Catan: The Comprehensive Winning Strategy Guide

If you’ve ever found yourself huddled around a board game with friends, frantically trading ore for wood while trying to build the longest road, chances are you’ve played Catan. This classic game of resource management and strategy is a favorite of mine, and for good reason – it’s challenging, replayable, and incredibly fun. But if you’re tired of always being outmaneuvered or you’re aiming to dominate your next game night, it’s time to level up your strategy. I have gathered and tested all of the best Catan strategies and tips while analyzing the tendencies of the world’s top players to bring you this ultimate Catan strategy guide.

Let the board dictate your overall strategy

Part of what makes Catan so replayable is the nearly limitless tile configurations that make every game feel unique. Properly analyzing the board at the beginning of the game is probably the most important factor if you want to win. The distribution of resource tiles and their numbering set the landscape for every decision that is to follow, and you should let the board guide your overall strategy for the game.

The number and names of general strategies change depending on who you talk to, but I like to classify my strategies into three camps: Urban, Rural, and Balanced/Blended. Which strategy is ‘best’ depends entirely on the layout of the board, so you can’t just rely on one of them all the time. I’ll go into what to look for on the board so you know which strategy to go for, and also how to execute each strategy to improve your chances at winning.

Strategy	Use When	Path to Victory
Urban	Lots of Ore and Grain	3 Cities, Largest Army, VP cards
Rural	Lots of Wood and Brick	4 Settlements, 2 Cities, Longest Road
Blended	Balanced resource availability	7 Points of Cities/Settlements, Army/Road, VP card

It’s important to note that the situation may change depending on the turn order and who picks their location first. A board might look primed for an Urban strategy, but if the best Ore/Grain locations are already claimed by the time you get to place your first Settlement you need to adapt. Choose your strategy based on the locations left available to you, not the original board state.

Urban Strategy

The Urban Strategy describes an overall plan to develop a relatively small amount of Settlements into Cities and focus on Development Cards to eventually win Largest Army and secure some Victory Point cards.

This strategy works best when Ore and Grain are abundant (their tiles have high probability numbers like 5, 6, 8, and 9). It’s even better when they are placed next to one another and you can secure access to them with a single settlement. Looking at the map above, we can do a simple count of the pips on each resource to see that the Urban Strategy is likely to be a winner – especially if you’re brown and you’ve claimed Ore and Grain with one Settlement.

Resource	Pips
Wood	10
Brick	8
Sheep	13
Grain	16
Ore	11

You can use your bountiful Ore and Grain to quickly convert your Settlements into Cities, and then procure other resources through trade to build another Settlement and buy lots of Development Cards.

Development cards are key to this strategy because they use Ore and Grain. This will eventually lead to having the Largest Army (worth two VPs), while hopefully also providing some additional VPs themselves. You can also protect yourself from the Robber by having plenty of Knight cards on hand, so your key Ore and Grain tiles won’t be consistently blocked.

Rural Strategy

The Rural Strategy describes an overall plan to spread out into many Settlements, eventually develop some of them into Cities, and finally win Longest Road. It relies on spreading out and collecting a variety of resources, but focusing on Wood and Brick.

This strategy works best when Ore and Grain are rare, while Wood and Brick are abundant. It’s even better when the Wood and Brick are placed next to one another and are available in roughly equal amounts since they are always spent together.

In general, you want to build Roads and Settlements in a continuous line to additional valuable locations on the map. You’ll probably want to build at least 5 (and ideally 6) Settlements along this road and then eventually upgrade 2 of them to Cities.

This strategy also requires at least a little of all the other resources in the game, so gaining access to at least a 3:1 port is critical. A 2:1 resource port is nice if it looks like you’ll be loaded up on one particular resource, but it isn’t a priority.

It’s not necessary to build all of your Settlements along the same road from the start, but if you have them split up you should have a plan to eventually connect them. This strategy is heavily reliant upon having the Longest Road (for 2 VPs) so you want to be efficient with your road building plans.

One additional perk of this strategy is the potential to cut your opponents off from large sections of the map. Depending on where your opponents have decided to place their initial Settlements, you can sometimes build a road that completely surrounds or blocks them from ever expanding.

Balanced/Blended Strategy

There is, of course, a happy medium to be struck between the two strategies listed above. This balanced strategy describes a very generic, middle-of-the-road approach to the game that encourages you to collect roughly equal amounts of all resources and find a path to 10 VPs by any means necessary.

This strategy works best when there isn’t an abundance of the Ore/Grain or Wood/Brick resource combinations, or when those tiles aren’t available to you during initial Settlement placement due to other players claiming them. It has the benefit of being very flexible, but runs the risk of languishing with no clear path to victory. Looking at the board pictured above, we can see that the resources (aside from Sheep) are fairly well-balanced.

Resource	Pips
Wood	11
Brick	11
Sheep	17
Grain	10
Ore	9

The direction your game takes with the Balanced Strategy often depends on the dice rolls you get. Take what the dice give you, and lean into any advantage you get. Sometimes this snowballs into an easy win but, in my experience, can just as easily leave you frustrated and hopeless. Overall, this is a good strategy when other players have already monopolized the resources you’d need to go with other strategies.

Trading is going to be crucial to success with the Balanced Strategy. You’ll often have an abundance of resources but lack the specific resources required at the moment. Crucially, your opponents will likely need some of the resources you’ve acquired since they have chosen to specialize in just a couple of resource types. Do everything you can to encourage trade with this strategy, especially during your turn.

Consider all factors when placing Settlements

Now that you’re familiar with the general strategies of the game and when to use them, it’s time to actually place your initial Settlements. I’ve already talked a bit about which specific resources you should prioritize based on your chosen strategy, but there are several additional factors to consider.

Variety of resources

There are 5 resources in Catan, and having access to all of them is a definite advantage. If possible, you should aim to place your initial Settlements so that they’re adjacent to at least one of every resource type. That way, you aren’t entirely reliant on trade or theft for any resource.

Probability of rolls (maximize pips)

Catan conveniently indicates how often each number is likely to be rolled with small dots (pips) under each number. In general, the more pips you can touch with your Settlements the better, since you’re more likely to actually gain resources from high probability numbers.

Distribution of numbers

Gaining a slow trickle of resources is generally better than all at once. By spreading your Settlements over a wide selection of numbers (especially the numbers most likely to be rolled), you are more likely to gain a resource on every turn and less likely to get them in bursts, which could lead to them being stolen by the Robber.

Access to ports

Having access to a 3:1 port is critical to success in almost any strategy. In general, when you place your initial Settlements you should try to point at least one road to a nearby 3:1 port so that your economy runs more smoothly. With access to a 3:1 port, you will always be able to purchase/build something with any combination of 8 or more resources.

Expansion opportunities

This is probably the least important factor to consider, but is worth considering nonetheless. If you’re undecided between two locations for your initial Settlements, choose the one that offers better access to desirable expansion opportunities (intersections with better/higher probability resources).

Build roads toward likely expansion sites

When you place your initial Settlements, you also get to place a road extending away from each of them. Which direction you choose can be critical to future success, so you need to consider your options carefully. When evaluating which way to build, I like to take the following factors into consideration:

Likelihood to be unclaimed

There is nothing more frustrating at the beginning of a game of Catan than when your opponents build a Settlement on or near a future expansion site you had your eye on. Even worse, they may render a road you’ve placed completely useless by building on a port you were hoping to claim.

Always consider how likely your desired expansion sites are to remain unclaimed before you can get there. If players get to claim sites after you think about which sites they’re most likely to choose (likely the best remaining sites on the board). In general, you should hope to claim the next best location after initial settlements are placed.

Access to Ports

In my opinion, this is almost always the first and most important consideration when placing your initial roads. I’ll go into more detail later, but have at least one 3:1 port is critical to success. If you have an abundance of one specific resource then you will also get a lot of value out of that resource’s 2:1 port. I would say that it’s usually worth claiming a slightly less desirable initial Settlement location if it has better/closer access to a 3:1 port.

Longest Road

The Longest Road card may or may not be a part of your overall strategy, but if it is then you should definitely take this into consideration when placing your initial Settlement roads. Try to stake a claim in any important intersections between your cities and/or build toward areas with lots of open space in which to expand.

If the strategy you’re planning for isn’t heavily reliant on Longest Road then I would recommend placing this factor low on your list of considerations.

Flexibility

When in doubt, build toward an intersection that is most likely to leave you with options. Build toward a double intersection away from your opponents’ Settlements so that you can choose which direction to go later in the game. Just do your best not to leave that road stranded with no realistic/economic way to extend it.

Balance your resource availability

Catan is all about resource acquisition and management. There are 5 resources in the game, but they are not all created equal. The number of tiles of each resource varies, they are used to buy different things, and the probability of their tiles being rolled changes in every game. Let’s take a look at their availability and average demand/usage.

A few things stand out here. Brick and Ore are, on average, the least available resources in the game because they have 1 fewer tile than the other three resources. Ore can never be spent without Grain, so it is generally best to secure access to Grain before Ore. Wool is usually the least-used resource in the game and is therefore used a lot in maritime trading and discarding.

Which resources you prioritize depends primarily on which overall strategy you’re going for, but having a viable mix of all 5 leads to a streamlined and efficient economy. When building your Settlements and Cities, try to strike a balance that works with your chosen strategy.

Use your resources when you have them

It can be tempting to try to save up resources to buy something specific like a third Settlement or your first City but, in most cases, it’s best to use your resources to buy whatever you can when you can. There are exceptions to this of course, but by using your resources early and often you’ll give them more opportunity to snowball for you.

You might get frustrated by ‘having’ to buy a few Development Cards before you even complete another Settlement, but you’ll find that in the long run, there are many ways to win and things don’t always go according to plan. Use the resources the dice give you instead of trying to save up for what you’re hoping to buy.

One of the biggest benefits of this strategy is that you’ll be far less likely to have to discard due to a Robber attack. By spending your resources quickly, you don’t allow yourself to amass 8+ cards. You won’t always be able to buy/build exactly what you want, but you’ll also be wasting far fewer resources since you won’t be discarding.

Prioritize & use Development Cards to gain an edge

Resource cards are the most undervalued and underappreciated facets of Catan. Many players write them off as a way to spend excess resources when, in fact, they are extremely powerful and game-winning assets. We can see the importance of Development Cards by looking at statistics from the top players on BGA. Consider the following:

Statistic	Top Player #1	Top Player #2	Top Player #3	Average Player
Development Cards bought	5.6	5.4	4.8	2.9
VP for Development Cards	1.1	1.1	1.0	.6
Largest Army	2.7	2.7	2.5	1.5

Clearly, the best players in the world place a much larger emphasis on Development Cards than the average player. They buy more of them, which results in more direct VPs and larger armies (and therefore more Largest Army bonuses). If you want to improve at Catan, buy more Development Cards!

One underappreciated aspect of Development Cards is that they are the only truly hidden information in the game. With some skill and practice you can keep good track of your opponents’ resources, and everyone can always see the current board state. But Development Cards are a mystery to everyone but their owner, and that can have a profound impact on the game.

Holding a Development Card can make your opponents second guess themselves when considering placing the Robber on one of your tiles, since you might be holding a Knight and you could immediately retaliate. Similarly, someone with the Longest Road card might be worried that you’ll steal it from them with a well-timed play of a Road Building card. Any time you see an opponent holding a Development Card for an extended period of time you should always assume that it’s a VP card and factor that into your decision making.

To fully understand their value, let’s first look at the distribution of card types in the Development Card deck.

Development Card Type	# in Game
Knight	14
Monopoly	2
Road Building	2
Year of Plenty	2
Victory Point	5

Knights are the most common development card by far, constituting a whopping 56% of the entire deck. VP cards are a distant second, making up 20% of the available cards. Each card type has its advantages, and when used correctly they can help you gain a huge advantage.

Knights

Knights are extremely useful cards to have at your disposal because you can use them to remove a Robber from your tiles and/or obstruct your opponents from gathering the resources you need. If you’re tracking the resources in your opponents’ hands then you can also target players to steal specific resources you need.

Since Knights allow you to steal a resource from an opponent, their effective cost is really only 2 resources (and are even better than that on a net basis since you’re stealing from someone else). All of these benefits combined with the potential for 2 VPs from Largest Army make them very versatile and desirable cards.

Monopoly

The Monopoly cards have the potential to be the trickiest and most devious in the entire game. If timed correctly you can score big and really screw over your opponents, but if you aren’t paying attention they can also be completely worthless.

Monopoly cards are best used when you’re diligently tracking the resources in your opponents’ hands. If you haven’t been doing so already, once you collect a Monopoly card it’s time to start keeping track of the resources your opponents draw so you know whats available to steal. There’s nothing worse than playing a Monopoly card hoping for some Ore only to find that nobody has any Ore in their hands!

One trick I like to use when playing over the board (this can’t be done on BGA) is to check the stacks of resource cards in the bank. This is within the rules, and you can instantly find out how many resources are in play. There are 19 cards of each resource type, so if you count 14 Brick in the bank then you know there are 5 currently in players’ hands. You can’t do this on BGA, but you can go back through the game log and see what each player has collected/traded/spent to get an accurate count.

Monopoly cards are usually used offensively to build something specific that you need, but don’t forget that they can also be used defensively. If an opponent is close to winning and they need a specific resource, use Monopoly to steal it away from them.

Road Building

The Road Building card offers good economic value because it replaced the need for 4 resources (2 Wood + 2 Brick) for the cost of 3. How I use a Road Building card depends largely upon when it’s drawn – it’s not always best to use it immediately.

Early in the game, I like to use it in conjunction with other resources to build a new Settlement without giving other players the opportunity to block it. You can use it to claim a critical road segment that multiple players are racing toward. This might grant you access to a port or valuable resource tiles.

If I draw a Road Building card in the middle or late game then I will almost always save it so that I can use it to claim Longest Road for 2 VPs. This strategy is extremely common in high-level competitive play, where players will extend and/or connect road segments to steal Longest Road from another player and, in combination with building a Settlement or City, score 3 points to win a game.

Year of Plenty

Year of Plenty is generally considered to be the worst Development Card in the game because you only get 2 resources back for the 3 you spent. However, you can still get a lot of value out of it because you can choose the two specific resources you need at a critical time and it essentially lets you hold up to 9 resource cards in your hand without being vulnerable to a Robber attack.

Year of Plenty can be particularly useful early in the game when resources are hard to come by. You can use it to build another Settlement or expand into a City very early on which can easily snowball into an easy victory.

Victory Points

Victory Point cards are the most valuable and coveted assets in the game. You only need to collect 8 additional VPs to win the game, so every VP card you gather is a huge step toward that goal. The added psychological aspect of holding a VP card cannot be ignored, either. Your opponents would be right to assume you have a VP card, but they must always consider that it could be something else like a Knight or Road Building card that you’re just waiting to unleash.

Gain early access to a one 3:1 Port

No matter what strategy you choose to employ, having access to a 3:1 Port is critical to success. There is a huge difference between being able to trade away just 3 of one resource instead of 4. The added flexibility a 3:1 Port gives you is extremely powerful – especially early in the game.

In most cases, I like to build my third Settlement on a 3:1 port (if I haven’t already built one using my two initial Settlements). This makes life much easier in the middle game and helps accelerate expansion. Plus, you’ll often find that your opponents are also racing to build on a Port location so you don’t want to lose out on the spot you had earmarked.

One of the nicest things about having a 3:1 Port is that you can always buy or build something with any combination of 8 resources via maritime trade. Even if it’s not exactly what you want to do on that turn, you’ll always be able to spend some resources in order to avoid exposing yourself to a Robber attack.

Control a 2:1 Port for a monopolized resource

Catan also features Resource Ports that let you trade 2 of one resource type for 1 of any other. These ports can be extremely powerful, especially when you have a steady excess of one particular resource. Sometimes you end up in a situation where you have an abundance of one resource and are starved for one or two others. In these cases, you should make it a priority to claim the 2:1 Port for your resource so that you can balance your economy more efficiently.

Creating this trade flow from a 2:1 Port can also be a viable strategy at the beginning of the game, especially in 4-player games where competition for resources is more fierce. Take the game setup below, for example.

In this game, you could attempt to claim both the red and green locations with your initial settlements. You would have limited access to other resources, but you’d have a wealth of Grain to trade away for exactly the resources you require.

Use the Robber better than your opponents do

The Robber is the most interactive, competitive, and potentially infuriating part of Catan. How you use it can have a dramatic impact on how the game unfolds, so it’s important to have some basic guidelines to follow. Note that many games of Catan have either a formally declared or an unspoken understanding that the Robber won’t be played against other players until they reach 3 points. This is up to you and your opponents, but if be aware that using the Robber earlier than that will often make you a target for the rest of the game.

• Target the strongest player. Remember to account for Development Cards
• Avoid angering more players than is necessary
• Block resources you have an abundance of
• Block resources your opponents need
• When in doubt, rob from the player to your right
• Rob from players you know have a resource you need

Sometimes it is not possible to abide by all of these guidelines at once, so you’ll have to use your best judgment. The point about not angering more players than is necessary is a particularly important one. I used to always try to block a high-probability resource that my opponents shared, but that simply makes everyone mad at you and increases the likelihood that it’ll be quickly moved away with a Knight. Instead, try to target a specific player (usually the leader) so that other players won’t hold a grudge.

The reason for robbing the player to your right is that it allows for the most time/turns to pass before that player goes again. There is more opportunity for the resource to be rolled and blocked and more chances that the Robber will be moved again, which all adds up to a lower chance of you being immediately retaliated against.

Score your final points in a hurry

Everyone always gangs up on the leader in Catan to prevent them from winning. This is just common sense and good strategy because it gives the other players more time to catch up and potentially win themselves. Advanced Catan players know that this will happen and usually factor it into their late game plans to avoid being interfered with.

What actually happens in most Catan games is that players gang up on the perceived leader. It’s easy to see who currently has the most points from Settlements, Cities, Longest Road, and Largest Army. What isn’t 100% known is what Development cards and resources each player holds.

To avoid having all of the other players working against you, it’s often a good idea to score your final 3 or 4 points very quickly – over the span of just one or two rounds, if possible. This almost always involves the use of Development Cards. Ways to do this include some combination of the following:

• Play a Road Building card to help connect/extend road segments and steal Longest Road
• Play a Knight to claim or steal Largest Army
• Have one or more Victory Point cards in hand
• Use a Monopoly card to build one or more Cities/Settlements

Claiming the Longest Road and/or Largest Military cards near the end of the game is particularly effective when you combine it with building a Settlement or City. Scoring 3 points in a single turn is rare and shocking, so your opponents likely won’t anticipate it.

Of course, sometimes you just need to grind out a win by any means possible. If you don’t have the Development Cards needed to execute this strategy then just keep scoring any way you can while fending off your opponents. Just be sure to keep an eye out for your opponents who could be trying to score quickly near the end of the game!

Thanks for reading! If I missed something or you have your own opinions, please drop a comment below.