Catan Cities & Knights: How to Play and Tips

In this week's Games Made Easy video you will learn how to play Catan Cities & Knights quickly and easily too.

Catan Cities & Knights is an expansion that makes Catan feel supercharged.

Catan Cities & Knights it still feels like a standard Catan game but adds a lot more depth and variety to the game. You still play a settler in the island of Catan but now, the Catanians have a more complex society.

It is a great Catan game that gets even more challenging when you play the more complex variants.
It plays well with 3 - 4 players but the games with 5 to 6 players can be epic!

Tabletop games are really fun, but learning the complicated directions and rules can be a challenge. Lavinia and Peter explain the rules quickly and easily while giving you all the tips you need to win faster.

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0:00 – Introduction
0:40 – The Theme
1:20 – The Components
4:44– The Setup
6:33– The Game Play
9:35 – Quick Moves
13:03 – My Tips to Win
13:38– Conclusion
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#HowToPlay #PlayBetter #CatanCitiesandKnights #GamesMadeEasy

[gregjuicey]

This is my fav expansion. It is super important how you setup your settlements and cities at the beggining and buy knights ASAP once you start.

[cloroxbleach]

I love that the cat is just chilling in the box lol

[senkaiqf]

Hi I work in board game retail and your video has been of tremendous help to me teaching a group of strangers how to play this. It was my first time teaching too and it looked they understood everything I taught them. Really appreciate it and keep up the good work.

[kenpeters]

Something everyone fails to mention. This is an excellent … EXCELLENT … two player game also.

[davidparish]

Well spoken, edited, and explained. Good job, and Thanks!

[DiegoMartinez-wcxd]

9:13 There’s also no particular order in the base Catan to trade and build. After rolling the dice you can go back and forth between building and trading. The rule book says that you should follow a sequence: 1. Roll, 2. Trade, 3. Build. But later in the almanac it says that the separation between the build and trade stages is simply to help beginner players understand the game better, but experienced players should ignore it.

[GamesMadeEasy]

@AzureblueSnowman Thanks for the comment. I've now corrected the mistake where I was explaining the walls protected the cities when attacked by Barbarians, when in fact the walls are destroyed with the city. This rule can still be used with beginners but not for the full game experience.

[WarriorPresents]

Did very well explaining. Better than anyone else on youtube

[robtron]

Oh my goodness - this feels 100x more complicated than regular Catan. It’s a bit overwhelming!!

[LvSuperTuba]

very quick and well explained. with the new extension to C&K, this will help remind my playgroup the rules so we can start playing the new content! Thank you!

[staceynugent]

I love your channel. It really helped me and my friends a lot. We’re just beginners at Catan but already obsessed and couldn’t play without your help. So really thank you so much ❤

[dimi-eu]

Awesome video, quick and easy to understand. Exactly what we needed to start our new game. Thank you

[dantyne]

I'm about to play this for the first time tomorrow so thank you for explaining it so well. Hopefully your tips will bring a victory!

[One_Stale_Donut]

Very clear and thorough explanations thank you, this expansion makes Catan much more interesting

[njnpoet]

Great video! Your cat keeps rolling its eyes in a dubious or incredulous manner...as if casting doubt on our collective motivation to learn this expansion set. Please tell your cat that skepticism is a common defense mechanism and that optimism and setting new goals is how one evolves from a regular cat to a "cool cat." 😎

[TheMariepier]

This was really well explained! Thank you

[davidparish]

A summary of the new added cards and their purpose and function would be a nice addition to this video. e.g. Merchant cards etc.

[greattennisfanmasters]

Hi Lavinia! Nice clear explanation. Thanks. I didn't hear you explain how one activates knights. If you did, my apologies. One must pay 1 grain resource. Our family and friends love this expansion. After we became completely familiar with it after 2 or 3 times playing it we never again played the original Catan! I agree that a 5/6 player game can be epic, and can last around appr. 4 hours. Our strategies are varied. Some of us compete for knight strength, though we all cooperate at the beginning to defeat the barbarians. Others focus on commodity development, others building longest road, building more settlements and cities as fast as possible, astute trading, or some combination of all. Now that we are all pretty experienced, usually the winner ends up being the one who produces the kindest dice rolls at the crucial times, i.e. Lady Luck. :).
Note that we always use completely random resource tile placement at the beginning and we have learned to adapt to whatever it ends up being. Of course initial placement of your settlements and cities is important, and then quickly building settlements on additional needed resources. Of course, one can't always have what one wants. :) We also play a variant that the robber takes 1/2 of the cards that one has over 7, not half of all in hand. So if one has 9 or 10 cards, one returns 1 to the supply, 11 or 12, return 2 to the supply, and so on. It makes the game a bit quicker. Also, we play a variant where one player cannot be the robber's victim twice in succession. It makes for a nicer, happier, game. There is no robber or event dice the first turn around. If a seven is rolled, one re-rolls the dice, as I believe you mentioned. That's it, thanks again for your video and nice channel. Kind regards, John

P.S. For Christmas, Santa gave the family Explorers and Pirates, and we have happily gone through scenarios1, 2 (PL) and 3 (Fish) and like it so far :) But we decided that we will simply skip learning 4, and proceed straight to scenario 5 and learn about Spices playing the full game. Any recommendations for our next Catan expansion? :)

[DylanHunter]

Looking forward to trying this one out.

[thesean]

I know nothing about you or your channel. But I see cats so I know I can instantly trust everything you're about to tell me.