Cities & Knights of Catan 

Players: 2-4 (2-6 with Expansion) Ages 12 and up

Review by Ed, aka Treasure Boy, aka Mako, aka Weird

This expansion replaces the building cost cards, largest army card, one die and the development deck from the original game. It adds:

 

a. A Red Die and an Event Die, you now roll three dice to start your turn.

b. Barbarian Tile, this is a counter for the Barbarian hoard that is going to attack Catan.

c. Barbarian Ship, for the Barbarian tile, it moves whenever the ship is rolled on the Event Die.

d. Three new Commodity cards, Paper, Coin and Cloth. A city on Forest, Mountain Pasture will produce one normal and the corresponding commodity. Each will let you upgrade your city.

e. Six Knights for each player, two of each strength, level 1,2 and 3.

f. City Development Calendar, this replaces the Building Cost Cards, as you make upgrades you flip down the corresponding flap (one for each commodity)

g. Progress Cards, three colors, this replaces the Development Deck. You get them from city upgrades. When a colored city gate is rolled, everyone checks his city upgrades (the first upgrade pays off if you roll the right gate and a 1 or 2 on the red die.) and if he made the right roll, takes a card from the corresponding progress deck.

h. Metropolis, one for each of the commodity upgrades, the first player to make the fourth upgrade in each improvement, gets to place a Metropolis arch on a city, this city gets a bonus 2 victory points. The first player to get the fifth upgrade first takes that Metropolis from the current owner (if it is the same player, nothing changes). Once someone gets the fifth upgrade, no one can steal it.

i. City Walls, each person can build up to three. This keeps the thief from stealing from you and lets you hold 2 more cards in your had (you can have 7 normally, 9 with one wall...)

 

When the Barbarians reach the shores of Catan, they attack, all active knights (they must be paid to work for you!) are called to battle against the common enemy. The Barbarians strength is equal to the total number of cites on the board. The knights are added up together, if the Barbarians win, the person with the least amount of Cities must downgraded a city to a settlement. If players are tied for the least, they all downgrade one city. If the Barbarians lose, the player with the highest knight points receives a victory point. If players tie, all the tied players receive a progress card from the stack of his choice.

 

The knights are pivotal in this expansion, they can only be placed and moved to intersections of your road, this includes the end of your road. A knight can break up someone's road when placed at the end of yours and in the middle of someone else's. A knight must be activated to do an action, and it can't do an action on the same turn it is activated. The actions are:

1.Move. It may move on the same road to am empty intersection.

2: Displace another knight. A knight can displace someone else's knight if the other knight is weaker. The displaced knight must move on down the road, if it doesn't have a legal move, it is taken off the board.

3. Scare away the Robber. It can scare away the robber from the three surrounding hex's.

 

 

That is it in a nutshell, if you like Catan, I am sure you would love this expansion.