Australian Settlers of Catan Championships

The officially sanctioned Australian Settlers of Catan Championships are held each year at the Australian Games Expo.

Prize:	1st prize: Return airfare & 5 nights' accommodation for the World Championships, held in August at GenCon in the U.S. 2nd prize: One Catanbox – the solution to all your Catan storage needs 3rd prize: Signed Copies of either Seafarers of Catan or Cities and Knights of Catan Proudly sponsored by
Sponsor:	Thanks to our generous sponsors Walrus & Carpenter (Airfare) and Funatical (Accommodation)
Format:	Four-player matches. Four swiss-style qualifying rounds are held over the weekend, with a semi-final round (top 16 players) on Sunday afternoon. The winner of each semi-final will play in the Final. See Tournament Schedules for session times. There is a three-minute time limit per turn.
Registration:	Entry fee is $25 for each tournament, and MUST be paid on registration to ensure your place in the tournament. You must pre-register if you wish to play in this tournament. Registrations will be accepted up until 5pm, 31st May 2008 Only Australian residents may enter the tournament. Register now to secure your place.
Tournament Director:	Neil Thomson
Results:	Congratulations to Lee Price, winner of the 2007 Australian Settlers of Catan Championships. More 2007 results 2006 results

Settlers Of Catan Tournament Rules

1. General rules:

1.1 Referees:

1.1.1 The tournament is ruled by at least two referees.

1.1.2 If rules are broken at a table players have to call for a referee immediately. The ruling of a referee is final and players have to accept the decision. If a broken rule is not reported to a referee players accept this as a regular play and therefore accept the game to be rated normally.

1.1.3 If players do not agree with the outcome of a game due to broken rules or unfair play, they have to immediately call a referee - once the record sheet of the game is signed protest is not possible anymore. If a player is not willing to give his signature a referee has to decide about the game.

1.1.4 The referees can disqualify players from the tournament if the rules of the game are broken on purpose by a player with the intent of winning the game. The disqualification can only be made during a running game or immediately after finishing a game. A disqualification is not possible anymore once the tournament is over.

1.2 Tournament mode:

1.2.1 For all games the organiser has the choice to introduce a time regulation. This limits the time for a turn to three minutes. No games will be ended by the organiser before one player has reached 10 victory points.

1.2.2 The tournament will feature 4 rounds of play for all players with the basic game. All game will be played with the American version of the game (just the basic game). Therefore the official tournament language is English.

1.2.3 There will be a prefixed schedule, which determines at which table and which starting positions the players play in each round.

1.2.4 The best 16 players reach the sem-ifinals, which are played on Sunday. The following chart determines at which table players will play, it also determines which player chooses their starting position first - players choose according to the ranking after the first day:

Table 1: Place 1, Place 8, Place 9, Place 16
Table 2: Place 2, Place 7, Place 10, Place 15,
Table 3: Place 3, Place 6, Place 11, Place 14,
Table 4: Place4, Place 5, Place 12, Place 13.

1.2.5 The four winners of the semi-finals reach the final of the Catan World Championships 2006. Once again the players choose their starting positions according to their ranking from the first day.

1.3 Points:

1.3.1 On the first day of the tournament only the number of victories will decide the ranking of the players.

1.3.2 In case of ties, the total number of victory points reached by the players will be used as first tie-breaker.

1.3.3 If there are still any ties, the next tie-breaker will be the sum of the percentage of victory points the players reached at their four tables. If there are still any ties after that (which never happened so far) lots will be drawn.

Example (after three rounds):
Players A and B both win 2 games.
Both get 28 victory points - so there is still a tie.
Now the percentages of victory points will be calculated.

For player A:
Game 1: A gets 10 VPs, there were 32 VPs at the table,
so his percentage is: 31,25%.
Game 2: A gets 8 VPs, there were 30 VPs at the table,
so his percentage is: 26,67%.
Game 3: A gets 10 VPs, there were 36 VPs at the table,
so his percentage is: 27,78%.
So the sum is: 85,70.

For player B:
Game 1: B gets 10 VPs, there were 30 VPs at the table,
so his percentage is: 33,33%.
Game 2: B gets 10 VPs, there were 33 VPs at the table,
so his percentage is: 30,3%.
Game 3: B gets 8 VPs, there were 36 VPs at the table,
so his percentage is: 22,22%.
So the sum is: 85,85.
So player B is ranked higher then player A.

1.4 Responsibilities of players - Material:

1.4.1 The board is set up by the players at the table. The random set up as described in the almanac.

1.4.2 All the material has to be kept on the table all the times - so it is clearly visible for all players. This is especially true for development and resource cards, which must be held above the table all the time.

1.4.3 In all games (with the exception of the final) the starting player will be in charge of the giving out and receiving resource and development cards. He has to comment clearly when he is handing out cards to himself or when he is paying resources to the bank.

1.4.4 Newly bought development cards have to be kept well away from the other cards the players has in hand. If he breaks this rule he has forfeited the opportunity to play a development card until his next turn.

2 Additional and supplementary rules:

All of the following rules are additional rules to the Catan Standard rules. If these rules interfere with the standard rules, then the rule given here is the rule, which is used in the Catan World Championships 2006..

2.1 The turn of a player starts with throwing the dice, but a development card may be played before that.

2.2 It is not permitted to build a road beyond a settlement (or city) of another player.

2.3 It is possible to upgrade a settlement to a city in the same turn it was built. To do that the player of course cannot have five settlements on the board before building the settlement he wants to upgrade.

2.4 If a player buys a development card with a victory point on it, he may immediately reveal it if this is his tenth victory point to win the game. This is just possible with development cards that have a victory point printed on it. It is not allowed to immediately play a soldier/knight even if this would mean to get the largest army and win the game - the player still has to wait until his next turn before he can play the soldier/knight.

2.5 There is no distinction between the trade and building phase.

2.6 A harbour may be used in the same turn it was built.

2.7 A player has won as soon as he has 10 or more victory points (although only 10 will be counted for the ranking) and it is his turn. If he does not notice that he has to wait until his next turn before he can win the game.

2.8 If there are not enough resource cards of one kind to give every player the resource cards he should get after rolling the dice, then nobody will receive a card of this kind. The other resource cards are handed out to the players as usual.