Catan Universe
Server Downtime + Patch July 22nd 2pm [CEST]
Tomorrow July 22nd at 2pm servers will go in maintenance mode. We will use the maintenance to roll out update 2.0.1.
Since we have been able to address quite some issues you have been reporting to us in the past weeks, we decided to release 2.0.1. See below the list of issues we addressed:
• (C&K) Warlord-Progress Card could been played without any effect
• (C&K) Fixed an issue, where the Crane could be used, without having any city on play
• (Special Scenarios – EnchantedLand) fixed Dragons strength value
• Improved Gamelog for Monopol-Card actions, when no player has the requested resource
• Fixed various issues, where players could/couldn’t see resource/commodity transactions between other players or discards to bank (Gamelog, flying cards, etc)
• City improvements could not be played, even though the player had the required commodity
• Fixed display of incorrect Elo values in the tool tip in the statistics end screen
• Fixed an issue where the players could not end the turn since the button wasn’t working
• Fixed an issue where a placed metropole was misplaced at the center of the tile
• Auto-zoom now disabled per default and can be activated in the in game menus
• Fixed issues with achievement progress
• (STEAM/Browser only) Added Developer/Progress Card overlay, when cards have been played
• (Mobile) Fixed an issue with layering cards and the resource bar
• (Mobile) Fixed various mobile UI issues (scaling/intersections...)
• (Mobile) Fixed an issue within leaderboards screen, where the expansion rankings could not be changed
• (Mobile) Fixed an issue, where the Prestige ranks haven´t been displayed correctly in the statistics screen
Catan Universe 2.0
Catan Universe 2.0.0 Release
Unity 2019.3.x update
New Features
- new main menu UI (full reskin)
new flow → select single/multiplayer → expansion → game mode
• new “level progress screen”: shows rewards for players’ level progress
Raised experience level with new rewards from 20 to 25
• lvl 21: Asia-Pieces
• lvl 22: Orient-Tiles
• lvl 23: Set-Tinting 2
• lvl 24: Asia-Tiles
• lvl 25: Orient-Pieces
- New pet: Al Pacacino
- new sun system: suns can be used to play a singleplayer game of your choice
• emoji system
• matchmaking panel (in the top center, when matchmaking is started): show ‘player dots’
indicating how many players are found, e.g. 3 of 4 players → 3 filled, 1 empty dot
• Custom Match / Singleplayer Options: toggle for “Random start player” (incl. tooltips); crown indicates 1st player is the start player (incl. tooltip)
New account system
• registered users can play Catan First Island Custommatch for free in locked options, only 3 players
• Android and iOS users can purchase IAP (gold) without registration
• once they register with their all IAP and progress is transferred to their new “registered user account”
- Steam users have to register before buying in the shop. But they can play and level up before registering and all their progress will get transferred
• unregistered users can’t use the in game chat anymore
New in-game UI
Desktop:
• button click for normal build menu behavior → new in both
• desktop/mobile
• players can also drag&drop → already existing feature in the mobile
• version
• if candidates are shown: headline indicates “Select position for x”
• in-game options screen
• panels get translucent when trade board is opened → panels are sent to
• foreground on hover
• panels can be opened via keyboard keys ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, … (plus ‘enter’ for
• chat)
• panels can be pinned → in default ‘unpinned’ state, if the user clicks outside of the panel, it will be closed
• drag&drop cards, like in mobile version
• show cards on hover
• resource bar
• tooltips, like on mobile version
• new designed screens like ‘select player’, ‘select dice’, etc.
• new hide/show buttons, like in mobile version
• quick trade, like in mobile version
• game action ticker (on left bottom of the screen)
• shows actions of all players, like building, buying or playing cards, etc
• holding ‘alt’ key shows tooltips immediately (even if deactivated)
• almanac quick links: ‘shift’ + left mouse click on UI / board items shows almanac entry
Mobile and Desktop Version:
• better UI animation / badge / game overall flow
• dice animation before badges
• better “+/-x” animations & card animations
• opponents’ gamepieces are animated from their buildmenus to the board
• gamelog/chat: automatic scrolling to newest entry is deactivated as soon as scroll rect is
• not scrolled to bottom
• hints to UI → highlight on elements like playerframe, victory points, trade block,
• etc.
• show ingame menu → options, dice statistics
• new emjoii chat system
• board pieces animation on start / exit in-game: pieces fall onto table / fly away from it
• expansion screen → after a sun was used for a SP game, a hint to the shop is
shown in the loading screen (back to the main menu)
• hexagon animation when loading in-game
• new “it’s your turn” ticker
• drag&drop / build buttons show amount of game pieces left
• game log: added ‘players turn’ separator
• players own game pieces support physics
In-game camera Mobile and Desktop:
• automatic camera movement
• camera zooms/moves to new/destroyed buildings, and when ships,
knights, or the barbarians are moving
• enable/disable 2d camera
• enable/disable automatic camera movement
• move camera per screen edge - slider
• tooltip delay – slider
Desktop:
• movement per keyboard (arrow keys + WASD)
• movement when touching screen edge
• zoom towards mouse cursor position (before: centered zoom)
New in game shop system
• new purchase flow when not enough gold
→ ‘buy via gold’
→ shop opens, shows ‘gold’ category with overlay indicating how much gold is
needed
→ then, when purchased, opens ‘expansion’ category and selects the initial
expansion for purchase
New Tutorial steps
• new tutorial steps for camera movement, zoom & tilt
Catan Unvierse 2.0 Preview 4 and Server maintenance June 29th
today we are happy to announce that CATAN Universe 2.0 will release Monday June 29th!
As this is a bigger update we will put our servers into maintenance mode at 11 AM [CEST] on Monday for a couple of hours.
Additionally we'd like to share with you the new account and matchmaking structure in CATAN Universe 2.0.
It will now be possible to play single player games in CATAN Universe without registering an account as well as playing free-matches without chat functionality against other players.
Since the Scrolls will be replaced by Suns in the future the Auto Match will be reserved for players that registered an account and unlocked their desired game mode with Gold.
We hope that this will improve the quality of the ranked Auto Match play while still allowing our free users to play the game online as well as offline.
Thanks so much for your feedback in advance and we'll see you on the island.
Catan Universe 2.0 Preview 3
as promised today we are going to show you a first deeper look into the reworked UI in CATAN Universe 2.0. Those with keen eyes might also spot a future feature in this overview.
[previewyoutube="RkOqhAxe0-0;full"]
We are eager for your feedback and we'll see you on the island!
Catan Universe 2.0 Preview 2
today we'd like to take the time to talk about one of the biggest changes in CATAN Universe 2.0: The in-game currency system.
We came up with a more flexible in game currency that will allow Catanians to spend it on exactly the scenario they want to play and which also partly recharges over time.
CATAN Suns will replace our old Scrolls and of course these Suns do not only differ in name but also in functionality.
A Sun will allow you to play a single player game in CATAN Universe in any expansion you desire and as you can see in the picture below they come in two forms.
A red Sun is a temporary Sun meaning once you use it is gone. You can earn some of those during the user journey to get you started and via promotions on our social media channels as well as on our Discord server. You can stash as many as 10 red Suns in your account at the same time.
The yellow Sun is a permanent Sun meaning after you used it, it will start recharging itself and within 12 hours it will be functional again. Your account starts out with one of those and you'll earn a second one once you reach the new max level 25.
These rechargeable yellow Suns are also to an answer to the age-old question by our free to play users that weren't able to play their desired scenarios in CATAN Universe after they spent all their scrolls.
Besides using Suns to unlock single player scenarios it will still of course be possible to play the Free Match and the basic Custom-Match with up to 2 friends after registering an account but we'll go into more detail concerning the future of the account structure in CATAN Universe in another update post.
Additionally CATAN Suns won ́t be purchasable in the shop. Therefore the only currency left in the shop will be Catan Gold which you can use for fully unlocking expansion and to take part in special in game events. Of course there will be a transitioning phase were you can still redeem your old scrolls but again we’ll go into more details about that once the update is about to go live!
Thanks a lot for your feedback in advance and we'll see you on the island!
Catan Universe 2.0 Preview 1
we are super excited to finally be able to officially announce CATAN Universe 2.0 which includes a full menu UI overhaul, a new more flexible in-game currency system and groundworks for exciting new content in the future. Also from a technical standpoint, CATAN Universe 2.0 helps us streamline our development process tremendously, which will make further updates much smoother. This is also the reason why we've decided to release this update despite the current influx of new users so that we can react to your feedback more quickly. We've attached a couple of pictures to this post to give you a glimpse of the new version but we'll post more details about the update and its release in the following weeks.
Thanks so much for your continued feedback and patience and we'll see you on the island!
New in game UI
Quick trade for the desktop version
New main menu structure (mobile view)
More player levels (mobile view)
Catan Universe 1.9.1
Technical overhaul of the friend list in “Custom match” lobby
Catan Universe 1.9.0
Make sure to download the Update as soon as possible to be able to play with your friends in online custom matches.
Catan Universe 1.8.9
- Rivals theme set games via Automatch will start correctly again
- Reconnects (closing the App completely and restarting it) to ongoing multiplayer games have been temporarily disabled due to technical reasons and system abuse. This feature will be restored in the next update.
Apple and Andriod versions will follow soon! Please note: You won´t be able to play with Catanians using the older Client. As soon as Apple and Google have approved the update it will be automatically released to the Stores.
Thank you very much for your patience and understanding.
Catan Universe start phase and info on upcomming patch
we are currently working full speed on alleviating the problems occurring during the start phase of games in CATAN Universe and we are already testing a version that plays promisingly.
Unfortunately, problems of the kind we're currently having, are very tedious to test since they sometimes do simply not occur during our testing phase.
Today we wanted to provide you with a little context on why this is happening:
Usually, we don't test the beta client on the same server that you folks are playing but instead on an identical version of that server. This has 2 reasons:
To properly test the newest version we have to start 100s of games that we have no intention of ever finishing. Sometimes we just start and close games immediately afterward to see how the game behaves during this phase. Were we to do that on the live servers, it' be no way of ensuring that we'd not be matched with any of you folks.
Most of the time a new client version (1.8.8 -> 1.8.9) needs an updated server software as well and that new software is rarely fully backward compatible. And since running two different instances of server software on the same server creates a myriad of problems in and of itself we opt to test on our test server.
So since we did not have the start phase issues in CATAN Universe 1.8.8 on our testing servers, we first had to create a 1.8.9 version that would work on the current live servers without interfering with your folks playing. We were able to test the first iteration of CATAN Universe 1.8.9 yesterday and we're continuing to test today and tomorrow.
We'll, of course, keep you up to date on how our work is progressing.
Thanks a lot for all of your patience and feedback and we'll see you on the island!