Trading is fundamental to CATAN and is an essential tool for all players to better their situation. In this video, we’ll explain the trading process in CATAN – Console Edition.

Watch the video or if you prefer feel free to read on, or do both!

To start with let’s define the difference between how trading is affected when “Combine build and trade phase” is On or Off. When Combine build and trade phase is on, during your turn you can initiate trades at any time and multiple times during your turn, this is the CATAN experience most players are familiar with.

When Combine build and trade phase is off, during your turn, after you have rolled the dice you can initiate trades, you can trade as many times as you like but to progress to the building phase of your turn you need to hold down B or Circle to Finish Trading, you cannot trade again on this turn.

There are two ways to Trade in CATAN – Console Edition, Domestic Trade: Trading with other players, and Maritime Trade: Trading with the ports around the outer edge of the island.

Domestic Trades. During your turn Press Y or Triangle to initiate a trade. You will see your character at the top and your competitors down the left-hand side. All the resources are displayed and you’ll notice along the top there are 0’s above some of the resources, this is showing what resources you have that you can currently trade with. For the purpose of this example, let’s suppose you need wood and you are willing to trade some sheep for that wood.

Highlight the sheep resource and press up on your left joystick or D-pad so a 1 or 2 appears above the sheep in the You Give section, now scroll across to the wood and press down on the left joystick or the d-pad, there will now be a 1 under the wood in the You Receive area. Now hold down A or X to confirm you wish to offer this trade.

Down the left you’ll now see responses from the other players, an X means the player has rejected this offer, a question mark means a player has proposed a counter offer and a green tick means a player is willing to accept this trade. I f a player has accepted your offer, press A or X to accept the trade or you can choose to Accept None by pressing B or Circle.

Maritime trades. As with Domestic Trades, press Y or Triangle to open the trading menu, once open press R1 to move over to Maritime Trade. Maritime trading is not trading with other players, you can think of it like trading with the bank.

As standard to complete a Maritime Trade you will require 4 of any 1 resource to trade for 1 resource of any other type. These odds can be improved by building settlements at ports around the edge of the island, you can see the terms displayed above each port, for example the wood port will provide you with any 1 resource in exchange for 2 wood.

Finally, you have the option to opt out of trading altogether. By pressing L3 on your controller you’ll notice a red line appear through your bag underneath your character. This will prevent trades from being offered to you. This can be a useful tool if you are not in a position to trade anything with your competitors, you can toggle this back on at any time by pressing L3 again.

That concludes this artilce on how to trade in CATAN – Console Edition, for more videos and tips subscribe to our channel or follow us across our social channels @DTGBoardgames.

See you down the road, Catanians