Catan

settlersDesigners: Klaus Teuber
Publishers: Kosmos, Mayfair Games
Boardgamegeek Info: Settlers of Catan
Spiel des Jahres (German game of the year) 1995

This 2023 standalone tournament is part of Catan National Championship series

GameMaster

GM: Marcy Morelli

Schedule

3 Heats. See schedule for Heat times

Prizes & Plaques

No plaques will be awarded but some small prizes may be sent by the Catan Tournament organizers.

Advancing to the 2024 Catan US National Championship tournament

The winner of this tournament will qualify to play in the 2024 Catan US National Championship tournament, to be held at Origins.

However, in order to advance to the National Championship, you must meet the following criteria:

  • All Participants must be Citizens/Permanent Residents of the USA and be 18 years of age.
  • Players cannot compete in the 2024 Season Qualifiers if they have already won a Qualifier earlier in the 2024 season.

If the winner of the EuroQuest tournament does not qualify to advance, the player in the next position who does qualify will advance.

Event Description

This tournament will follow the rules laid out for the National Championship series. You can read those rules here:

https://www.catanstudio.com/events/catan-world-championship/https://www.catanstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CNOP-Kit-Tournament-Rules-2021.pdf

Key points
  1. No “Essen Start” will be used for any round. Place two settlements at start and no extra roads
  2. The Robber will be active immediately.
  3. In the preliminary rounds, all tables will use the same pre-determined board setup.
  4. In the semi-final round, all tables will use the same board setup, but it will be determined randomly.
  5. Advancement will be based on a player’s score in all three rounds, so you should try to play in all the heats if you can.
  6. Victory point cards in your hand at the end of the game do count towards your final scoring for the purpose of determining 2nd/3rd/4th place in the game.
  7. You can only win during your own turn.
  8. Catan is still part of the main tournament, and HLS points will be awarded as normal.
Seating During Preliminary rounds
  1. Before setting up the game, have everyone sit down to establish table positions. Then everyone rolls the dice–highest two-die roll goes first, and everyone else’s turn order follows from their seating position.
  2. We will try to keep all boards at four players, with three-player boards only where absolutely necessary.
Semi-FInal
  1. If there are 35+ players, there will be a semi-final round of 4 boards with the winner of each board advancing to the finals. OR with fewer than 35 entrants the semi-final will be 2 boards with the first and second place from each board advancing to the finals.
  2. Advancement will be based on the official rules:
    • During a preliminary round, the number of victories will be used to rank players.
    • In case of ties, the total sum of victory points across all three games will be used as the first tiebreaker.
    • If ties still exist after that, the second tiebreaker will be the sum of the percentage of victory points the players reached at their three tables. If a three-player game add 8 points to the divisor representing a ghost fourth player
    • If there are still any ties after that, lots will be drawn.
  3. The following chart determines at which table players will play. It also determines the order in which players choose their starting position first (1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th)— players choose according to the ranking based on the qualifying rounds: – Table 1: Rank 1, Rank 8, Rank 9, Rank 16 – Table 2: Rank 2, Rank 7, Rank 10, Rank 15, – Table 3: Rank 3, Rank 6, Rank 11, Rank 14, – Table 4: Rank 4, Rank 5, Rank 12, Rank 13. The players choose their starting position and their seats at each table after the game board layout is confirmed.
Final:
  1. There are four seats in the Final.
  2. Seating is based on ranking from the Preliminary round. The players select their starting position as they did in the Semi-Finals, along with player color in order of their rank.
Tie Breakers:
  1. Victory points in settlements and cities.
  2. Tournament Points as described in Semi-Finals above (?)
  3. (Finals & Semis only) Number of roads, plus number of already-played soldiers & VP cards, plus number of unplayed development cards in hand.
  4. (Finals & Semis only) Number of resources left in hand
Time Limits:
  1. Heats and elimination rounds are scheduled for 120 minutes. Players should strive to complete their games in this time frame as other players may have plans to play in other tournaments.
  2. We will not end games until one player has reached 10 victory points; however if a game is running particularly long, the GM will begin to enforce a 3 minute limit per turn.

Rules Clarifications:

  1. Development cards may be played before you roll.
  2. If every player cannot get a resource of a particular type because there aren’t enough resources cards of that type, no player gets any. (Make sure there are exactly 19 of each resource card in your set before beginning play)
  3. There is no distinction between the “Trade” and Build” phases of the game.
  4. The limit of one development card per turn does not apply to victory point cards, and if you draw a development card that gives you your 10th point you can declare victory immediately.
  5. You cannot trade a player a resource “for nothing”.
  6. No single trade can include the same resource on both sides — that is, you cannot trade “a wood” for “a wood and a sheep.”
  7. You may, if possible, make a series of legal trades that has the net result of trading “something for nothing,” but you must make each trade one by one with the resource cards actually changing hands, and either player is allowed to stop at any point without penalty, i.e. they can “betray” the other player.

Official Game Set-up:

(The official tournament rules override some of these instructions, but they could be useful for reference. )

  1. Tile placement: Random order
    • Shuffle all the land tiles together.
    • Deal one row of five.
    • Deal two rows of four, one on each side of the row of five.
    • Deal two rows of three, one on each side of the rows of four.
    • Shuffle the harbor hexes and deal them with the ports facing the “long axis” alternately with ocean hexes. Start at the “point” of the board nearest the person holding the harbor hexes and deal clockwise around the board.
    • Number tile placement: Numbers placed in A-B-C format as described: Pick a starting land hex on one of the “points” of the game board’s hex shape, roll once die and count that number of point-of-the-hex’s clockwise to find the starting tile. This is the “A” tile (unless it’s the desert in which case move one tile counterclockwise). Place the “A” number on it and continue placing the number chips in alphabetical order in a counterclockwise pattern, skipping over the desert, until you reach the middle tile.
  2. Development Card verification:
    • There should be 25 Development Cards: 14 Soldiers, 6 Resource Cards (2 each Road Building, Year of Plenty, and Monopoly), and 5 Victory Points.
    • Shuffle the cards together well.
  3. Player Set-up:
    • Player 1 places a Settlement and road, then clockwise players 2 through 4.
    • Player 4 places a city (settlement in semi-finals and finals when Essen Start is not being used) and road and collects one resource from each adjacent hex, then counter-clockwise players 3 through 1.
    • In preliminary (“Essen Start”) rounds only, player 1 places one road, then clockwise players 2 through 4.
    • Player 1 begins the actual turns.