Professor of Catan Achievement (Win Single Player on Hard)

I was on the Achieve360Points.com forum and after reading a post titled Catan Achievements Guide by Justin Barrow I defeated the AI opponents on hard using Justin's strategy, this surprised me a little as they are indeed hard opponents to defeat, but his strategy works well. So if you too have been thwarted by the Hard AI's superior strategy you too might want to give this a try:

1. Setup a game with default settings, with the exception of setting the game on a fast victory condition so the winner is the first to reach seven points and not ten.



2. Set your opponents to Hard and make sure the only character type you are playing against is Cleopatra.



3. Once starting the game build your two start settlements to capitalise on Grain, Ore and Wood (remember that numbers six and eight are more commonly rolled by the dice).



4. Upgrade your two start settlements to cities.



5. Buy Development Cards and play as many Soldier Cards as you can from there.



6. Win!

From this strategy you should get seven points before the AI does by getting two points for your start settlements, another two points by upgrading the settlements to cities, two points for playing the most number of soldier cards and then one hopefully by getting a victory card.

This strategy wouldn't work on a ten point victory as getting one Victory Card is common, but getting three more would take so long that a better strategy would be to switch strategies after getting the Largest Army Bonus.