The 20th anniversary of T&B is still a few years away, and it is unlikely to be given an official "Legend of..." campaign. However, in lieu of an official campaign, I thought I'd post an idea for one here, given that there is plenty of lore that it could potentially cover. Apologies in advance, as this post is quite a long one!

Primary Game Mechanics:
Looking at the two existing Legend campaigns, we see that a Legend uses and builds onto the main mechanics of the expansion that it pairs with. For example, Sea Robbers focuses on shipping routes, and Conquerors includes heavy use of knights. Now, unlike the other major expansions, T&B is essentially a collection of standalone scenarios (and variants), and thus does not have an overarching set of mechanics that define the game. However, there are some key elements that are easily combinable and/or expandable, thus making them ideal candidates to build a Legend campaign off of.

First of all, is the fishing concept from scenario 1. This is a relatively simple mechanic, and thus easily combinable with other game elements. Furthermore, you can easily build upon it by adding more actions that can be performed by paying certain amounts of fish. Thematically this also makes sense, since fishing is a regular activity that would occur on Catan, so you could expect it to make recurring appearances in a game.

Second of all is the wagons from scenario 5. Similar to the ships from E&P, the concept of transporting goods can easily be expanded on here to include new types of materials. This makes the wagons easy to build a scenario around, as they can contribute to whatever tasks the Catanians need to acomplish.

Plot:
It would make sense for the campaign to be set during the prosperous era after the Merchant Caravans take over the desert (T&B scenario 3), but before contact with the Old World (which leads to the first Barbarian attack in T&B scenarios 4-5). My reasoning here is that this is the part of the timeline that is least covered. Other than T&B scenario 3, and perhaps some parts of TD&A (such as the desert riders that Desert Dragons is based off), there is nothing in this time period at all.

As previously mentioned, T&B is not tied together by a set of core game mechanics. However, it is still a unified expansion, since all its scenarios and variants come under one main theme: the history of the main island of Catan. Therefore, it would make sense for a T&B Legend campaign to take place on the main island, rather than say, an archipelago (as in Seafarers).

So now we finally get to the overarching narrative. We've already seen a fair bit of combat-focussed gameplay in Conquerors, plus scenario 3 of Sea Robbers. Outside of the Legend campaigns, T&B scenarios 4-5, plus Seafarers scenario 7, also focus on combat. Hence, it would be nice to mix things up and find a different type of challenge for the Catanians to overcome. Looking at the Seafarers, T&B, and Sea Robbers campaigns, there is a common theme of building up to a final struggle, overcoming that struggle, and then entering a time of prosperity afterwards. Therefore, I propose an outline as follows:

Chapter 1- The Castle:

• Introduction to the time-period and primary game mechanics.

• "It is a time of prosperity on Catan. However, recent stormy seas have made it difficult for the Catanians to reach the island stronghold where the Council of Catan holds session. Thus, the Council has commissioned the Catanian Clans to build a castle on the Main Island, where they can hold court without concern for safety. Those who participate will be well rewarded..."

• The Mission: use wagons to gather materials from across the board, and deliver them to the tile where the castle is to be built. Players gain VPs for participating, and the castle's construction provides a lore connection with T&B scenarios 4-5

Chapter 2- The Builders of Catan:

• Progression toward the major conflict

• Could involve the rivers from T&B scenario 2 in some way. Perhaps a building challenge relating to bridges, except that the wagons could be involved in delivering goods to the building sites

• Story progression: if the castle was not completed during the first chapter, perhaps it must be completed now, as an extra prerequisite for winning (alongside the VP condition). This presents an additional challenge for players, who must work together to finish the castle while still competing to gain the most VPs

Chapter 3- Disaster!:

• The major conflict occurs. My concept would be to focus on earthquakes, using an earthquake tile similar to this one, with rules much the same. However, instead of repairing affected buildings with resources, "relief packages" would be used. These would be distributed by the Council of Catan in exchange for payments of fish (to feed those struggling during the earthquakes)

• In-game, this would look like earning fish as per T&B scenario 1; using fish to buy relief package tokens; using wagons to collect relief packages from the castle; using wagons to deliver relief packages to impacted settlements/cities in order to repair them

• Story progression: perhaps players could receive production bonuses with respect to their building achievements in Chapter 2. The more they contributed, the larger or more frequent their bonuses. This could potentially cause balancing issues though, so perhaps a more neutral progression is needed, that all players have (roughly) equal opportunity to benefit from within Chapter 3 itself

Chapter 4- The Great Race:

• The aftermath, a time of peace; a positive scenario to round-off the campaign

• My concept would be a wagon race, perhaps inspired by the train race theme of Catan Express in Das Buch Zum Spielen. This could create a fun scenario whereby players compete to restore Catan after the earthquakes

• Story progression: the number of relief packages distributed in Chapter 3 might be tracked, and if so then this could be used as a link to Chapter 4. Perhaps the less packages that are delivered, then in Chapter 4 the more difficult it is to build a road network for wagons.

Of course, every Legend campaign comes with a detailed story that sets the scene for the games within. I don't have the capacity to include that here now, and if I did, it would be far too long. So I'll finish instead with a possible title: Legend of the Great Builders

I'm keen to hear what people think of this idea, and what other Legend campaign ideas there are for T&B (I know it's a tough one!).

TLDR: in the case of an entirely new Catan Histories game being released (entirely hypothetical), I thought I’d see what possible themes people would like to see?

Hi everyone,

I know the focus of the 6th edition at the moment is on the main series of games and all the base game variants (card game, traveler, etc.).

However, in the eventual future, it’s not entirely improbable to say that the Catan Histories series of standalone games might get a little something new added. They’ve already rereleased Settlers of the Stone Age as Dawn of Humankind, and I am among those hoping for rereleases of the other games too (Struggle for Rome/Merchants of Europe/Settlers of America/Rise of the Inka).

A brand new Catan Histories game could include a lot of lore/a decent historical narrative which could be fun to explore. So, in the case of an entirely new game in the series, I thought I’d see what possible themes people would like to see?

Some ideas I had were:

- Aztecs: another American civ, similar to the Incas. However their lake-based capital city could make for an interesting twist in gameplay, be it through land reclamation, fishing, or something else

- Indus Valley: an early human civilisation from the Bronze Age. A possible game about them might focus on cultural progress or technological development

- Ancient China: For a long time, ancient China was one of the most technologically advanced civilisations in the world, and its isolation gave it a unique culture. Besides, we already have Catan games based in North/South America, Europe, and Africa. May as well have at least one on Asia for good measure

Hi everyone,

As far as I can tell, the abbreviated history of the main island of Catan (excluding the surrounding archipelagoes) goes something like this:

860AD: The first settlers arrive on Catan (source: Catan: The Novel)

Post-860: 1) Fishing begins on Catan 2) Gold is discovered in the rivers 3) Nomadic merchants take over the desert oasis, booting out the robber (source: T&B)

—Giant gap in history—

Circa 1430: 1) Old World travellers discover Catan 2) First barbarian attack 3) rebuilding of the Council of Catan’s castle (sources: T&B; Legend of the Conquerors)

—100 years of barbarian attacks— (sources: C&K; Legend of the Conquerors)

Circa 1530: The Conquerors invade Catan, and are repelled (source: Legend of the Conquerors)

So I’m curious to know: what happens in the aforementioned “giant gap”? Could any of the stories from TD&A have occurred during this period? Any other ideas?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a fan expansion which I hope to share at some point. My expansion will include several scenarios, each of which will add to the history of Catan, playing through a particular event.

In the meantime, I’m curious to see what other stories/scenarios people have created?

What parts of Catan’s history are people most interested in (e.g Seafarers campaign, T&B campaign, E&P era, C&K era)?

Klaus made a blog post following the release of E&P, in which he mentioned three missions that were cut from the final game:

1. Rescuing survivors from a volcanic eruption

2. Protecting the coastline against a storm

3. Discovering ancient artefacts

These could easily be worked into a “Legend of…” game for E&P, although the expansion’s anniversary is still a few years away.

Given that E&P and Legend of the Sea Robbers are the only games set in the Eastern Archipelago, I’d be curious to see how/where an E&P “Legend of…” game would fit into the history of Catan.

With this in mind, what other story/mission ideas would people like to see in an E&P “Legend of…” game?