Can I use this generator for a three- or four-player board?

Yes. It generates the standard 19 land hexes for the base game used by three or four players. It arranges terrain and number tokens only; it does not place ports, settlements, roads or player pieces.

How do I stop the 6 and 8 from touching on a Catan board?

Leave No 6/8 touching ticked, which it is by default. Every board is searched so that no 6 or 8 sits next to another 6 or 8, then checked again, and the report shows 0 of 42 touching pairs. You can also tick No equal numbers touching and No same resource touching; ticking or unticking a rule makes a new board from the same seed.

Can I get the same board again, or share it with other players?

A successful generation uses the seed, every ticked rule and every resource/number lock, so share all three to reproduce it. JSON keeps the applied board: seed, rules, locks and tile positions, including hand swaps that the seed alone cannot reproduce. After changing settings or locks, Generate must succeed before JSON is available. Open JSON restores the saved file. The last board and pending settings are also kept separately in this browser when storage is available.

Which tiles and number tokens does the base game use?

Nineteen land hexes: 4 wood, 4 grain, 4 wool, 3 brick, 3 ore and 1 desert. Eighteen number tokens: 2 and 12 once each, and 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 twice each. The desert takes no token. Every board, including one you swap by hand or open from a file, is checked against exactly these counts.

What do the dots under each number mean?

They count the ways two six-sided dice can roll that number out of 36: five for 6 and 8, one for 2 and 12. The report adds them up per resource, and for the base set the total is always 58. It is an exact count of dice outcomes, not a verdict on whether the board is balanced or which spots are strong.

Can I keep some hexes where they are and reshuffle the rest?

Yes. Select a hex and press Lock as shown to keep its resource and number, or use the two lock menus to pin only a resource or only a number. Generate and Reshuffle then keep every locked hex and shuffle the others. Locks the base set cannot satisfy, such as two hexes locked to 2, are shown as a conflict and no board is made.

What happens if no board fits my rules and locks?

You get a message and the board shown stays as it was. The search stops at 100,000 steps or 5 seconds and says so, which means no board was found within that limit, not that none exists. If it has checked every arrangement, it says no board can meet those rules with those locks. A rule you ticked is never dropped to produce a result.

Can I print the board?

Press Print, or download the sheet as SVG or PNG. The sheet is US Letter sized and holds the board, a legend with each resource's pattern and dice ways, the rule report and every row in words. The PNG is 1632 by 2112 pixels, and the SVG scales to any size.

Does it make boards for the 5 to 6 player extension or other expansions?

The verified output is the 19-land-hex base-game board with its standard terrain and number tokens. It does not generate the larger five- or six-player layout or sea and island scenarios. Compatibility with other expansion setups has not been verified here.

Does it generate a balanced, fair or harder board?

The controls enforce only the adjacency rules you choose. The dice dots and resource totals count possible rolls; they do not rate fairness, player starting positions or difficulty. There is no balance or difficulty preset.

Can I use it in a phone or desktop browser?

Yes. Generate and save layouts in a current browser without an account or installing a program. The downloads are board files, and Open JSON accepts board files saved by this tool.

Hex Board Layout Generator

Generate a 19-hex base-game Catan board with a seed, optional tile locks and adjacency rules. Keep 6s and 8s apart, swap tiles by hand, and print or save the layout. This is an unofficial setup aid with original drawings.

Seed

Making a board

Constraint report

The report appears with the first board.

Seed

Tiles: none yet

6/8 touching: none yet

Export: SVG, PNG, JSON

Open JSON

Selected hex: Row 3, hex 3

Lock resource

Lock number

Making the first board.

This boardno board yet
The first board appears in a moment.
Last swapchecked against the ticked rules
No swap yet. Select a hex, press Swap tile or Swap number, then pick the second hex.
Locksnone
No hex locked. Select a hex and press Lock as shown to keep it through the next shuffle.

Click a hex, or move between hexes with the arrow keys, to select it. Lock as shown keeps that hex’s resource and number through the next Generate or Reshuffle; the two lock menus pin only a resource or only a number. Swap tile moves a whole tile, Swap number moves only the numbers, and a swap that would break a ticked rule is refused. Changing a rule makes a new board from the same seed, so lock the hexes you want to keep first.

How a board is made. The seed drives a fixed random sequence, so the same seed, rules and locks give the same board every time. The search picks the desert’s hex, places the 6s and 8s before the other numbers and the four-tile resources before the three-tile ones, and backs up whenever a ticked rule blocks a hex, starting over in a new order if an attempt runs long. Every board it returns is checked again by a separate test that measures the distance between hex coordinates, and a board that fails that check is not shown. The dots under each number count its two-dice rolls out of 36.

Accuracy. A setup aid for the 19-hex base game, not an official Catan product and not affiliated with its publisher. Tile and token counts and the rules you tick are checked exactly on every board, and the dice figures are exact counts of the 36 ways two dice can land; the tool does not judge whether a board is balanced, which spots are strong or who is likely to win. If the search stops at its limit of 100,000 search steps or 5 seconds, no board was found within that limit, which does not mean none exists, and a rule you ticked is never dropped to get a result.

Common questions

Can I use this generator for a three- or four-player board?: Yes. It generates the standard 19 land hexes for the base game used by three or four players. It arranges terrain and number tokens only; it does not place ports, settlements, roads or player pieces.
How do I stop the 6 and 8 from touching on a Catan board?: Leave No 6/8 touching ticked, which it is by default. Every board is searched so that no 6 or 8 sits next to another 6 or 8, then checked again, and the report shows 0 of 42 touching pairs. You can also tick No equal numbers touching and No same resource touching; ticking or unticking a rule makes a new board from the same seed.
Can I get the same board again, or share it with other players?: A successful generation uses the seed, every ticked rule and every resource/number lock, so share all three to reproduce it. JSON keeps the applied board: seed, rules, locks and tile positions, including hand swaps that the seed alone cannot reproduce. After changing settings or locks, Generate must succeed before JSON is available. Open JSON restores the saved file. The last board and pending settings are also kept separately in this browser when storage is available.
Which tiles and number tokens does the base game use?: Nineteen land hexes: 4 wood, 4 grain, 4 wool, 3 brick, 3 ore and 1 desert. Eighteen number tokens: 2 and 12 once each, and 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 twice each. The desert takes no token. Every board, including one you swap by hand or open from a file, is checked against exactly these counts.
What do the dots under each number mean?: They count the ways two six-sided dice can roll that number out of 36: five for 6 and 8, one for 2 and 12. The report adds them up per resource, and for the base set the total is always 58. It is an exact count of dice outcomes, not a verdict on whether the board is balanced or which spots are strong.
Can I keep some hexes where they are and reshuffle the rest?: Yes. Select a hex and press Lock as shown to keep its resource and number, or use the two lock menus to pin only a resource or only a number. Generate and Reshuffle then keep every locked hex and shuffle the others. Locks the base set cannot satisfy, such as two hexes locked to 2, are shown as a conflict and no board is made.
What happens if no board fits my rules and locks?: You get a message and the board shown stays as it was. The search stops at 100,000 steps or 5 seconds and says so, which means no board was found within that limit, not that none exists. If it has checked every arrangement, it says no board can meet those rules with those locks. A rule you ticked is never dropped to produce a result.
Can I print the board?: Press Print, or download the sheet as SVG or PNG. The sheet is US Letter sized and holds the board, a legend with each resource's pattern and dice ways, the rule report and every row in words. The PNG is 1632 by 2112 pixels, and the SVG scales to any size.
Does it make boards for the 5 to 6 player extension or other expansions?: The verified output is the 19-land-hex base-game board with its standard terrain and number tokens. It does not generate the larger five- or six-player layout or sea and island scenarios. Compatibility with other expansion setups has not been verified here.
Does it generate a balanced, fair or harder board?: The controls enforce only the adjacency rules you choose. The dice dots and resource totals count possible rolls; they do not rate fairness, player starting positions or difficulty. There is no balance or difficulty preset.
Can I use it in a phone or desktop browser?: Yes. Generate and save layouts in a current browser without an account or installing a program. The downloads are board files, and Open JSON accepts board files saved by this tool.

A setup aid for the 19-hex base game, not an official Catan product and not affiliated with its publisher. Tile and token counts and the rules you tick are checked exactly on every board, and the dice figures are exact counts of the 36 ways two dice can land; the tool does not judge whether a board is balanced, which spots are strong or who is likely to win. If the search stops at its limit of 100,000 search steps or 5 seconds, no board was found within that limit, which does not mean none exists, and a rule you ticked is never dropped to get a result.