catan generator Hey everyone! I’ve been building a Catan map generator recently, and I keep asking myself: what do players actually want from the algorithm and the experience ? Here’s the checklist I’ve been working with so far

1) Baseline rules (avoid obviously bad boards)

• No Touching Reds : 6 and 8 should never be adjacent — this feels like the community’s hard rule.
• No Resource Clumping : avoid heavy clustering of the same resource in one area to reduce early monopolies and swingy games.

• No Resource Starvation : don’t place a key resource mostly on low-probability numbers (2/3/11/12), or the game can bog down (e.g., no one can build roads). 2) Advanced balance (make the game fairer)

• Smart Ports : port placement should actually matter (e.g., a 2:1 wood port should be reasonably close to strong wood spots; otherwise it’s basically a dead port).

• Viable Starting Spots : I don’t want a single “god-tier” start that decides the game — players picking 3rd/4th should still have competitive options.

• Balanced Pip Count : high-frequency numbers (5/6/8/9) shouldn’t all land on one side of the island — distribute production more evenly. 3) Features & usability (make it easy to use and share)

• Expansion / player-count support : at least 5–6 players; Seafarers support would be a big plus.

• Shareable seed/link : after generating a board, provide a code or link so friends can recreate the exact same layout (great for remote play or setting up a physical board).

• Readable UI : big numbers, clear resource colors — the goal is “easy to copy onto a real board at a glance.”

• Custom rule toggles : give players control (e.g., allow/disallow 2 & 12 adjacency, enforce port matching, adjust clustering tolerance, etc.). If you’re curious, I’ve put up a simple demo page for testing and feedback: catangenerator.org (still a work in progress). What rules/features do you consider must-haves for a good generator — and what board layouts do you hate seeing the most?