The Rivals for Catan (Card Game)

Enjoy playing Rivals for CATAN, the comprehensive, revised edition ofthe successful former CATAN Card Game!

Submerge yourself into the bustling life on Catan – be the prince orprincess of Catan and decide on the fate of its settlers. In addition tosettlements, roads, and cities, you also construct the buildings where yoursubjects work, hire heroes that make things more difficult for your opponent,and build ships to boost your trade.

Playing time:

• Introductory Game: About 30 minutes
• Theme Game: About 45 to 60 minutes
• Duel: About 60 to 75 minutes

In Rivals for CATAN you are building your principality with cards. Eachplayer starts with a small principality consisting of two settlement cardsconnected by a road card.

Each settlement is diagonally adjacent to a region card. Each of you has6 regions where – should the dice roll result be favorable – you canharvest resources such as lumber, brick, and ore, just as in the CATANboard game.

Each settlement is worth 1 victory point, and if you upgrade a settlement toa city, you receive another victory point. The easy-to-play Introductory GameThe First Catanians takes about 30 minutes and is exclusively played with thecards of the Basic Set. The first player to have 7 (or more) victory points winsthe game.

Simply using the resources you harvested to build roads and settlements or toupgrade settlements to cities won't be enough to come out as winner. It is alsoimportant that you place heroes, buildings, and trade ships above and below thesettlements and cities because these cards are important in the competition forthe trade advantage and the strength advantage, both of which give youadditional victory points and pave your road to victory.

Once you have mastered the Introductory Game, new challenges await you in thethree Theme Sets of Rivals for CATAN. Each Theme Set takes about 40 to60 minutes and is played together with the cards of the Basic Set, which youare already familiar with at that point.

In the set The Era of Gold, the struggle for the trade advantage becomes moreintense, and the resource “gold” gains in importance through new buildings.In The Era of Turmoil, Traitors, Archers, and Arsonists make the competitionbetween you and your opponent a little tougher. The set The Era of Progress ismore peaceful again; if you rely on the University, cards such as Three-FieldSystem or Mineral Mining allow you to enjoy the fruits of progress and leaveyour opponent behind.

Once you have played all three Theme Games and are familiar with the cards,you should go for the Duel of the Princes. In Duel mode, you play with all ThemeSets, that is, with a slimmed-down version of them. This version of Rivals forCATAN offers you and your opponent even more strategic and tacticalpossibilities and thus, even more exciting and sophisticated ga­mes.

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