Losing a city when you have a knight

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SIMICMACAN
Posts: 7
Joined: 09 April 2026, 05:09

Losing a city when you have a knight

Post by SIMICMACAN »

This is the first time that this situation happened in a game, can you please explain to me why that happened?

In Cities and Knights all the players (4 of us) had one city each and one activated knight each.
Just before the barbarian attack, one player promoted his settlement to another city (so at that moment he had 2 cities, which meant that barbarian attack worths 5) but he didn't promote his knight to 2, so our defence was still 4.

Barbarians attacked and all of us lost a city. Of course, since he had 2 cities he had to lose only one.
Why did we lose a city when he was the reason we lost? Isn't that a bit unfair?

In my opinion, the only fair option in this case would be for him to lose a city. And only him. Our defence:attack ratio was 1:1, and his was 1:2.

What is your opinion about this situation? Did you ever have the similar situation?

Of course, the logic goes with equal number of knights, but the fairness goes with the defence:attack ratio
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euklid314
Posts: 679
Joined: 06 April 2020, 22:56

Re: Losing a city when you have a knight

Post by euklid314 »

It is not a matter of logic or fairness but only a matter of what the rules say. And the rules are very clear on barbarian attacks.

If the rules allow destroying all the cities of your opponents by building a city then it was just a good move of your opponent.
There are many situations were one is deactivating an own knight on purpose before the Barbarian attack because a successful Barbarian attack hurts the other opponents more then oneself.

If you love the game of Catan despite some of the rules feeling unfair to you you can continue playing by accepting the rules.
If you do not like the rules of Catan then you can stop playing the game.
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CuriousGeorge19
Posts: 9
Joined: 02 May 2026, 23:40

Re: Losing a city when you have a knight

Post by CuriousGeorge19 »

This is definitely a good tactic for getting ahead of your opponents. Its not a nice move but you're playing to win not to be nice... I have done this before and honestly it just makes people come after you the whole game even if you fall behind because its just a pretty rude move but it is a smart one. The rules are the rules and this player did this as a tactic to get themselves ahead and you all staying behind struggling to get a city back. I would say MOST people have better etiquette and will support their cities with the proper amount of Knights, this is usually a higher level kind of aggressive move. Just my thoughts
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