Settlers of Catan - General Strategy

The last post covered strategy for the placement phase in Settlers of Catan . This one offers up some general strategies for the game:

• Do not discount how important it is to get off to a quick start. If you can place a third settlement significantly faster than your opponents, you gain the potential for more resources, helping you to outpace your foes even more. Your best bet is to carefully place your initial settlements and roads in optimal positions as I referred to in my last post.


• If wood and brick look to be scarce, consider a card strategy instead. Forget the two entirely and load up on wheat, sheep, and ore. Use the Road Building card to create a space for a new settlement. Then you just have to trade for one brick and one wood to build it. You should easily get largest army, be able to make all three settlements into cities, and get two victory points directly from your cards to get you to 10.


• I played with a friend recently who loves to cut people off by building roads. If you really want to annoy one of your opponents, this is the way to do it. On the other hand, if you want to win, it's an epic fail. Both you and the foe that you are annoying won't have a chance to win. He'll not be able to build anywhere, and you'll devote too many resources to roads. Meanwhile, one of the other players will pretty much cruise to victory. It's not bad to strategically block opponents occasionally, but I wouldn't advise making it your primary strategy.