Reach ten victory points on your turn. Points come from settlements, cities, longest road, largest army, and secret victory-point development cards.

What does rolling a seven do?

No production. Anyone holding more than seven cards discards half. The active player moves the robber, blocks a hex, and steals one random card from one opponent touching that hex.

Is there a hand limit?

Only the seven-card rule when a seven is rolled. Otherwise you may hold any number.

Can two people play official Catan?

The boxed rules target three or four (plus extensions for five or six). Unofficial two-player variants exist but are not what the standard rulebook teaches.

Catan rules overview — setup, turns, and scoring

Goal

Collect resources, build roads and buildings, buy development cards, and be first to ten victory points on your own turn.

What is in the base box (classic island)

Nineteen terrain hexes and eighteen number tokens (seven is skipped—robber instead).
Six sea frame pieces and nine harbors.
Resource cards, development cards, building pieces, robber, dice.

Building the island

Use the printed beginner picture or shuffle terrain face down, fill the frame, then place number tokens in alphabetical spiral order as the book describes. If you want popular fairness tweaks (like keeping sixes and eights apart), use the home generator instead of sorting chips by hand.

Before dice roll: starting settlements

Players take turns placing one settlement and one connected road, then reverse order for the second settlement and road. After the last house of the round, everyone takes starting cards from the tiles touching their second settlement.

Turn outline

Roll dice — every settlement or city touching that number gives cards (cities give two).
Trade — negotiate with players or use bank and port rates.
Build or buy — roads, settlements, cities, or development cards.

Building costs

Road — brick and lumber.
Settlement — brick, lumber, wool, grain.
City — three ore and two grain (replaces a settlement).
Development card — ore, wool, grain.

Robber quick notes

While the robber sits on a terrain hex, that hex pays no resources. Knights from development cards also move the robber after certain steps on the card.

Victory pieces

Settlement — one point; city — two points.
Longest road bonus — two points once you have five uninterrupted segments (and the longest chain).
Largest army bonus — two points once you have played three knights (and the most active knights).
Some development cards hide extra points until you can legally win.

Ports and bank trades

Generic ports improve the four-for-one bank rate; specialty ports match one resource type for two-for-one trades. Harbors stay on the frame—compare them to your generated terrain when planning openings.

📋 Catan rules overview