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Advice for intermediate Settlers of Catan players continues.

You know already that resources in Catan are spent in certain fixed sets:

1. 1 brick, 1 wood
2. 1 brick, 1 wood, 1 wheat, 1 wool
3. 1 wheat, 1 wool, 1 ore
4. 2 wheat, 3 ore.

Any resources which are not part of one of these matched sets have only potential value. They might become part of a matched set as you gain more resources, they may shield you from losing another card from a matched set when the robber pops up, or they may be traded for resources to complete a matched set, but in themselves, they are worthless until spent. (Because victory goes to the first person to reach 10 points, right? Cards unspent are worth zero points toward that total.)

You’ve probably noticed that certain resources are spent together: you never spend wood without spending brick, or wheat without spending ore, and vice versa. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s better to collect certain kinds of cards at the same time, which leads to a small but valuable insight: when feasible, place villages (and later, cities) collecting wood and brick, or wheat and ore, from different hexes at the same time.

If one hex pays off brick on a roll of 5, and another pays wood on a roll of 5, then building a village on each means you get a whole road, or half a new village, all at once. You don’t need to go begging around for a trade to finish off a matched set. The robber has a much smaller window of opportunity to steal away your resources before you spend them. Much better than a 5-9 split, even though the split is just as productive in the long run, because spending is more important than collecting.

So keep an eye out for such opportunities, and take advantage of them when you can. As you build up around these naturally matched hexes, aim to build evenly. In a similar fashion, try to develop either three villages, or a village and a city, on a single mountain tile; when it pays off, you’ll have all three ore you need for a city. If you can get two villages or a city on a farmland tile, you should turn out cities at a good pace, and if the wheat and ore tiles share the same payoff number, you’re really set: suddenly every time someone rolls a 10, you get a new city. Fearsome.

The technique can be extended through trade opportunities, too, if less efficiently. If you have a 2:1 wood port, then building up a forest hex to pay three wood every time it pays off means you get a road. If you can’t get a piece of both hexes paying complementary resources on a single roll, you can still benefit by getting a large part of one; every time you get three brick, that guy across the table gets three wood. That’s a natural trade opportunity. And if you don’t get a piece of that action, your opponents who built there will hog it to themselves. Opponents are greedy like that.

Natural matches aren’t perfect, so you shouldn’t overvalue them. An inconvenient robber can throw a wrench in the works by parking on one side of that set—and rest assured, if that set pays off frequently (on a 5, 6, 8, or 9), he will end up sitting on one of those spaces often. On the other hand, low-frequency spaces (the 3 and 11) don’t pay off very often. (Incidentally, 3’s and 11’s work better for wheat-ore combinations, as you can often win with many villages and only a couple cities. The occasional 3 or 11 may be sufficient for your needs. Brick and wood, however, must pay off reliably and early, before the board fills up and space for roads vanishes.) Getting a natural match may involve developing some otherwise meager locations, too; passing up a rich location for a 2-4-11 intersection simply isn’t worth it.

But if the numbers work well, and the rest of the spaces your villages border pay reasonably well, then naturally-aligned hexes are worth more than they appear at first glance, and can give you a valuable edge. Just as important, they’re subtle, so players tend to overlook them as the game begins. Don’t make the same mistake.