Read Any Catan Board in 60 Seconds

Every Catan board is telling you something. One map is short on brick. Another is drowning in wheat. The players who notice first place with a plan, while everyone else places on instinct.

In Level 1, you learned to count the pips on a single corner. This lesson zooms out to the whole island. Four questions, about 15 seconds each, and you will know what this map rewards before anyone places a settlement.

What are the four questions?

Here they are, with a rough time budget for each.

To show how it works, we will read the example board from Lesson 2 one question at a time.

Question 1: How many pips does each resource get?

Go one land type at a time: add up the dots on the three hills, then the three mountains, then the forests, pastures, and fields. Use the dot ladder from Lesson 6: 6 and 8 have 5, 5 and 9 have 4, 4 and 10 have 3, 3 and 11 have 2, and 2 and 12 have 1.

On the example board, it comes out like this:

Here is a free check. The 18 number discs always hold 58 pips, so your five totals must add up to 58. If they do not, you skipped a disc.

What does a normal total look like?

58 pips spread over 18 hexes is about 3.2 pips per hex. So a resource with four hexes usually lands around 13 pips (4 times 3.2), and a resource with three hexes lands around 10 (3 times 3.2). Compare each total to its own baseline, not just to the others, and the surprises jump out.

Question 2: What is scarce, and what is plentiful?

The lowest total is the scarcest resource. On the example board, ore and wool tie at 10.

When two tie, ask who needs it and when. Ore goes into every city, three at a time, so it is the late-game squeeze it nearly always is. But look at wool. It has four pastures, so its baseline is about 13, and here it only reaches 10 because one pasture sits on the 2. Wool is usually the cheap card that piles up in everyone’s hand, as Lesson 8 showed. Not on this board. Settlements and development cards will both be a little slower, and wool will cost more in trades.

Now the plentiful side. Wood and wheat lead at 13 each. Brick, at 12, is the quiet surprise: that is about 2 pips above its baseline of 10. Roads will be easier to come by here than on most boards.

Here is what scarcity tends to mean for the game:

If you can produce the scarce card, you are the seller, and the table comes to you.

Question 3: Where are the best corners?

You do not need to rank all 54 corners. Find the 6s and 8s first, since the best corners usually touch one. Then total the corners around them and keep the top four to six.

On the example board, no corner beats 11 pips. Four corners tie at 11:

Three things stand out.

• This is a flat board. The best corner is 11 pips, only a little above the average corner of just under 10. When pips are this close, the resources on a corner decide its value.
• Corner B is the prize. 9 of its 11 pips sit on ore and wool, the two scarcest resources. Corner A has the same 11 pips, but on wood and wheat, the two most plentiful. Same number, very different value.
• C and D are neighbors. They sit on either end of one edge, so the distance rule means only one of them can be taken.

One more lesson hides on this board. The 6 hills looks like a jewel, but its neighbors are the 10, 2, 12, 11, 4, and the desert. Its best corner is only 9 pips. A hot number does not make a hot corner by itself.

Question 4: Which ports matter?

As Lesson 9 showed, you use a port by owning a settlement or city on it. Most ports go unused in most games. A few decide them.

A 2:1 port matters when two things are true. Its resource is plentiful on this board, and a strong hex of that resource sits on or near the port.

On the example board, the wood and wheat ports are the ones to check first, since those resources lead at 13 pips each. The 2:1 ore and wool ports will probably sit quiet, because nobody will have extras of either. The picture from Lesson 2 leaves out the frame, so on your own board, look at where each port actually sits.

How do you put the four answers together?

Finish with one sentence, in your head or on a scrap of paper:

“This board is short on ___, rich in ___, the best corner is ___, and the port to watch is ___.”

For the example board: “Short on ore and wool, rich in wood and wheat, the best corner is B, and I am watching the wheat and wood ports.”

That sentence is your board read. Lesson 14 turns it into a plan. Later, in Level 4, this same read grows into a full five-minute map study for tournament play. For more on how placement fits into a whole game, see our guide on how to win at Catan.

Try it this week

Your drill: name the scarcest resource before each game.

1. Total each resource before anyone places. Count on your fingers or jot the five numbers on a scrap of paper. Check that they add up to 58.
2. Name the scarcest one. Say it to yourself or write it down. If two tie, break the tie by who needs it more, and when.
3. Write your one-sentence read. Scarce, plentiful, best corner, port to watch.
4. Watch the trades. During the game, tally which card people ask for most.
5. Check after the game. Was the card everyone begged for the one you named? If not, write down one reason, such as the robber sitting on a hex or a hot number going cold.
6. Time yourself. By the end of the week, aim to finish all four questions in 60 seconds.