Where should my settlement be?



In my opinion the most importants decision you will make in Settlers of Catan are the placements of your two starting settlements. Strategic placement can make or break your game. (For a more indepth analysis of placement, please refer to the guide on Settlement placements). At the end of placing the settlements, some players have already lost the game because their settlements are on poor production tiles and/or they have little room for expansion.

So, no pressure, but you better not drop the ball on that initial placement. How to place your settlements is very dependent on which place you are in for the order of placement.

Going first or second


If you are first or second, then you should pick the best available spot on the board.

The best spot would fit the following criteria
  • Contain three different resources (preferably brick or wood being one of them, although two wheat and one ore do very nicely as well)
  • The frequency (number of dots on the 3 tiles) adds up to 12 or 13.

An example of a good spot would be one with wood, brick and sheep with a 6, 9 and 5. This is probably the best you'll ever encounter. There are only two of these 5, 6 & 9 slots on the board and the first two placements should follow this guideline rather strictly.

Third & forth players

This is where placement gets a litle interesting. The best resource points would have been exhausted by now and you're left with some locations that have a 6 or an 8 next to it and things like 10, 4, 3 and 11s. Your selection criteria should now be weighted on what resources you'll eventually get with your placement.

You will have to gauge the rarity of resources in the current game and then place your settlements accordingly.

High producing tiles close to 2:1 ports of the same resource are a good placement choice as well.

The fourth player should look for a good way to take advantage of the 2:1 port since they know the exact placement of their settlements.

As settlement placement comes back around continue to try to maximize the amount of dots you get with your settlement.
When placing your second settlment, you would want to follow these guidelines.
  • Do not place second settlement on the same numbers as your first
    • This causes your resources to come in large bursts which end up getting lost when a seven is rolled
  • Diversify if you do not have access to a 2:1 port, otherwise pile on the same resource to trade
  • Plan for expansion
    • Position your settlements such that you are able to expand to some decent spots for new settlements.
While settlement selection differs greatly from situation to situation and game to game, following the guidelines above will often put you in an advantageous position. It's a game of numbers and as such it's typically better when you put a settlement in a position with more dots (high probability) than on the type of resources available.
Unless of course you've got players who are constantly rolling a pair of snake eyes.