Two Player Settlers Of Catan

My wife and love playing Settlers Of Catan but its often just the two of us and its a 3+ player game. This is my attempt to collate adapted setup and rules to allow us to play this as a 2 player.

Adapted Board

This was our first attempt to setup the board.

  • All ports upside down to start, this is the outside of the hex.
  • Fill as normal with the hex resources, we just place them randomly and try separate a bit so there is little grouping
  • Flip 5 to show as water, the remaining hex’s should be
    • 3 Wood
    • 3 Sheep
    • 3 wheat
    • 2 Ore
    • 2 Brick
    • 1 Desert
  • Use the expansion ports and place randomly with atleast 1 space between
  • 2 & 12 values grouped together
  • Remove 3, 4, 10 & 11

Example Aapted Board

Initial Placements

  • Roll the dice, highest value starts
  • Take it in turns to place a settlement and a road
  • Each player must have 2 settlements and 2 roads to start the game

Adapted Rules

Robin Hood Robber

  • Only in play when each player has 3 VP
  • If nobody is at 3 VP and a 7 is rolled, roll again
  • When players have the same number of victory points, the player who rolled the dice controls the robber.
  • Once one player has reached 3 VP, the player with the least amount of VP (not including development cards) controls the robber each time a 7 is rolled and they get to loot their opponent
  • Max cards when the robber is in play is 9

Resource Cards

  • Start with 4
  • Highest settlement placement in terms of round dice numbers determines the 4
  • No trading

Bridges

  • Can go over water, maximum of 2 lengths
  • Cost is 1 Ore & 1 Wood

References