Talk:Catan: Cities & Knights

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. (Shortest WP:RM vote ever. ;)) —Nightstallion (?) 21:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't this title be "Settlers of Catan, Cities and Knights"? --Chuck SMITH

Yes. -- Zoe

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Tips and Tactics"

Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights Info

This game is a lot better than the original if you prefer complex games over simple ones. It is basically the regular Settlers of Catan game with a few twists in it.

Setup and Resource Strategy

In this game you lay out the board as usual except you leave out a water hex and replace it with the special double hex that has the pirates on it. Then a nice boarder is placed around the board to hold it together. It is possible to play this with Seafarers, and some scenarios will be better than others. Scenarios offering more land to build on will be better than scenarios causing players to be cramped.

Opening Strategy

There are a number of different ways you can go in this game. Like always you should closely observe the set-up of the board. In the original Settlers of Catan game, sheep were a fairly pointless resource and bricks were important. In this game, it is somewhat reversed. The only thing that bricks will get you are settlements and city walls. Only build walls when it is practical to do so. However, building on good brick numbers such as "6" or "8" is ideal if you can place a city on them. This is because your city will produce 2 bricks instead of a brick and a trade good. This makes bricks an ideal resource for trade, and the 2:1 brick port can be a very powerful asset. Grain is similar as cities also produce 2 grain, but you need grain so much that you are often spending it and rarely have an ideal time to trade them in 4:1. Settlements are not as important in this game, but you do need them (early on is important). They are only important because they can be upgraded to cities and they are solid victory points that cannot be taken from you. Cites are very important. You want to try to have one your starting city in a place where you can get at least one of these trade goods. Try to get a stable grain source in addition to trade goods. You will need this for your knights. Being on mountain and pasture is essential. It is very important that you can get a knight within the first few turns of the game.

Cities vs. Knights Strategy for Opening and Mid-game

So which do you get, cities or knights? At the beginning of the game, you definately want a knight before the first brigand attack. After that I like to get settlements. As soon as you build a knight and have it activated, you are free to build a city as long as it is unlikely that your opponents will build a city before the first attack. Since you all start with one city, once you build a knight, unless everyone else gets a knight built, you won't have the least knights, and you cities are safe. Here's an interesting situation that is important to know what to do when it occurs at the begining of the game: Everyone has one city and one knight. You can build a city or a knight and the brigands are definately on their way. Which do you build? Answer: The city of course! Building the city will put the number of cities above the number of knights. Since everyone has the same number of knights, they all lose. This isn't bad, because now you have a city and no one else does. Not only that, but if your original city was in a bad place, but your settlement was in a good place, you just relocated your city to your benefit. Note that your opponents will be left to prevent such a situation. They have to build the stupid knight, not you. They might get a savior of Catan card, but they just wasted valuable city-building resources to get it. Looks like you'll have more cities than them for awhile.

Improvements: As soon as you can build an improvement, DON'T HESITATE. Build it and start collecting more development cards.

Development cards: This is the biggest alteration to the regular Settlers game. Sure, you didn't have "real" knights before, but that's more of an addition than total replacement. The biggest downside is that you can't just buy them anymore. Get lots of trade goods so you can get these cards and start making stuff happen! If you can't get all the resources that you want, try to aim for getting paper so you can turn that third level over and get resources on every role that you have. If you have problems building knights, or your opponents are just plain in your way, go for coinage. Cloth is kinda stupid (like sheep, but sheep is better), but it's still helpful nonetheless. Trade is important, and if you get lots of a certain type of resorce, having the merchant is helpful. However, if you have the opportunity to place a city where there are good sheep/cloth rolls, go for it, because after you get to the third level, you can trade your cloth in for other things at a 2:1 rate! If there is one type of commodity you can't get at all, it is better to trade resources to get the first level on that rather than getting the next level on something else. Flipping the first level over adds two dice rolls to that type instead of one.

End-game Strategy

Metropolises are good. If you ever have the opportunity to build one on your turn by using trade cards and if you don't have enough, but can cash in resources to get the remaining ones, you should do it immediately. Get the metropolis as soon as possible. They are first come, first serve and worth two points. Generally the winner of the game has one of these. Play your cards wisely. Metropolises are a unique opportunity two get two points with one shot, particularly since there is no largest army and you aren't even (or at least) should worry about getting the longest trade route. You probably won't have any brick to build it anyway. If you are playing with the seafarers expansion, getting the longest trade route is far more feasible. If you played the rest of the game well, you shouldn't be boxed in (a very bad position to be in in cities and knights). Also if you are getting close to the number of victory points to win, make sure you can draw the yellow development cards, as the merchant is the the only (concealed) victory point card you can have.

Tip found on http://www.angelfire.com/games4/catan/citiesandknights.html

I hope that is helps

Game Length

I'm a huge fan of the game, enjoying it for its quality of being a very exciting epic game. When looking at this page, I knoticed that in the "quick facts" box to the right of the page header, the game time is listed as "45-60 minutes". However, I have never seen a game of Cities and Knights of Catan that took that little time. A more accurate estimation of the length of the average game would be
Standard Settlers (3-4 players): 45-90 minutes
Standard Settlers (5-6 players): 90-120 minutes
Seafarers (3-4 players): 45-105 minutes
Seafarers (5-6 players): 120-165 minutes
Cities and Knights (3-4 players): 180-300 minutes
Cities and Knights (5-6 players): 240-480 minutes
I would suggest changing the game length entry in the quick-facts box of each of these games to match the times that I have listed.
Evil genious 06:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heartily agreed, but the latest edition of the box gives ~90 min as the playtime, so I put that in. At least it doesn't suggest that a 60min game is possible anymore. blahaccountblah (talk) 03:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interupting a players road by playing a knight

I would like to know if someone knows what the ruling is on the following play. "player A" plays a night which interupts the road of "player B" is "player b" road vulnerable to the move of playing the card that allows someone to destroy a road? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.77.232.78 (talk) 08:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a page to discuss improvements to this article, not to discuss the game. — Val42 (talk) 03:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, I believe the answer would be yes, player b's road is now vulnerable. Runner5k (talk) 20:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rules?

Even more than the base game article, this article is mostly a description of the rules of the game, and not the expansion itself. The rule changes and gameplay added should all be in a two-equals subsection "Gameplay changes" or "Rule changes" and this should not comprise the whole article, or else it is just evidence that there is nothing notable about this expansion in the real world outside the settlers community. Some discussion of reception, sales, real-world significance of the expansion would help, as would sources. TheHYPO (talk) 19:18, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whole-heartedly agree with theHYPO here. 58.179.195.74 (talk) 10:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sub-section titled "City Improvements" needed to be re-written. It is ambiguous and confusing to the point of not conveying any information other than there is some special rules regarding numbers of metropolises of each type. If no-one has any objections I will do this after playing it a few times. 58.179.195.74 (talk) 10:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your two statements here seem pretty contradictory. Also, the page has not really changed in the intervening four years. If anyone happens upon this message, they should probably nominate this article for deletion. 69.122.244.46 (talk) 00:40, 16 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]