Play Catan Online Free? A No-Sign-Up Browser Alternative

2026-10-08

People who want to play Catan online can open a free game of the same genre in the browser right now: Claimridge runs with no download and no account, as a guest. Claimridge is a separate, independent game, not Catan; it has its own rules, names and artwork and only shares the genre: you roll dice on a hex island, collect resources, trade with the table and build settlements. Play against bots on your own, or at a table of 2–6 with friends.

What are you actually playing? The genre in one paragraph

Every turn starts with two dice. If the total matches the number on a hex, each Village touching that hex collects 1 good and each City collects 2. There are five goods: Timber, Brick, Grain, Wool and Ore. After rolling you can build whatever you can pay for, trade with the bank or with other players, and play one card per turn; when you are done you press End Turn. The first player to reach the target score wins. On Frontier Valley the default target is 10 points.

Building costs are short: a Road is 1 Timber + 1 Brick, a Village is 1 Timber + 1 Brick + 1 Grain + 1 Wool, a City is 2 Grain + 3 Ore and upgrades an existing Village in place. A Village is worth 1 point, a City 2. A card costs 1 Grain + 1 Wool + 1 Ore; you can buy as many as you like in a turn but play only one, and a card you just bought stays locked until your next turn. A Victory Card is a hidden +1 point and counts at once, so the score shown on the table can understate the real one.

A roll of 7 produces nothing. Everyone holding more than 7 cards discards half (rounded down); the player who rolled moves the Bandit to another hex and steals 1 random card from a rival with a building there. The hex under the Bandit produces nothing while he stands on it. The hand limit defaults to 7, and the host can pick 9, 12 or no limit.

Trading is the heart of the table. On your turn you can keep up to 3 offers open at once. Every rival sees every offer and can accept, decline or counter with their own price. You choose who to settle with, and open offers close when your turn ends.

Start right away: room, bots, go

1. Open the game page. From the Play Claimridge page you create a room; no account is needed.
2. Set up the room. Pick the map (Frontier Valley is always open), the win target, the hand limit, the dice system (Classic Dice or Balanced Deck), the bot difficulty and the move clock.
3. Fill the empty seats. Add bots, or send friends the room link with the room's Share button; anyone who opens it can sit down as a guest. There is no short invite code; the invite is the room address.
4. Start. A match needs at least 2 filled seats, so 1 human + 1 bot is enough. Seat order is shuffled randomly among the players who sat down.

You choose the target too: on Frontier Valley it is 6, 8, 10 or 12 at 2–4 players and 8, 10, 12 or 14 at 5–6. For dice, Classic Dice rolls two independent dice; the Balanced Deck is a shuffled deck of all 36 combinations, and every full pass through it holds exactly six 7s, one 2 and one 12.

A room owned by a guest has at most 4 seats; seats 5 and 6 need a registered host. A guest's room can hold up to 3 bots, a registered host's room up to 5.

On a phone or a PC: nothing to install

Claimridge runs in the browser. Open the same address on a phone, a tablet or a computer; there is no file to download and no app to install. The board is built for phones: touch targets are large, and the three costliest taps go through a confirm bar first. The move clock defaults to 180 seconds and can be set anywhere from 90 to 600. If the clock runs out, the medium bot plays the rest of that turn; if your connection drops, a bot holds your seat after 120 seconds and you can take it back.

What is free, and what needs a ticket?

Playing is free: no account, no download. Of the six maps only Frontier Valley is always open, a single 19-hex island at 2–4 players. The other five (Bounty Plains, Canyon Pass, Gold Rush, Archipelago, Two Shores) are played with a one-match ticket that the host buys with coins. Coins are earned only by playing, and only the host buys the ticket: everyone else at that table plays the map at no cost. A guest account cannot buy a ticket, so a guest host starts on Frontier Valley.

What do you need? A short list

Three things that help in your first match

1. Pick the second Village by its numbers. Setup runs as a snake: first seat to last, then last back to first, so the last seat places twice in a row. The second Village pays one good for every producing hex it touches, and that is your whole opening hand. A Village needs every neighbouring corner to be empty. Which corners are best is covered in the opening placement guide.
2. Know the 6 and the 8. Number tokens run from 2 to 12 and there is no 7 token. Of the 36 combinations on two dice, the 6 and the 8 each come up 5 times, the 2 and the 12 only once. The maths is in the dice odds guide.
3. Count your hand. You cannot build or trade before you roll, and on a 7 anything over the limit is halved. If you are sitting on 8 or more cards, think about building or trading with the bank before you end your turn. The bank rate is 4:1; with a building on the corner of a generic Trading Post it becomes 3:1 for any good, and on a post for one specific good it becomes 2:1 for that good.

If you would rather learn by playing, there is a short tutorial; it starts switched off and you turn it on.

What to do next

The shortest path: add one bot on Frontier Valley, play to 10 points and see what the first 7 does to you; then invite friends. Play Claimridge now. For the full rules there is the complete rules guide, and the comparison guide sets the alternatives side by side. To play with friends see the playing-with-friends guide; to practise alone, the guide to playing against bots.

CATAN® is a registered trademark of CATAN GmbH. Playgridia and Claimridge are not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by CATAN GmbH, its licensees or publishers. The name is used only to identify the game readers are searching for and to describe the genre; Claimridge is an independent game with its own rules, names and artwork.

Frequently Asked Questions