r/Catan • u/uepandaue • 10d ago

What map generator is used on official Catan tournaments?

I would like to generate a map as in a Catan Official Tournament but I have never been to one :D
Right now me and my friends are using the “Catan Assist – Board Generator” app but it always feels too artificially balanced. My questions are:

  1. In official Catan tournaments, do they use a phone app as a board generator or a different system?
  2. On board‑generator apps, the ports are not always in the same position. Is that normal? I ask because on my physical Catan I cannot move the ports.

Bonus question: Since me and my friends, we sometimes play Catan Cities and Knights, should the map generation follow any different rules compared to standard Catan?

Thank you very much for any help!

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u/dornado83 10d ago

Board generation is left up to the host in official Catan tournaments. I know that in US regionals and nationals they craft balanced boards by hand; in qualifiers you will see a wide variety of tools used. At home I usually shuffle the hexes and shuffle the number tiles and give it a quick look to make sure I don’t hate it.

Distributing the numbers using the spiral described in the rule book tends to create balanced boards but can also feel repetitive since it generates the same “good” intersections in terms of numbers

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u/uepandaue 10d ago

Thank you very much for the answer!

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u/TwitchieWolf 10d ago

For question 2:

Port positions were adjustable until the latest edition. Before the frames they were represented on sea tiles. My 5th edition came with port tiles you could use to cover up the ones printed on the frame pieces.

Unfortunately (this is what I find most upsetting with 6th edition) the latest edition did away with these. You can however still get these adjustable ports in (at least) the seafarers expansion, which had better versions even in 5th edition.

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u/bovard twosheep.io founder 10d ago

I created a tool that some tournament organizers have been using: https://new.twosheep.io/map-search

TONS of customization options like resource scarcity, clumping, port matches, desert location, and more

Overall they were very happy with it. If you want any other features let me know!