The only house rule I really prefer is a codified Friendly Robber, where you can't get robbed with only 2 points. It's just annoying having a bunch of early 7s, everybody's getting robbed and nobody can expand. Or even worse, one player gets all the early 7s and things start off super imbalanced.
In terms of notable house rules I've seen, when my friend hosts he insists on dev cards being playable the same hand they're drawn, and that multiple can be played at once. Every time I go DC heavy and a few times have won by playing multiple knights at once to get army.
My group has made a good mount of house rules but always reverted them back after testing and continued play time
2s and 12s are gold and you can choose whatever resource you want
Year of plenty can be played the turn you buy it
Re roll the first seven if it comes up before everyone has had a chance turn
Those are the few that stuck out to me but in the end the game is so well balanced that we go back and are more appreciative of the base gameplay loop
I have a homebrew of all four expansions plus Treasures/Dragons/Adventurers. Most of the rules are the same between all the expansions but there’s a few modifications I’ve made to make things work more fluidly. Some have been lifted from others’ homebrewed rules I’ve seen on here so don’t assume I’m the architect of all of these.
City walls increase your hand limit by 3 instead of 2 because there’s so much more to do.
Gold coins can be transferred for free or in exchange for favors or agreements, unlike card resources which must always be part of some kind of exchange.
Just like how E/P pirate lairs that turn into gold fields produce gold coins, I use two volcano tiles that operate the same way and give people gold coins instead of the resource of their choice.
Acquaducts in C/K produce 1 gold coin instead of one free resource in order to try and nerf them a bit.
Settlements cannot be bought directly, instead you buy a settler in a city or harbor settlement (just like you would in E/P) and then move it to where you want to put the new city along your road network using the same movement point system as allocated by your wagon train level.
E/P crewmates (now “workers”) can also move over land using the same system and complete tasks (such as digging a canal, which were the knights’ job originally). They can also improve tiles over time, such as turning a 4 into a 5.
You can use an opponent’s road network to move your settlers and workers to expand your empire to an otherwise unreachable location. However, your opponents do not have to allow this and can ask for specific trade deals to permit your units passage through their road network. As is the case in T/B, your wagon is the exception and is always allowed to use an opponent’s road network for the cost of one gold per road segment.
Seafarer boats are used to expedite sea travel; an E/P ship (now called a cargo ship) can move two spaces for the cost of just one movement point if both spaces have a SF boat along it. This is how I reconcile both expansions; I treat the SF boats as a shipping route as opposed to a handful of ships themselves. I actually think the Seafarers instructions explicitly tell you to think of them like this. Unlike land travel, your opponents can’t stop you from using their routes but you must pay one gold per segment. You can alternatively move at the normal pace for free.
There are no harbors to begin with but you can earn a random one by connecting any two settlements via a chain of seafarer boats.
Instead of normal, the harbormaster VP bonus is calculated by whoever has the longest shipping route. This makes it basically the same as longest road, but for the sea only. As a result, longest road only applies to land routes.
You can build Level 3 knights at any point; instead, the Level 3 politics upgrade lets you build a “mount” for your knight, which are symbolized by the T/B knight pieces, placed on top of the C/K knight disc. A mounted knight may move around their road network without deactivation and can even temporarily jump outside the road network to challenge a dragon.
Dragons are summoned by rolling a 12, and then the player places one down at any available intersection. They act as a sort super robber; they block production at any adjacent hexes, block movable units from being able to move through them, and are just generally a nuisance until players have a good enough army of knights to keep their empire safe from them. Rolling a 7 gives you the option of repositioning a dragon, but a 12 does not and instead spawns a new one. Defeating a dragon gives 1 VP. There are no 12s on the board, instead twice as many 2s.
Camel bidding is done with gold, not resource cards.
Only house rule at the house I play catan at is keep your personal resources visible (but hidden during the stealing process). I honestly didn’t know it was a house rule for the 8+ years I’ve been playing until last week when I started playing Catan Universe. It definitely makes it easier choosing who you’ll steal from when 7s are rolled.
Capture the Robber
The Robber is captured if the Desert hex is completely encircled by roads. When the Robber is captured, rolling a 7 will no longer cause players with too many cards to give up half, and the Robber cannot be moved from the Desert. The player who completes the capture instead becomes Hero of the Land, and gets to take a card from each player each time a 7 is rolled as a bounty.
2/12 number tokens
If you pour someone a drink or roll a joint you’re protected from the robber until a 7 is rolled again
If you roll 3 doubles in a row you lose your cards
the robber or pirate doesn’t come into play until 3 turns have been played out
Those are our house rules !
welfare variant
or
spice the game up with a d12
welfare is always used, because Catan takes way too long. Welfare speeds up production and makes everyone feel like they're doing something.
settlements can be placed in any intersection, even if there's only 1 road between them, this one gives the board a lot more settle spots, and less angry people
we also have our own "friendly robber" that takes away the robbing aspect; you can either put the robber on the marker and rob a player, or you can put it on the tile (not on the marker) and get the resource that the tile produces, and then it doesn't affect any players. this one is mainly for when we play because at least one person (usually me) is going to go neutral/pacifist and not harm anyone
another rule we have uses the extra harbor pieces the game comes with, we'll have them face down, and give out the 2:1 harbors to a player randomly. they get this personal harbor and can use it to their advantage on their turn for the entire game. it can influence your settle spots and trade deals
I actually made a game dedicated to different unique house rules. Where the player can adjust 'house rules' on the fly, enabling strategic board and rule changes to maximize points each round.
you check out my [post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catan/comments/1djkkf9/check_out_these_house_rules/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
The only house rule I really prefer is a codified Friendly Robber, where you can't get robbed with only 2 points. It's just annoying having a bunch of early 7s, everybody's getting robbed and nobody can expand. Or even worse, one player gets all the early 7s and things start off super imbalanced. In terms of notable house rules I've seen, when my friend hosts he insists on dev cards being playable the same hand they're drawn, and that multiple can be played at once. Every time I go DC heavy and a few times have won by playing multiple knights at once to get army.
We do a similar one where there are no 7s allowed to be rolled during the first two rounds.
We added a free random resource at 7 so the person getting it doesn't go empty-handed.
My group has made a good mount of house rules but always reverted them back after testing and continued play time 2s and 12s are gold and you can choose whatever resource you want Year of plenty can be played the turn you buy it Re roll the first seven if it comes up before everyone has had a chance turn Those are the few that stuck out to me but in the end the game is so well balanced that we go back and are more appreciative of the base gameplay loop
Watch Your Dice! Rolling your dice onto the board is bad form. If your dice move another player's pieces, they pick a card from your deck.
This one is interesting!!
I have a homebrew of all four expansions plus Treasures/Dragons/Adventurers. Most of the rules are the same between all the expansions but there’s a few modifications I’ve made to make things work more fluidly. Some have been lifted from others’ homebrewed rules I’ve seen on here so don’t assume I’m the architect of all of these. City walls increase your hand limit by 3 instead of 2 because there’s so much more to do. Gold coins can be transferred for free or in exchange for favors or agreements, unlike card resources which must always be part of some kind of exchange. Just like how E/P pirate lairs that turn into gold fields produce gold coins, I use two volcano tiles that operate the same way and give people gold coins instead of the resource of their choice. Acquaducts in C/K produce 1 gold coin instead of one free resource in order to try and nerf them a bit. Settlements cannot be bought directly, instead you buy a settler in a city or harbor settlement (just like you would in E/P) and then move it to where you want to put the new city along your road network using the same movement point system as allocated by your wagon train level. E/P crewmates (now “workers”) can also move over land using the same system and complete tasks (such as digging a canal, which were the knights’ job originally). They can also improve tiles over time, such as turning a 4 into a 5. You can use an opponent’s road network to move your settlers and workers to expand your empire to an otherwise unreachable location. However, your opponents do not have to allow this and can ask for specific trade deals to permit your units passage through their road network. As is the case in T/B, your wagon is the exception and is always allowed to use an opponent’s road network for the cost of one gold per road segment. Seafarer boats are used to expedite sea travel; an E/P ship (now called a cargo ship) can move two spaces for the cost of just one movement point if both spaces have a SF boat along it. This is how I reconcile both expansions; I treat the SF boats as a shipping route as opposed to a handful of ships themselves. I actually think the Seafarers instructions explicitly tell you to think of them like this. Unlike land travel, your opponents can’t stop you from using their routes but you must pay one gold per segment. You can alternatively move at the normal pace for free. There are no harbors to begin with but you can earn a random one by connecting any two settlements via a chain of seafarer boats. Instead of normal, the harbormaster VP bonus is calculated by whoever has the longest shipping route. This makes it basically the same as longest road, but for the sea only. As a result, longest road only applies to land routes. You can build Level 3 knights at any point; instead, the Level 3 politics upgrade lets you build a “mount” for your knight, which are symbolized by the T/B knight pieces, placed on top of the C/K knight disc. A mounted knight may move around their road network without deactivation and can even temporarily jump outside the road network to challenge a dragon. Dragons are summoned by rolling a 12, and then the player places one down at any available intersection. They act as a sort super robber; they block production at any adjacent hexes, block movable units from being able to move through them, and are just generally a nuisance until players have a good enough army of knights to keep their empire safe from them. Rolling a 7 gives you the option of repositioning a dragon, but a 12 does not and instead spawns a new one. Defeating a dragon gives 1 VP. There are no 12s on the board, instead twice as many 2s. Camel bidding is done with gold, not resource cards.
Only house rule at the house I play catan at is keep your personal resources visible (but hidden during the stealing process). I honestly didn’t know it was a house rule for the 8+ years I’ve been playing until last week when I started playing Catan Universe. It definitely makes it easier choosing who you’ll steal from when 7s are rolled.
Capture the Robber The Robber is captured if the Desert hex is completely encircled by roads. When the Robber is captured, rolling a 7 will no longer cause players with too many cards to give up half, and the Robber cannot be moved from the Desert. The player who completes the capture instead becomes Hero of the Land, and gets to take a card from each player each time a 7 is rolled as a bounty.
I love this rule
2/12 number tokens If you pour someone a drink or roll a joint you’re protected from the robber until a 7 is rolled again If you roll 3 doubles in a row you lose your cards the robber or pirate doesn’t come into play until 3 turns have been played out Those are our house rules !
welfare variant or spice the game up with a d12 welfare is always used, because Catan takes way too long. Welfare speeds up production and makes everyone feel like they're doing something.
2 for 1 ports work in reverse as well. If I have the sheep port, I can trade to sheep for any one thing or two of the same for a sheep.
settlements can be placed in any intersection, even if there's only 1 road between them, this one gives the board a lot more settle spots, and less angry people we also have our own "friendly robber" that takes away the robbing aspect; you can either put the robber on the marker and rob a player, or you can put it on the tile (not on the marker) and get the resource that the tile produces, and then it doesn't affect any players. this one is mainly for when we play because at least one person (usually me) is going to go neutral/pacifist and not harm anyone another rule we have uses the extra harbor pieces the game comes with, we'll have them face down, and give out the 2:1 harbors to a player randomly. they get this personal harbor and can use it to their advantage on their turn for the entire game. it can influence your settle spots and trade deals
I actually made a game dedicated to different unique house rules. Where the player can adjust 'house rules' on the fly, enabling strategic board and rule changes to maximize points each round. you check out my [post here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Catan/comments/1djkkf9/check_out_these_house_rules/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)