Almanac

You may build on your turn after you have rolled for resource production and finished trading. To build, you must turn in the specified combinations of resource cards (see the Building Costs Cards*). Return the resource cards to the supply stacks.

You can build as many items and buy as many cards as you desire—as long as you have enough resources to "pay" for them and they are still available in the supply. (See Settlements*, Cities*, Roads*, and Development Cards*.)

Each player has a supply of 15 roads, 5 settlements, and 4 cities. If you build a city, return the settlement to your supply. Roads and cities, however, remain on the board until the end of the game once they are built.

Your turn is over after "building," and the player to your left continues the game.

New rule variant: see Combined Trade/Build Phase*.

The building costs cards show what can be built and which resources are required. When you pay building costs, you must return the necessary resources to their supply stacks. You can build settlements* and roads*, upgrade settlements to cities*, and buy development cards*.

You cannot build a city directly. You can only upgrade an existing settlement to a city. You pay the required resources, return the settlement to your supply, and replace the settlement with a city on the same intersection*. Each city is worth 2 victory points. You receive double resource production (2 resource cards) from the adjacent terrain hexes whenever those numbers are rolled.

When you build a city, the upgraded settlement piece becomes available again. You can use it to build another settlement later.

Example: See Illustration E. Claudia, the blue player, rolls a resource production roll of "8". She receives 1 lumber for her settlement and 2 ore for her city. Benny, the red player, receives 2 lumber for his city.

Hint: It is extremely difficult to win the game without upgrading settlements to cities. Since you only have 5 settlements available, you can only reach 5 victory points by only building settlements.

When a terrain hex borders on the sea (i.e., a frame piece), it is called a "coast." You can build a road along a coast. You can build settlements and upgrade settlements to cities on intersections that border on the sea. However, since a site on the coast borders only 1 or 2 terrain hexes, coastal settlements generate smaller resource yields. Still, coastal sites often lie on harbors, which allow you to use maritime trade* to trade resources at more favorable rates.

The separation of the trade and build phases was introduced to make the sequence easier to learn for beginners. We recommend experienced players ignore this separation.

After rolling for resource production, you can trade and build in any order (you can trade, build, trade again and build again, etc.). You can even use a harbor on the same turn you build a settlement there. Using this method speeds up the game a lot.