redwings1340
Emperor
So, a bit of background here, I really enjoy taking board games and modifying them, and Catan is an amazing game to play around and set up new scenarios with. So, when I heard about the district system in Civ VI, I just played a game of Catan with my family involving districts of our own!
To play this, you'll need the cities and nights and traders and barbarian expansions. I also used sea hexes from seafarers, though that's not a necessary part of the game. If you don't have all of these expansions, don't worry, because Catan is infinitely modable, so take what you want from these rules, take pieces from other games to create barbarian camps and districts, and enjoy the game however you want to!
My setup
I wish I had remembered to take a picture, but I set up a huge island with many water and land tiles throughout it. I then placed four camels from traders and barbarians (I played a six person game, reduce this if you have fewer people) to represent barbarian camps, and placed them on deserts and gold hexes throughout the board. I placed fish occasionally in the water hexes on the map. I did not place any harbors on the map.
The rules - Districts
District cost: 1 wood, 1 brick, 1 wheat, 1 coal, 1 sheep, 1 resource for the district type (or two fish for a harbor district). These are placed on a resource hex, and may be only built from cities.
- A district allows you to gain an extra resource or commodity on the hex its planted on when the number is rolled (or an extra fish for a harbor district)
- A district may be placed either adjacent to a city or adjacent to another district
Each player may have one district per resource hex, up to a maximum of six resource districts and one harbor district.
- A district allows you to trade the specific resource at a 3-1 rate (or gain a 3-1 trade harbor)
- A second district on the same hex type will allow you to trade a resource at a 2-1 rate (two wood districts lets you trade wood 2-1)
- A commodity district will give you immediate access to a progress card of the specific type.
- A district on a wheat hex will grant your knights +2 movement speed for the rest of the game
- A district on a brick hex will allow you to increase your hand size limit by 3 (a side note, we play as a house rule that instead of just increasing your hand size before discarding, you set aside three cards from your hand before you're forced to discard. Meaning, if you have 11 cards in your hand, you will discard four, because three will be protected)
- A harbor district allows you to connect roads and ships without building a settlement in between them. This also allows your knights to move between roads and ships without a settlement in between them.
- A fortress (when you get the third coin commodity upgrade) will grant you a free city wall in every district.
- Modifications in progress cards: All progress cards may be used to instantaneously build a knight. If you decide to use one this way, you may not use the ability listed on the card itself.
- City walls are now placed on districts, not cities. They increase your hand limit by 2, as well as providing defensive bonuses for your districts.
Barbarian rules
- Every time a seven is rolled, the player who rolled it must place one barbarian adjacent to each barbarian camp, or adjacent to a barbarian connected to the barbarian camp.
- There is a maximum of three barbarians that can occupy any hex at one time.
- After placing the barbarians, the player must roll a die. If the die lands at a three or higher, the player must spawn a new barbarian camp. This camp may not be placed in a tile currently being used by any settlement, city, or district. The player must place the camp, then place three barbarians inside the camp.
- If two barbarians end up in a resource hex, you may not gain any resources from that hex until the barbarians are removed. If you have a district and a city wall in this resource hex, you may continue getting resources until three barbarians enter it.
- If two barbarians end up in a resource hex, any districts in that hex are turned and become inactive, meaning you can no longer gain benefits from them. If you have a city wall in the district, you may increase this number to three before you lose benefits from your district.
- Once barbarians are removed, you may pay two resources of the district (or four fish for a harbor) to rebuild the district and activate it again.
- Barbarians may be placed in the water, but a barbarian camp may not! You may not build roads, ships, settlements, or cities adjacent to any barbarian camps or areas that contain three barbarians.
- Up to six barbarian camps may exist at any one time.
- Any time there a barbarian camp is spawned, or any time three barbarians enter the same area, all roads and ships on the hex are pillaged and turned sideways. These roads no longer count for longest road, knight movement cost benefits, or being able to be built off of. After the barbarians are removed, a player may repair their roads by paying one brick, one wood, or one gold. A player may repair their ships by paying one wood, one sheep, or one gold.
Knight Rules
- You may buy barbarian attack development cards, which can create knights. When you create knights, you may place them adjacent to any or your settlements, cities, or active districts. There are unlimited development cards, and the pile will get shuffled when it runs out.
- You may move knights four tiles per turn. Moving knights on to a road or ship costs one movement point, while moving them on to an empty side costs two movement points. The movement points are determined by where you are moving your knights to, not where they come from. Knights may not move from a ship to a land hex unless the player owns a harbor district, or there is a settlement in between the spaces.
- At the end of your turn, if more knights are around a hex than barbarians in it, a battle starts as detailed by Barbarian attack, and the barbarians in the hex are eliminated.
A barbarian camp has strength 4 (which means five knights are required to eliminate it).
- Every time you lose a knight, you gain two gold tokens. If you are involved in defeating a barbarian camp, you gain one gold token for every knight you have in the battle.
- If, during your turn, you at any point use another player’s road with your knight, you must play that player either one gold or one resource of your choice to cross. Pillaged roads do not have a toll.
- Paying a wheat can allow a knight to gain two additional movement points on your turn.
- Every time you attack a barbarian, players get two gold tokens per barbarian killed, distributed equally. If people get an unequal amount of gold, whoever has the most knights in the fight gets more gold than everyone else. If there is still an unresolved dilema, the participants roll for who gets the remaining gold.
Other rules
- You may use two fish to remove one barbarian from the game board on your turn, so long as the barbarian is not in a group of three.
- If you do not get any resources on a roll, you may collect one gold token from the supply.
- On your turn, you may turn in four gold tokens for up to two resources of your choice. If you are playing a 5-6 person game, you may trade up to six gold tokens for three resources of your choice on your turn (but not during the building phase of other turns)
-Since districts do not give victory points, its recommended to play up to a much higher number of points than standard play allows for. I played up to 18 today.
My experiences with it so far
I played this game with my family today, and found it really fun! The winner got several districts early, including having a wood metropolis, showing that they can be useful. Sevens barely rolled during the game, making the barbarians far less threatening than they ordinarily would be. If they did roll though, having an army would have been vital, because the players ability to place new barbarian camps where they want to can dramatically alter the map. As it was, it was a little disappointing, and I'm not really sure how the barbarians influence the game at the moment.
I hope you have fun with this game if you want to try it! I did, and I'm planning on playing it again to test out how differently it could go with a bit of different luck. I'll post here again if people want me to about how it went if I try it again.
To play this, you'll need the cities and nights and traders and barbarian expansions. I also used sea hexes from seafarers, though that's not a necessary part of the game. If you don't have all of these expansions, don't worry, because Catan is infinitely modable, so take what you want from these rules, take pieces from other games to create barbarian camps and districts, and enjoy the game however you want to!
My setup
I wish I had remembered to take a picture, but I set up a huge island with many water and land tiles throughout it. I then placed four camels from traders and barbarians (I played a six person game, reduce this if you have fewer people) to represent barbarian camps, and placed them on deserts and gold hexes throughout the board. I placed fish occasionally in the water hexes on the map. I did not place any harbors on the map.
The rules - Districts
District cost: 1 wood, 1 brick, 1 wheat, 1 coal, 1 sheep, 1 resource for the district type (or two fish for a harbor district). These are placed on a resource hex, and may be only built from cities.
- A district allows you to gain an extra resource or commodity on the hex its planted on when the number is rolled (or an extra fish for a harbor district)
- A district may be placed either adjacent to a city or adjacent to another district
Each player may have one district per resource hex, up to a maximum of six resource districts and one harbor district.
- A district allows you to trade the specific resource at a 3-1 rate (or gain a 3-1 trade harbor)
- A second district on the same hex type will allow you to trade a resource at a 2-1 rate (two wood districts lets you trade wood 2-1)
- A commodity district will give you immediate access to a progress card of the specific type.
- A district on a wheat hex will grant your knights +2 movement speed for the rest of the game
- A district on a brick hex will allow you to increase your hand size limit by 3 (a side note, we play as a house rule that instead of just increasing your hand size before discarding, you set aside three cards from your hand before you're forced to discard. Meaning, if you have 11 cards in your hand, you will discard four, because three will be protected)
- A harbor district allows you to connect roads and ships without building a settlement in between them. This also allows your knights to move between roads and ships without a settlement in between them.
- A fortress (when you get the third coin commodity upgrade) will grant you a free city wall in every district.
- Modifications in progress cards: All progress cards may be used to instantaneously build a knight. If you decide to use one this way, you may not use the ability listed on the card itself.
- City walls are now placed on districts, not cities. They increase your hand limit by 2, as well as providing defensive bonuses for your districts.
Barbarian rules
- Every time a seven is rolled, the player who rolled it must place one barbarian adjacent to each barbarian camp, or adjacent to a barbarian connected to the barbarian camp.
- There is a maximum of three barbarians that can occupy any hex at one time.
- After placing the barbarians, the player must roll a die. If the die lands at a three or higher, the player must spawn a new barbarian camp. This camp may not be placed in a tile currently being used by any settlement, city, or district. The player must place the camp, then place three barbarians inside the camp.
- If two barbarians end up in a resource hex, you may not gain any resources from that hex until the barbarians are removed. If you have a district and a city wall in this resource hex, you may continue getting resources until three barbarians enter it.
- If two barbarians end up in a resource hex, any districts in that hex are turned and become inactive, meaning you can no longer gain benefits from them. If you have a city wall in the district, you may increase this number to three before you lose benefits from your district.
- Once barbarians are removed, you may pay two resources of the district (or four fish for a harbor) to rebuild the district and activate it again.
- Barbarians may be placed in the water, but a barbarian camp may not! You may not build roads, ships, settlements, or cities adjacent to any barbarian camps or areas that contain three barbarians.
- Up to six barbarian camps may exist at any one time.
- Any time there a barbarian camp is spawned, or any time three barbarians enter the same area, all roads and ships on the hex are pillaged and turned sideways. These roads no longer count for longest road, knight movement cost benefits, or being able to be built off of. After the barbarians are removed, a player may repair their roads by paying one brick, one wood, or one gold. A player may repair their ships by paying one wood, one sheep, or one gold.
Knight Rules
- You may buy barbarian attack development cards, which can create knights. When you create knights, you may place them adjacent to any or your settlements, cities, or active districts. There are unlimited development cards, and the pile will get shuffled when it runs out.
- You may move knights four tiles per turn. Moving knights on to a road or ship costs one movement point, while moving them on to an empty side costs two movement points. The movement points are determined by where you are moving your knights to, not where they come from. Knights may not move from a ship to a land hex unless the player owns a harbor district, or there is a settlement in between the spaces.
- At the end of your turn, if more knights are around a hex than barbarians in it, a battle starts as detailed by Barbarian attack, and the barbarians in the hex are eliminated.
A barbarian camp has strength 4 (which means five knights are required to eliminate it).
- Every time you lose a knight, you gain two gold tokens. If you are involved in defeating a barbarian camp, you gain one gold token for every knight you have in the battle.
- If, during your turn, you at any point use another player’s road with your knight, you must play that player either one gold or one resource of your choice to cross. Pillaged roads do not have a toll.
- Paying a wheat can allow a knight to gain two additional movement points on your turn.
- Every time you attack a barbarian, players get two gold tokens per barbarian killed, distributed equally. If people get an unequal amount of gold, whoever has the most knights in the fight gets more gold than everyone else. If there is still an unresolved dilema, the participants roll for who gets the remaining gold.
Other rules
- You may use two fish to remove one barbarian from the game board on your turn, so long as the barbarian is not in a group of three.
- If you do not get any resources on a roll, you may collect one gold token from the supply.
- On your turn, you may turn in four gold tokens for up to two resources of your choice. If you are playing a 5-6 person game, you may trade up to six gold tokens for three resources of your choice on your turn (but not during the building phase of other turns)
-Since districts do not give victory points, its recommended to play up to a much higher number of points than standard play allows for. I played up to 18 today.
My experiences with it so far
I played this game with my family today, and found it really fun! The winner got several districts early, including having a wood metropolis, showing that they can be useful. Sevens barely rolled during the game, making the barbarians far less threatening than they ordinarily would be. If they did roll though, having an army would have been vital, because the players ability to place new barbarian camps where they want to can dramatically alter the map. As it was, it was a little disappointing, and I'm not really sure how the barbarians influence the game at the moment.
I hope you have fun with this game if you want to try it! I did, and I'm planning on playing it again to test out how differently it could go with a bit of different luck. I'll post here again if people want me to about how it went if I try it again.
