As a new citizen, you start in the Hostel. If you have a Premium Account, however, you can build your own house. Afterwards, you can upgrade this small shack to a magnificent residence with its own production building, all the way up to level 15. To build or upgrade your house, visit the Masons' Guild. At the Masons' Guild, you can also donate for city expansion (see The Contest Between Cities). Each purchase at the Masons' Guild counts towards your success in the citizen list.

When you click on the counter, a window appears where you can choose whether you want to upgrade your house or donate for city expansion. The resources required for this action are displayed in the next menu. Confirm the action by clicking on “OK.”

Please note: There are 150 building sites available per city. If all sites are occupied, no more houses can be built in that city! The number of houses already built can be viewed in the "Info About the Cities" list in the Town Hall.

If you are staying at the Hostel, you can only have 4 resources. If you have a level 1 house, you can store a maximum of 5 resources; that is, your status indicator will never show more than 5 resources. If your storeroom is full and you don't spend resources, all resources received via daily distribution or participation in games are lost. In this case, the number of your resources will be displayed in red .

After you have upgraded your house to level 2, it can already store 6 resources.

Production

Starting from level 5, your house receives a production building whose type depends on your profession.

The probability of receiving the following resource types depends on your profession:

Starting from level 5, there is a 20% probability to get an additional resource. At level 8, this probability rises to 50%, at level 12, to 80%, and at the last level, to 100%. If you also have the status of "Active Citizen," the culture points of your house (divided by your city's "Active Citizen factor") are also added to the city's culture value.

Garden

Each house can have a garden. More information regarding this topic can be found in the section General Store -> Garden.

Messages and Game Statistics

Both in the Hostel and in your own house, you have access to various charts. To open the respective menu, click on the bookshelf to the right of the door.

Player Info

Contribution to Culture

Player Titles

Your Last Events

Important events such as resources received, purchase of clothing, etc. are listed here in chronological order.

Messages

Important messages regarding the city are displayed here.

Important: General news about the Catan Online World is not displayed here. Please have a look at the news at www.playcatan.de or in the COW starter from time to time.

Your Active Donations for City Expansion and to the City Guard

Here is where your currently active donations are displayed; they also indicate whether or not you are part of the City Council.

Your Last Games

A list of the last games you finished.

Personal Protection

The Backpack Menu

Click on the backpack in your own house to open the backpack menu.

Relocation

You are not bound to your city. If you like to travel, you can move to any other city of the Catan Online World, provided that building sites are still available there (a city has room for 150 houses). But relocation involves many restrictions.

1. The ranking position in the Citizen List is reduced by one level.
2. All resources and gold are discarded.
3. The garden is removed.
4. All scores for the Monthly List obtained during the current month are removed. The games are not erased, of course, but you no longer appear in the Monthly List of your old city and must start afresh to appear in the new city's Monthly List.
5. The donations for the old city remain there; they are not transferred to the new city. This means that you have a separate donations account for each city.
6. 10% of the value in the current Citizen List is deducted.
7. Loss of one house level (the level can't get lower than 1.
8. Loss of one clothing level.

Please note:

1. The scores for the titles of Garden Master, Dice Master, Riddle Master, and Hero remain, and so do the current titles themselves.
2. The scores for the monthly lists of the Dice Game and the Riddle Game remain, because they are global.

3. 7 days after the beginning of a new game period, players may relocate without any disadvantage (exception: point 5).

Modify Character

In this menu, you can change the appearance, gender, and profession of your character.

Attention: You can change your profession only once every 4 weeks.

Polls

This menu item is used for occasional opinion polls and votes concerning important topics. Only users who already were citizens of the Catan Online World at the time the opinion poll/vote started can participate. Some opinion polls/votes are limited to Premium users. If you can participate in an opinion poll/vote, a corresponding note appears in your house or, respectively, in the Hostel when logging in.

FAQ

What should I do if I can't build a house in my COW city because all available building sites are occupied?

Each city can accommodate only 150 houses for Premium players. All other citizens have to make do with the Hostel. Particularly towards the end of a game period, it is quite possible that - in a relatively crowded city like, for example, World Village - all building sites are occupied. A building site becomes available again only if a house owner relocates or no longer has a Premium Account. Therefore, affected players should consider moving to another city where building sites can still be obtained. In the Town Hall, the chart "Info About the Cities" provides information about the number of houses already built in the cities.

If necessary, new cities will be founded at the beginning of a new game period.