Catan 5-6 Player Expansion Review

I have been playing The Settlers of Catan since 2000 and still continue to play the game to date. I love it as it is an absolute classic. It sits boldly on my board game shelf and will remain there, I could never part ways with it. Not to mention it is the founding game in alternative board games. This Catan 5-6 player set opens things up to 5 and 6 people and that adds to this game for sure.

For a game that is now on it’s 5th edition it also has to be doing something incredibly right to maintain this enthusiasm for the game. I went to the UKGE this year in 2023 and the Catan stand is placed at an entrance to one of the great halls and it was constantly busy when I passed by. There is a new Catan game out in the “Dawn of Humankind”. I wanted a go but the opportunity was not there, just too busy. There is clearly a huge appetite for all things Catan.

It staggers me that there is a lot of mixed views now out there on this game. Views from the game mechanics are flawed and dated to this game now having no place alongside modern board games. I just could not disagree more. I have introduced this game more to friends than any other game because it has a simple set of mechanics to grasp and assorted strategies to victory making it the challenge that is. So, I am banging the drum for all things Catan and helping push some positive vibes towards a brilliant and iconic board game.

You will need the core Catan set to be able to use this expansion set, it will not work without it. What can you expect from the 5 to 6 player expansion?

Additional Components

With the potential of 2 more players you are not fitting on the classic board. So with this expansion you gain;

• 11 additional land hexes (2 of each resource and 1 more desert hex).
• Additional sea components which include more harbours to trade at.
• 2 different colour sets of wooden playing pieces.
• 25 more resources cards (5 of each type).
• 9 more development cards to add to the deck.
• 2 additional building cards (if you really need them).
• 28 numbered circle tokens for laying the new board of resource gathering numbers.

It’s pretty straight forward. The game/island of Catan gets bigger with more people playing.

The Game

It is still the classic rule set that we know and love. The simple break down of the rules being on your turn you roll the dice, you gather resources, you trade and you build. You pass play to the next person. The game continues on until there is a winner with 10 victory points. There is obviously a little more to it than that and there are plenty of other great blogs here with Zatu that get into explaining the rules of the game. I won’t reinvent the wheel today. But there is one new rule unique to the expansion I will explain below.

The Special Building Phase

This is something that should probably be introduced into the core game. Once a player has completed their turn but before the next player rolls the dice (in-between if you like), all other players (going clockwise from the player whose turn it just was) can build if they choose to, using their hand of cards. They are not allowed to trade, they can only use the cards in hand. They have this opportunity though after every player ends their turn.

This rule is awesome. It speeds up play, reduces the chance of when a 7 is rolled and the robber taking over half your hand if you have 8 cards or more and just changes the dynamic of play in Catan for the better I feel. Players engage on every players turn if they want to trade cards with the player whose turn it is. But to have the opportunity to build also, really keeps everyone on their toes. Picking up a development card here, building a road there, excellent work by the creators.

Final Thoughts

Catan continues to be an awesome game and opening the game up to having up to 6 people sat around the table is just great. It gives flexibility to a gaming group with more than 4 people where the core set is not an option ordinarily. The additional rule added is just a master stroke. This set is well worth adding to your core set, if you don’t have the core set you should 100% get in to Catan.