Catan: Cities & Knights

1 Overview

Cities & Knights is the most strategically rich Catan expansion. It adds commodities produced by cities, a knight force you must maintain, a barbarian threat all players must collectively defend against, and city improvement tracks that unlock powerful Progress Cards.

The game uses an Event Die alongside the standard dice. It can trigger a barbarian advance, a merchant move, or a city gate event.

2 New Components

• 6 City Improvement tracks (2 per resource type: paper, cloth, coin)
• 54 Progress Cards (divided into 3 decks: Trade, Politics, Science)
• Knights (3 levels per player)
• Barbarian track + barbarian ship
• Merchant figure + Defender of Catan card
• Event Die (replaces one standard die)

3 Commodities

Cities produce both the base resource AND a commodity for that terrain type:

• Forest → Lumber + Paper
• Mountains → Ore + Coin
• Pasture → Wool + Cloth

Settlements only produce the base resource. Commodities are used exclusively to advance city improvements, they cannot be traded or used to build roads/settlements.

4 Knights

Build a basic knight (1 ore + 1 wool). Activate it (1 grain). Upgrade it by paying again. There are three levels: basic, strong, and mighty.

Active knights can: displace the robber, chase away another player's knight, and contribute to barbarian defense. An inactive knight cannot defend.

After the barbarian attack resolves, all active knights are automatically deactivated.

5 The Barbarian Threat

The Event Die has three barbarian faces. Each time one comes up, the barbarian ship advances one space. When it reaches Catan, a battle resolves:

• Count total active knight strength across all players.
• Count total number of cities on the board.
• If knights ≥ cities: Catan is defended. The player with the most active knights earns the Defender of Catan card (1 VP).
• If knights < cities: Each player who has the most cities (but no active knights) loses one city, downgraded to a settlement.

The barbarian ship resets to start after each attack.

6 City Improvements

Each player has three city improvement tracks (Trade/Politics/Science), each with 5 levels. Advancing a level costs the matching commodity.

Level 3 on any track earns a Progress Card from that deck. Level 4 earns a Metropolis token (worth 2 VP, replaces a city, can be stolen if another player surpasses you). Level 5 earns another Progress Card.

7 Progress Cards

Progress Cards are drawn from three decks (Trade, Politics, Science) when you advance your city improvement to level 3 or 5. They can be played at any time on your turn. Examples: Inventor (swap two number tokens), Crane (discount on next city improvement), Diplomat (remove a road), Spy (steal a Progress Card).

8 Winning

First to 13 Victory Points wins. VPs come from: settlements (1), cities (2), Metropolises (2), Defender of Catan (1), certain Progress Cards, and Longest Road (still applies).