How to play CATAN

Objective

Reach 10 victory points on your own turn. Collect resources, exchange them for what you need, and spend them on roads, settlements, city upgrades and development cards.

This page follows the 2025 English sixth-edition base game for 3–4 players. It uses that edition’s names: wood, wheat, Longest Route and Invention. Older boxes may say lumber, grain, Longest Road and Year of Plenty. Extensions, expansions and two-player variants are outside this ruleset.

Setup

First game: use the fixed layout

Open the official 2025 rulebook to pages 4–5. Copy its terrain, number discs and starting settlement-and-road positions; the picture identifies each player’s second settlement for starting resources. In a three-player game, leave out the white pieces. This is the publisher’s beginner layout, rather than an improvised arrangement.

Place the robber on the desert. Sort resource cards into five face-up supply piles, shuffle the development deck face down and put both bonus tiles nearby. Each player takes one colour’s pieces and a player aid: 15 roads, 5 settlements and 4 cities. Everyone starts with two settlements and two roads on the board.

Take one resource for each resource-producing hex beside your second settlement only. The desert gives nothing. Keep resource cards hidden. Everyone rolls both dice; the highest total starts, then turns pass clockwise.

Later games: variable setup

The rulebook’s pages 11–12 give the alternative setup. Randomise the sea frame and terrain hexes. Lay the number discs in alphabetical order, starting at a corner and working counterclockwise inward, skipping the desert; then turn them number-side up. Do not scatter the discs at random.

Choose the first player by rolling. In clockwise order, each player places one settlement and an adjoining road. Then reverse the order: the last player places their second pair first, and the first player places theirs last. Starting settlements need not connect to each other, but must obey the distance rule below. Take starting resources beside the second settlement.

Turns

1. Roll and produce resources

You may play an eligible development card before rolling. Then roll both dice and add them. Except on a 7, matching numbered hexes produce resources for every player with a building beside them, including players whose turn it is not.

Terrain	Resource
Forest	Wood
Hills	Brick
Pasture	Wool
Fields	Wheat
Mountains	Ore
Desert	Nothing

Each settlement beside a producing hex earns one matching card; each city earns two. Count every qualifying building. The robber’s hex produces nothing.

If the supply cannot cover a resource payout owed to several players, nobody receives that resource; other resource types still pay normally. If only one player is affected, that player takes as many of those cards as remain.

Rolling a 7 and moving the robber

A 7 produces no resources. Every player holding more than seven resource cards returns half to the supply, rounding down; each chooses what to discard. Eight cards means discarding four; nine also means four. Development cards do not count.

The active player then moves the robber to a different hex and steals one random resource card from one opponent with a settlement or city beside that hex. If several opponents qualify, choose one. If there is no card to steal, the move still stands. The robber blocks that hex’s production until moved again.

2. Trade and build

After resolving the roll, you may trade, build and play an eligible development card in any order, repeating trades and purchases while you can pay. End your turn when finished. Other players collect production and may trade with you; they do not build during your turn in this base game.

Trading

• With players: agree an exchange of resources. Every player trade must include the active player; two other players cannot trade with each other during your turn. You cannot give cards away or exchange a resource for the same resource.
• With the supply: return four of one resource for one different resource, even without a port.
• At a 3:1 port: if your settlement or city occupies that port, return three of one resource for one different resource.
• At a 2:1 port: return two of the resource pictured at your port for one different resource.

Only use supply trades on your own turn. A road reaching a port does not grant its rate: you need a settlement or city there. Development cards cannot be traded or given away.

Building costs and placement

Return the cost to the supply before taking the piece or card.

Purchase	Cost	Placement or effect
Road	1 brick + 1 wood	Empty hex edge connected to your road or building
Settlement	1 brick + 1 wood + 1 wool + 1 wheat	Empty intersection connected to your road; obey the distance rule
City	3 ore + 2 wheat	Replace one of your settlements; return the settlement to your supply
Development card	1 ore + 1 wool + 1 wheat	Draw the top card without showing it

Distance rule: a settlement must be at least two edges from every existing settlement or city, including your own. In practical terms, all intersections immediately next to the new settlement must be empty. This also applies during starting placement.

You cannot extend a road through an opponent’s building. Cities are upgrades, not buildings you place on an empty intersection, and earn two points total, replacing the settlement’s one. Physical pieces limit building: upgrading a settlement frees that settlement piece for reuse. An exhausted development deck cannot supply more cards.

Development cards

Normally you may play one development card per turn, either before rolling or during the action phase, and it must have been bought on an earlier turn. Playing one before rolling uses your allowance for that turn. Keep unused cards hidden; the robber cannot steal them.

Card	What it does
Knight	Move the robber and steal as above. It does not trigger the discard-half rule. Keep the played Knight visible for Largest Army.
Invention	Take two available resource cards from the supply, either the same type or different types.
Monopoly	Name one resource; every other player gives you all their cards of that type.
Road Building	Place two roads without paying resources; placement rules and your remaining pieces still apply.
Victory Point	Keep hidden until revealing it helps you win on your turn. Each is worth one point.

Victory Point exception: you may reveal multiple Victory Point cards to win, including cards bought this turn. They do not follow the normal one-card or waiting restriction. Played development cards never return to the deck.

Scoring and bonus tiles

Item	Victory points
Settlement	1
City	2 total, replacing a settlement
Victory Point card	1
Longest Route tile	2
Largest Army tile	2
Roads or individual Knights	0 without the relevant bonus tile

Longest Route: the first player with at least five continuous roads takes the tile. Count one continuous route, not every road you own or the sum of separate branches; no road segment counts twice. A challenger must make a longer route to take the tile, so merely tying the holder does not take it. An opponent’s settlement can split a route. If the holder then no longer qualifies, award the tile to a single player with the longest qualifying route; if nobody uniquely qualifies, leave it in the supply until someone does.

Largest Army: the first player to have played three Knights takes the tile. A challenger needs more played Knights than the holder. Knights still hidden in your hand do not count, and a tie leaves the tile with its holder.

Worked example

You have three settlements and two cities: that is 3 + 4 = 7 VPs. On your turn, you extend your continuous route from four roads to five and take Longest Route, provided nobody already holds it with an equal or longer route. You now have 9 VPs. Reveal one hidden Victory Point card to reach 10 and win immediately.

The five roads do not each score a point. The tile supplies two points. Likewise, the cities are worth four together, not six: their replaced settlements are no longer on the board.

Winning

At 10 or more VPs at any point on your own turn, you win immediately; there is no final round. Reveal enough hidden Victory Point cards to show the win. Reaching ten during another player’s turn does not let you declare victory then: you must still have ten when your own turn arrives.

Common mistakes

• Taking starting resources from both settlements instead of only the second.
• Forgetting that everyone produces resources on each roll.
• Discarding at exactly seven cards, or counting development cards toward a discard.
• Discarding after a Knight: only a rolled 7 triggers discards.
• Building next to another building or extending a road through an opponent’s settlement.
• Trading between two inactive players or using a port reached only by a road.
• Playing a newly bought Knight, or playing two normal development cards in one turn.
• Counting a city as three points or claiming a win outside your turn.

For another property-building game, see our Monopoly rules. For the full catalogue, browse the game library.

Variants

This page covers only the 2025 base game. The 5–6-player extension and expansions such as Seafarers and Cities & Knights add their own rules. Use their rulebooks rather than adding remembered extra-turn procedures or expansion scoring to this game.