Example: See Illustration M. Olivia, the blue player, wants to build a new settlement. She may only build at one of the intersections marked "B". She cannot build on "A" because of the Distance Rule, nor on "C" because no blue road leads to this intersection.

Note: If you have built all 5 of your settlements, you must upgrade 1 of your settlements to a city before you can build another settlement. You will then have the settlement in your supply, so you can build another settlement.

Begin the "set-up phase" after you build the game map (see Illustration N and Set-up, Variable*).

Everyone chooses a color and takes the corresponding game pieces:

• 5 settlements;
• 4 cities;
• 15 roads; and
• 1 building costs card.

Sort the resource cards into 5 stacks and place them face up beside the board.

Shuffle the development cards* and place them face down beside the resource cards.

Place the 2 special cards and the dice beside the board.

Place the robber in the desert.

The set-up phase has 2 rounds. Each player builds 1 road and 1 settlement per round.

Round One

Each player rolls both dice. The player who rolls highest is the starting player and begins.

The starting player places a settlement on an unoccupied intersection* of their choice, then places a road adjacent to this settlement.

The other players then follow clockwise. Everyone places 1 settlement and 1 adjoining road.

Important: When placing all other settlements, the Distance Rule* (see page 7) always applies!

Round Two

Once all players have built their first settlement, the player who went last in the first round begins round two. That player builds their second settlement and its adjacent road.

Important: After the starting player builds, the other players follow counterclockwise, so the starting player in round one places their second settlement last.

The second settlement can be placed on any unoccupied intersection, as long as the Distance Rule is observed. It doesn't have to connect to the first settlement. The second road must attach to the second settlement (pointing in any of the 3 directions).

Each player receives their starting resources immediately after building their second settlement. For each terrain hex adjacent to the second settlement, take a corresponding resource card from the supply.

Note: The starting player (the last to place their second settlement) begins the game. That player rolls both dice for resource production. You can find helpful tips about the set-up phase under "Tactics."

Assemble the frame as outlined on pages 2-3.

Note: If you want to keep relative harbor locations slightly, just shuffle the order of the frame pieces and do not place the random harbor pieces as outlined below in point 2.

Turn the terrain hexes face down. Shuffle the terrain hexes.

1. Randomly place the terrain tiles face up inside the frame arranged as shown in Illustration O.