CATAN STRATEGY: A Complete Guide to Winning the Popular Board Game

by Mark Oxer

After winning the Canadian Championship in 2005 (defeating the 2004 champion in the round robin play) I read every Catan strategy guide I could find. At that time there was not a lot of information available, with the exception of a few online articles. There is more information available these days, but I have yet to find anything comprehensive written by another tournament player.This is an advanced guide to the game of Catan and goes beyond anything written previously. It is intended to become a reference piece rather than something that you read once and put on the shelf. I hope that it inspires you to study the game, your opponents, and your own level of play. This is not just a book of rules, scenarios, and statistics, it is a book written to change the way you think about Catan. I want you to learn the intricacies of the game, and show you how to solve problems using methods implemented by the top players in the world. I am not suggesting that my way is the only way to win, there are more ways than one way to win at Catan, however, in order to win you will need to learn how to think through a situation and develop your own winning strategy.I truly believe that whatever level of play you are currently at, the additional skills you will learn by reading this book will significantly improve your Catan gaming ability.

102 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 25, 2019

About the author

Mark Oxer, MSc, CSCS, CPT is a Charted Professional Coach (ChPC) and a member of the Canadian Sport Psychology Association who received his Master’s degree in Strength and Conditioning from the University of Central Lancashire where he graduated with Distinction. Mark has been a university lecturer in the faculty of kinesiology for over ten years and has worked in the fitness industry for more than fifteen years, during which time he; trained both Municipal and Federal police and was a strength and conditioning coach for: amateur, collegiate, professional and Olympic athletes. Mark has coached Provincial, National and International-level athletes in lifting sports, including being a head coach with Team Manitoba and Team Canada Powerlifting.

Reviews

[Kurt Hamel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Cat an Info, Too Many Typos

There were amazing Cat an tips in here and great things to think about. Honestly they really just need to put the book through Microsoft Word's spell and grammar check and have a friend or two read it over and it would be 5/5.

[ally · Rating 2 out of 5]

i got a game at 8

[Elviene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid guide from top tournament player

Makes me want to play Catan again! I’ve played a LOT over the years, and yet still this book provided ideas I hadn’t thought of before. Numerous topics covered including trading psychology and tips specific to tournament play. The only beef I have are some grammar issues which would have made it five stars if fixed by better editing.

[Adam Lenning · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book that will elevate your mindset. I almost wish it had more examples of the principles. Some practice problems might be cool as well. The content is great and will make you hyper aware of your actions during the game.

[Nathan Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author didn’t expand on things he should’ve gave more detail on and spent a decent length of time explaining the basic rules of the game. Learned a good handful of helpful tips though.
Coming for you michael.

[Kieron Botting · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise antidote and valuable aid for anyone left scorned from a few too many dinner party losses. Not me... that’s never happened. NEVER.

[Emmett Borg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I caught the Catan bug after playing for the first time on winter holidays. In the four months since, I've easily played more than 200 games online. A lot was learned through observation, but also through youtubers such as DyLighted. I picked up this book looking for advanced tips and mechanics.

I'm not quite sure I understand which audience this book was written for, but it wasn't for me.

If this book is meant to cater to beginners, it should have spent more time explaining the game and the rule nuances. These were largely left out and assumed to be known by the reader.

If this book was meant for advanced players, it should have discussed difficult game situations and perhaps starting placement analysis.

Instead this book sits somewhere in the middle. Not much insightful content other than the emotional or people aspect of the game, which is largely missing from online play. Not quite what I was looking for.

In a literal production sense, the book also had a table of contents... but no numbers on the pages? Images were also of the most minimal quality possible. Could do with an overall edit.

[Stylianos Kasouridis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but expected some examples

The book is nice and easy to follow. I would like some more concrete examples of strategies to follow in certain situations (such as board illustrations) rather than just pointing out theory. The theory explained though is good and easy to follow, thus I believe that iterative deepening is required for this book.

[Juan Eduardo Castellon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. It was so hard to find but so good the reward of reading it. Mark has Catan running in his veins and that shows. He talks about the essence of the game and not the mere data. His knowledge made me win 80% more of the games I played during the time I read it, and I will probably continue to study this book in the future.

[Gabriel]

Top Secrit strats obtained -- watch out!

[Ainhoa López-Larraínzar Salazar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy interesante e ilustrativo. Pero no explica muchas estrategias, solo cinco. Sin embargo, hace hincapie en partes del juego muy importantes que nunca había pensado.

[Simon Winquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book about the strategies of Catan. It was very comprehensive and contained info on building, trading and all aspects about the game. They also included statistics about dice rolls, settlement positions odds and lots of other great info.

I finished quickly because I wanted to put his tips in action. In my first two games online, both were wins when implementing some of his plans. So far so good.

The reason it’s not five stars is because of the grammar sometimes I would have to reread sentences because of the punctuation. But if you wanna sharpen your skills in Catan this is definitely the book for you