How to play

The goal

Settle an island, grow your settlements into cities, and be the first to reach 10 points on your own turn. Before the game starts, the host can set the target to 8, 10, 12 or 15.

The island

The island is a board of hexes, and each kind of terrain produces one resource. The desert produces nothing.

Terrain and the resource it produces:

• forestWood
• hillsBrick
• pastureWool
• fieldsGrain
• mountainsOre

The base island has 19 hexes: four each of forest, pasture and fields, three each of hills and mountains, and one desert. The host picks the Starter island, a fixed beginner board, or one dealt at random, with terrain, numbers and harbours shuffled.

Every hex except the desert carries a number from 2 to 12; there is no 7. When the dice add up to a hex's number, every settlement on its corners collects one of its resource and every city collects two. The 6 and the 8 come up most often, the 2 and the 12 least. The robber starts on the desert.

Nine harbours sit along the coast, each spanning two corners. Four are general harbours that trade any resource 3 for 1; the other five each trade one resource 2 for 1. A settlement or city on either corner of a harbour lets you use it from then on.

Setting up

The table draws who goes first. In turn order, each player places a settlement on any free corner and a road touching it. Then the order runs backwards: the last player places a second settlement and road straight away, and the placing snakes back to the first player. With four players that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Your second settlement pays at once: one resource for every hex around it. The first player, who placed last, takes the first turn.

Your turn

1. 1

   Roll

   Roll both dice. Every hex with that number pays the settlements and cities on its corners, except the hex under the robber. A Warden may be played before you roll.

2. 2

   Trade and build

   In any order and as often as you can pay: trade with the table or the bank, build roads, settlements and cities, and buy development cards.

3. 3

   Play a card

   Up to one development card a turn, and never one you bought this turn.

4. 4

   End your turn

   Play passes to the next player round the table.

When the bank runs short of a resource it cannot pay everyone, nobody collects that resource on that roll, unless only one player is owed it; they take what is left.

Rolling a 7

A 7 produces nothing. Instead the robber moves, and the roller decides where.

1. Everyone holding more than seven resource cards discards half of them, rounded down, and chooses which.
2. You move the robber to any other land hex. That hex produces nothing while the robber stays on it.
3. You steal one card at random from a player with a settlement or city on that hex. If several qualify you choose whom; a player with no cards cannot be robbed.

Building

Spend resources on your turn, after rolling. Spent cards go back to the bank.

Ships appear only on scenario islands with open water; see Scenario islands.

• Roads run along hex edges and must join one of your roads, settlements or cities. They cannot pass through a corner another player has built on.
• Settlements go on a free corner that one of your roads reaches, and must obey the distance rule.
• Cities replace one of your settlements. The settlement goes back to your supply to be built again.

Pieces

Each player has a fixed supply. When a kind runs out you cannot build more of it.

Development cards

A development card costs one Wool, one Grain and one Ore and is drawn blind from a shuffled deck of 25. Keep it hidden until you play it. You may play one card a turn, never on the turn you bought it, and every card except the Warden waits until after you roll.

• Warden14 in the deck

  Move the robber and steal a card, as on a 7 but with no discards. The one card you may play before rolling; every Warden you play counts toward the Grand Watch.

• Surveyor2 in the deck

  Place two roads for free, each touching your network.

• Harvest2 in the deck

  Take any two resources from the bank: two of a kind, or one each of two.

• Levy2 in the deck

  Name a resource. Every other player hands you all they hold of it.

• Victory point5 in the deck

  Never played. It stays in your hand as one hidden point and counts the moment it takes you to the target, even on the turn you buy it.

The Grand Road and the Grand Watch

Two awards are worth 2 points each. Only one player holds each at a time.

Trading

Only the player whose turn it is trades, and only after rolling. Everyone else trades with them, never with each other. Only resources change hands; development cards cannot be traded.

With the table

Offer some of your cards for some of theirs. Each player can accept, decline, or counter with different terms, and you choose which answer to take, or withdraw the offer. Both sides must give something, and nobody trades a resource for the same resource.

With the bank

A harbour works for you once you have a settlement or city on either of its two corners. You always get the best rate you hold.

Winning

The game ends the moment a player reaches the target on their own turn, after a build, a card or a road that wins an award. Hidden Victory point cards count toward it. Points that arrive on someone else's turn, such as the Grand Road changing hands when another player cuts a road, win the moment your own turn begins.

A finished table becomes a chronicle: the whole game replayed on the island, with the dice, the harvest and the turning points.

Five and six players

Pick 5–6 players in the lobby for a bigger table. Everything above holds, with these changes:

• A 30-hex island in rows of 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4 and 3: six each of forest, pasture and fields, five each of hills and mountains, and two deserts. It is always dealt at random.
• Eleven harbours: five general, and six for one resource each, two of them for Wool.
• The bank holds 24 of each resource instead of 19, and the deck grows to 34 cards.
• The special build phase. After each turn, every other player in order may build and buy development cards before the next player rolls. Nobody trades or plays a card in it, and anyone who cannot afford anything is passed over.

House rules

The host can bend a few rules in the lobby before the game starts. Everyone at the table sees which are on.

• Target score. First to 8, 10, 12, 15 points; 10 unless the host changes it.

• Friendly robber. The robber leaves anyone on 2 points or fewer alone. Points on hidden cards do not count here. If every hex is sheltered, the robber may go anywhere.

• Calm start. No 7s in the first two rounds — a 7 is rolled again.

• Hidden points. Nobody’s total is shown until the game ends. Count the board.

The island of the week plays by the book: first to 10 with no house rules, so every table's result compares fairly.

Scenario islands

Instead of the base island the host can deal a scenario island. The rules stay the same; the board changes, and some boards bring new terrain.

Playing with Claude

A Claude session can take an empty seat at your table, connected with one command from your lobby. It plays by exactly these rules, checked by the same engine as everyone else, and can talk at the table.