Catan board generator
Deal a fair board from the pieces in your box: the base game, the 5–6 extension, Seafarers or Cities & Knights. Pick your house rules, see how each seat starts, then lay it out step by step, print it or send the link to the table.
How it decides a board is fair
A board is legal the moment the pieces are down. Whether it’s fair is the argument. The generator deals from your box again and again and keeps the first board that meets every rule you ticked.
The rulebook’s rule. On a random board the red 6s and 8s must not touch. Every preset except Wild keeps it.
House rules. Keep 2 and 12 apart, so no corner hardly ever pays. Keep a number away from itself, so one roll doesn’t pay two neighbors. Break up clumps of one terrain. Spread the 6s and 8s across terrains, so nobody owns all the ore on the best numbers. Give every resource a fair share of the dice. Cap the hottest corner.
Fair for every seat. This is the check most generators skip. It plays out the opening the way the rulebook does it, seats 1 to 4 and back again, each taking the best spot left, and measures how far the best and worst seat start apart in pips. A board can be perfectly balanced and still hand seat 1 a jackpot corner; this catches it.
Pips. The dots under a number count the ways two dice make it out of 36: five for a 6 or an 8, one for a 2 or a 12. Add the pips around a corner and you know how often it pays.
What comes out of the box
| Game | Hexes | Number tokens | Harbors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base game, 3–4 | 19, one desert | 18 | 9 (4 of them 3:1) |
| 5–6 extension | 30, two deserts | 28 | 11 (5 of them 3:1, two wool) |
| Seafarers, 3 players | 22 land with 2 gold fields, 13 sea | 22 | 8 |
| Seafarers, 4 players | 28 land with 2 gold fields, 14 sea | 27 | 9 |
| Seafarers, 5–6 | 40 land with 3 gold fields, 16 sea | 38 | 11 |
Seafarers boards follow the Heading for New Shores scenario: the main island is dealt like a normal board, the small islands go in the positions its rulebook shows, and the sea fills the rest of the frame. They are drawn flat side up, the way the Seafarers rulebook draws them. Cities & Knights is played on the base or 5–6 board.
Play the island you just dealt
Every board here can be played in Hearthsea, our hex-trading game in the browser: the same hexes, numbers and harbors, against Veteran bots that trade and block, or with friends. It’s free and nothing installs. Hearthsea isn’t Catan and isn’t made by its publishers.
Questions people ask at the table
Can a 6 and an 8 be next to each other?
Not on a random board. The base rulebook says that when the number tokens go down in random order, the red numbers must not be next to each other, and you may have to swap tokens to fix it. The generator keeps them apart unless you choose Wild.
What are pips?
The dots under the number on a token. They count the ways two dice make that total out of 36. A 6 or an 8 has five, a 5 or a 9 four, down to one for a 2 or a 12.
Does it use the pieces in my box?
Yes. The base game’s 19 hexes, 18 tokens and 9 harbors; the 5–6 extension’s 30 hexes, 28 tokens and 11 harbors; and the hexes, tokens and harbors the Seafarers rulebook lists for Heading for New Shores at 3, 4 and 5–6 players.
How do I place the harbors?
In the current edition the frame has fixed harbor spots and the harbor tokens are shuffled onto them. The generator lists the harbors clockwise from the top, so you can lay them onto any frame in that order.
What about Cities & Knights?
It uses the base board, or the 5–6 board for five or six. Tick Cities & Knights and the generator also makes sure ore, grain and wool each sit on a 5, 6, 8 or 9 at least once, since cities and commodities carry that game.
Is Hearthsea the official Catan?
No. Hearthsea is an independent game in the same genre, not affiliated with Catan GmbH. You can play any board you deal here in Hearthsea, free.
CATAN is a registered trademark of Catan GmbH. Hearthsea is an independent game and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Catan GmbH or its publishers. The piece counts come from the publisher’s rulebooks and are given only so you can set up your own copy.