Write-up · Trading and building · United Soft Media

Catan Universe: faithful to the rules, hard on a small screen

The official adaptation gets the trading right and the board layout wrong. Whether that matters depends entirely on the size of your phone.

Hexagonal board in Catan Universe — The standard board at the start of a game. Image from the game's official Google Play listing.

What it gets right

Trading. In the physical game, negotiation is the whole experience, and an adaptation that makes offers slow or unclear kills it. Here, proposing a trade takes two taps, counter-offers are visible to everyone, and the timer keeps things moving without forcing anyone into a bad deal. Playing against three other people works exactly as it should.

Rules handling is faithful throughout: the robber, the longest road, development cards and the trade ratios all behave as printed. Scoring is automatic, which removes the one genuinely tedious part of the tabletop game.

What it gets wrong

The board. Nineteen hexes, numbers, roads, settlements and resource icons have to coexist on one screen, and on anything below six inches this becomes a matter of pinching and squinting. Misplaced roads are a real and repeated problem. A tablet transforms the experience.

Playing against the computer

Functional and not much more. The computer opponents trade rarely and predictably, which removes the central mechanic. Treat single-player as a way to learn the interface rather than as a mode in its own right.

Trading interface in Catan Universe — Trade offers are clear, which is the most important thing the interface has to do. Image from the official listing.

Structure and purchases

The base game is free and complete. Expansions and additional scenarios are sold separately, and there is an account system that carries progress between devices. The store listing sets out exactly which parts are paid; nothing appears in the game itself beyond the store page.

Note that a free account has some limits on the number of games in certain modes, which is worth reading about on the listing before assuming everything is unrestricted.

Session length

Forty-five to seventy minutes for a four-player game, which is close to the tabletop equivalent. Turns can be taken quickly, but negotiation is what takes the time and shortening it would defeat the point.

Connection

Required. Games can be resumed after a disconnection, though a lost connection mid-negotiation is disruptive for everyone at the table.

Who it suits

Anyone who already knows Catan and has three other people to play with, ideally on a larger screen. As a first board game on a phone it is a poor choice — Ticket to Ride is the far gentler introduction.

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