How to Make Settlers of Catan More Balanced

Settlers of Catan is one of the world's most popular German-style board games. Yet many people dislike it for various reasons, especially the overly large role that luck can play. Learn how to make the game more fair with these tips!

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Do not accept the random layout and standard procedure for determining starting positions, as this can give one player a large advantage (or disadvantage) right off the bat.
2. Lay out the tiles and dots in letter order as shown in the instructions and places all the settlements as so to give each player the same number of pips, and access to the same resources. If each player would not be equally happy with any color, you need to distribute things more fairly.
3. If the above sounds too time-consuming, create the board and let players place settlements as normal, but then randomize which player gets which color. This will force players not to advantage any one color. As an alternative to randomizing, give each player last choice at their own color.
4. Set up settlements randomly, then allow players to bid auction-style for the color start they want. This will balance out any inequality in starting position with fewer starting resources.
5. Replace the dice with a deck of 36 cards that model the standard probability on two 6-sided dice. There should be one 2 and 12, two 3s and 11s, three 4s and 10s, four 5s and 9s, five 6s and 8s, and six 7s. This ensures that every number comes up as often as it should, and that a bizarre streak of 12s or lack of 6s does not completely change the game.

Tips & Warnings

• If you find a certain method doesn't work for you, just try another!
• Some players may enjoy the game less with most of the luck removed.