CAR for the Catan Series

[Whaleyland]

The Settlers of Catan Completely Annotated Rules & Almanac release candidate 3: Download PDF. (Updated to version 0.8c on 4 Feb.)

New update up with Lardarse's comments mostly included. Two new footnotes and an additional clause in the Number Chits section. Please review and provide comments. I am starting work on Cities & Knights tomorrow. Seafarers, T&B, and both 5-6 player extensions need to be scanned (hopefully my scanner still works) before I can work on those.

Lardarse, I think that your blue die comes from Starship Catan. I was looking around online and found the blue die, then remembered that in my copy, it indeed has a blue die. Perhaps Starfarers of Catan also has this die. I'm not sure since I still haven't forked over the cash for that and its extension (which is apparently mandatory if you want to have game that is less than 3 hours long). I didn't include anything about a current player marker, but I added a footnote about the alternate Special Building Phase option of just changing the card limit. I also added a clause about the letters on the number chits and a footnote about playing the Knight Card (or other cards) before the dice roll, using a paraphrased FAQ from www.universityofcatan.com.

Thanks again and please, continue editing this! I want it to be perfect. I will have C&K up as soon as I can. If anyone has any suggestions for additions, I still have four pages available for such. Cheers!

[Scott]

I'm somewhat curious to know what the buildings are on the victory point cards. I don't have the game, so this might not be of interest to someone who does...

I think you need better headers and footers; make it look more professional. When I did the CAR for H&G, I stuck pretty close to Matt's format, mainly to be consistent. I'd also be inclined to use different fonts than Times New Roman and Arial. I used Baskerville for my paragraphs and Barbedor for the headings, which is the same as the original H&G rules from Hans im Gluck. I think Matt used Baskerville as well, and Casque Open Face for the expansion name headings. I have no idea what the Settlers rules look like or what fonts they use, but I highly recommend Palatino Linotype and/or Calisto MT. They are both similar, but one works better for headings and the other works better for paragraphs. The Lucida family of fonts also has some nice options. That font drop-down in your word processor is asking to be clicked!

[Whaleyland]

The Settlers of Catan Completely Annotated Rules & Almanac release candidate 4: Download PDF. (Updated to version 0.9b on 5 Feb.)

Yet another release candidate for The Settlers of Catan CARA. I have added the names of the five Victory Point Development Cards as well as a footnote about previous card names. I also changed the font throughout, except for the introductions, to Baskerville Old Face, a variant of Baskerville, and increased the general font size to 13 from 12. Unfortunately, I am working on a Mac and don't have access to Casque Open Face or Palatino Linotype. Calisto MT didn't look right and nothing in the Lucida family was to my liking. Perhaps unfortunately, the original rules to Settlers 4th edition are written almost exclusively in Times New Roman and Arial. This only highlights Mayfairs lack of creative talent in creating their rules (a problem present since at least the 3rd edition rules).

During this process, I had to resize a number of images and fixed a number of minor errors. The page count is now up to 21. Since this CARA is just for Settlers, and not the series, I am not sure if I want to include a Table of Contents and/or Introduction yet. Any thoughts? Also, are there any other additions I should include for a Settlers-only CARA? I plan to expand to the other expansions and create an uber-rules guide a la Carcassonne CAR, but I want to release them as stand-alones first so I can tweak and receive feedback on them properly separately. Matt did this for all the Carcassonne expansions, although I can't seem to find them on CC anymore (they are still on BGG). Scott, give it a look through and tell me what you think. I prefer this to the previous version, so thank you for the suggestion. I bumped the release number to 0.9 now because of it.

Edit: Three alignment issues and a run away image. Corrected.

[Scott]

It looks very polished now!

I appreciate your explanation about developing each expansion separately and then integrating them later. It creates more distinct milestones that you can see your progress by. I am feeling inclined that you can hold off on a Table of Contents and Introduction until you get to the integration stage. By then you will also have a better idea of what needs to be said in the Introduction.

Even at this stage, however, I think a cover page would be nice. The full page "Game Overview" is a nice back cover, but the beginning feels like somebody tore the front cover off the book. I wonder if something can be done with the box cover (http://www.mayfairgames.com/mfg-shop/3000-3299/pics/MFG3061-cl.jpg) to make it more vertical than horizontal... I'll see if I can come up with anything.

[Scott]

Here's my attempt:


It's designed to be 6.5" x 9", so it will fit on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with a 1" margin on all sides.

I'll hang on to the layered image in case I need to do the expansions in the same style at some point.

[Whaleyland]

That does look quite stylish. Its colours fit nicely with my rules too. I had actually created a cover for the finished rules, which are pictured below, but hadn't even tried to create one for each individual expansion. At least not yet. I think I will use yours. I may tweak it in Photoshop a little, if that is alright, but I like it quite a bit, especially the bit where the The Settlers of Catan and the other text have been removed from the picture. The images for the other three expansions aren't all so clean, but I see a lot of potential here. Thanks.

Tell me what you think of my image for the final cover. I was thinking of placing a similar text box on yours, if I reorganize it that is. That way the text boxes and Catan logos will just seem consistent. If you don't like that idea, we can work on a new one. Cheers.

My image is linked here.

[Joff]

I do like your cover Derek. I have not been able to connect to ImageShack as yet to view Scott's cover.

[Novelty]

I would have to agree with Joff here   That's a nice cover.  A lot more busy than Scott's but nicer IMO.  Sorry Scott.

[Whaleyland]

As I mentioned, I liked Scott's idea for a cover, but didn't think it quite fit the style of my Settlers CARA. Hence, I have created a hybrid for your consideration. Find it here. I still plan on using the expansion-montage cover for the finished product, but for each individual cover, I think something like this may be nicer. Tell me what you think. I begin C&K tomorrow (distractions, troubles, etc. made it harder to start it yesterday). Cheers.

[Scott]

I like the changes you made to my cover very much. I'll clean up the box covers for the expansions and post them as I go so that you can make cover pages for the next three PDFs (C&K, Seafarers, T&B).

I agree that the final cover should be a compilation, but I personally don't like the boxes that are cut in half. I don't have a suggested solution yet, but I will keep thinking.

[Joff]

I don't mind that the boxes are 'cut in half'. The four boxes pictured are just the 5-6 player expansion boxes, so I don't think that's a major issue.

[Whaleyland]

Thank you Scott. I really appreciate that. I added your cover but haven't yet posted the update. I am contemplating adding blue borders to each page, anyone like/dislike this idea? It would require yet another reformat, mostly to shrink each page's margins a little (they are at .75" right now). Personally, I like the idea, but it also may just become an ink-waster.

[Scott]

I'm thinking maybe just horizontal blue lines, one below the header and one above the footer.

Here's the cleaned-up box image for C&K:

[Whaleyland]

Here's my cover for Cities & Knights, fresh off the press. I also have a second use for those covers that you are editing and chugging out...photos for my montage. With your images, I can create a slightly less messy cover for the Complete Catan Rules book (not going to be done with that for a while). On that note, Scott, is there any way you can remove the "Klaus Teuber" name from the Settlers cover like you did with Cities & Knights. It's not that I want to get rid of the name, but I rather prefer the image without it. Thanks again. I am looking forward to the other two covers. Cheers.

[Scott]

I wanted to get rid of it too. Part of me was shamefully avoiding it because the tree branches looked like a potential pain in the backside, but turned out to be not near as bad as the brickwork on C&K.