Base Game
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Game Set-Up - How do I position the harbor pieces of the third edition?
Place the harbors adjacent to terrain hexes so that both harbor locations border on land.
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Gameplay - Do we always have to observe the rule that the oldest player places the first settlement?
No. This rule is a guideline of how to proceed if you play the game for the first time. Experienced players will most likely choose some other way of determining the starting player.
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Gameplay - May I ally with another player against a third player?
The rules do not prohibit it. However, common sense should tell you to play in such a way that your current opponents will also want to play with you tomorrow.
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Largest Army – (See also: Development Cards “Knight”) - Do I have to hand over the Largest Army card and subtract the 2 victory points from my score if another player has more Knight Cards?
Yes. That’s how it’s specified in the game rules.
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Largest Army – (See also: Development Cards “Knight”) - Do my unplayed Knight Cards also count for claiming the Largest Army?
No. A Knight Card that hasn’t been revealed is like a lottery slip where you marked six winning numbers but then didn’t submit it to enter the drawing: it’s useless!
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Longest Road - Can a continuous road be circular?
In principle, yes; but on Catan the circle is a hexagon. When counting the individual road pieces, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are built in a more or less straight line - what matters is that they establish an uninterrupted connection between two intersections. This is why 6 road pieces connected in a hexagonal fashion still count as 6 road pieces.
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Longest Road - Do my own settlements interrupt my continuous road?
No.
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Longest Road - How can I interrupt an opponent's Longest Road?
By building a settlement on an intersection of the Longest Road. Needless to say that you must observe all building rules when doing this.
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Longest Road - How can I reconnect the pieces of my interrupted Longest Road?
If your continuous road was interrupted by a settlement, you might be able to build a “bypass”: a detour around one or more hexes.
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Longest Road - May I add individual road pieces to an interrupted (Longest) Road?
Yes. You can add individual road pieces as long as you have a road, settlement or city to connect them to.
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Longest Road - What happens if a player builds a continuous road that has the same length as the road belonging to the owner of the Longest Road card?
The card stays with its current owner.
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Longest Road - What happens if the Longest Road is interrupted?
Here we have to distinguish between 3 cases:
- If the player who up to this point had the Longest Road still meets the requirements for the Longest Road (either alone or together with another player), he keeps the card.
- If another player now meets the requirements for the Longest Road, he receives the card.
- If none of the players - or more than one player - meets the requirements for the Longest Road, none of the players receives the card.
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Longest Road - What is the Longest Road?
The Longest Road is a continuous road connecting two intersections, which consists of at least 5 individual road pieces and is not interrupted by game pieces belonging to other players. It has more individual road pieces than any other connecting road of this type.
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Resource Cards - After the production roll, may I voluntarily take fewer resources or none at all?
No.
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Resource Cards - Am I obligated to tell my opponents the number of Resource Cards in my hand?
Yes.
