How to Crush the Catan Competition

If you're reading this post, you have probably played Catan before. Settlers of Catan is a great award-winning board with plenty of expansions and a common gateway game to new boardgame players. The way to win at this game is to acquire the most victory points using buildings, roads, and armies. Let's jump right into how to make good trades, build your needed forts, and prepare for another win in Catan.

The Best Two Paths

One strategy is to focus on settlements and roads. You will need a lot of brick and wood resources and slightly less sheep. You need to space yourself out and using a lot of blocking techniques.
The other strategy is to focus on cities and development cards. You will need a lot of ore and wheat. Ore is more of a priority than wheat because cities require three ore and two wheat to build. Also, aim for the largest army bonus because the robber will be a big barrier if not used by you. Ports will also aid in your conquest.
Try not to go for both the largest army and the longest road cards. Pick one. Don't overextend your resources.

Position Is Everything

The initial spots at the beginning of the game are important because this will determine what resources you will have to build and trade to others in need. Make sure you are settled near resources you need so you don't need to trade as often as others to succeed.
Next, blocking or cutting off your opponents is another way of making sure your opponents need to trade with you in order to stay in the game. Let's see some ways to do this:
1.  Roads are great walls to frame in or out your opponents.
2. Use the placement rules to your advantage. Since players can't place "two spaces away," take advantage of this by placing yours three spaces away. This will help you spread out more, block others from your resource, and make them have to come to your market for trading. Please plan ahead so you don't overshoot a needed resource.

Don't Rely on Luck

On each of the number tokens are dots. These represent the probability of that number being rolled. Thusly, the more dots, the better. When evaluating where to place, add up all the dots in the intersection and compare with the others that you are considering. This will help you get more resources during the game.
Also diversifying your numbers can help in making sure you get resources often. Having too many same numbers will make you vulnerable to having your hand when seven is rolled because you acquire your resources in bursts. Diversifying your resource type is also important; self-sufficiency is great in a game like this.

Keep in mind when placing, bricks are the most important resource, while sheep is the least. If there is a brick with a good number, make sure you try to get there as early as possible. If you placed last in the setup, ports are also a good alternative to get early on.
Make the Robber Your Friend

Much like the roads being walls, the robber is a great way to stop the person in the lead from taking the win from everyone's grasps. Most people target players that have cards in their hand that they want, but this is very risky. Focus on these places when moving your friend:
1. The player with the most victory points
2. A resource that is being rolled the most
3. A resource that you have a lot of but opponents only have one other source

If you can accomplish more than one as listed above, then even better. The goal is to make you the only person who has what they need. Also keep in mind, placing next to cities is better than settlements.

Monopolize

The development cards are powerful, especially the monopoly card. This will make trading even more lucrative. If you have the most of a resource but no one needs to trade with you, then monopolize and take what they're reserving and trade it back to them. For an even more friendship destroyer (not recommended), you can trade away all the resource that you have most of, then use the card to get them all back. Free resources.

Development Cards are Not For Victory Points

In the whole development deck, 48% of the cards are knights. That means you can be pretty sure that a knight will come up every other draw. So if you need a victory point or two, you won't be as lucky as you think. Victory points only account for 16% of the cards in the deck. So you might need to draw six development cards before finding that relatively rare victory point. May the odds be always in your favor.

There you have it. Hopefully, these tips and tricks will have you dominating the next Catan game that you play. If you liked this post, then subscribe for new content that will be coming in the future.