Cities & Knights rules
ExpansionCATAN
Cities & Knights is an expansion for CATAN. commodities, knights and barbarians.
How Cities & Knights changes play
Cities & Knights
A longer game: win with 13 VPs. There are no development cards and no Largest Army.
- Setup: swap in the C&K frame with the barbarian track; barbarian ship on its start and the robber beside the track's last space; 3 progress decks; each player's improvement cubes at the bottom of each track.
- Setup: place your second starting piece as a city, not a settlement, taking 1 card per hex next to it.
- Roll: roll both production dice and the event die; resolve the event die first.
- Cities: forests, pastures and mountains give a commodity as well as a resource.
- Robber: it waits beside the track, and a 7 only makes players discard, until the barbarians first attack.
- Knights: recruit and activate knights to defend Catan against the barbarian ship.
- Improve: spend commodities to advance on the Science, Trade and Politics tracks.
CATAN rules it changes
- Rolling a 7: Discarding Commodity cards count toward the 7-card limit along with resources, and each city wall you have adds 2 to it.
- Rolling a 7: Moving the Robber Until the first barbarian attack the robber doesn't move and no one steals; after that you may steal a resource or commodity card.
- Development Cards Cities & Knights uses no development cards; progress cards and knights replace them.
- Largest Army Cities & Knights has no Largest Army tile.
- Game End In Cities & Knights the game ends at 13 VPs.
- Who Wins In Cities & Knights you need 13 VPs to win.
All Cities & Knights rules (21)
- Cities & Knights Overview The first player to reach 13 VPs on their turn wins.
- Cities & Knights Setup Return the development cards and the Largest Army tile to the box.
- The Event Die and Production Roll all 3 dice and resolve the event die before the production dice.
- Commodities The commodities are cloth, coin and paper.
- The Barbarian Ship The event die moves the barbarian ship along its track.
- Resolving a Barbarian Attack Barbarian strength equals the number of cities (including those with a metropolis) on the board; defender strength is the total of all…
- Defender of Catan If the defenders win, the player who contributed the highest total strength of active knights receives a Defender of Catan token worth 1 VP.
- Pillaged Cities A pillaged city is reduced to a settlement (if none is in your supply, lay the city on its side as a settlement).
- The Robber Before the First Attack Until the barbarians first attack, the robber waits beside the track: nothing can move it (not a 7, a progress card or a knight) and no…
- Knights Each player has 6 knights: 2 basic (strength 1), 2 strong (2) and 2 mighty (3).
- Knight Actions Only knights active at the start of your action phase may act, once each, and then they go inactive.
- Activating and Acting in the Same Turn You may recruit and activate a knight on the same turn, but you may not activate a knight and then take an action with it on the same turn.
- City Improvements There are three tracks, Science, Trade and Politics, each with 5 levels.
- Level 3 Track Abilities At level 3, Science lets you take 1 resource of your choice if you receive no cards in production (not on a 7).
- Metropolis The first player to reach level 4 on a track takes that track's metropolis onto one of their cities (2 VPs more, so the city is worth 4…
- Progress Cards There are 54 progress cards, 18 each in the three colors.
- City Walls A city wall adds 2 to the number of cards you may keep when a 7 is rolled.
- The Merchant Control of the merchant piece is worth 1 VP and lets you trade the resource (not commodity) of its current hex at 2:1.
- No Development Cards or Largest Army Cities & Knights removes the development cards and the Largest Army tile; progress cards and knights take their place.
- Cities & Knights with Seafarers Rules for roads also apply to ships, so knights can move along ships. The barbarians attack every island, counting all cities and knights.
- Cities & Knights for 5–6 Players With the C&K 5–6 extension, use the CATAN 5–6 board and number discs with the C&K barbarian frame, and take turns as paired players.