meandering through the island on contiguous segments).
After building click on the big arrow again,
and it's the next player's turn.
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After a 7 is rolled, all players with more
than 7 cards lose half their cards. You select which by clicking
on your resource circles until you've lost sufficient cards. When
a player must discard cards you will see a message like "bill
(weiss) muss 4 Karten abgeben." and then as they discard cards
"bill (weiss) gibt ein Schaf ab."
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The player who rolled the 7 then moves the
robber to a new hex. Also after playing a Soldier card, a player
can move the robber. When a Soldier card is played you will see a
message like "bill (orange) spielt einen Ritter". The
hex the robber lands on remains unproductive until
the robber is once again moved (by rolling a 7 or by playing a
Soldier card). Whoever moved the robber must then steal a
resource from a player with a city or settlement on that hex,
by clicking on their city or
settlement. When this happens you will see a message like
"bill (orange) zieht von john (blau) eine Karte".
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You get two points for getting to the minimum
army size of 3 soldiers first. The 2 point prize can transfer to
another player if their army surpasses the first player's. If
both are equal in size, whoever got it first keeps the bonus.
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You get 2 points for having the first road of
at least 5 contiguous segments. As in the largest army, the bonus
moves to another player only if their road is longer.
Ties go to the first
roadbuilder. Roads are considered unbroken if there are no enemy
settlements or cities on them. Your own settlements or cities are
fine. | |
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Players in turn place two settlements and two
roads (under the Tournament option (/option turnier) they place one settlement, one
city and 3 road segments).
Lets take a
three player setup for example:
Player A places a settlement and a contigous
road.
Player B places a settlement, with
the caveat that it cannot be adjacent to any other settlement, and
places a road.
Player C places a settlement
and a road
Player C places a settlement and
a road
Player B places a settlement and a
road
Player A places a settlement and a
road
Game begins.
You start holding resource cards matching the hexes adjacent to your
second settlement. | |
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It's a production curve game - if you don't
produce lots and do so quickly, you will be crushed.
So place your initial settlements as close to
the good die rolls (6, 8 are best, 5, 9 second best..) as possible,
while achieving as broad a coverage of the 5 key resources as you
can.
Lacking ore can be a killer, too. Also
try to not let your opponent own 2/3 of the island.. :-)
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It took me 10 games on BSW to figure out
the interface with the help of very patient opponents, some of whom
didn't speak English.
I am indebted to their patience and
perseverance.. just imagine trying to explain Special Cards and how
to activate them to someone who doesn't speak your language!!
Once you get going on the game, you'll find you can take care of
it in good fun in 20-30 minutes, and the interface will become
fairly intuitive.
Viel Spass!
;-)
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