Cartographer's Almanac Editorial

Cartographer's Almanac is an independent, browser-based generator for Catan-style hex board layouts, together with a reference library covering the rules, probabilities, and strategy of the game. It supports base Catan, the 5–6 player extension, Seafarers, Cities & Knights, and Traders & Barbarians, each in its 3–4 and 5–6 player form.

The project exists to solve one problem: every Catan night used to start with the same argument about whether the board was fair. The generator settles it — a constraint-aware shuffler that enforces no-adjacent-reds, resource diversification, and pip-balanced corners, and produces a shareable seed URL so the whole table can place from the same starting position.

The Almanac — the reference and blog content on this site — is maintained by the editorial team. Our two working principles: explain the math before the tactics, and don't publish a sentence an experienced player would roll their eyes at.

How rules content is sourced: every rules page and rules-FAQ Q&A on this site is written against the official CATAN rulebooks — the 5th edition base rulebook plus the official rulebooks for the 5–6 player extension, Seafarers (3–4 and 5–6), Cities & Knights (3–4 and 5–6), and Traders & Barbarians (3–4 and 5–6). Each rulebook section is re-read before the corresponding page is published. Where the rulebook is ambiguous on an edge case, the page says so plainly rather than invent a definitive answer.

How probability content is sourced: probability claims on the site are derived from the 36-outcome two-dice distribution — pip values, expected rolls per 36 turns, red-number adjacency probabilities, and the constraint logic the generator uses to enforce balance. The numbers are not borrowed from secondary articles; the calculation is shown rather than asserted. See the /catan-probability reference page for the full tables.

How corrections are handled: if something here is wrong, the contact form is the fastest route. The full correction policy — including how substantive corrections are noted on the affected page — is published openly at /editorial-policy.

Independence: this site is not affiliated with CATAN GmbH, Catan Studio, or any board-game publisher. No sponsored content and no free product in exchange for coverage. The site is monetised through advertising, disclosed in full on the editorial policy page.