Ultimate Strategy Guide to Starting Settlements in Catan
Stop ruining your game before it even starts.
Remember that feeling of placing your starting settlements only to realize the horror of how bad they actually are? You knew they could be better, but the time pressure of the table waiting on you was too much to ignore? You sit back from your work, waiting for everyone to laugh at you for making placements that don’t make sense. Your suspicions become real when the other settlements are placed (in spots you probably should have seen coming), crushing your position. Victory is farther away, even before the first roll of dice.
Selecting your initial settlement spots is the single-most important moment in a game that sets the tone for everything else to follow.
By the end of this post, I will equip you with everything you need to know so you can start your games confidently.
Since fields of thought can vary widely, I will note that there is no ‘perfect’ pair of placements. A spot that may be ‘best’ against one group of players, may not be with different people. (For example, if you know your competition typically favors the longest road, it may then be best to prioritize largest army instead)
Of course, there is no secret formula — subjectivity is involved too. Some placements may be obviously better than others, but other times, it’s not so clear cut. What may be the strongest spot to one person, may not be to someone else — and both could be right.
However, after studying the game for years, several principles have shown themselves to be advantageous. I cover them all in this guide and would advise you to follow them.
Are you new here and want proof you should take my advice? This is a good place to start: “my strange addiction: settlers of catan”.
I have designed this outline to be a useful tool that is easy to follow and may be referenced more than once. For a last-minute refresher, feel free to refer back here anytime to make sure you capitalize on any board thrown at you.
I will treat this post as a living, breathing article as the game continues to evolve. Periodically, as I learn more tips and revise my theories on initial placements, I will implement my edits here.
Before we jump into it, I will say that sometimes there is a clear progression of desirable spots that experienced players will quickly agree on. However, as chess Grandmaster Emanuel Lasker once said, “When you see a good move, look for a better one.”
14 Factors for Superior Initial Settlements in Settlers of Catan
#1. Which spots have the most production?
- All players at every level will look here first. You want to total the number of dots (also known as “bips”) from the intersections of the highest numbers. It is from those spots where you will weigh the impact of every other factor to follow.
#2. Which resources are bountiful and which are scarce?
- (As a reminder there are 3 ore, 3 brick, 4 lumber, 4 grain, 4 wool)
- Typically, I will look at ore first, then grain, brick, lumber, ending with the least important one of them all — wool.
(Keep in mind, since wool is the least desirable as it’s only used for development cards/settlements, players are usually happy to trade theirs away — try to avoid having too much production of those pesky sheep.)
- It’s typically best to control the rare resource since the rest of the table will offer you generous trades for it. If you don’t budge, their games may stall while yours could still be progressing. Also, even if it makes you a target of the robber, you can leverage your rare resource as a bartering tool to keep the robber elsewhere.
#3. Relative production of complementary resources.
- In theory, you should aim to have equal “bips” of brick and lumber, as well as, 3:2 bips for ore and grain (notice — this equates to a city).
For example, if you generate much more lumber than brick, you will find yourself holding more than 7 cards too often, offering desperate trades, and making 4-for-1 deals with the bank — all because you will have more lumber than you know what to do with while not actually building many roads.
The only exception of needing complementary production is if you now (or soon will) have a 2-for-1 lumber (in the case above) or 3-for-1 port.
#4. What position in the placement order are you?
- This is what you should spend most of your time thinking about when making your initial placements. Depending on who you are playing with and where they might place their settlements will have a major impact on your game.
- You need to think about how their spots will affect your placements, how strong their set-up will be, and how it will affect their relationships with everyone else at the table. (More on this later.)
#5. Diversify your numbers.
- It is always better to have a diversity of hex numbers unless the repeating numbers are on complementary resources.
For example, imagine you have 2 settlements and each one is touching the same numbers — let’s say 3, 8, and 10. If any of these numbers roll, you are thrilled because you will pick up a lot of cards at once. However, you’re also spending more time not picking up anything at all.
This will result in staggered production that will leave you with fewer cards (inhibiting potential trades) sometimes while having too many cards at other times (at risk of 7'ing out).
- If repeat numbers are on complementary resources, this is an advantage and you should seek these circumstances out. This will help you efficiently collect, then spend cards in quick fashion, rather than holding them for a later point.
#6. Who will go where?
- As mentioned earlier, competitor placements are just as significant as your own. Especially when placing your first settlement, you need to predict which spots may go untaken by the time the turn gets back to you. Therefore, simply picking what may look like the best spot at first glance may not be.
- When evaluating your second placement, see where everyone has gone already and you should be able to predict where they will go next so you can plan accordingly. If someone already accesses ore, wool, and brick — odds are they will be pretty focused on grabbing their share of lumber and grain.
- This foresight matters a lot for trading too.
For example, if someone produces a resource that you lack and they need something of yours, you two may be natural trading partners. In other words, you both may need to trade with one another to help each other’s game. With this in mind, it could make sense to settle elsewhere if you think that person may be resistant to trading.
#7. Build on the coast or at the center?
- Think of a Catan map as having 3 areas — the center, inner, and coastal rings. The “center” is all the spots around the middle hex, “inner” is the next one outward, and so on.
- For starters, the coast never makes sense for your first placement as it will only have 2 hexes of production (3 for you to build more central) and it will inhibit your optionality to expand.
- The inner layer may be advantageous given you have ample optionality to expand (whether toward the coast or the center). This is where you will typically find your best settlement locations.
- Lastly, a few points to note regarding the center ring.
It may produce the most desirable location on a board, but this is pretty uncommon.
A threat with building here is that your starting road may get suffocated building to nowhere. Although, a conservative approach to mitigate this from happening is to expand toward the area that may be less popular (such as where the desert may be).
While controlling the center of the board, an uncommon scenario may arise where you can prevent someone from connecting their roads to secure longest road for yourself or another player.
#8. Where to build your starting roads.
- The direction you point your road from each placement matters just as much as the placements themselves.
This is where many newbies go wrong. A common flaw is that they will place a settlement and then think of their road choice.
- Additionally, those people are usually only focused on attaining the highest production possible and/or all 5 resources from their first 2 placements. Yes, these factors are important, but not thinking farther ahead is too short-sighted.
Plotting where your third and fourth settlements may go should be considered even at the start.
Remember, you don’t need to start with all 5 resources; just make sure you have access to the most necessary one: grain. It’s needed because it’s an ingredient for settlements, cities, and development cards.
- It is often best to sacrifice a superior spot in exchange for being able to expand toward a good location that is likely to be open. It is much better to have two decent spots than one that’s amazing.
What may be a poor starting placement (i.e. next to a 2 or 12) will often get left open which could be great for a 3rd or 4th settlement placement.
Keep in mind, the fewer people placing their second settlement after you, the more assurance you will have that you won’t get cut off.
- As a rule of thumb, during your first settlement placement, it’s usually best not to point your road toward the middle of the board. You will likely have no expansion spots since everyone will start toward the middle, rather than the coast.
- Anytime your road is in a contestable direction, make sure you’re the one cutting someone off or are more likely to win the race — not the other way around.
Do they have access to lumber or brick? Do you? Who has more? If they get there before you, is there another way to go or is that road(s) wasted? Do they have any unturned development cards? If it’s a road building, year of plenty, or even a monopoly — all of these enable a big move to take your desired spot, even if a few roads away.
#9. Avoid building toward single hex spots, when possible.
- Even if it means choosing a slightly worse initial placement, it could be much better being two roads away from the coast if it will gain you access to two hexes with your next settlement.
Especially if the intersection of the two hexes has a port, this is even better.
However, this tactic does come with additional risk that you will be cut off and should only be done if you’re confident that the expansion will be unobstructed.
#10. Will your placement be offensive?
- When deciding between spots of comparable benefit to your game, go with the one that is more attractive for another player as to disrupt their placements. If you’re playing against one or more strong players, the trade-off for you to take a moderately worse spot may even be worth it.
- In a game played with only 3 other people, hurting the progress of someone else materially boosts your chances of winning.
#11. Ports matter…a lot.
- Probably the single biggest shortcoming of new players is their under-appreciation of ports.
- On a map that has outsized production of one or two resources, pay close attention to where those resources’ respective ports are located. If someone can double or triple up on a resource while accessing the proper 2:1 port, that person can gain momentum faster than the rest of the table may realize.
Taking a port-focused approach offers flexibility trading in your cards and may make you less vulnerable to being robbed.
If you have an excess supply of a specific resource for porting, this is likely to be an undesirable, common card that another player will not want to pick.
#12. What resources you start the game with can make a difference.
- The most common tactic on this thread is placing your settlement adjacent to both lumber and brick.
As a result, you will start with a road which gives you a great first mover advantage if you are in a race with anyone. This can help you secure a contested spot with your first settlement or deliberately cut someone off placing two roads from your second placement.
#13. Consider which spots will always be knighted.
- In a development card heavy game (lots of ore, grain, and wool), knights can play a major role in directing where the robber is placed.
If someone’s win scenario is reliant on obtaining the largest army, sharing your most needed hex(es) with that person using knights may result in keeping the robber off you longer.
Whether or not this tactic will be meaningful enough to change your decision will be rare, but something to think about nonetheless.
#14. Longest road.
- Positioning your settlements on the same side of the board (without someone else’s impenetrable presence in the way), is a great way to secure the longest road, even if you didn’t plan for it.
- Many of the fastest games are won with this setup. Someone has the largest army and a minimal amount of effort connecting both of their roads is sufficient to secure the longest road to get to 10 VPs.
That’s it! Your studying is done, for now. Congrats.
Hopefully you learned a few pointers and win more games because of this guide (not against me). If you think a friend would appreciate this too, be good and share this with them.
If you like these deep dives, spam that clap button, and follow my Medium for more content like this. Putting together this Initial Placements Guide took way longer than expected and was spun out from a larger Settlers of Catan Strategy Handbook I am working on that will be posted here.
