A ghoulish variant of Settlers of Catan for 3 - 4 players.

Game Components

You will need all the standard components from the base Settlers of Catan game. In addition, you will also need about 50+ generic tokens or counters to represent zombies.

Setup

Set up a normal game of Settlers of Catan for 3 to 4 players. You will not need the Robber piece.

Object of the Game

The game ends when either a player scores 10 Victory Points, every hex has at least one Zombie (excluding the desert and sea hexes), or there is only one player left in the game.

If every Hex has a zombie in it, then the island of Catan has been overrun with zombies and the player with the most victory points wins.

In case of a tie, the player with the most resource cards wins. If still tied, all tied players win.

Gameplay

This variant plays with all the main rules of Catan in place except the robber. Players will take turns rolling the dice for resources, trading, and building just like in normal Catan but every turn a non-7 is rolled, a zombie comes into play on the hex of the number rolled. When a 7 is rolled, Zombies will then attack all players depleting them of resources or possibly destroying buildings.

Zombie Placement

Starting with the first turn, every time a player rolls the dice, that player places a zombie token in the hex of the rolled dice number. If there are multiple hexes with that number, the player chooses which hex to place the zombie token.

Like Catan's base rules, players ignore all 7s for the first 2 rounds of play.

Zombie Infestation

You can have a maximum of 3 zombie tokens in a hex. If you were forced to place a zombie in a hex that already contain 3 zombies, the hex is infested and Zombies spread to the adjacent hexes. As long as there are less than 3 zombies in an adjacent hex, you may add one zombie to that hex. Ignore adjacent hexes that already have 3 zombies in them.

If you have a choice to place a zombie in a hex that will either add a zombie to that hex or allow it to infest adjacent hexes, you must use that choice. Only if no available hex will actually yield no new zombies can you decline to put anything in the hex.

Zombie Attack

If, starting in the 3rd round of play, a player rolls a 7, all zombies on the board attack nearby settlements and cities. Starting with the current player, check each settlement or city for zombie damage by checking each hex the settlement can influence.

If 2 or more zombies are in a hex with a settlement, the player discards one resource. If 3 zombies are in a hex with a City, the player discards one resource. The player continues doing this for every hex and every settlement/city.

If a player does not have enough resources to discard, that player must destroy buildings (see Building destruction) to meet the resource discard amount.

Building Destruction

If a player does not have enough resource cards to pay for the Zombie attack, he must destroy buildings to meet the attack amount. Each building (road, settlement, city) has a resource value of the number of resource cards it took to build (road = 2, settlement = 4, and city = 5). The player can elect to destroy buildings instead of using resource card but no "change" is given from a destroyed building.

For example, Player 1 is attacked for 4 zombie damage but only has 3 resource cards. The player could destroy his City (downgrading it to a Settlement) and satisfy the zombie damage but the extra resource value the city has (5 vs 4) is lost.

Alternatively, the player could discard 2 resource cards and destroy a road to satisfy the damage (2 cards + road (2 resources) = 4). When destroying a building, the destruction must still leave a legal game placement. This means you cannot destroy road pieces in the middle of a section and leave random road sections on the board.

Settlements and Cities do not have to connect on a road but you must still use normal building rules. If you destroy a road, and that destruction would make you either ineligible or no longer the player with the longest road, the longest road VP bonus will pass to the next eligible player going in turn order starting with the player who currently possessed the VP bonus.

Development Cards

Development cards only cost two of the three normal resources to buy. The player chooses which two resources to use when buying a Development card.

Killing Zombies

Soldier cards can kill all the zombies in one hex. Like normal Catan, Soldier cards stay in play and a player can get the "largest army" VP bonus. Follow normal Catan rules for using a Soldier card.

Player Elimination

If at any point in the game, a player does not have at least one settlement or city on the board, he is removed from the game.

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