How to Play Settlers of Catan

Interested in learning how to play Settlers of Catan?
Here you'll find an in-depth description of the rules and gameplay of one of my all-time favorite games Settlers of Catan from Klaus Teuber.

[@troypritchard2555]

I was so confused the first time I played this that I gave up. This explanation made it much clearer. Thanks!

[@yourfavminion95]

Thank you for this video. I’ve been trying to learn the game from other tutorials and this one was the only one that was the most helpful.

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Grace glad to be able to help!

[@joshkeeley1984]

Dude..solid vid. Short, but thorough, and to the point. Thanks!

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Josh Keeley thanks! I think it’s important to keep things short so it’s not too overwhelming.

[@engvidAlex]

I'm going to play this with friends next weekend for the first time in YEARS. This video was a nice refresher for the rules I had forgotten. :) Thanks!

[@robbiecoombes1649]

This is so good, the catan rule book is like a full on novel

[@dannytipper3381]

this is the best instructional video on youtube by far! nice work!

[@captainjoshua77]

I've been looking to buy this board game and it looks fun! Thanks for helping me learn how to play

[@nanibly]

Thank you for making this video! It is short and concise, very helpful and very well done!

[@ksecpt]

This video was very well done. Make more!

[@WatermanSurin]

really great and clear explaination of this game! thank you sir!

[@sergio.h1985]

That was awesome man. You made it so easy! Now I can finally play!

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Sergio Halaby it’s the best! Have fun.

[@JJC2611]

Great explanation. But, please turn that music down. It's distracting and makes it a little hard to focus on what you are saying.

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Jay C I appreciate the feed back. Normally I keep the voices at -12db and the music and -24db but you’re right it is a bit too far “forward” I’ll keep this in mind for future videos.

[@craftlikeaduck]

Very helpful thanks the best explanation for me yet. I subbed =)

[@billturner]

Very, very helpful! Thanks for making this!

[@WongPiyeToProduction]

Thank you very much! it is very very helpful

[@jessicamarie530]

Thank you. Great job!

[@qifanjia3473]

Really good explanation and really helpful!

[@jameswolfe9156]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[@kamranbina4396]

Great video, very helpful. I recently had a dispute with a friend over the longest road card. So we were playing a three player game, myself, Jimmy, and Bob. I had a longest road, then Bob got the longest road from me, giving him 4 VP's (cause of the 4 point swing). After Jimmy stole it from bob he had 6 VP's (Bob had 4 VP's then Jimmy got it and got the additional 2 points). In the end Bob had a road of 11 lengths long, Jimmy had one of 11 long also, I had one of 6. I then broke off Jimmy's longest road, so then it would go to Bob, but my logic was that the longest road would essentially go to "limbo" so Bob would get the longest road, but since I broke the longest road he wouldn't get 8 points, only 2, as the 6 point swing in this case wouldn't apply as he didn't build the longer road. I can explain more if this is confusing.

[@BoredGamesAlex]

I'm not entirely sure I understand but here's what I think...Once you broke Jimmy's road BOB now has the longest road and would receive that card and the 2 additional VPs for being the holder of that card. (Im not sure what you meant by "wouldn't get 8 points, only 2, as the 6 point swing.") I'd be happy to change my answer if you clarify further.

[@kamranbina4396]

What I was saying was that I thought that if you break the longest road the card gets put aside, then the next person gets it, but because they didn't "build" a longer road they only get two victory points as opposed to 8. Also does the two point swing always happen, what I mean by that is, any time someone gets the longest road they get how ever many victory points the other person had +2, correct?

[@kamranbina4396]

Also you should do more videos, I've seen numerous videos about Catan and how to play, and you should really make more videos, like reviews of the other expansions, and how to plays for the other expansions

[@kamranbina4396]

Ok I understand that, but how come in the rule book it says "If you hold the “Longest Road” card and another player builds a longer road, he immediately acquires your “Longest Road” card. He also acquires the 2 bonus victory points. (Since you also lose the 2 victory points, it is a 4 point swing!)" Is it just saying it's a four point swing because the other person lost their 2 and you gained 2?

[@BoredGamesAlex]

I think you're confused about how the points are scored. But let me address this issue first. I looked it up on the Catan website. If the longest road gets broken the longest road card gets passed to the person that now currently has the longest road (provided they have more than 5 consecutive roads). With that out of the way... The longest road card is only ever worth 2VPs. It has no relation to points other players have or have had. For example if Jimmy had 8 points ( lets say 4 settlements 1 city and longest road. 4+2+2= 8) Then you break his longest road, he now had 6 points because he loses the longest road card which was worth 2VPs. That card gets passed to Bob who now has longest road. Bob looks at his current victory points and then just simply adds the +2VP bonus for now having longest road. (Say Bob had 3 settlements and 2 cities: 3+4=7 and then gets longest road he takes his current score 7 + 2 = 9.) So Bob had 7 gets longest road now has 9 and Jimmy's score just get reduced back down to 6. Clear?

[@pradeepedirisinghe7717]

1) Do you have build a settlement near the harbour (at the ending point) to get resourers..? 2) in my turn play the dice...Can i play more than 2 or more development card at my turn ? Thank you your explanation helped a lot 👍

[@ThriveProduction]

1.Yes. You need a settlement at the harbor to gain the benefits of using the harbor as well as getting resources from the hex you’re on. 2. I’m pretty sure according to the rules you’re only allowed to play one development card on your turn. I like to play “house rules” and allow as many as you can play. Side note: you can play a knight before you roll on your turn otherwise you have to wait till after you roll to play dev cards

[@pradeepedirisinghe7717]

Thank you so much sir .. (From srilanka) Now i know almost all rules and i had enough if playing Monopoly Game..😁 .. 👍

[@sarathcpt]

thanks. Nice video. The rules in my version seem to say a player's turn has 3 phases: 1). Rolling dice and collecting resources 2). trade 3). build/buy development card. It specifies it has to be in that order and we took it to mean that we can't go back to trade after building a settlement/buying a development card. You seem to mention, these could be done in any order. Which is the official rule ?

[@ThriveProduction]

Sarath Chandran hey! Thanks for your comment. What you’ve interpreted is mostly true and there’s a reason for this. The game rules are setup like that to help new players more easily understand how a turn should play out, but if you look at the “combined build/trade phase” in the rule book you’ll see that after rolling you can pretty much do anything in any order as many times as you want/can. In 99% of cases you roll first (the only exceptions is you can play a knight before you roll) then you can build trade and build again if you’d like. I hope I’ve been clear and helpful. Thanks!

[@jasonhuofficial]

You seem to have magically acquired the Knight card in your vid. I don't think you went over how a development card is acquired. Also what happens after you play the Knight as far as the card is concerned? Does it go back into a pile and shuffled or does it get discarded to never be used in the game again? Great video tho!

[@ThriveProduction]

Jason Hu I talk about the development cards in an earlier sections and how to acquire them earlier than that. Good point though I never did point out what to do with them after they are played. If you’re curious the knight is the only development card you can play before you roll on your turn if you choose. Otherwise like all other dev cards they need to be played after you roll on you turn. (You also can’t play them on the turn they are aquired). After played all dev cards stay on the table face up in front of the player that played them. The draw pile never replenishes and you can use the face up cards to determine odds on what is left in the pile as well as determining who has the largest army. Thanks for the call out.

[@jasonhuofficial]

@@ThriveProduction Thank you so much for that reply! My friends and I are very eager to play this game but it is rather confusing reading the novel of the game manual. We ended up watching a troll Catan video talking about slim jims and building the tallest tower, but we finally think we got it understood with your video! Thanks =)

[@phillydavewmb05]

Good video. You should make more about other games.

[@BoredGamesAlex]

phillydavewmb05 Hey thanks! I do intend to. Be on the lookout.

[@_AoTaninh]

thank you!

[@sarahjensen8095]

Can two players build settlements next to each other in the harbor? Because it looks like each harbor fits two settlements

[@ThriveProduction]

Sarah Jensen No. you can never settle next to someone. The reason it looks like that is just because the port can be settled from either side because it’s a hexagon. Only one person can settle but they can do so on either spot.

[@bhuvaneshmani8884]

Great video..thanks dude!!

[@SivaR1020]

How does the robber actually work?? Does it block the current hex it is placed? or It blocks all the same numbers it is placed??

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Siva R Siva R the robber only blocks the hex it is currently placed on, which only effects the people settled around that hex. As soon as the robber is moved that hex come back to life and a new hex the robber is placed on is now blocked.

[@SivaR1020]

Bored Games Thanks man...

[@dashanedzelskyi9853]

Can you add a road to 2 existing roads? (Making three roads on three hexagons)

[@ThriveProduction]

Dariya Kravtsova as long as they’re your roads you can build as many consecutive roads as you want. They can ever fork in different directions if you’d like. AND you can still build settlement in between them at a later time.

[@AbbeyRoadFortyLicks]

Great video, have you heard of the new version of the game being super cheap quality? In your experience is it true?

[@BoredGamesAlex]

My buddy has one of the cheap new versions. It's definitely lower quality.... not complete rubbish but very noticably different.

[@iannewton3820]

Good video; it's too bad you have less than 100 subscribers with such high quality though. :-/

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Hey thanks so much! I should really try to make some more videos in order to get that sub count up!

[@Rob99552]

Nice and clear, thanks :o)

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Rob99552 glad you liked it. Enjoy catan!

[@Kittscam]

thums up

[@danielliaw6860]

Wait, what happen when you play the Knight card?

[@BoredGamesAlex]

5:00 and the same mechanic as rolling a 7 @ 9:20

[@danielliaw6860]

ya but what happens to the thief? not clear

[@danielliaw6860]

ThriveProduction I see, thanks!

[@BoredGamesAlex]

The person who played the knight card moves the robber (thief) and blocks a space by placing the robber on top of the number disc. The player then gets to steal a random card from 1 person who lives on that space. The robber stays on that spot and blocks its resource production until the next knight card is played or a 7 is rolled.

[@mdjmurray]

Sounds super complicated!

[@SGFlicksify]

Background music stopped me watching it.

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Ascend SG Dang... now you’ll never know how to play Catan :/

[@CornelliusTiberious]

A lot of youtubers like to put obnoxious music in the background. Why? Who knows.... but this is some of the worst music. I wish i could mute it.

[@CornelliusTiberious]

6 min into it i feel moisture in my ears.

[@CornelliusTiberious]

7.5 min.. ears bleeding.

[@dantheman5745]

Excellent instructions. Succinct & very clear. However, if you're going to make such an excellent how-to video, why not go 1 step further and use the proper terminology? (or do different iterations of the game change the terminology?) -Green spaces produce Wood- Green Forests produce Lumber -Light green spaces produce Sheep- Light green Pastures produce Wool -Red spaces produce Brick- Reddish Hills produce Brick -Yellow spaces produce Wheat- Yellow Fields produce Grain -Black spaces produce Rock- Gray/Purple Mountains produce Ore Get the viewer in the habit of properly identifying the hexes & resources.

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Dan the Man You know I’ve gotten this one more than once and I don’t have a great answer. I think it’s probably just that everyone I’ve ever played with uses that terminology... because people can more easily identify things like rock, sheep, and wheat as opposed to ore, wool, and grain. I see the point but my choice has long since past and as long as it doesn’t effect gameplay I haven’t felt it’s harmful enough to change.

[@imabookshelf]

Great video. #ronpaul2012

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Josh Mullis IV lol

[@vojinnedovic1766]

zduljpim zduljpi

[@ninjaboii222]

That music was to distracting

[@Michaelosipenko]

Nope

[@mindblitz6496]

STOP SAYING SHEEP ITS WOOL

[@BoredGamesAlex]

Mindblitz64 why are you watching a tutorial video lol.

[@mindblitz6496]

Bored Games I have no idea but great video

[@floppinfish]

I say sheep

[@SeaUsername]

why does this video need any music, its annoying and distracting.

[@Michaelosipenko]

Boring