Settlers for Newton 2.X allows one to four players to play the game. The Newton will create a board, and roll the dice on request, and keep track of resource and development cards and buildings and roads...well, you get the idea.
The version currently available does not provide computer opponents; but it still makes an okay solitaire game.
This document is not a substitute for the official Settlers rules, available in the boxed game. It only explains the Newton implementation of the game.
Here is what the New Game dialog will look like:
Note that in the board game, you can roll dice to see who goes first. In this implementation, rolling dice will get you into trouble (especially if a 7 is rolled and the Robber has to move). It's best to just choose who goes first for now. And it's easiest if the players are entered in order, so that the turn moves clockwise.
The Newton will create a new random board, put the Robber in the desert, and put one player in each corner. The new board will look like:
The patterns represent the resources each hex will generate: the little tree patterns (there are four, with numbers 9, 5, 3, and 10, in the image above) represent Forest hexes that will produce Wood; the brick patterns (there are three, with numbers 12, 8, and 4) represent Hill hexes that will (of course) produce Brick; the little sheep (four of them, with numbers 6, 4, 3, and 2) represent Pasture hexes that will produce Sheep; the wheat stalks (four of them, with numbers 9, 6, 8, and 5) represent Field hexes that will produce Grain; and the mountains (three of them, with numbers 10, 11, and 11) represent Mountain hexes that will produce Ore.
The "sandy" hex (in the southwest corner) represents the Desert, which produces nothing; the little striped figure on the Desert represents the Robber, who can move around during the game.
The "wave" hexes around the board represent ocean hexes. Half of these are marked with ports; ports either have a resource icon in them, representing a 2:1 port for that resource alone, or a "3:1" symbol, indicating that the port is a generic port.
Once the first player has played a road and a settlement, click on the next player's name to allow him or her to do the same, and continue until everyone is done with their first placements.
Then, in reverse order (the last player goes first, and the first last), place your second settlement and your second road. When you place your second settlement, you will automatically receive the correct initial resource cards.
Note that no error checking is done. In particular, you can do any of the following:
The Player area is made up of two lines. The first line contains the player's public victory count (i.e. one point for each settlement, two for each city, plus two for the largest army and/or the longest road, if appropriate; it does not count any hidden victory point development cards), a reminder box for the player's pattern, and the player's name.
Only the player's name is clickable; click on it to make this player the current player (i.e. when switching turns).
The second line contains a white "card" containing the count of resource cards the player holds, a black "card" containing the count of development cards the player holds, and the player's army and highway developments.
In the reference illustration, note that "Bob" is playing white pieces and has 6 public victory points; in the illustration, you can see he has two visible settlements (indicated by squares in his color) and one visible city (indicated by the house-shaped icon in his color). (Jean's Resources window hides Bob's other two settlements.) Bob also holds 8 resource cards, 0 development cards, no played Knight cards (i.e. no army), and his longest road is 4 segments long. It's also his turn, as indicated by the bold name.
"Jean", on the other hand, playing grey pieces, has 10 victory points (and has won the game), from the four settlements and three cities she's built (all are visible). She is holding 9 resource cards and no development cards; she has not played any Knight cards either and thus has no army, and her longest road is 6 segments long.
"Craig" is playing black pieces and has 5 public victory points, visible in the one settlement and two cities he owns (one of which is barely visible behind Jean's Resources window). He holds 7 resource cards and 4 development cards (two of which are hidden victory point cards, giving Craig an actual total of 7 victory points). He also has played no Knights and has no army, and his longest road is 3 segments long.
"Hannah", playing the checkerboard pattern, has 8 public victory points, from the four settlements she's built and the Longest Road and Largest Army bonuses (denoted by flags at the left of the Army and Highway areas, respectively). She holds 8 resource cards, and 1 development card. She has played three Knight cards during the game, which make up her Army (and give her the Largest Army bonus), and her longest road is 8 segments (giving her the Longest Road bonus).
In all cases, the player names can be clicked to make it that player's turn. The white resource cards indicator can be clicked to open the Resources window for that player, and the black development cards indicator can be clicked to open the Developments window for that player. Nothing else can be clicked; they are informatory only.
Looking at the resource icons, we see two dots at the top of the Wood icon; this indicates that Jean owns a wood port, and can trade 2 wood for any other resource on her turn. There are three dots at the top of every one of her other resource icons; this means she owns a 3:1 port (she actually owns two of them, but one is all she needs) and can trade three Brick, three Sheep, three Grain, or three Ore for any desired resource. (A player that owns no ports will have four dots, indicating that four of the indicated resource are needed to trade for any desired resource.)
To actually trade, click on the resource icon; if you have enough of the indicated resource, you'll get a popup asking you which resource you'd like to trade for. Choose the desired resource, and the trade will be made automatically. In the reference illustration, if it were Jean's turn, she could trade twice with her Wood port (she has 4 wood, and needs two to trade), once with Grain (she has the necessary 3 grain to trade), but she couldn't trade her Ore (she only has two, and needs three).
(Of course, Jean may also trade with other players. But as Jean always wins the game anyway, most people won't trade with her. ;-)
If it were Craig's turn, he could play either of the two playable cards (the Knight or the Monopoly) by clicking on them. If he had the appropriate resources, a button would be visible that allowed him to buy new development cards too.
Next, you may play a Knight or other Development Card (if you wish, and if you have one). You may also play these later in your turn. Do this, if desired, by clicking the black card to open the Developments window, and choosing the card to play. If you choose a Knight, you'll then be able to move the Robber.
Then click the "Roll" button on the status bar at the bottom of the screen to roll dice. The dice will appear at the bottom of the board (sorry, they don't appear in any of the screen shots). All produced resources will be automatically awarded. (Note that you can cheat and build before you roll. Don't do this. You wouldn't do it in a real game, so don't do it here.)
Then you can build, trade, play a development card (if you haven't played one yet), or whatever. To build, make sure you have the appropriate resources needed, and then click on a hex vertex (to build a settlement), on an existing settlement (to build a city upgrade), or on a hex edge (to build a road). (To build a Development card, open the Development window and choose "Buy Card".)
A popup will verify your choice, and the board will be updated, and the resources will be automatically deducted from your hand.
Unlike initial setup, where no error checking is done, during normal building you cannot build a new road segment unless it connects to an existing road segment; and you cannot build a settlement unless it has no neighbors and unless it's on one of your roads.
To trade, manage the trade with the player of your choice, and modify the Resources by hand. (There is not yet an interface for trading discreetly; I suggest playing open-resource games simply for efficiency.)
When you're done, click the next player's name; this will close all your windows for you, and set him or her up to be the next player.
If a Knight is played, this forced loss of cards does not happen.
Then, in either case (either a 7 or a Knight), the Robber must move. (The robber is the striped icon visible on the Desert in the initial board picture, or on one of the Forest hexes in the picture of the end of the game.) To move the Robber, click in the middle of the hex you want the Robber to move to; a popup will confirm that you're moving the Robber. The Robber will jump to the new location. While the Robber is in a location, that location will not produce resources when its number is rolled.
After the Robber is moved, he may steal. Click on a settlement or city that you don't own that borders the hex the Robber has moved to, confirm the "Steal" popup, and you will be given a window with the victim's Resource cards; you may choose one to steal it. Note that the program will randomly shuffle the cards first, and will only show you the card you have stolen.
After stealing a card, both the victim's and the thief's Resource indicators will be automatically updated.
Up to one Development can be played on your turn; but you can't play a Development on the same turn it is bought. Victory point cards do count as soon as they're purchased, however.
There are five types of Development. In general, they can be played by clicking on them in the Development window.
Note that the game can continue to be played; as each player reaches 10 Victory points, their achievement will be announced.
There is one special value, "Dice Sounds", which actually plays a random sound selected from those sounds named "Dice Sound N". This makes the game a little more realistic, as the dice don't sound the same all the time.
I like to use "Dice Sounds" for dice rolling, "Cash Register" for ports, "Wolf" for the robber, "Cheer" for victory, "Baaa" for building settlements, "Cow" for building cities, "Jackhammer" for building roads, "Dog" for building Developments, "Evil Laugh" for rolling a 7, "Trumpet" for Longest Road and Biggest Army, "Jackhammer" for Road Building, "Psssssst" for Monopoly, "Trill" for Discovery, and "Gong" for Knights.
The use of sounds makes it easier for the other players to know what's going on while it's your turn.
Further, the game will reset the random number counter to the same place, so the same die rolls will appear. (But you can get around this by playing a Knight and stealing - the random number generator is used to shuffle the victim's Resource cards, so you can effectively re-randomize the dice rolls this way.)
Registration can be done through Kagi, either with their web page order form or via email with the Register application.
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This page was last modified on April 24, 2001.
