Anyone have brick for sheep? Brick for sheep. The way a new player's turn works is this: 'Hmmm. Suppose a player has 1 lumber, 1 sheep, and 1 ore. The problem must therefore be your players. If not, it sounds like you're doing the best things to pick up the pace a bit (draw for both settlements at the start, and start with a city).

I'd read through the rules thoroughly again, just to be sure.

You're sure you're not using the 5-6p expansion or seafarers or something? Maybe you're playing incorrectly some other way. Holy hell, 1.5-2 hours for vanilla Catan? Without expansions, once you've played more than three times, it shouldn't be taking more than 1 hour ever. Plus, kids love it.ĮDIT: It's about $12 on amazon, or if you want you can print and play it here. The fisheries go along the perimeter of the board, and basically just give the board more productive spaces and puts more resources in play. They serve a bit like wildcards in that they can be cashed in for other things (3 fish is any resource, 4 fish is a road, 7 is a development card, etc). It adds a new resource, fish, which you choose from a face down pile of tiles. If not, you could maybe consider getting the Fisherman of Catan expansion. If you do this, as well as give players resources for both their first settlements, it should hopefully speed things up. It gives everyone a fair start, keeps more hexes uncovered, and keeps the game from dragging on at the beginning. I highly recommend using the friendly robber variant (past just the first 2 rounds), where no player who is still on 2 points can be robbed, or have the robber placed on one of his or her hexes. There is more space on the board, there is a player less to trade with, the players have in general better resource income.Ī lot of good suggestions mentioned by others, but I'll chime in. The difference between a 4 and a 3 player game is big. But, only the resources of the second placement. After that, everybody can place their third street. What I personally play if I want a fast game: Play with just 3 players. If you no longer have to search for what a settlement or a city costs, this saves time every turn. perhaps you have picked a game too difficult for them.Īnother big time gainer is: KNOW WHAT EVERYTHING COSTS. A game with as much as 1 good player, severely reduces playtime.īut, if you play with kids, with little understanding of tactics and statistics. Second point is, PLAY WELL! A game with only poor players last long, because they get few resources, build settlements on poor points, and construct pointless roads to the middle of nowhere, so they still get few resources, and the game drags on. After the 100th game, you really can do it in less then an hour. We're curious what you folks with more experience think of these variations! (I was going to post to MisterGnome's thread but figured this probably deserves it's own.)Įdit: I've learnt a lot from this, thanks for the input! up to 9 cards each total)?įinally, we like the idea of having the robber only enter the game in the 3rd round - so any 7s rolled in the first 2 rounds get re-rolled, to ensure everyone gets a good start.

Should we continue with that, or draw 2 for those resources around the city (i.e. We currently initially draw cards - 1 for each resource around each of our settlements (i.e up to 6 cards each total). We understand reducing the number of victory points required can unbalance the game too much, so we don't expect we'll do that. There is also the option of a third road upon placement. We are going to try with the faster, modified rules where the 2nd placement will be a city. Around 1 hour would be great (for me too actually). With the kids playing, games tend to drag on for 1.5-2 hours, and we lose their attention. My family recently bought Settlers of Catan, and we enjoy it, but our games tend to go on too long.

The settlement of catan board game