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[SWS] Settlers with Swords - A Catan Game

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ThunderHawk3

ThunderHawk3

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Aug 4, 2011
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Hi all,

Since my previously game explosively ended, I decided to run a modified game of Settlers of Catan to distract myself from my grief. This game, which I'm calling Settlers with Swords [SWS] is based on Settlers of Catan with the Seafarer's expansion except I made some rules changes, principally related to Knights/Armies and claiming territory.

Rules to follow in the next post once I've gotten them written up. Most game mechanics are the same as Catan if you're familiar with the game. The game map's up there. I expect the game to go a few weeks.

To join just tell me you're in and let me know what color you want (any color's fine as long as it's not already taken and not confusing similar to someone else's).

IE:

In (red please)

I'll start once we get six players, or if there's not enough interest 4 at the bare minimum. Obviously you can't sign up if you're one of the people on my blacklist (you probably know if you are.)

I set up an IRC channel on Coldfront at #SWS_Main. It'll probably help communication for trading discussions and such. You can go to http://www.coldfront.net/tiramisu/ and type /join #SWS_Main to join.

Player Roster and Order:

Kaisersohaib (White/Gray)
mrlifeless (Yellow)
Ironhide G1 (Blue)
CaesarCzech (Green)
KF25 (Black)
Otto of england (Red)
 
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Rules

For Catan players // changes from original rules:

  • Walls, Tower, and Castles are now buildings
  • Armies are no longer development cards and have been completely reworked
  • Greatest Wall is now a victory card and worth 1 point
  • Roads no longer have an owner and are instead controlled by walls
  • New development cards have been added to the game
  • The board is bigger and bridges replace ships

Key points for new players:

There are five resources in Catan:

  • Wheat, produced from plains (appearing as green tiles with straight rows in zee map)
  • Sheep [wool], produced from pastures (appearing as sheep)
  • Bricks, produced from hills (appearing as off-orange mountain thingies)
  • Iron, produced from mountains (appearing as gray with mines)
  • Wood, produced from forests (appearing as dark green with forests) on the map

You use these resources to buy buildings, roads, walls, settlements, cities, development cards, and so on.

Resources are gained principally through your cities and settlements, which are placed on vertices rather than in hexes. Each turn, two dice are rolled. If you have a settlement adjacent to a tile with the rolled number on it, you get the appropriate resources. If you have a city adjacent, you get two resources instead. How much resources you have is public knowledge in this version of the game.

IE: Suppose you have a settlement on a vertex that borders on a pasture (which produces sheep). The pasture has a big number 4 on it. If a 4 is rolled, you get 1 sheep from this pasture. If you had a city, you'd get 2 sheep instead.

There is a unique unit called the Thief that blocks production.

You can also get resources by trading. On your turn you can trade with any other player or trade in 4 of any one kind of resource to the bank for one of any other. If you control a port, you can get more favorable trading rates. A port with no resource can trade in 3 of any resource for 1 of any other. A port with a specific resource can trade 2 of only that resource for 1 of any other. You control a port if you have a settlement or city on one of the port's two vertices. (I have denoted these in red where there is ambiguity.)

IE: If you have 4 wheat, you can trade them in for 1 sheep. If you had a general port, you can trade 3 wheat for 1 sheep instead. If you had a wheat port, you could trade 2 wheat for 1 sheep, or 4 wheat for 2 sheep.

You can use resources to build stuff on your turn. Stuff you build must be connected to your road network. Roads are built on the edges of a vertex. I have eliminated road ownership in this version of Catan. Instead, a vertex/point is connected to your road network if it connected to one of your settlements by road without any opposing cities, settlements, walls, towers, or anything in the way. A road must be connected to a previous road in your road network.

Roads can be built over water ("bridges"). No other buildings can be built this way.

You can also buy development cards, which you can play for various benefits.

As mentioned, dice are rolled every turn. For most numbers, this generates resources for players. However, if you roll a 7 on your turn, you get to move the Thief. The Thief is a tricky unit that stops anything from being produced in a hex tile as long as he's in that hex. If you roll 7, when you move the Thief, if you move him to some other player's hex, you get to steal a card from that player. The Thief can't be moved into a hex with an army in it.

Also, if you have more than 7 resources when a 7 is rolled (by any player), you have to discard down to 7 cards.

You have 24 hours to take your turn. After that I'll skip you. All turns must be taken in thread. I'll tell you at the start of your turn what number you rolled and if you get to move the thief.

Other Tiles:
  • Deserts appear as sandy yellow and have no number. They produce nothing.
  • Seas appear as light or dark blue and have no number. They produce nothing.
  • The muddy-colored tiles with stacks of coins are gold mines. If their number is rolled they produce a resource of any type, of the beneficiary's choosing.

Army Rules and other rules I have changed:

Armies are no longer gained from development cards. You now buy them. You can deploy them adjacent to a city or a castle (deployment can expel the thief). If you don't have a castle or a city then you can't build armies.

Armies live in hexes, like the Thief, instead of on vertices, like buildings. They can be used to capture other players' buildings and fight opposing armies. They can also expel the Thief.

An army is either "in supply" (in a hex connected to your road network) or "without supply" (in a hex not connected to your road network).

You have to pay 1 wheat to activate an army for a turn. An active army can move and attack. An in-supply army can move two hexes, so long as the starting, interim, and destination hex are all connected to your road network. A without-supply army can move only once. An army can attack any building on any vertex on the hex its in, regardless of whether it's with or without supply. An army cannot move after attacking, even if it has not moved before. Armies may only attack once each turn. Armies cannot cross water unless there is a bridge.

Army movement can be blocked by walls, towers, and castles. An army cannot move into a new hex if it is blocked by enemy walls, towers, and castles, on the two relevant vertices.

Multiple armies from the same player can be in one hex at once.

Combat:
It takes 1 army to capture a settlement or wall and no armies are lost. It takes 2 armies to capture a city or tower and one army will be lost. It takes 3 armies to capture a castle, and two will be lost.

If the castle, tower, or city is attacked while surrounded (armies on all three sides), no armies will be lost. Being in supply or out of supply makes no different to these tallies.

If two in supply or out of supply armies (or more) fight each other, both are destroyed and/or even numbers are lost. IE: If 3 in supply armies fight 2 in supply armies, the first player will be left with 1 and the second player with none.

If in-supply armies fight out of supply armies, then each in-supply army destroys an out-of-supply army for free, then equal losses are incurred as above.

If the Thief is expelled by an army, he returns to the desert until the next 7 is rolled. You don't get to choose where to move him. If there is no unoccupied desert for him to return to, the Thief is destroyed and removed from the game.

Walls, Towers, and Castles are now in the game. A wall can be built on a vertex to block an enemy's road network. (In regular Catan this was done by building your own road network, but roads no longer have owners in this version). They can also slow down enemy armies. Towers are upgraded from Walls and can block enemy armies. Castles are upgraded from towers. They are even tougher than walls, armies can be deployed at castles, and they are worth one victory point.

An army cannot cross an edge that has opposing player's walls, towers, or castles on both vertices. Settlements and cities do not block movement. One alone is not sufficient to block movement but may render the enemy army without supply.

The player with the longest line of fortifications is now eligible for a victory card called "The Greatest Wall." It is worth 1 victory point and you can claim it if you have a line of fortifications length 3 or greater.

Additionally, ships are now out of the game. They are replaced with regular roads ("bridges") which can be built over water as normal.

Development Cards:

Development cards are cards you can buy for a fixed price that can have big effects on the game. I've taken out armies/knights and added more development cards to the game. The deck now consists of:

Conscription: Deploy an army for free. (You must have a city or castle to deploy from)
Forced March: Until the end of your turn, you armies can march 2 hexes further than normal.
Hero City: Play this card only when you have a City under attack. All armies attacking the City are destroyed and the city remains under your control.
Misinformation: Move an opponent's army by one hex. (It still cannot cross fortifications). Your opponent cannot activate this army on his next turn.

Monopoly: Declare a type of resource. All players hand over all of their resources of this type to you.
Monopsony: Declare a type of resource. Until the end of your turn, you can exchange resources of this type at a 1:1 ratio with the bank for any other type of resource.
Year of Plenty: Take two cards of any type from the bank. They may be both of the same type of different.
Act of Sabotage: All players but you discard two resource cards.

Road Building: Build two roads for free. They still must be valid placements.
Colonization: Build a free settlement. It still must be a valid placement.
Fortification: Upgrade a wall to a fort or a fort to a castle for free.
Rapid Development: Upgrade a settlement to a city for free.

Victory Point Cards (Chapel, Library, Market, Palace, University). Worth 1 each.

There are two of each kind of card in the deck.

Construction Costs:

Road: 1 brick, 1 wood
Settlement: 1 brick, 1 wood, 1 wheat, 1 sheep
City: 2 wheat, 3 iron
Dev Card: 1 sheep, 1 wheat, 1 iron

Wall: 1 brick
Fort: 1 brick, 1 iron, 1 wood
Castle: 2 wood, 2 iron

Army: 2 sheep, 2 iron
Activating an army: 1 wheat

Winning:

You win the game when you accumulate 10 victory points. Here are things worth victory points:

Settlements: 1
Cities: 2
Castles: 1
Certain development cards: 1
"The Largest Army": 2
"The Longest Road": 2
"The Greatest Wall": 1

"The Largest Army" can be claimed if you have the largest army and have at least 3 soldiers. The same is true of The Longest Road and The Greatest Wall.
 
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Maps

Big Map:

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Big Map w/ Grid Numbers:

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Reference for referring to vertices:

XH48fhd.png
 
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I can play as yellow. ( I have no experience with borad games save for monopoly but What Could Possibly go Wrong?)
 
I can play as red.
 
In. Yellow but if not blue.
 
Okay, I'll wait 24 hours for players to fill the last two slots and if no one joins we'll go with the player roster we have. If end up with just four I'll reduce the size of the board to fit the small number of people.
 
In, not familiar, but I'll read up on it.
 
Okay, great. That's six people. For you guys who aren't familiar with the game, I wrote the rules above. You can find the formal rules here and they're done up in a much snazzier way in that PDF, but I changed them slightly.

Player Roster and Order:

Kaisersohaib (White/Gray)
mrlifeless (Yellow)
Ironhide G1 (Blue)
CaesarCzech (Green)
KF25 (Black)
Otto of england (Red)

I randomly generated the play order. Game is now in the set up phase. Everyone starts with 2 settlements and 2 roads. For those not familiar with the rules, each player places a settlement and then a road in order, then we reverse order and they place the other settlement and the other road.

So the place order is Kaiser-lifeless-Ironhide-Caesar-KF25-Otto for the first settlement and road, then Otto-KF25-Caesar-Ironhide-lifeless-Kaiser for the second settlement and road, then Kaiser takes the first turn and the rest of the game is as the play order above.

For those not familiar with the rules, settlements can be placed on any vertex (on land) - ie: at the intersection of three hexes. These initial roads can be placed on any edge adjacent to the settlement you just built. Settlements can't be next to each other. You get starting resources based on where you place your send settlement. 'Kay? Take it away Kaiser. (Post your choice in thread.)

EDIT: Oh PS: I put a map with grid numbers up there so every hex tile has a number. That should be useful for picking locations.
 
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Also, very small note, I accidentally put a Forest with a #7 in the original game board. I changed it to a 5 -- tiles aren't supposed to have a #7 in Catan. Hope that doesn't disrupt anyone's grand plans.

Still Kaiser's turn.
 
Aight', 2 minutes and I'll post my order.
 
SETTLEMENT: 8.04, 9.03, 9.04
ROAD: 8.05
 
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Mrlifeless' turn
 
SETTLEMENT: 05.06E
ROAD: 04.08B
Your turn Ironhide.
 
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((EDIT: map changed to make roads show up slightly better
EDIT2: Changed again to change settlement icon))

Like mrlifeless said, it's Ironhide's turn
 
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Build on the south island at 12 clay 3 wheat 9 ore, then build the road between the 3 and 12.
 
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Okie dokie. CaesarCzech's turn.
 
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