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Before you read this article, you will need to know the following terms and definitions: 

Knights

• Revealed Knight Cards count toward defending Catan from Barbarian Invasions.

After you finish trading and purchasing on your turn, you may move each of your knights.

Knights (of all types) do not have to observe the distance rule.

Knights are essential for achieving victory.  Without them, the barbarians will surely pillage your buildings and ruin your hopes of success.

Round Knights

Like settlements, round knights (Basic, Strong, and Mighty) are placed at the intersection of three hexes.    Knights can be placed to block construction of other players, and they can also be used to break another player’s “Longest Trade Route.” 

Example: See Illustration N.  A knight placed at the intersection of two players’ roads will keep the opposing colored player from building past the knight.  The red player has four available intersections for knight placement (marked with arrows).  If the red player places a knight at intersection “A,” the blue player will not be able to build past that knight.  Only the red player can build a road there.  If the red player places his knight at “B,” it will break blue’s road, shortening his road for purposes of determining the longest road.

There are 3 strengths of knights: Basic Knights, Strong Knights, and Mighty Knights.  A Basic Knight has a strength of 1, a Strong Knight has a strength of 2, and a Mighty Knight has a strength of 3.

Round Knights serve you in two ways.  First, they help protect Catan from the Barbarians.  They can be used to capture Barbarians, repel invasions, and conquer Pirate Lairs.  Second, your active round knights can perform one action during your turn.  Each round knight may perform any 1 of the actions each turn.  A round knight may not be activated and then perform an action on the same turn.  A round knight can, however, perform an action and then be activated again later on the same turn (in preparation for next turn, because he cannot perform another action on the same turn).  When a round knight performs an action, the knight token is turned over to the inactive side.  To activate that round knight again, you must pay 1 Grain resource.

Here are all of the actions that you may perform with an active round knight:

Moving a Round Knight:

You may move an active round knight to another intersection.  In order for the round knight to move, you must have built trade routes linking the intersection the round knight is moving from to the intersection that he is moving to.  A round knight can only move via your own contiguous trade route that connects your round knight’s current intersection with other available intersections.  A round knight may be moved across sea hexes if trade routes (roads, boats, and bridges) connect the intersection the round knight starts from to the intersection he is moved to.  You may move a knight to an intersection of sea hexes (even park him there) if you have a line of boats to that intersection.  The knight is considered to be on the adjacent boat.  A round knight must always be connected to a building of its own color via trade routes of its own color.  If you have a round knight at sea, or across the sea on another island, you may not move boats if they would break this connection (the route is considered “closed”).  You can use the round knight on a sea hex intersection to chase away the Privateer?, just as you would chase away the Robber.

An intersection may only be occupied by one round knight at a time.  However, a moving round knight may pass through any number of intersections that are occupied by pieces of the same color (assuming that they are all connected by trade routes, as above).

After you have moved the round knight, he becomes inactive (flip him to his black-and-white side).  If you wish to construct a building on an intersection occupied by one of your round knights, then you must first move the round knight.  If there is no empty intersection for you to move your round knight to, then he may not move and you may not build at that intersection.

Example: See Illustration O.  The red player may elect to move his active round knight at intersection “A” to either intersection marked with an arrow.  The round knight may not be moved to “B” or “C,” as red does not have roads connecting these intersections to “A.”

Displacing a Round Knight:

On your turn, you may move one of your active knights to an intersection that is occupied by one of your opponent’s round knights.  This is called “displacing” a knight.  You may only displace a round knight if he is weaker than the round knight that you are moving.  Thus, a Strong Knight can only displace a Basic Knight, and a Mighty Knight may displace a Basic or Strong Knight.  A Basic Knight may never displace another round knight.

The owner of the displaced round knight must move his round knight to any empty intersection that is connected by trade routes to the place from which he was displaced.  The status of the displaced round knight (active or inactive) does not change.

If there is no empty intersection for the displaced round knight to move to, he is removed from the board.  You may not displace your own round knights.

After you displace an opponent’s round knight, move your (displacing) knight to the displaced round knight’s former intersection.  Your round knight is then turned over to his Inactive side.

Example: See Illustration P.  The red player is at it again!  He moves his Strong Knight to the intersection indicated by the red arrow.  He may do this because his Strong Knight is stronger than the blue Basic Knight (note the number of rings), and he has a Trade Route that connects the two intersections.  The blue player must now move his displaced round basic knight to “A” or “B,” which are both connected to his original site by trade routes.  He moves to “B.” Note that “C” is not a connected site, so he cannot move to that spot.

Chasing Away the Robber:

You may use one of your active round knights to chase away the Robber.  Any round knight may do so, regardless of his strength.  A round knight may only chase away a Robber if the Robber is on one of the three hexes adjacent to that round knight.

When you chase away the Robber, move him as if you had played a Knight Development Card or resolved a Production Number of “7.”  After you chase away the Robber, your round is turned over to his inactive side.

Example: See Illustration Q.  The red player’s round knight can only chase away the Robber from the grey hexes.  In order for the red player to chase away the Robber, he must first move his round knight to intersection “A” or “B” (which makes him inactive).  Then, he must pay 1 Grain resource to activate his round knight.  On a future turn, he could then use his round knight to chase away the Robber.

Moving Strong Knights on Horseback

Under normal conditions, you may move a Strong Knight on Horseback from path to adjacent path.

• You may move each Strong Knight on Horseback up to 3 paths. If you pay 1 Grain resource for a knight, you may move it up to 5 paths (instead of 3 paths).  If you want to increase the movement of several knights to 5 paths, you must pay 1 Grain resource for each of these knights (or pay 2 fish).
• When you move a knight, take care to mind rules regarding passing, paying tolls, and defeating enemies. Example: none of your knights may end their movement on a path occupied by another knight (yours or another player’s).
• After you finish moving your knights, none of them may be on a path adjacent to the castle hex.
• When disembarking from a Ship, your Strong Knight on Horseback may only move to two possible locations:
  • The empty storage basin of one of your adjacent Sea Ports. This does not use any Movement Points.
  • An unoccupied, adjacent coastal/overland path/route. This uses all 3 of your Strong Knight on Horseback’s Movement Points and ends its Movement Turn.  You may not pay 1 Grain resource to give it an extra 2 movement points. However, your Strong Knight on Horseback may still participate in any battles it is eligible to participate in during Phase ___: Resolve Major Conflict.
• When leaving the basin of a Sea Port, your Strong Knight on Horseback may only move to two possible locations:
  • The empty hold of one of your adjacent ships. This does not use any Movement Points.
  • An adjacent coastal/overland path/route. This uses 1 Movement Point.
• When preparing to be transported by ship, your Strong Knight on Horseback may only move to two possible locations:
  • The empty basin of one of your adjacent Sea Ports. This uses 1 Movement Point.
  • The empty basin of one of your adjacent ships. This uses all 3 of your Strong Knight on Horseback’s Movement Points, and ends its Movement Turn.  You may not pay 1 Grain resource to give it an extra 2 movement points.  However, despite being on board on of your ships, your Strong Knight on Horseback may still participate in any battles it is eligible to participate in during Phase ___: Resolve Major Conflict.

Moving Crews

Under normal conditions, you may move a Crew from path to adjacent path.

• You may move each Crew up to 3 paths. If you pay 1 Grain resource for a Crew, you may move it up to 5 paths (instead of 3 paths).  If you want to increase the movement of several Crews to 5 paths, you must pay 1 Grain resource for each of these Crews (or pay 2 fish).
• When you move a Crew, take care to mind rules regarding passing, paying tolls, and defeating enemies. Example: while one of your Crews may end its movement on a path/route occupied by another of your Crews, none of your Crews may end their movement on a path occupied by another player’s Crew).
• After you finish moving your Crews, none of them may be on a path adjacent to the castle hex.
• When disembarking from a Ship, your Crew(s) may only move to two possible locations:
  • The empty storage basin of one of your adjacent Sea Ports. This does not use any Movement Points.
  • An unoccupied, adjacent coastal/overland path/route. This uses all 3 of your Crew’s Movement Points and ends its Movement Turn.  You may not pay 1 Grain resource to give it an extra 2 movement points. However, your Crews may still participate in any battles they are eligible to participate in during Phase ___: Resolve Major Conflict.
• When leaving the basin of a Sea Port, your Crew may only move to two possible locations:
  • The empty hold of one of your adjacent ships. This does not use any Movement Points.
  • An adjacent coastal/overland path/route. This uses 1 Movement Point.
• When preparing to be transported by ship, your Crew may only move to two possible locations:
  • The empty basin of one of your adjacent Sea Ports. This uses 1 Movement Point.
  • The empty basin of one of your adjacent ships. This uses all 3 of your Strong Knight on Horseback’s Movement Points, and ends its Movement Turn.  You may not pay 1 Grain resource to give it an extra 2 movement points.  However, despite being on board on of your ships, your Crew may still participate in any battles it is eligible to participate in during Phase ___: Resolve Major Conflict.

Mining for Gold

Crews and Strong Knights on Horseback can mine gold from Gold Field Tokens.  Wagons and round knights may not mine Gold Field Tokens, because they do not move from path to path (they move from intersection to intersection). Ships (without a Crew or Strong Knight on Horseback in the hold) may not mine Gold Field Tokens, because they do not have enough people on board.

Crews and Strong Knights on Horseback may travel along paths and trade routes in the normal way until they reach paths or routes adjacent to a Gold Field Token.  There are two different types of Gold Field Tokens (2-Gold Miner and 3-Gold Miner).  In order to be mined, each Gold Field Token must be surrounded on either 2 or 3 sides by Crews or Strong Knights.

• As soon as two adjacent paths/routes are occupied by Crews and/or Strong Knights on Horseback, 2-Gold Miner Gold Field Tokens (depicting 2 people) may be immediately flipped over.
• As soon as three adjacent paths/routes are occupied by Crews and/or Strong Knights on Horseback, 3-Gold Miner Gold Field Tokens (depicting 2 people) may be immediately flipped over.

For each Crew or Strong Knight on Horseback surrounding an intersection of a flipped Gold Field Token, you move forward on the gold mining progress track.  Move as many spaces as the number of gold nuggets depicted on the bottom of the token.  Remove the gold field token from play by returning it to the supply bag of Gold Field Tokens.

It is allowed (and makes sense) for Crews and Strong Knights on Horseback belonging to different players to jointly pan for gold.

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Reward for Panning for Gold

If you move your marker onto, or past, a space that depicts a Victory Point Chit on the gold mining progress tile, take 1 Victory Point Chit and place it in front of yourself.

If you are the first player to move your marker onto, or past, the space that shows Nyala’s image, you receive the Friend card “Nyala the Diplomat” (see the example below). Note that if, after panning for gold, various players can move their markers forward on the progress tile, the player whose turn it is always moves his/her marker first.  The other players follow in clockwise order.  If a space is occupied by various markers, place them on top of each other.

Knights and Pirates

• A knight can travel along a sea route just as easily as they can travel along roads. In this way, they are able to chase off the pirate.

Plundering the Pirate Ship (is this minor conflict?)

• Knights can move along shipping routes like any other road. In this way, they can reach the pirate ship. If a knight uses his action while adjacent to the pirate, he is able to plunder the pirate ship. In doing so, the player recovers 1 gold for each level of his knight. The gold is taken from the available gold on the Barbarian Advancement Board. Players cannot take more gold than there is on the Barbarian Advancement Board.
• After the gold is plundered from the pirate ship, the ship moves off the board and can be placed back on the board as normal at a later point.

Chasing Away and Arresting Barbarians (is this major conflict?)

To come out as winner, it is important to build knights.  On the one hand, knights are required to drive barbarians off from hexes adjacent to your own buildings.  On the other hand, knights can be used to take prisoners that increase one’s Victory Point total.  Since many times it will not be possible to win victories alone, you should cooperate and ally with other players—preferably with those who are not too close to victory.

Checking for Victory

During Phase___ of your turn (after moving your knights during Phase ___), check each hex to see if a victory occurs in that hex.  You may choose which hex to start checking in, but once you select a hex, you must move from hex to hex in a clockwise direction (spiraling inward or outward) until all of the hexes are checked.

For a given hex, victory occurs if there is at least 1 Barbarian occupying the hex and the combined strength of the Knights (round, on Horseback, or Crews) on the hex’s 6 adjacent paths is greater than the combined strength of the Barbarians on the hex.  Note that it is not possible to have a “partial victory,” in which some of the Barbarians on a hex are captured, and others are not.

Example: Red moves 1 of his Strong Knights on Horseback and 1 of his Crews to paths adjacent to a “conquered” hex (with 3 Barbarians occupying it).  Red’s forces have a strength of 3, while the Barbarians have a strength of 3.  Red may not capture 2 Barbarians and leave the third on the hex.

Resolving a Victory

When a victory occurs in a hex, the defeated barbarians on the coastal hex become “prisoners.” These barbarian prisoners are distributed among the “involved” players (i.e., the players who have “involved” knights adjacent to the hex):

• If you are the only involved player, you receive all the prisoners.
• If multiple players are involved, each of the involved players gets a prisoner. If there are not enough prisoners to go around, each involved player rolls the dice.  Each of the involved players who rolls highest (re-roll ties) receives a prisoner.  If you roll and don’t receive a prisoner, you receive 3 gold as compensation.
• If each involved player receives a prisoner and a prisoner is left over, the player who has the most involved knights receives the prisoner. Should there be a tie for involved knights, each involved player rolls the die (re-roll ties).  The high roller gets the prisoner; the loser receives 3 gold.
• Each two barbarian prisoners you hold are worth 1 victory point. If you have 3 Barbarians, exchange them for a Defender of Catan card, which is worth 1 Victory Point. Therefore, it is in your best interest to keep your barbarians in front you, thus diminishing the total supply.

Example: The player “Red’ moves his knight a total of 3 paths, to a path adjacent to the conquered hex (A). 4 knights are thus pitted against 3 barbarians.  The knights are victorious.  The two players involved in the victory (red and blue) each get one barbarian prisoner.  The player “Red” gets the third prisoner because he has more knights involved in the victory.

Reconquered Coastal Hexes: When a victory occurs at a conquered coastal hex, turn the hex’s production number token face up and turn upright any adjacent conquered settlements and cities.  The hex can once again produce resources, and those settlements/cities are once again fully functional (e.g., worth victory points).  On the other hand, barbarian attacks can once again affect the hex.

Example: In addition, now that the barbarians have been removed from the hex, the hex is no longer “conquered”—it has been “liberated”.  Turn the hex’s production number (B) token face up, and turn upright the red building (A) laying on its side.  The hex can once again produce resources, and the red building is fully functional.

Knight losses after a victory: After each victory, one of the involved players rolls a die and places it in the center of the castle hex on the island on which the victory occurred.  The number rolled determines one of the three “orientation” pairs of paths adjacent to the castle hex: “1&4,” “2&5,” or “3&6.”  Check each knight involved in the victory.  If the path that the knight is on has the same orientation as one of the two paths determined by the die roll, remove that knight from the board (return to supply).  For each of your Knights removed, you receive 3 gold as compensation.

Example: After a victory, a die is rolled to determine which knight(s) will be removed.  The “2&5” orientation is rolled.  A red knight and a blue knight are on paths that have the “2&5” orientation. The owners of the knights put them back into their supplies, and each receives 3 gold.

• Knights can be used to chase off adjacent barbarians as well as the robber and pirate. A knight does not have to roll to chase off a barbarian, like the Baggage Train does, only needs to be active.
• Chasing off a barbarian deactivates a knight. An active mighty knight has the option to, instead, arrest an adjacent barbarian, removing the barbarian from the board and deactivating the knight. The owner of the knight receives 3 gold for the bounty on the barbarian. Chasing off a barbarian does not allow the owner of the knight to steal a resource card from a player adjacent to the new location of the barbarian.
• Chasing away or arresting any thief does not allow the controlling player to steal any resources.
• However, the circular knight tokens from Cities & Knights can be used to banish barbarians from the island. During a player’s turn, the player selects a hex with barbarians on it. He deactivates any number of his active knights that are adjacent to that hex. He then removes a number of barbarians from that hex equal to the total power of the deactivated knights, minus 1. Thus, if a player deactivates a level-1 and a level-2 knight on the same hex at the same time, he can remove (2+1)-1= two barbarians from that hex. Clearly, a level-1 knight working alone can do nothing about barbarians. Those barbarians are not taken prisoner by the player; instead they are returned to the supply. C&K knight tokens and T&B horseback knights cannot work together; C&K knights only remove barbarians from the board, and T&B horseback knights only take barbarians prisoner at the end of a player’s turn. Ejecting barbarians from a conquered hex, of course, renders that hex un-conquered again.
• Take the barbarians prisoner and roll to see which knights (if any) are removed from the board (remember to award compensation gold for lost knights!).

Knights and the Baggage Train

• Knights function as barbarians for slowing down a baggage train of an opposing color. Knights do not slow down baggage trains of their own color and only active knights can delay an opposing Baggage
• Train at all. The baggage train can still attempt to drive the knight off in the same way it can drive off barbarians. However, knights are better trained and the baggage train subtracts the knight’s strength from its roll.
• If a baggage train successfully drives off the knight, the baggage train displaces the knight as per normal rules for displacing a knight. Because knights are placed on intersections, rather than boundaries, when a baggage train gets to an intersection adjacent to a knight, the knight moves onto the boundary between them, for purposes of determining their interaction. The knight has not actually moved onto the boundary, it is just a symbolic representation.
• The players controlling the knights can allow other players' baggage trains to pass by their knights without conflict if they so choose, in exchange for goods or as a sign of goodwill.

Wandering Knights

• An active knight may be moved across 2 open hex borders, even if there is no road on them. After moving across the open borders, the knight is deactivated. Knights may also move along friendly roads as normal, and move across 1 additional open hex border as part of the same movement.
• Knights may not move across water or opponent's roads in this way. Knights need a friendly sea route to move across water. Knights may still never move across opposing roads or ships.
• If a knight is displaced while wandering off road, he is immediately removed from the board.

Deconstructing

• Mighty knights can be used to deconstruct buildings and trade routes. By spending 1 gold, an active Mighty Knight may remove an adjacent road or boat, or downgrade by one (1) level a building of the player’s same color in an adjacent intersection connected by the player’s own trade route. The Mighty Knight is then flipped over to his inactive side. For 3 gold, an active Mighty Knight may deconstruct a bridge, after which he is flipped over to his inactive side. Metropolises cannot be deconstructed.

Example: Kelsey, the blue player, has an Industrial City on intersection A. She would rather build it on intersection B. Kelsey has an active Mighty Knight on intersection B, which is connected to intersection A via one of her roads and one of her boats. She pays one (1) gold coin and deactivates her Might Knight. In exchange, she removes her Industrial City and replaces it with a Village.

Hex Control

• A hex conquered by knights (as described above) of a single color and no barbarians is Controlled, instead of conquered. A controlled hex still produces resources, but only for the controlling player.
• Similarly, only the controlling player can build anything new on or adjacent to that hex. Place a Victory Point Chit on the hex to show it is controlled. Thieves may not be placed on or adjacent to a controlled hex. To combat a player's control of a hex, other players will have to use their knights to displace the controlling knights. Note that after a barbarian invasion, all knights are deactivated, which will remove the control of that hex, until those knights are active again.

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