Comments on: Settlers of Catan rule variations

by: Settlers Nut

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:36:42 +0000

We play that you can build or trade any time. With six players we run two groups of three simultaniously. With lots of cities, make a list of what you collect for each dice roll.

by: tim

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:45:29 +0000

When placing your second settlement start with a city instead of a settlement. This can really jumpstart a game and makes it go faster without changing any other rules.

I’ve played some slow games recently and have one player that complains constantly about how slow the game goes yet he continues to try to push people into trades after everyone has told him they aren’t going to trade. We point out to him that he is the reason the game is slow yet he still complains.

by: Mariethecrazy

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:52:49 +0000

Instead of the special building phase when playing a 5-6 player game, we play that you loose half your cards at nine instead of seven. I also play without sevens the first two times around.

by: Riashain

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 06:27:34 +0000

Haha, contact Settlers would be awesome. I don’t think my grandmother would for it though

by: Psychochild

Thu, 26 Oct 2006 21:21:02 +0000

Full contact Settlers of Catan! I like it.

Maybe have a bonus round before the game with a little RLPK to weed out some of the participants? Medical care provided by the host, of course.

by: Michael Brunton-Spall

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:05:44 +0000

I remember reading an interview with the creator of Settlers of Catan a while back, and someone asked him the same basic thing, why did it take so long. His reply as far as I remember was that they often played it while in a bar or pub type environment, and if someone took too long making decisions, they would chant “move or we’ll hit you”. if they took to long, they would indeed hit the person. I guess that counts as timed turns, but the story stuck in my mind.

by: Matt

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:45:27 +0000

Hrm, well, I and one other player were accused of taking overly long to ponder and discuss moves. Perhaps the problem is just us.

by: RodeoClown

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:39:23 +0000

I’ll second Scot’s suggestion - get a timer.

We play 5&6 player CK and it never goes longer than 3 hours (and we have a ’slow’ player).

There’s no trading in the ’special building phase’ either. We normally have it that the next person’s turn basically says ‘want to build? want to build?’ etc and we go through that phase in under a minute if no-one wants to build.

We also always play the optional rule (for beginners…), where the first two turns you re-roll 7s and the barbarians don’t move. This helps everyone actually get into a decent starting position before the ‘real’ game begins.

That really sounds like it’s taking too long.

by: Scot Boyd

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:45:54 +0000

I’ve played 5-6 player C&K probably a dozen times and never had it take more than 3 hours. How long is each player’s turn taking? Maybe you should get a chess clock that runs if the player isn’t trading.

by: Noclafder

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:40:35 +0000

One other way you could speed up a game of Cities and Knights is to make all ports 2:1 ports and allow TRADING of any cards at each port. In other words instead of having to trade specifically 2 sheep for 1 of any resource, each port would allow players to trade 2 of any one resource for 1 of any other resource. (All 3:1 ports would also become 2:1 ports of the type just mentioned.) I believe this would speed up the game. However, this kind of speed ports may distort the game to a point that may be undesired.