When I’m not playing Dungeons &  Dragons / Pathfinder I really love the board game Settlers of Catan. My children have seen me play an online version of the game and wanted to play as well. Settlers isn’t the simplest game to learn, so I made an easier to learn version for them to play, which can also be printed on an 8.5×11 piece of paper instead of buying the full game!

If my kids wind up loving the game, then I will certainly buy the physical board game, but $50 is a lot to shell out on the off-chance they lose interest. Kids don’t do that, right?

Super Simple Rules of Settlers of Catan

1. No Robber / Thief
2. You don’t lose half your cards if you have more than 7 when a 7 is rolled
3. No development / market cards
4. You build settlements, cities and roads. That’s it!

Super simple, right? You can take or leave any of the above for your own game and my plan is to introduce each one of these items over time, as they learn the game.

For example, I will certainly start using the robber/thief and have them start losing their cards if they hold more than 7 anytime a 7 is rolled. But I wanted them to just grasp the game to begin with and enjoy it before I introduced the “harder” and maybe “meaner” pieces of Catan.

Settlers of Catan Board you can Print at Home!

Like I said, I don’t want to shell out the full price for the Catan Board Game until I know my kids are going to consistently want to play the game. So I created a replica of the Catan board in Photoshop which I can print on one sheet of 8.5×11 printer paper.

Click for Larger Version

No Pieces in the Kids Version of Catan!

Originally I was going to use Lego pieces to represent settlements/towns, cities and roads but it was taking too long to find enough pieces, so we just decided to use Crayons to color in our settlements and roads.

Using crayons was super simple, plus, our toddler couldn’t wreck the game board! Bonus!

Drawing on the board is no issue, because I can just print another one whenever we go to play again. You can even print them front and back to save paper.

Plus, if you wanted to play Catan on a long car ride or road trip, this way is easy and clean.

Using Poker Pieces and Playing Cards for Resource Cards

Didn’t buy the game yet, so didn’t have resource cards. What did I have to represent different colored resource elements? Poker chips!

This also simplified the game farther as they weren’t thinking about wood, ore/diamonds, sheep, wheat or brick. They just saw Red, Green, Blue, White and Card. Poker only has 4 colors, so I had to use playing cards (they all look the same one one side) for Wheat.

Here’s the breakdown I used for resource cards as poker chips:

1. Green = Wood
2. Red = Brick
3. White = Wheat
4. Blue = Ore
5. Card = Sheep

Print a Catan Board at Home. Write in your own resource cards based on what you have.

You could easily use anything to represent the different resources: Lego pieces, Marbles, pom-poms, 5 sets of playing cards with different backs, crayons. Anything! Just figure out what you have laying around the house that’s different colors and go for it.

Print Your Own Catan Board at Home

Click for Larger Version

Download the PSD Catan Board to Modify Yourself

Here is the Photshop Document I created to print out Catan board. If you have Photoshop/Canvas/Gimp you can edit this to add in your own numbers and resources.

Settlers of Catan Board Photoshop Document Template to Print at Home for Kids (PSD)