First published in Germany in 1995 as Die Siedler von CATAN, then in English as The Settlers of CATAN in 1996, CATAN celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2020.

To begin the game, you build the game board using hexagonal terrain tiles. Catan is born - a beautiful island with mountains, pastures, hills, fields, and forests, surrounded by the sea.

Each of you places two small houses on spaces where three terrain hexes meet. They are your starting settlements.

And so it begins. The starting player rolls two dice. An “11!” Each terrain hex is marked with a number. Each player who owns a settlement adjacent to a terrain hex marked with the number rolled receives a resource produced by this hex. Hills produce brick, forests produce lumber, mountains produce ore, fields produce grain, and pastures produce wool.

You use these resources to expand across Catan: you build roads and new settlements or upgrade your existing settlements to cities. For example, a road costs 1 brick and 1 lumber. If you do not have the necessary resources, you can acquire them by trading with your opponents.

Each settlement is worth 1 victory point and each city is worth 2 victory points. If you expand cleverly, you may be the first player to reach 10 victory points and thus win the game!