Catan on the Road

• Designer: Benjamin Teuber
• Publisher: Asmodee
• Players: 3-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 15-30 min
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/47mjaZu
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In CATAN – On the Road, gameplay is driven by a deck of 120 cards and builds on well-known CATAN mechanics with a fresh variation. Players gather resources by drawing cards, construct developments from a common set of available choices, and negotiate trades either with the bank or with fellow players. Trading plays an even larger role in this version: any player who trades while it is not their turn is rewarded with an extra resource card.

How to Play:

– Be the first player to reach 7 victory points.
– Collect and trade for the resource cards you need to build.
– Expand your region, recruit knights, and upgrade your settlements for victory points.

To start, deal out the starting settlement cards and give each player 2 resource cards as their starting hand.  Set up a row of 5 building cards in the center of the table.  Nearby place the Resource card deck, a stack of Metropolis cards and the bonus VP cards.  Finally shuffle the event cards and placed them in a facedown stack.

The game is played until a player has 7VP on their turn. A players turn is split into two phases: the Harvest Phase and then the Action Phase.

In the Harvest Phase, each player draws one resource from the deck.  The active player also draws extra cards for their visible cities and metropolises. 

In the Action Phase, the active player can optionally make one trade (you can make as many offers as you like).  The non-active player gets a bonus of the top card from the resource deck for agreeing to a trade.  

The player can also build things from the building row by spending resources.  The cost to build things is seen at the top of each card. Once you build something, replenish the building row. Make a stack of each type of thing you have built in front of you

• Roads – give you a one time per turn substitution of resources; the ratio getting better with more roads.  The first player to 3 roads also gets the Longest Road bonus card worth 2VP. It is held until someone has more roads that the current holder.
• Settlements – These are worth 1VP and when you build it, you draw an event card and resolve it
• Cities – Can only be built if you have a Settlement to cover up. They are worth 2VP. These provide extra card draws on your turns
• Metropolises – Can only be built if you have a City to cover up. They are worth 3VP. These provide bonuses as well (A side always +2 cards, B side have unique bonuses)
• Knights – These increase your Robber Threshold (The Robber is found on an Action card).  The first player to 2 knights gets the Largest Army card worth 2VP; this is held until someone has more Knights than the current holder.

The game is won by the first player to have 7 or more visible VP on their turn.  

My thoughts on the game

Catan on the Road is a pint sized card game that does feel very familiar to the base game of Catan which many people are familiar with.  Players will produce resources (random card draw) and then try to buy/build things with those resources.  Of course, here, the menu is not open like Catan but rather a bit luck based, dependent on which cards are face up in the market.  Players can still vie for longest road and largest army, and the Robber will still make you discard half of your hand if you’re caught out.

Games are only to seven points, and it is surprising just how fast this can happen.  Settlements are still worth 1 VP and cities are worth 2VP.  There is even the new Metropolis worth 3.  As you build up your settlements/cities/metropolis, you’ll generate more card draws on your turn, and this definitely accelerates the trajectory of the game.

The card game definitely has a lot of the feel of its mother CATAN, but there are enough changes here to let it stand on its own.  I really like the incentive given to the trading here; by offering up a bonus card, it allows for more trades to happen – this adds a bit more to the game competition wise but it also helps speed things up as players more often end up with the resource mix that they need to build something.

This little card game has an impressively low MSRP under ten bucks.  There’s a lot of game here, and it has the advantage that many players will already be familiar with the basic rules of Catan, which means that this game can be taught very quickly.  I would still prefer to play the full game, but in a pinch, this pocket sized game could fulfill a craving for some Catan action.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Joe Huber (1 play) – Does miniature golf fulfill your craving for golf?  For me, while this is a fine game, it did nothing to reduce my interest in playing Die Siedler von Catan (as I still call it); I played the original a few days after playing this, and for me they just don’t compare.  I can easily picture this game being enjoyed in its own right – but it’s not a substitute.  The two games do share a growth in resources over the course of the game, though here the impact of that growth is potentially blunted by the lack of availability of the desired cards to build.  The incentive to trade when it’s not your turn works to encourage trade, as Dale notes, but also makes trading feel a little too advantageous for players other than the active player.  On the whole, Catan on the Road is a game I could play more, but won’t seek out or request.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral. Joe H.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/47mjaZu