Computer

Description
CatanUniverse via Computer PC/Mac.

FAQ
There is a specific way to setup CatanUniverse if you want to be successful.

First Load: At the CatanUniverse homepage, click the Browser button or Steam button. If you have MacOSX 10.6 Snow Leopard you will not be able to use Steam. When you start the game engine loading in a browser window, make sure to click the OK button and not cancel. The game engine is very slow to load on browsers, even on a very speedy internet connection. If error messages show that say "slow script," keep clicking the Continue button in the pop-up window.

Main Screen: When you are at the main CatanUniverse screen, there are 4 buttons on the bottom that represent 4 games of Catan - Catan, Seafarers, Cities and Knights C&K, and Rivals. The Catan Gold button in the upper right corner is where you buy Catan Gold using real $$$ to unlock all the 4 games. The button in the upper left corner is your Avatar settings and game options.

Start a Catan game: When you click on one of the 4 game buttons, you will get a menu with game search options. People with unlocked games will be able to click Auto Match, then click the Start Search button at the bottom of the next menu to start finding players to play Catan. If you have no unlocked games, you will only be able to click on the Free Match button to start Catan games.

During the Catan game: Many people have been complaining in forums about not being able to figure out how to adjust the game windows settings during the Catan game. Here are some recommendations and hints: First, to make the game screen view closer to 2D instead of 3D, click and hold the right mouse button, and move the mouse downwards to rotate the game board to top view. Second, to zoom the game board in and out, use the middle scroll wheel on the mouse but be careful not to click. Some new Mac mice have an invisible middle scroll wheel. Our preferences are to have the board zoomed in for regular Catan and zoomed out for Seafarers and C&K. Third, to move the game board to the left or right, or up/down on the screen, click and hold the left mouse button, and move the mouse to move the game board view. Fourth, sometimes, but not always, the spacebar key works to confirm your placement instead of clicking the check button. Fifth, to select a card in the trade menu click the left mouse button on a card. Sixth, to deselect a card that you selected in the trade menu, click the left mouse button above the top upper part of the card that is sticking out showing a "selected card," and the card should drop back down and show that it is not selected anymore.

Setting your Avatar and Global Game Options: In the Avatar settings menu, there is a Player Profile button and a Options button. The Player Profile menu is where you set your hair, beard, clothing, token colors, etc. The Options button is where you adjust the global game settings like Sound Volume, Music Volume, turn on Simplified Graphic Effects, turn on or off Free Match, etc. Our preferences are to turn off the Sound Volume and Music Volume completely, turn on Free Match, and turn on Simplified Graphic Effects.

Some people have found that when they set their Catan game window to certain view settings, those settings will save for future games. Also, the settings in the Avatar - Options menu will also be saved.

Note

If you are going to buy Catan Gold, some people are recommending the 16.99 Euros option because it allows that user to unlock all of the 4 games and have some Catan Gold left to unlock one of the custom avatar sets like Knight or Viking.

Catan Gold is calculated in Euros. The current exchange rate is used to convert USD to Euros.

Do not try to multitask when playing CatanUniverse in a browser window.

In our experience, it seems like CatanUniverse runs better in Google Chrome or Firefox.

Quitting the browser completely after every completed game and reloading the entire game engine, while tedious, seems to help avoid most of the game engine lockups and major slowdowns some people have been experiencing.

If you are not finding any players including yourself in Auto Search, you might have to logout your avatar and login again.

The little white and black box symbols below the Avatars indicate what next steps the game is waiting for the player to complete.

The drop-down menu that shows when selecting the specific game scenarios you want to search for in Auto Match such as Treasure Islands or Through the Desert has all games selected as ON by default. Clicking a scenario turns off that option.