The Settlers of Catan Strategies: Industrial Revolution

Settlers of Catan is a board game created by Mayfair Games. In this strategy game there is only one basic way to win, which is to earn ten victory points. This sounds easy, but becomes much harder when you have competitive land and limited resources. Also, the game is based on luck, and if you find yourself not getting the right rolls, or the resources you need for your normal strategy, it is always good to have a backup plan.

If not yet done so, please read the Settlers Tactics page before progressing into this strategy.

When you start playing with this strategy, you should aim for these resources:

Essential: Ore (rock) and wheat (grain)

Important: Wool (sheep)

Unnecessary: Brick and wood

At first this strategy looks strange, almost as if it would never work: wood and brick are necessary for both roads and settlements, so to say they are unnecessary is ridiculous, right? Well, I will be the first to admit that this strategy is difficult to pull off, but if you can successfully pull it off, it becomes a domineering force in any game of settlers. First of all, while wood and brick are necessary to begin this strategy, it can be helpful to have one spot that may contain one of them. Secondly, the basic goal of this strategy is to mass produce cities and development cards. Mass producing cities should have an obvious goal: collect double of your original resource collection. Development cards, on the other hand, is a more difficult strategy to explain. These are chance cards, and although they are always helpful, it may not always give you what you want, BUT the purpose of them in this strategy is to use them to completely overcome whatever your opponent's may throw at you (see complete description of this part below).

Once you obtain cities, you are kind of stuck. This is where the sheep (wool) comes into play in the strategy. Development cards can be used to expand, generating the wood and brick needed for roads and settlements. The true way to use these, is by first of all buying as many as you can at one time. Then using one every turn that will allow you to obtain whatever it is that you need. Most of the time, this will involve keeping track of what your opponents have (to steal from them with monopoly or a soldier). At other times it will just give you what you need (like road building and year of plenty). Nevertheless, one you are able to get what you need and build roads, you should expand towards wood and brick, allowing you to eventually build cities there. once you do, you should have plenty of every resource and be able to win the game in whatever way you see fit, although this strategy will normally cause victory in the following way:

2 (largest army) + 8 (4 cities) = 10 (VICTORY!)

If you do not like this strategy, or want to try a different one, see the list of strategies.