pen & paper Catan - for emergencies

by ATTILAtheHUNgry

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6 Steps

Sha re

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Do you love Settlers of Catan? You do!? Great, me too! Do you carry it with you
wherever you go? No? That's what I thought.
Few of us carry a hex-board, road pieces, dice, resource cards, and all the other
trappings a of good game of Catan with us on a daily basis. (If you do, then my
hat is off to you good sir/ma'am.) That is why I spent some time finding a way to
play a reasonable facsimile with just things you almost always have on hand:
pens, paper, and pocket change. This is for all the times you were camping and
forgot to bring the board, or were stuck at the airport for an unexpected 4 hour
layover.
The final product at the end of this 'ible will look like Picture 2. (OK. OK. Maybe
in real life, it'll look more like Picture 3, but this is an instructable and I wanted it
to look extra nice for demonstration purposes.)
*Disclaimer* Settlers of Catan is a great strategy / nation building board game
that is WAY more fun than it sounds. The game was created by Klaus Teuber and
first published in Germany, before becoming a world-wide hit. This instructible is
not meant as a replacement for owning the real game, just for use in emergency
situations. If you like Catan, you should go buy it (but who are we kidding, if you
like Catan you probably already do.)

Step 1: The Board and Robber

The most iconic part of Settlers of Catan is the hex board. It took several tries
before I learned how to draw it quickly and nicely, and I'll mention some tips in a
later section. For now, let's go over the basics.

Your board will need 19 hexagons, arranged in a regular pattern in

columns of 3-4-5-4-3, like the picture above.

Each hex gets one resource (draw a picture or just write the word). 3
Stone, 3 Bricks, 4 Wood, 4 Sheep, 4 Wheat, 1 Desert. Take turns placing
resources, or play rock-paper-scissors, or flip a coin, until all hexes are
filled.

Each hex also gets a number, 2 - 12. These are usually arranged in a
counter-clockwise spiral in the following sequence, starting from any corner
hexagon and skipping the desert: 5-2-6-3-8-10-9-12-11-4-8-10-9-4-5-6-311. I've arranged them differently in the picture to show that there should
be two of every number except 2 and 12, which each get only one. (Do as I
say, not as I do.)

You need 9 ports arranged regularly around the board. I draw dotted lines
to help see where they should go. 5 of the ports are 2:1, each with its own
resource. The other 4 are 3:1 with any resource.

You need a coin, or a pebble, or a crumpled gum wrapper to act as your

Robber. Place it on the Desert to start.

Roads, Settlements, and Cities are simply drawn on the board. Once
placed they never move again, so pen or marker is OK. Each player is
allowed 5 Settlements, 4 Cities, and 15 Road segments.

I realize this looks like a lot to remember and draw. But it's really not that hard,
and with a bit of practice you could whip one of these boards out in under 10
minutes, which when you think about it is almost how long it takes to set up the
real game.

Step 2: The "Dice"

I don't have dice in my pocket. I do have coins. I spent some time (and a few
Microsoft excel spreadsheets) devising a system of coin flips that approximates,
pretty closely, the probabilities of rolling a pair of Catan dice. I believe this is as
close as coin flips can reasonably get, but if anyone with a better background in
probability or statistics would like to tackle the problem please go ahead.

Draw 5 circles, divide each in half. The "H" above the left half of each circle
is for "heads", the "T" above the right is for "tails".

Put the numbers as you see them in the picture above into the circles: 0/1,
0/1, 0/3, 1/3, 1/4. I labeled the circles "penny, penny, nickel, dime,
quarter" but you could also just flip one coin 5 times, and get the same
effect.

You now flip your 5 coins, or your one coin five times, and add up the
values of the faces or tails. This number corresponds with the numbers on
your Catan board, just as if you had rolled dice. For example, flipping
Heads-Heads-Heads-Heads-Heads gives a sum of 0+0+0+1+1 = 2, while
flipping Tails-Tails-Tails-Tails-Tails gives the sum 1+1+3+3+4 = 12.

I won't bother to go too much into the probability of 'rolling' each number using
coins instead of dice. For those who are curious, here are the probabilities of
rolling any given number using regular dice versus using my coin method:

ROLL

2 or 12 ======== 3% ========= 3%

3 or 11 ======== 6% ========= 6%

4 or 10 ======== 8% ========= 6%

5 or 9 ========= 11% ======== 13%

DICE

COINS

6 or 8 ========= 14% ======== 16%

7 ============ 17% ======== 13%

Step 3: Resource Cards

Instead of having individual resource cards, simply draw a Resource Bank like
the one pictured above. Each resource starts with 19 in the bank, and as people
draw cards from the bank simply subtract them from the number left in the bank
and write the new total.
I also draw a Building Costs chart just for reference purposes, it's easy to forget
how much each item costs to build.

Step 4: Your Hand

Each play should take a scrap of paper as his or her "hand" This paper is where
they will write down how many Resource cards they have, and how many
Development cards they have. It's up to the honor system to make sure no one
cheats and writes down more cards than they really have.

Step 5: Development Cards and Special Cards

Drawing Development cards is also done via coin flip, since there are no physical
cards to draw. I wont go into the probability of 'drawing' a card via coin flip versus
drawing an actual card from the deck, but they are very similar.
Each time a person buys a Dev. Card they must flip coins to see which one they
'draw'. Then they subtract one card from the bank. When not in use, the Dev.
Card bank should be folded under the rest of the board, so other players don't
see which card you've just 'drawn'. Obviously, you also will have to shield your
roll from them so they don't see that either.
Again, use the honor system. No cheaters!
Picture 2 shows the two Special cards "Longest Road" and "Largest Army".

Simply write the name of the player who controls these cards on the lines to the
right. Longest Road goes to whichever player has the longest road of at least five
or more road sections. Largest army goes to the player with the most knight
cards revealed, more than three.

Step 6: Other Alternatives

Here are some hints, tips, and short-cuts for playing Pen and Paper Catan.

When drawing the Hex-board, don't draw hexagons, draw the vertical zigzag lines I've outlined on the left-hand side of Picture 1 above. Then
connect the zig-zags with horizontal lines to form the hexagons. This is
much faster and makes a nicer board than trying to freehand 19 hexagons.

Or, don't draw hexagons at all. It is a well kept secret that you can create
the same exact board using only offset rectangles. Simply draw the
rectangles as you see on the right-hand side of Picture 1, and remember to
add the 6 dots (3 on each side) necessary for completing the board.

If you have a deck of cards handy, use it. Not for the resource cards; a
single deck doesn't have 5 x 19 cards. Use them for your Development
cards, which only requires 25 cards. This eliminates the hassle of flipping
the coins and creating a Dev. Card bank.

Make a pair of dice. You can make paper dice from an origami paper cube
(a 'kami-fusen' or 'Paper-Balloon' in Japanese). They won't be as perfect
as real dice (not balanced, and 2 of the 6 sides will never be quite flat) but
they are a bit easier to play with than the coin flipping. Obviously you can't
know the probabilities of different rolls when using these dice, because
every die is different, but it probably doesn't vary too much. To learn how to
make kami-fusen you can go to this nice instructable (which is not mine) or
this videoalso shows how they are made.

Remember, this is only for emergencies! I swear you'll have even more fun
kicking back with the real game, friends, and a few beers! Happy Settling!