How Catan8 Works

Catan8 is a free, browser-based implementation of Settlers of Catan that runs entirely in your browser — no downloads, no accounts required beyond a quick email registration. If you already know the board game, you can go from zero to actively rolling dice in about two minutes. This page walks through how the online version handles everything from creating a lobby to building your first city.

Getting Started: Accounts & Login

Creating an account takes seconds. Click the Register link on the homepage, enter your email address, a password (at least 6 characters), and optionally a display name that other players will see in-game. That's it. Once registered, you can log back in with the same email and password from any device.

Your display name is what shows up on the scoreboard and in the game log during play, so choose something your friends will recognize. You can use anything — a nickname, first name, or a classic board game alias like "Robber Baron."

Creating a Game Lobby

After logging in, you land on the Lobby screen, which shows all currently open games. To start your own game, click Create game. You'll configure the following:

• Game name — anything you like, e.g. "Friday night Catan" or "Brett vs the world"
• Player count — 2 to 8 players. The game waits until all seats are filled before the host can start.
• VP to win — 10 for a standard game, 13 if you're playing Cities & Knights
• Board layout — choose from preset layouts sized for your player count
• Cities & Knights mode — enables the expansion rules (commodity cards, city improvements, knights, barbarians)
• Randomize board — shuffles tile positions and numbers while guaranteeing no two red-number tiles (6 or 8) are adjacent to each other
• Allow 2-player — enables non-official 2-player rules, on by default

Joining a Game

Open games appear on the Lobby screen for every logged-in user. Find the game your friends created, click Join, and you'll be placed in the game's waiting room. Once the host confirms all players are ready, the game begins and the board is generated.

The board initializes based on the host's configuration — tile layout, resource distribution, number tokens, and port positions are all set at game creation. If randomization was enabled, the board is shuffled before the first player takes their turn.

The Board: Resources and Terrain

The Catan board is made up of hexagonal terrain tiles, each producing one type of resource when its number is rolled. In Catan8, the hex colors match the resources you know from the physical game:

• Wood — Forest (dark green) — lumber for roads and settlements
• Wheat — Fields (yellow) — grain for settlements, cities, and development cards
• Sheep — Pasture (light green) — wool for settlements and development cards
• Brick — Hills (red) — clay for roads and settlements
• Ore — Mountains (grey) — ore for cities and development cards
• Desert (tan) — produces nothing; home of the Robber at game start

Each non-desert tile has a number token (2–12, excluding 7). When a player rolls that number on their turn, every player with a settlement or city adjacent to that tile collects the corresponding resource — settlements yield 1 card, cities yield 2.

Ports are shown around the board perimeter as labeled circles. A 3:1 port lets you trade any 3 identical resources for 1 of any kind. A 2:1 port (labeled with a resource icon) lets you trade 2 of that specific resource for 1 of any kind.

Turn Structure

Every turn in Catan8 follows the same sequence. The interface highlights your available actions at each phase:

1. Roll the Dice

At the start of your turn, click Roll. The two dice results appear in the sidebar. If the total is anything other than 7, every player collects resources from tiles matching that number. If you roll a 7, the Robber activates: any player holding more than 7 resource cards must discard down to half (rounded down), and then you must move the Robber to a new hex — blocking its production and letting you steal one card from an adjacent player.

In Cities & Knights mode, a third event die is also rolled each turn. Its result can trigger a barbarian advance, award a commodity card, or grant a progress card — see the Cities & Knights section below.

2. Trade

After rolling (but before building), you can trade. Catan8 supports:

• Bank trade (4:1) — trade any 4 identical resources for 1 of any resource, always available
• Port trade (3:1 or 2:1) — if you have a settlement or city on a port, use that port's rate
• Player trade — offer any combination of resources to another player; they can accept or decline

3. Build

Spend resources to build. Click on the board to place roads and settlements; click a settlement to upgrade it to a city. Development cards are drawn from the deck via the sidebar.

4. End Turn

Click End Turn to pass play to the next player. Play proceeds clockwise. Development cards played during your turn take effect immediately, but a development card drawn this turn cannot be played until your next turn.

Victory Points

The first player to reach the victory point limit wins. Points are scored as follows:

• 1 VP per settlement (max 5 settlements per player)
• 2 VP per city
• 2 VP for Longest Road (minimum 5 continuous road segments, recaptured if someone builds longer)
• 2 VP for Largest Army (minimum 3 knight cards played, recaptured if someone plays more)
• 1 VP per Victory Point development card

In a base game, the target is 10 VP. In Cities & Knights, 13 VP (the additional points come from metropolises and the extra complexity of city improvements).

Cities & Knights Mode

When Cities & Knights is enabled at game creation, the game adds a rich second layer of mechanics on top of the base game. Here's what changes:

Commodity Cards

Cities (not settlements) also produce commodity cards: cities on forest tiles yield Paper, cities on pasture tiles yield Cloth, and cities on mountain tiles yield Coin. These three commodities are used to purchase city improvements.

City Improvements

Each player has three improvement tracks — Science (paper), Politics (cloth), and Trade (coin) — each upgradeable from level 1 to 5. Higher levels unlock more powerful progress cards and eventually earn you a Metropolis token (worth 4 VP instead of the city's normal 2 VP). Only the player with the highest level in each track holds the Metropolis for that category, so these are contested throughout the game.

Knights

Knights are placed on intersections (like settlements). You can build a basic knight (1 ore + 1 sheep), activate it (1 grain), and later upgrade it to a strong or mighty knight with additional ore and grain. An active knight can be used to move the Robber, displace an opponent's knight, or defend against the Barbarian attack.

Progress Cards

Instead of the standard development card deck, Cities & Knights uses three separate decks of progress cards — one for each city improvement track. When the event die shows a card symbol, you draw from the deck matching your strongest improvement. Progress cards have powerful effects like building roads for free, stealing commodities, or getting extra resources.

The Barbarians

Each Cities & Knights game includes a barbarian track. Every time the event die shows the barbarian symbol, the barbarian ship advances one step toward Catan. When it reaches the island, a battle occurs: players count their total active knights versus the total number of cities on the board. If the knights win (knights ≥ cities), the player who contributed the most to the defense earns a bonus. If the barbarians win, every player without an active knight loses a city (downgraded back to a settlement). The barbarians then reset and begin advancing again.

This mechanic fundamentally changes strategy at high player counts — with 6 or 8 players, the barbarian pressure intensifies because there are far more cities to defend.

What the Interface Shows You

During play, the right sidebar shows your resource hand, the current dice roll, your development cards, and the VP scoreboard for all players. The game log at the bottom records every action — rolls, trades, builds, and card plays — so you can follow the history of the game even if you miss something in real time. If you're playing over voice chat (Discord, Zoom, etc.), the log also serves as a shared reference for disputes.