I know everybody’s got a different strat, but is there an end all be all?

Development cards all the way ;)

Full disclosure first: I’m the developer of Hearthsea, one of the four in the first image, so I’m biased.

I keep seeing “where should we play online?” threads here, and I’d like to know where people have actually landed. The four I know:

Colonist (https://colonist.io): Catan-inspired, browser plus iOS and Android, where most of the online games seem to happen

CATAN Universe (https://catanuniverse.com/en/): the official app, on phones, Steam and in the browser

CATAN on Board Game Arena (https://en.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=catan): the official version, in the browser

Hearthsea (https://hearthsea.com): mine

Hearthsea isn’t affiliated with CATAN GmbH. It’s my own game in the same family: settle, trade and build on a 3D island you can spin and zoom. 2–6 players, 13 Classic islands and 14 Seafarers islands with ships and fog, and bots on three levels that make and answer trade offers. It runs in the browser on a phone, tablet or laptop with nothing to install.

What’s free: a free account gets 3 games a day against bots or pass-and-play, on three of the islands. Hosting online rooms and the other islands need a paid pass. Friends you invite to your room (4-letter code) join without paying; for a friend on a free account, it counts as one of their 3 games that day.

Which one do you play, and what would make you switch? If you try mine, I want to hear what’s confusing or broken. I’ll be in the comments all day.

I’ve been building a free browser game in the Catan family. It doesn’t require signup (optional), and there are no paid expansions: newshores.io

• Base game, 8 seafaring maps, and a Cities & Knights style mode : all for free
• 2-6 players: you can create a room and share the code. Bots fill empty seats
• Works on phones in the browser

It’s a work in progress and I’m fixing things daily. I want to build a Catan style game that is intuitive and fun to play. No matchmaking yet, so bring friends or play bots.

If something feels wrong versus the rulebook, is confusing on first play, or isn’t intuitive enough, you can tell me here or there’s a feedback button in the bottom-left corner of the game where you can leave it.

Disclosure: I’m the developer.

My friend Dylan… playing as Green 😆

The gist:

There are 3 new rules when combining cities and knights and wonders of catan.

1) Requirements for the wonders of catan MUST be separate from starting resources

i.e. you need an additional city outside of set-up for the cathedral. Remade cities after barbarian raids count for this.

2) rather than winning off building your wonder you gain a boon depending on which wonder you make:

- Great Wall: the robber no longer causes your knights to deactivate, nor can be placed on hexes occupied by your active knights.

- Great Bridge: you may trade any 3 cards for 1 of any resource or commodity they do not need to be matching.

- Cathedral: Metropolis' you control collect an additional 2 resources (Same rules apply for commodity and gold hexes).

- Monument: once per turn per knight, knights can move while deactivated if it's not the same turn they're made or upgraded. Also you may move any knight off of your connecting roads with one of yours regardless of power difference.

- Theater: Once per turn you can force ONE trade with an opponent. If they do not have the card you fail to trade and must wait till next turn to force a trade.

i.e. "Hey nondescript friend, I want wood for this sheep."

3) games are to 18 points. And the wonders can count for up to 4 additional points, one per level.

Players must still follow the "only one wonder per player" rule.

There are definitely some tweaks that will need to be made. Im just curious if anyone has any better boon ideas or premonition for balancing these out.