Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy
Transition from base Catan to Cities and Knights with confidence. Learn how to survive barbarian raids, build an unstoppable commodity engine, and systematically disrupt your opponents' paths to victory.
Like Duolingo, but for Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
24 levels across 4 sections, about 48 minutes end to end, roughly 10 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Surviving the Early Frontier, Building the Commodity Engine, Disrupting Opponents and Table Control, and The Race to Thirteen Points. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy
- In Cities & Knights setup, each player places one settlement and one upgraded city
- Barbarian strength equals the total number of cities across all players on the board
- Having a city means your settlement can be targeted and sacked if the island's defenses fall
- Recruiting a knight places him on the board in an inactive state
- Only active knights contribute their strength toward repelling the barbarian fleet
- Activating a knight costs exactly 1 grain
- The player who contributes the least active knight strength when barbarians win loses a city
- A pillaged city is replaced with a settlement piece, dropping resource collection from two cards to one
- Rebuilding that lost city requires 3 ore and 2 grain, significantly slowing early expansion
- Grain is spent every time a player activates a knight for defense or movement
- Upgrading knights to stronger tiers costs 1 ore and 1 grain
- Cities take 2 grain and 3 ore to build or replace after a barbarian pillage
- If the barbarians win, only the player(s) contributing the fewest active knights are pillaged
- Having at least one active knight shields you if other players contribute zero
- Opponents who lose their only city lose city-level production and the ability to draw progress cards, giving a prepared player a massive lead
- Promoting a knight to the next level costs 1 ore and 1 wool
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
How do you calculate how strong the barbarian fleet will be when it strikes?
Get it right to open this lesson and 23 more in the app.
Where Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy takes you
- 1
Surviving the Early Frontier
- Surviving the First Barbarian Attack
- Commanding Knights for Board Control
- 2
Building the Commodity Engine
- Managing Commodities and Upgrades
- Harnessing Progress Cards and Red Dice
- 3
Disrupting Opponents and Table Control
- Weaponizing Barbarians and Hand Limits
- Sabotaging Rival Infrastructure
- 4
The Race to Thirteen Points
- Winning the Metropolis Race
- Executing the Endgame Push
4 sections · 8 units · 24 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Catan: Cities and Knights Strategy today.
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