Download This Map from Staredit Network.

Overview
Based on a board game of similar name, Settlers of Catan is a 2-6 player race to settle the island of Catan.

Use a unique set of controls to place settlements, roads, and cities around the playing field.

Use strategy when picking where to place your structures. Collect resources, get monopolies on exchange rates and be the first to claim the title of Settler of Catan.

Playing the Game
The game has lots of in-game help to you get started. Though due to the complexity of the game, here is even more detailed help.

Each player is given 2 free settlements and 2 free roads to place when the game begins.
- The first 2 settlements can be placed on any open small brown square in the play area.
- The first 2 roads must be placed next to a settlement.
- You get 1 of each of the surrounding resources instantly when placing the first 2 settlements.

Placing Settlements
Choose where you want the settlement to go by flying your wraith over one of the small dark brown square tiles.

Then move your Build selector (The dark templar in the lower right) to the Build Settlement beacon.

Rules for placing the first 2 settlements:
- Must be on one of the dark brown squares.
- Must be unoccupied.

Rules for placing settlements after the first 2:
- Must be on one of the dark brown squares.
- Must be unoccupied.
- Must have the resources required (1 wood, 1 brick, 1 grain, 1 wool).
- Must be connected to a road.

Placing Roads
Move your wraith over one of the light brown strips that connect settlement build sites.
Move your Build Selector (the Dark Templar in the lower right) to the Build Road beacon.

Rules for placing the first 2 roads:
- Must be on a road location.
- Must be unoccupied.
- Must be connected to an existing settlement.

Rules for placing roads after the first 2:
- Must be on a road location.
- Must be unoccupied.
- Must be connected to an existing road.
- Must have the required resources (1 brick, 1 wood)

Roads can connect to other roads at an angle, making a L or mirrored L angle.

Placing Cities
Move your wraith over an existing settlement that you own.

Move the Build Selector (The dark templar in the lower right corner of the map) to the Build City beacon.

Cities require 2 grain and 3 ore to build.

Collecting Resources
Players gain resources based on the lands surrounding their settlements.


[W][O]
[B][G]

If a settlement were placed in the center of the lands in the example above the builder would now have access to Wood, Ore, Brick, and Grain.

Every 45 seconds a set of virtual dice are rolled to decide which lands produced a resource.

Each land has a rating on how frequently it will produce from 1 to 5. Lands with 1 rarely produce a resource and lands with 5 frequently produce a resource. So picking the right lands to build near is key to winning the game.

When a land produces a resource nearby Cities receive 2 resources instead of 1.

Exchanging Resources
Resources can be exchanged on the right side of the map. Move the Resource exchanger (dark templar) to a beacon to select which resource you want to trade in. Then move the civilian that appears to the beacon for the resource you want to receive.

The default exchange rate is 4 to 1.

To get a better exchange rate build a settlement next to one of the exchangers.

The Lurker changes your default exchange rate to 3:1, while the rest give 2:1 for a specific resource.

You can steal an exchanger if you build a settlement next to one already owned by another player.

Scoring, and Winning the Game
Points are given for building settlements and cities.

Each settlement is worth 1 point.
Each city is worth 2 points.

To win you must get a total of 10 points.

The Robber
There is a random chance the robber will appear. When he appears, if you have 10 or more resources he will take half of them.

Extra notes, and internal mechanics
The board (by land type):

[_][W][G][O][_]
[B][O][B][W][G]
[O][G][R][B][L]
[B][L][L][G][W]
[_][O][W][L][_]

Key: W - Wood, G - Grain, O - Ore, B - Brick, L - Wool, R - Robber

The board (by internal dice value):

[_][6][4][9][_]
[5][3][8][10][6]
[8][2][7][11][10]
[11][6][9][5][8]
[_][4][12][3][_]

The dice are visible in the upper right corner of the map. Due to the nature of the dice, 7 is the most common number and it gets less common the further it gets from 7 (12, and 2 being the least common)

Every 45 seconds a new value is rolled. If the number for a land is rolled, all surrounding settlements and cities get resources. This can stack. For example if you had 4 cities at each corner of a land and it's number is rolled you would get 8 resources from that land.

Version History
1.5 - First Public Release.

Known Issues
- Settlement Site B3 doesn't give a victory point when upgrading to a city.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 26 2009, 8:56 pm by alkie.

Cities and Knights of Catan is a fun board game.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 26 2009, 12:36 am by Marine.

Screenshots Required.
Anyway, I love the boardgame, but I think it IS a boardgame... a SCBW version will never reach the original. Pretty sure.

No Stone? Why not?

There is no stone in the boardgame, its brick. Need a lot of brick to build roads and settlements... not to mention cities Ore and 2 grain are needed to activate knights too.

I read it and there are no knights? Why aren't there any knights to fight against the robber? And what happened to the pirates that eventually make their way to the land?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 26 2009, 12:37 am by Marine.

...what?

The boardgame is sweet, I'll have to check this out too see how well you've replicated it.

Ore = Stone. I always call it stone too when I play the board game, but I think the official name is Ore.

Ore would equal natural recources, like gold copper silver etc. The stone in this game is the brick, not ore...
The rep is me beating this in 30 minutes The exchange ratio units do help a lot, too.

Attachments:

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 26 2009, 12:37 am by Marine.

I was able to set up a few games of this today. I had fun, but it's a little stressful too as the creator.

I tried to stay true to the original game as much as possible. the first betas of this map were actually turn based and used hexagon tiles. Turn based was obviously, too slow. The hexagon tiles had to go because the number of locations required to make it work was way beyond the location limit. even now the map is dangerously close to hitting the location limit (which limits the number of features I was able to add).

Also, I've never had the chance to play seafarers or knights and castles so sorry if I didn't include features from them

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see what strategies develop. Theres quite a few that I've figured out (road blocking, exchanger stealing, 3rd starting settlement, etc). Also please report any bugs if you find them. I'm investigating a few already.

You can multi-task locations although its a pain, but yet it opens so much more things to add. Also don't be sorry, you added as much as you could. What is quite annoying though is that it takes 4 of 1 thing to get 1 item if you have no exchange ratio deducter thing.

Also, what is that empty space at the bottom right corner where you make your roads settlements and cities? Was that going to be used for knights or something else? Is it a new feature you're adding?

It is a fun map with a lot of people. Its intense and annoying when they take your spots lol... When you're blocked into a corner is it possible to start a new chain of settlements? I didn't try and still haven't so I'm just curious.

The 4:1 ratio is normal for Settlers games. Getting a 3:1 or 2:1 is key to winning the game.


It was going to be for development cards which have special effects: (soldiers, free victory points, etc). I may still add them when I think of a way to balance it properly.


You can use roads to completely block another player from expanding. Settlements cannot block (you can use a road to reach past them). Roads are a powerful tool for controlling the map.

In the actual board game players choose what to trade and for how much. Maybe you can add a feature that allows trade from players? It would make it really fun, although problems in balancing may occur...


Developement cards would be hard to balance, but would open so much for more things to add. Like units that attack each other on the board, so you can attack cities and roads to get past your enemy. It would be really entertaining


So if you are cornered and you can't get out, you're screwed and you might as well quit right? But if you quit don't your units and buildings disappear letting the other guy win? what if everyone blocks eachother, it'd be a stalemate. The suggestion I suggested (makes no sense) would help solve that problem, unless you added something that balances that?

Player to player trading is something I want to add. But I haven't figured out how to do it properly (eg, it's easy to make it so you can send another player resources, but making it so mechanics are in place to prevent 'scamming' where one player sends resources but the other doesn't send any back is much more difficult)

When you leave your settlements and roads remain, though I might set it up to remove them to try and prevent 'stalemating'. but as long as you have 5 settlements at least you can always have a chance to win (by upgrading them to cities). Development cards would also help prevent stalemating in theory. Though I've never had a stalemate game yet (if you have one please take a screenshot for me).

The logic required to identify a player as 'cornered' is far too complex for SCBW triggers I think. Though it's an interesting suggestion.

For the scamming, all you need to do is make possibly an 'accept' button, so that the play just can't give and recieve a recourse. With an accept button it makes it so much simpler. Still I think you should add little unit spawns for little wars. Possibly if an enemy unit is at your settlement/road/city long enough it is destroyed.

A possible way to indicate a player is cornered is to have 'bring exactly ___' triggers that identify what is where and when. It would take a few days to get those in place, maybe a week or so, but in the end it would be so worth it.

even if there's an accept button, imagine if one player quicky moved one or all of the resources off at the same moment you moved your unit to the accept button.

Make the location large and preserve the movement into the center of it, or even place the units on a seperate platform. Make a 'cancel' button so a player can re-do his add-up of units. Its very simple, but again its a pain and you are right; scams are still possible no matter what. Once you add this (if you want) you can see what the possible opportunities are for a scam and close them up.

There are many ways to save locations, please refer to the http://www.staredit.net/wiki/Grid_Systems section. Static grids are probably what you will want.

I still multi-task my locations... it's easier for me to do now. Although static grids might actually be easier like you said for him.

The trade system I used in monopoly was to just put all to-be-traded pieces into a "to be traded" area and to have both players move a civilian to accept; if anything was added or removed, all civilians are moved back to the waiting area.

In a fast paced game, however, it may be a good idea to add an extra precaution: A trade area, both players required to move their civvs to "lock" the trade area so nothing else can be added or removed, and then agree to the locked conditions so trade can commence. That would definitely prevent all scamming.

I still haven't played the map; expect a review forthcoming

EDIT: I played the game. I have to admit that even though I think you did a good job triggering everything into the game and getting it to all work great, I think intuitive, fluid play (for someone who even knows the rules) isn't able to be achieved. My points...

-You really can't see the board very well; the colors chosen kind of blend together, brick and grain look the same, and having the computer be white also doesn't help. This could definitely be improved upon by using the terrain palette for the squares and changing the computer to another color.
-It's hard to tell what resources you actually have and what you can build. Yes, it only takes a few seconds, but that's a few seconds I am just counting resources instead of actually playing.
-You can't trade; just add that. I already mentioned how in my original post.
-No development cards; again, just add it. These last two can help the game from becoming too 1-D.
-Controls are sprawled all about the edge of the map; have more rhyme or reason to them so they can become intuitive much quicker after learning where they are, and much easier to use. For example, why not just build roads and settlements by spawn broodling, recreating a still critter if you don't have enough resources? Why not have maritime trade controls be one beacon called "turn in" where your actual resources are? In general, just do things to make the gameplay involve less clicking all over the map and more focusing on the actual game.
-Don't let the game start until after everyone has placed their first two settlements and roads. Add a few minute timer or something for the slowpokes
-As fun as it was committing suicide with my victory points... might want to choose a different unit. At least that only needs a few Replace All's in notepad.
-Professionalism issues, such as the non-total vision, not getting vision until after the start of the game, the p12 units after players leave, the distracting minimap terrain that can be fixed by using the palette instead of general water.. they get in the way of game-play. Again, just clean it up so almost everything you see is relevant to the game.

In general, I think you have a great start, and it could really become a great map with some edits. And even if you don't edit it, you can still enjoy it, eh?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 3 2009, 3:49 am by fritfrat.