I suppose you COULD play with two if you were just dying to conquer the land of Catan. Settlers of Catan plays best with 3 to 4 players. So if an eight is rolled, you have a settlement on it, and the robber is placed there, you won’t be able to collect that resource until another seven is rolled.Īs if that isn’t bad enough, the person that rolled a seven gets to pull any resource card they want from anyone who has a settlement on the newly blocked resource hex. Wrong! That resource is then blocked anytime the corresponding number is rolled. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the person who rolled the seven gets to move the robber to any hex that he or she wants. If you do, then the robber is now active and everyone must discard half of their cards if they have seven or more. If you thought you were having a tough time collecting the right resources, just wait till you roll a seven. So if I have a sheep port, I can trade in two of my sheep for another resource I am really needing. There is also a port where you can trade whatever resource you want at a 3:1 ratio. There is a port for each resource (sheep, brick, wood, wheat, and ore) where you can trade at a 2:1 ratio.

At this point, I can either trade four sheep outright for any resource I want or use a trading port. Remember that surplus of sheep from earlier? Well, let’s say I don’t want to trade with another player OR the other player is trying to hustle me. If that’s your play style, there will still be opportunities for you to win as well. The developers of Catan must have realized that there will always be players that want to do everything on their own. See how cooperation can be handy? Ports in Catan Now you will have to either cut a deal with another player, use a sheep port (more on ports later,) or have at least four that you can trade for one of anything. You realize don’t have any settlements on brick and you probably never will. You have several cards, but what you really need is some brick.

You are then forced to trade in order to get what you want. The cooperation comes into play when you need a particular resource in order to build a settlement but you are nowhere near that resource tile.

Settler of catan amazon