Strategy Guide

When aiming for 10 points, the combinations below are listed from easiest to hardest to achieve.

· 6 board points + largest army 2 points + 2 board or victory point card points

· 6 board points + longest road 2 points + 2 board or victory point card points

· Board + victory point cards totaling 10 points

· 6 board points + longest road 2 points + largest army 2 points

· 10 points from board alone

Let's first look at what these five patterns have in common, then go through each pattern one by one!

Every strategy has this in common: you need at least 6 board points, and many plans are easier when you have 7–8 board points.

So whichever strategy you choose, you will want at least four settlements including your opening placements, and you will want to upgrade at least one to a city somewhere along the way.

This pattern focuses on buying many development cards and taking largest army.

The five types of development cards are not equal in the deck: 14 knights, 5 victory point cards, and 2 each of road building, year of plenty, and monopoly. On average, you can expect to reach largest army after drawing about 5–6 development cards.

Development cards include victory point cards. Drawing one means you can reach 10 points without needing 8 board points, so this is an approachable strategy for beginners.

It works especially well when you have strong wheat and ore. Start by checking whether this strategy fits your setup.

This strategy works when your wood and brick are stronger than the other players' at setup, while wheat and ore are relatively weak.

With this plan, prioritize building settlements. You can only have five settlements at once, so city upgrades eventually become necessary—it's best not to buy many development cards so you can save resources for cities.

Longest road is easy for others to take and often turns into a war of attrition, so it's best to secure 8 board points first, then take longest road at the end to win.

Longest road being easy to steal also means it's easy to take. When wood or brick is scarce on the board, play tends to center on city upgrades and development cards—you can reach 8 points first, then bank-trade for road resources, extend your road to length 5, take longest road, and win at 10 points.

When wood and brick are plentiful across the board, this often becomes a war of attrition and is harder to recommend—but when wood or brick is scarce on the board, this strategy is easier to recommend.

The standard approach is usually to take longest road or largest army, but when you can't, aim for this strategy.

If you've bought development cards but didn't draw many knights, you often have multiple victory point cards instead—when another player is using many knights, give up on largest army and focus on building.

Also use this strategy when you have plenty of wood and brick but were boxed in during setup and can't expand much.

This plan requires more board points, so it tends to take longer—it's best to treat it as a last resort when you truly can't get longest road or largest army.

This pattern is quite rare, so it's not recommended to aim for it from the start.

After reaching 8 points, if you can likely take whichever of longest road or largest army you don't have yet for your final 2 points, that's when it's worth shifting toward this pattern.

When this pattern happens, the game often ends quickly and only the player who has both longest road and largest army wins by a wide margin. So other players should also try to prevent it—such as by lending wood and brick to someone without largest army so they can take longest road instead.

This pattern takes a very long time and makes you an easy robber target, so it's not recommended. You can reach it with four settlements and three cities, or two settlements and four cities—but if you can build that much, buying many development cards and aiming for largest army or victory point cards is the better plan.

After setup, list which resources your two settlements produce reliably. Resources next to tiles with more dots under the number tend to keep flowing throughout the game.

To win, taking either longest road or largest army is essentially required.

If you can collect more wood and brick than the other players, go for longest road; if you can collect more wheat and ore, go for largest army. If you're not sure which to choose, aiming for largest army is recommended—it is easier, and you may also pick up victory point cards along the way.

Once initial placement is done, decide whether you are aiming for longest road or largest army.

If you have drawn many development cards but knights are scarce and largest army looks difficult, you might shift to building more settlements and cities to reach 10 points with board points plus victory point cards.

If you were aiming for longest road but other players' settlements block you from extending much, it is honestly tough—but keep building steadily, draw development cards little by little, and aim for 10 points from board plus victory point cards.

Longest road is relatively easy to take, so when you reach 8 points without holding longest road, check once whether you can take it—and if it looks possible, go for it.