Overview
- Estimated Achievement Difficulty: 3/10
- Offline: 9 [150]
- Online: 2 [50]
- Estimated Time to 200 : 6-10 Hours [100+ without achievement trading]
- Minimum Number of Playthroughs Needed: 10 [likely 20+]
- Missable Achievements: None
- Do cheat codes disable Achievements: No Cheats
- Does difficulty affect achievements?: Yes
- Glitched Achievements: All Potentially Glitched
- Unobtainable Achievements: None
- Extra equipment needed: No

Introduction
If you have played the board game Settlers of Catan or any of the other permutations of it, you will be able to pick up this game very easily. If you have not played any version of this game, it is a simple strategy board game where the object is to build cities and gain other perks in a race to get ten Victory Points. Simple and enjoyable to play against the computer or against a friend online.

Step One: Medium Difficulty Playthrough
The first achievement to try for would be the "Scholar of Catan" achievement. Boot up a game with 3 medium AI players and play to win. This may take a few tries, but you will learn a few techniques in doing so that will help you in the later stages. You will definitely get "Settler of Catan", and depending on how many attempts this takes, you may get the "Merchant of Catan" and "Villager of Catan" as well. The achievement guide below offers some tips on beating the AI if you need them.

Step Two: Hard Playthough
After getting the "Scholar of Catan", move on to the "Professor of Catan" achievement, winning a game against 3 hard AI opponents. Use the tricks that you learned to beat the medium opponents and you shouldn’t have too many problems, but again this may take a few attempts. Again, depending on how many attempts you need, you may get more achievements, maybe even going up to the "Citizen of Catan" achievement. Refer to the achievement guide below for tips on beating the AI.

Step Three: Online Ranked Play
The "Chancellor of Catan" Achievement requires you to get 1000 Victory Points in Ranked Matches. Doing this the way that the developer intended, that would take you between 100 and 250 games. A game takes between 30 minutes and an hour, so you are looking at a MINIMUM of 50 hours to get these achievements. There is a way to cut this time frame down to five hours or so, though.

You can boost this achievement by getting a group of four players together for a ranked match. Make sure that all of the players are on the others’ preferred list and just keep attempting to find a game until the four of you are in the same game. Once you are able to build a settlement or a city in the game, spend the full minute of your turn repeatedly building a city or settlement and then undoing your move. The achievement counter measures the amount of points gained, not the amount of points that you finish the game with, so it is possible to get 1000 Victory Points from a single game. There are a lot of rumours about this, but I have done it, so I know that you can stop, exit to the dashboard, pick it up a month later and pick up where you left off if you cannot get the full 1000 in one game. You can do this if a player leaves the ranked match and is replaced by an AI (and if you don’t have the full 4, you will almost definitely have the non-boosters leave, and leave a bad review on your rep). You can even quit the game early and still keep your progress. In getting the Chancellor achievement, you will unlock the "Elder of Catan" and "Statesman of Catan" and "Ambassador of Catan" achievements as well. It is also simple to arrange to have everyone get the achievement during this process as well, since you don’t actually need to play the game, just invite someone into the game (Player Match only).

Step Four: Achievement Mop Up
If you have done this the legitimate way, you will probably not have any achievements left when you unlock the "Chancellor of Catan" achievement. If you boosted, though, you will likely still have the "Builder of Catan" and "Knight of Catan" achievements for finishing the game with the Longest Road and Largest Army cards ten times respectively. To finish these off, just start a game against two easy AI players and you should be able to get both of these cards at the end of the game, if you focus on road building and buying development cards. Rinse and repeat as needed until both achievements unlock. You should then have the full 200 . If you have any trouble with these last achievements, refer to the tips in the achievement guide below.

Glitched Achievements:
The game had a fatal glitch in it that will activate if you unlock two achievements simultaneously. For example, if your win against the medium AI players gives you 25 Victory Points, you will unlock one, and the other will be locked forever. As a result, you will see some people who have unlocked the 100 VP achievement, but not the 25. There is a way to fix this, though it is not available to everyone. You will need to recover your gamertag to an XBox that you have not played Catan on before and fulfill the requirements again on that machine. It is probably too late to hope for a patch, but at least there is a way to fix the problem.

Conclusion:
Catan takes as long as you like to get the full 200 . It is fun to play against friends online, amusing against the computer, though not as challenging, and a game that you can play many times after getting the 200 . If you want to rush through the achievements, you can do so, and if you want to take your time, you can do that as well.

[XBA would like to thank Capn Doug for this Roadmap]

 

Catan Achievement Guide

Printable Guide
Show completed achievements
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There are 12 achievements with a total of 200 points

  • Build a settlement in any game of Catan.

      

    Simply build a settlement during a game of Catan, a settlement costs one lumber, wool, grain and brick resource card and must be at least two spaces away from any other settlement or city and be connected to another settlement or city by a road.

  • Win a Single-Player game against three AI opponents set to Moderate.

    This achievement is only as hard as you make it, it may take a few attempts but follow some basic rules and you will fly through it. Moderate AI will stop trading with you once you take a large lead, so set yourself up for some easy victory points early on and you won't notice the lack of trading.

    Development cards will be your greatest ally, so you may choose starting settlements that will give you lots of wool, grain and ore. You can use Soldier cards to steal resources from other players, or Road Building to grab the two VP for the longest road.

    Be sure to keep an eye on how many settlements you have as there is a limit to how many you can keep at any one time, upgrade good positions into cities (also gaining VP) so you don't trade all of your resources to build a settlement only to find you can't build any more.

  • Collect 25 Victory Points as you play Catan; points are tracked across games.

    (3)  

    25 Victory Points (VP) is the aim here, this will unlock after winning three matches or gaining 25 points over a few lost matches. Playing against easy AI will unlock this fairly quickly, and if you are desperate then play three player matches to make matches shorter.

  • Invite someone into a game of Catan.

    Invite another player into an online game of Catan. From the game menu select "Multiplayer", then "Player Match" and finally "Create New Game". Set up a match however you like then invite someone into the lobby, they only need to enter the lobby for it to unlock and you can also get this achievement in someone else's lobby as long as it is a player match.

  • End any game of Catan in posession of the Longest Road card 10 times.

      

    You must win the 'Longest Road' award 10 times in matches. This will most likely unlock whilst you collect VP for other achievements but it does not take much effort to unlock. The longest road award is given to the player with the longest single road on the map that is over 5 sections long. There are two ways to get this, either gather lots of wood and brick cards or hope you are lucky with development cards and get road building twice. The first method is probably easier and you will probably be doing this anyway to win matches.

    When you start a match, position your first settlements in spots that will gain you wood and brick cards then wait until you have enough resources for a road and add it on to one of your settlements. Be sure that you have one long road and not a branching road or it will not count. Win ten matches with the award and you are done.

    You can check how long your road is by pulling the right trigger, the number next to the road icon is the number of road sections you have in your longest chain.

  • End any game of Catan in posession of the Largest Army card 10 times.

      

    You must win the 'Largest Army' award 10 times in matches. Like the longest road award you will need to win an award in the game to unlock this, although for this you must use three soldier development cards during one match to get the award. When you set up a match make sure that the AI you choose do not have a soldier icon next to their name (it is a red/brown man) which indicates they will use soldier cards more often, avoiding these players mean you have a greater chance of winning the award.

    Collect wool, grain and ore resource cards and keep buying development cards until you have three soldiers. There are 14 soldier cards out of the 25 development cards available so you will find they are easier to obtain than the other cards. Then all you need to do is play three cards during three of your turns and you win the award, make sure to keep playing soldier cards if any of the AI play one.

    You can check how many a player has used by looking at the number of chevrons next to their picture, one chevron is one soldier card played.

  • Acquire 100 resource cards in trade in any game of Catan.

      

    You must obtain 100 resource cards through trade, if you play against easy AI characters then you will be able to trade one resource card for two. Keep repeating this whilst playing and you will unlock the achievement after a few games. You can also get this achievement using regular trades, although it will take longer than getting two-for-one against easy AI.

  • Win a Single-Player game against three AI opponents set to Hard.

    A very difficult achievement indeed, you will need to be either very lucky or very strategic. You must beat three hard AI players in a match, you may end up playing a lot of matches and losing before unlocking this achievement. Here are a few things to remember if you hope to win.

    Collect development cards. There are five VP cards in the deck, getting those helps a lot. Road building cards will be important for getting the longest road award and the two VP it holds. Soldier cards are an easy way to gain resources and will hamper the other players' advancement, you can also get two VP for the largest army award.

    Positioning settlements. Be sure to pick good spots for your first settlements, allow yourself room to move about the map and settle on other tiles. Make good use of the ports around the edge of the map, using the to reduce port trading costs will help out if you are short on resources.

    Trading. Hard AI will rarely trade with you, so never assume you can progress after some friendly trading. However, you will come across the rare opportunity to trade so make sure to seize the moment. Port trading will be a much better option so try to settle on or near ports that favour the resources you gain a lot of.

    Don't be afraid to quit a match if things look hopeless, there is no point in wasting time when you are destined to lose, so long as you don't take this mentality into online matches =P

  • Collect 100 Victory Points as you play Catan; points are tracked across games.

    (1)  

    100 VP is equal to winning 10 full matches, or losing a couple of matches with a high score. This will not take very long playing against easy AI and may unlock whilst you attempt other achievements.

  • Collect 250 Victory Points as you play Catan; points are tracked across games.

      

    250 VP is the target for this achievement, that is 25 full match wins or a lot of losses. Again, playing easy AI makes this a lot easier.

  • Collect 500 Victory Points in ranked play.

    See "Chancellor of Catan".

  • Collect 1000 Victory Points in ranked play.

    You will need to collect 1000 VP for this achievement, but they must be obtained in online RANKED matches. Follow the basic game hints as stated for the other achievements and you will be able to get this fairly easily, although it will take time. Human players are craftier than computer AI, so you will be playing an entirely different game altogether. Win 100 ranked matches and you will unlock both achievements.

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