History TabletopGame / SettlersOfCatan

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b000w7jwua_2_lg.jpg]]
''[[caption-width-right:350: [[{{Tagline}} Trade, Build, Settle]]]]''
''Settlers of Catan'' (a.k.a. ''Die Siedler von Catan'', sometimes marketed as ''Catan'') is a multi-award-winning {{Eurogame}} by Klaus Teuber, first released in 1995. The competing players are settlers attempting to colonize the island of Catan and must collect and trade resources to build roads, settlements and developments. As they do so they accumulate Victory Points, with additional points being awarded for achievements such as building the longest road or having the largest army. The first player to reach a certain number of Victory Points (usually ten) wins the game.

Because of its very unusual non-zero-sum game mechanic, many economics professors use this game to teach concepts of comparative advantage and other economics

In addition to the original game, there are also the following expansion packs:
* Seafarers
** Legend of the Sea Robbers: an expansion created for use with this expansion
* Cities and Knights
** Legend of the Conquerers: an expansion created for use with this expansion
* Traders and Barbarians
* Explorers and Pirates

There are also different scenarios that change up how you play the game and are less sophisticated:
* Crop Trust (in partnership with the group of the same name)
* Frenemies of Catan
* Helpers of Catan
* Oil Springs
* Treasures, Dragons and Adventures (a scenario pack that utilises the Seafarers and Cities and Knights expansions)

Since its original release, several related games in the ''Catan'' universe have been released, including ''Starfarers of Catan'', ''Catan: The Settlers of the Stone Age'', ''Catan Histories: Settlers of America'', a couple of {{Themed Stock Board Game}}s (''Star Trek Catan'' based on ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', ''A Game of Thrones Catan: Brotherhood of the Watch'' based on ''Franchise/ASongOfIceAndFire'') and TheMoralSubstitute, ''Settlers of Canaan'' (not that its creators, who licensed the game legitimately, think the original is immoral; they just wanted to play on a map based on Literature/TheBible).

Big Huge Games collaborated with Klaus Teuber to develop the UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade version, ''Catan''. Asmodee Digital is also currently developing a version for both the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch and VR headsets.

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!! ''The Settlers of Catan'' and its expanded universe demonstrate examples of:

%% zero-context example* ActionGirl: Jean the pirate.
* AntiHoarding: You can hold as many resource cards as you want in your hand, but if anyone at the table rolls a 7 (which is the single most likely roll on a 2d6) when you have more than 7 cards, you have to discard a full ''half'' of them. This encourages the players to spend their resources on buildings quickly or to trade them for others they need. The ''Cities & Knights'' expansion allows building ramparts around up to three cities, each adding 2 cards to the maximum. Given the greater number of different resources in this game, building at least one is indispensable.
* BreakTheHaughty: Being in the lead can be bad; players will stop trading with you, rob you, and generally direct all of their development/progress cards towards keeping you down. In fact, leading the whole game and winning is [[{{Determinator}} somewhat of a feat]].
* CommandAndConquerEconomy: Roads, settlements, cities, etc. do not appear by themselves.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Siegfried, even though he is supposed to be some sort of medieval knight. ([[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar Not that the two are necessarily incompatible.]])
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Mary-Ann has the lowest stats (individual and as a whole) of the computer opponents in the official video games. However, she is one of the toughest opponents thanks to a development-card-heavy strategy that often gets her largest army and a host of victory card points.
* DarkHorseVictory: The game has a tendency to end in this. Especially if a game has been going on for a long time, you had better watch who's in the running for the longest road or the largest army, or if anyone has been hanging on to some unplayed development cards for a long time. If one player approaches 10 points while the others are lagging behind, usually [[EnemyMine the players start helping each other]] to get points away from the player in the lead. In fact, it's probably best to say that one of the worst things you can do in the game is getting an early, solid lead and become [[TallPoppySyndrome the focus of everyone's wrath]] for the mid-game.
* EuroGame: This game was first published in Germany, Europe. When it was imported into America, it [[GenrePopularizer popularised]] the medium of hobbyist board gaming. [[TropeCodifier Many elements of the game were adopted by many board game designers and are still used today]].
* ExpandedUniverse: There is currently a novel, a computer game with a story, characters with personalities, and a lot of minor characters who appear in the card game and adventure games. Even the robber was made into three characters with their own comics.
* FirstPlayerAdvantageMitigation: Initial placement of one's first two settlements can make or break an entire game as they will determine what resources and how many one has in the early game. And a good first placement can lead to exponential growth in terms of resource yield in the late game since cities (which doubles the yield of resources the city is adjacent to) can only be built on top of existing settlements. Thus, in the placement phase, the sequence goes clockwise from the player who placed their settlement first until the last person, and then it reverses. This allows for the last person to place two settlements simultaneously and forces the player who got the first settlement on the board to place their second settlement after all other players, balancing out their first-mover advantage.
* FourthWallObserver: Magistrate William, author of the famous treatise "The World as a Buildup Strategy Game", which proposes that reality is nothing more than a bunch of hexes, cards and UsefulNotes/{{dice}}.
* GangUpOnTheHuman: Very badly in the first computer game, to the point that all of your opponents will sometimes simultaneously refuse to trade with you when you haven't even had time to make an offer. It's also not uncommon for them to refuse to trade when doing so would clearly be in their best interest, and would even benefit them more than you.
** The computer also focuses a lot more on Development cards than the average human player. As a result, expect a ''lot'' more Robbers being moved as the AI will place Knight Cards like there's no more tomorrow. A play style focused around Development Cards is a lot riskier than typical expansion and city-building, but when all 3 AI do it, there's an increased chance one of them will be successful (and thus you, the human player, will lose).
** Note that computer opponents will refuse to trade with anyone if that individual has 8 or 9 points (on a 10-point game). They will not accept your trade requests, nor accept your offers for when they are making their requests. This can lead to ArtificialStupidity if they refuse to make a trade with you on their turn that would allow them to immediately win.
** Even the most recent computer/phone-based game is really bad at this. The AI players will not only turn down your trades, but they will also even refuse the ''exact'' offer that they themselves made just seconds before, even if they made multiple attempts to get the resource in question, even when you offer more resources to still get only one. Basically, the computer will make offers to you, but you cannot make offers to the computer.
* InnocentInnuendo: Pretty much any trade request or statement involving the wood resource. Like, "I have so much wood in my hands right now", or "[[Series/TheBigBangTheory I have wood for sheep]]". (Or not innocent... If you actually use the resource names the game provides, that line would be "I have lumber for wool." This is [[RuleOfFunny a key reason]] nobody ever uses those names.)
** Carries over into other languages, too! In Spanish, "paja", the word for ''hay'', can mean... ahem, [[ADateWithRosiePalms something else]]. This leads to exchanges like ''Te doy una paja por piedra'', "I give you one hay in exchange for rock", which can ''also'' mean "I'll give you a handjob for crack".
* KingmakerScenario: The end-game is often a duel between two players, so the other two players are basically deciding which one wins.
%% * KnowNothingKnowItAll: Louis.
* LiteralWildCard: The ''Settlers Of Catan Dice Game'' has gold as a sixth resource, due to the geometry of the dice. Unlike the other five resources, gold is not useful in and of itself. However, players may trade two gold for one of any other resource, providing more flexibility in development decisions.
%% * TheMovie: Announced in 2017, but currently still in development.
* PatchworkMap: Built randomly from interchangeable hexes.
* PlungerDetonator: In the UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade version, one of the [[EmoteAnimation emote animations]] shows a player using one of these to blow up the dice. The AI sometimes uses it when it has a run of particularly bad rolls.
* TheQuisling: Sometimes encouraged in ''Cities & Knights'' when the Barbarians come calling, if it lets you push weaker players under the bus.
* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: If you've got a lot of a given resource, and it's coveted enough, ''and'' you've also got a "Monopoly" development card, you can obtain this effect by trading a lot of goods for that resource, no matter the price, like there's no tomorrow, and then have it all back. Pulling this is guaranteed to grant you the ire and defiance of all the other players, but that's the price for quite literally having your cake and eating it too.
%%* SinisterMinister: Abbess Hildegard.
* TakeAThirdOption:
%%** Many decision-making scenarios in-game result in this, especially surrounding card usage.
** In ''Cities & Knights'', players have the option of trying to tie or win the war with the Barbarians. [[spoiler:''Intentionally losing the war'' becomes a viable option, however, when trying to prevent other players from gaining victory points or progress cards, or causing the player(s) with the least amount of knights to lose a city.]]
* TechnicolorMagic: In the card game, the magic-related expansion (Wizards & Dragons) is very purple, the magic resource is purple, and all magic items (e.g. spellbooks) are purple.
* UnstableEquilibrium: [[AvertedTrope Averted]] to some extent. As described above under the Dark Horse Victory, one of the worse things you can do is get an early solid lead, as that will just make the other players gang up on you. Typically, the trick to winning is to not look like you're winning.
* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: Roads need wood and brick, settlements need wood, brick, wheat and sheep, cities need two wheat and three stone and development cards need wheat, stone and sheep.
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''Settlers of Catan'' (a.k.a. ''Die Siedler von Catan'', sometimes marketed as ''Catan'') is a multi-award-winning board game by Klaus Teuber, first released in 1995. The competing players are settlers attempting to colonize the island of Catan and must collect and trade resources to build roads, settlements and developments. As they do so they accumulate Victory Points, with additional points being awarded for achievements such as building the longest road or having the largest army. The first player to reach a certain number of Victory Points (usually ten) wins the game.

* ExpandedUniverse: At the time of this edit, there is: a novel, a computer game with a story, characters with personalities, and a lot of minor characters who appear in the card game and adventure games. Even the robber was made into three characters with their own comics.

%%* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: Roads need wood and brick, settlements need wood, brick, wheat and sheep, cities need two wheat and three stone and development cards need wheat, stone and sheep.

* DarkHorseVictory: The game has a tendency to end in this. Especially if a game has been going on for a long time, you had better watch who's in the running for the longest road or the largest army, or if anyone has been hanging on to some unplayed development cards for a long time. If one player approaches 10 points while the others are lagging behind, usually [[EnemyMine the players start helping each other]] to get points away from the player in the lead. In fact, it's probably best to say that one of the worst things you can do in the game is get an early, solid lead and become [[TallPoppySyndrome the focus of everyone's wrath]] for the mid-game.

* ExpandedUniverse: At the time of this edit, there are: a novel, a computer game with a story, characters with personalities, and a lot of minor characters who appear in the card game and adventure games. Even the robber was made into three characters with their own comics.
* FirstPlayerAdvantageMitigation: Initial placement of one's first two settlements can make or break an entire game as they will determine what resources and how many one has in the early game. And a good first placement can lead to exponential growth in terms of resource yield in the late game since cities (which doubles the yield of resources the city is adjacent to) can only be built on top of existing settlements. Thus, in the placement phase, the sequence goes clockwise from the player who placed their settlement first until the last person, then it reverses. This allows for the last person to place two settlements simultaneously and forces the player who got the first settlement on the board to place their second settlement after all other players, balancing out their first-mover advantage.

** The computer also focuses a lot more on Development cards than the average human player. As a result, expect a ''lot'' more Robbers being moved as the AI will place Knight Cards like there's no more tomorrow. A play-style focused around Development Cards is a lot riskier than typical expansion and city-building, but when all 3 AI do it, there's an increased chance one of them will be successful (and thus you, the human player, will lose).
** Note that computer opponents will refuse to trade with anyone if that individual has 8 or 9 points (on a 10 point game). They will not accept your trade requests, nor accept your offers for when they are making their requests. This can lead to ArtificialStupidity if they refuse to make a trade with you on their turn that would allow them to immediately win.
** Even the most recent computer/phone based game is really bad at this. The AI players will not only turn down your trades, they will even refuse the ''exact'' offer that they themselves made just seconds before, even if they made multiple attempts to get the resource in question, even when you offer more resources to still get only one. Basically, the computer will make offers to you, but you cannot make offers to the computer.

%%* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: The main part of the game.

''[[caption-width-right:350: Trade, Build, Settle]]''

''Settlers of Catan'' (a.k.a. ''Die Siedler von Catan'') is a multi-award-winning board game by Klaus Teuber. The competing players are settlers attempting to colonize the island of Catan and must collect and trade resources to build roads, settlements and developments. As they do so they accumulate Victory Points, with additional points being awarded for achievements such as building the longest road or having the largest army. The first player to reach a certain number of Victory Points (usually ten) wins the game.

Because of its very unusual non-zero-sum game mechanic, many economics professors use this game to teach concepts of comparative advantage and other economics concepts.

[[folder:List of Games and Expansions]]
* ''Settlers of Catan''(1995)(shortened to Catan as of 2015)
** Seafarers
** Cities and Knights
** Traders and Barbarians
** Explorers and Pirates
[[/folder]]

* SupernaturalIsPurple: In the card game, the magic-related expansion (Wizards & Dragons) is very purple, the magic resource is purple, and all magic items (e.g. spellbooks) are purple.