Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 01:11 am
Catan Universe – Board Game Review
Catan Universe is a Board/Entertainment/Strategy game from United Soft Media Verlag GmbH, first launched in 15th November 2017.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 29,531+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Catan Universe Stand Out
Play your favorite game CATAN anytime and anywhere: the original board game, the card game, the expansions and ‘CATAN – Rise of the Inkas‘, all in one app!
After a long voyage of great deprivation, your ships have finally reached the coast of an uncharted island. However, other explorers have also landed on Catan: The race to settle the island has begun!
Build roads and cities, trade skillfully and become Lord or Lady of Catan!
Go on a journey to the Catan universe, and compete in exciting duels against players from all over the world. The board game classic and the Catan card game bring a real tabletop feeling to your screen!
Play with your Catan Universe account on the device of your choice: You can use your login on numerous desktop and mobile platforms! Become part of the huge worldwide Catan community, and compete against players from all over the world, and on all supported platforms.
The board game:
Play the basic board game in multiplayer mode! Join two of your friends for a maximum of three players and face all the challenges in “Arrival on Catan”.
Make things even more exciting by unlocking the full Basegame; the expansions “Cities & Knights” and “Seafarers”, each for up to six players. The special scenario pack containing the scenarios “Enchanted Land” and “The Great Canal” adds even more variety to your games.
The game edition ‘Rise of the Inkas‘ is another exciting challenge for you, as your settlements are doomed in their heyday. The jungle swallows the signs of human civilization, and your opponents seize their chance to build their settlement at the location they crave for.
The card game:
Play the introductory game of the popular 2 player card game “Catan – The Duel” online free of charge or master the free “Arrival on Catan”, to permanently unlock the single player mode against the AI.
Get the complete card game as an in-game purchase to play three different theme sets against friends, other fans friends or different AI opponents and submerge yourself into the bustling life on Catan.
Features:
- Trade – build – settle – Become Lord of Catan!
- Play on all your devices with one account.
- Faithful to the original version of the board game “Catan”, as well as the card game “Catan – The Duel” (aka “Rivals for Catan”)
- Design your own avatar.
- Chat with other players and form guilds.
- Participate in seasons and win amazing prizes.
- Play to earn numerous achievements and unlock rewards.
- Get additional expansions and play modes as in-game purchases.
- Get started very easily with the comprehensive tutorial.
Free-to-play content:
- Basic game free matches against two other human players
- Introductory game free matches Catan – The Duel against a human player
- “Arrival on Catan”: Master the challenges in all areas of the game to get more red Catan suns.
- You can use Catan suns to play against the computer. Your yellow suns recharge on their own.
Questions or suggestions for improvements:
Mail to [email protected]
We are looking forward to your feedback!
For more information on news and updates: www.catanuniverse.com or visit us on www.facebook.com/CatanUniverse
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Catan Universe is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 4th September 2025
Recent improvements include:
More stable matches, fairer ratings, and cleaner chat
New: Chat profanity filter
Improved: Auto match and lobby invites are more reliable; clearer errors when the friends or blocked list is full or a guild name is not allowed; updated account and password reset emails
Fixed: Rating and experience points rewards and end screen stats, leaderboards and the hide option, in game and whisper chat names and unwanted server messages, friend requests and guild visibility, auto match start and stop and stuck matches, end turn and report dialog issues, lobby invite and decline errors, registration and password reset flow, shop purchases, season progress, mobile stats for Rivals
Download & Availability
Catan Universe is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Catan Universe on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Until this last update where it continues to say the servers are full and login not enabled.
We like the game but the AI will automatically roll a seven if you have eight or more cards almost 98% of the time. It doesnt seem very random. Our wife also has the game and she says the same thing. Is it written in to do that.
We think it would be neat if the top level was increased so that you could keep leveling up and maybe a few rewards along the way.
Yes plz fix that glitch where the bot wont stop asking for trades.
We have been using this app for years, both playing online and the offline games. Most bugs have been worked out. Thank you creators.
Hello, love your game. We have never wrote a review, however we would really love if the bug was fixed in online matches when a player leaves, an AI replaces the player but sometimes the AI keeps asking for trades and no matter what we do he doesnt stop asking and his time never runs out, forcing us lot leave a game losing karma and elo . Also sometimes we just straight up cannot do anything, our timer runs out and its Frustrating. Thank you.
Erased all our friends and we cannot add them anymore. Paid money for this. Please fix ASAP. Update: fixed a few days later. Good customer service. Great app.
We played for free a little while decided we liked it and purchased the base game on the guest account. Bummed to realize there was no way to register that guest account to our email to play the full game and keep the rank Ive earned and purchase. Created a new account to find all our progress and pack gone.
This is a GREAT game but we rarely get to play it because it takes over 24 hours for our Sun token to reload? It says we only have to wait 12 hrs but it has NEVER reloaded in 12 hrs.
The fun of playing Catan would increase many fold if you let the multiplayer board reset for a free game – it could be linked to ones rank in the game.
We generally love this game and have played for years. However, for the past few days we got logged out and cannot log back in. Continues to say that 'servers are at maximum capacity'. Ive deleted and reinstalled the app to no avail. What is going on.
Our friends and we love to play online catan. Its our fave game. This app is great as a game, but has bug glitches frequently. Doesnt always disrupt the game, it is annoying when it happens. Would also love to see more of the expansions and other variants (Dawn of Humankind specifically).
This is the best Catan option out there, but whenever a player leaves the game the bot will glitch where it tries to trade and keeps resetting the timer so they have unlimited time to keep sending trade offers. Please fix soon.
The game works fine, but there hasnt been any updates meaning we to get new. Boards and stuff like that. Also the tournaments are never available Ill be good to see some new things on these game that we love.
Great game but does have fairly common issues with lag out/disconnection if you switch apps when its not your turn. Overall great.
Just purchased two bundles one was the Fantasy bundle. When we tapped on the ,now green outlined, fantasy bundle the fantasy hexes did not have a check mark. Why not? The other two had a green check mark. How do we access the fantasy bundle.
Its fun, but we never get to play because its always maxed out. There needs to be an offline mode so we can just play AI characters.
First off, we love Catan and was so happy to recently find it on IOS. That being said, there is a glitch that has happened multiple times to us in several games. When you have a settlement on a resource and you (or an opponent) rolls the dice and the number is where your settlement is located, no resources are given. This can be extremely frustrating and almost makes the game not playable. This does not always happen but recently it happened twice in one game.
A couple of months ago there were no issues, but lately every time we get to 13/15 points in a long running game, the game just resets to an early saved stage and everyone loses most of their points. Really annoying, especially when playing a longer 1-2 hour game. Would love to know if this is being fixed.
Love the play but frequent server issue for online . Local play would be great.
Quick fixes to make loyal players happy: 1) increase highest level achievement from 25 to some very high number like 50 2) add more prizes for achieving levels higher than 25 3) create new bots to play against Besides that: Lots of bugs and bad UI problems. For example, it doesnt use Apple keychain for passwords; and when you play with 5+ players you cant see the other players point status; and it doesnt maintain a good cache to show current player level without internet; UI big where you cant tell how many points you need to get the next level. In addition to this, there are not enough rewards for gaining levels. If we didnt like Catan as a game, we wouldnt keep this app.
Love the game and this online way is fun, but the repetitive logging in every time you switch games is so annoying. And yes, we keep the versions updated.
We downloaded this game and PAID $5 for the full experience only to be met with daily bot glitches that freeze the game. They boast about AI bots but when a bot takes over for an absent player, the timer glitches and keeps starting over forcing everyone playing to quit as the bot endlessly asks for the same trade. Even if you accept the trade in hopes of ending the madness, it just glitches, timer restarts, and it asks for the trade again, forcing all the players to quit which affects their game karma stats, recording that you quit a game before it ended and negatively affecting stats. Fix your game admins! Players are going to abandon this app if you dont.
Lately at least 20% of the games we play w our friends end up glitching and we are unable to complete. Huge bummer. Please fix this.
Change our username Catan !!! And Ill reward with a 5 stars.
We love this game, but it seems like it always has some sort of glitch. Our husband and we have been trying to play a multiple player game for the last six weeks and it only lets us play every once in a while. It wont let us start a multi player game. It just freezes up.
Suddenly the last week our app wont connect to any games. Its just always searching.
Sometimes the game is great and tons of fun. Other times it just will not work, or it gets stuck when a trade is happening. We spend a lot of time with no WiFi and cell phone coverage, so this game is great for that, when it actually works.
We really like the game. It lets us play with friends who don't live in our city, but purchasing maps is too expensive.
Game should be updated to fix servers or connectivity because it kicks us out of games too often. Also implement tournaments and better AI bots.
This is the best mobile version of the classic board game. Playing the computer or playing online is a ton of fun. But after a few years of achieving level 25 – the game has sort of lost its luster. Itd be nice if an update gave the option for higher levels or more scenarios.
This new update does not allow us to play with friends.
Love the game here and irl, dice rolls are not random, it has become predictable what is going to be rolled, if you don't trade ai it will just take what it needs from you with bonus cards or 7s. There is a rhythm and is easy to see after some time playing the game. Please update your ai and please fix the RNG.
Cant build anything every option greyed out.
Every game lately a certain set of numbers ends up coming up on the dice over and over again. At this point it cant be a coincidence, because its happened every online game ive played latley, even if its going in our favor. People end up with 10+ cards from a round alone and the one guy who isnt on those numbers ends the game with less than 5 VP. For being a payed game, this is truly frustrating and disappointing.
Not even close to being random on the dice. Dont waste your time.
Game keeps kicking us. Wasting wins online and probably pissing off other online players.
The game logs you out all the time and requires internet to log back in even for a local game. For the last several days an error pops up and you cannot log in at all.
Love the game, but we purchased the full game and then when we left the app and came back it was gone. Just punted $5 into the air for no reason. Little annoying.
Would love if you fixed the app freezing and then stalling on rejoin. Its still trying get us to rejoin an old game after 3 days. Even after closing all app, restarting our phone.
Maybe Im just buns at the game but it feels like when we do a solo match against AI, it feels like all of the ai are working together. Like we would be behind in 2nd and tied for longest road, then 4th place comes in and throws the game for the 1st Bot. Also they just have insane rolling luck.
They migrated servers with no email warning. Then after the migration all old server accounts that didnt migrate were deleted, including their purchases. Support can recover your gold but they deleted the bundle that used to be available with the base game and Cities and Knights. So you would have to buy gold again to get the newly priced bundles.
We love Catan – but the app doesnt stay connected enough for it to be a reliable enjoyable experience. Please fix disconnections so we dont waste our time and money spend on the game.
Same numbers. Time and time again. Delete for your own sanity.
The game plays like Catan, which is fun, but theres something definitely wrong with the randomness algorithm. Setting up a game against AI, we randomized the start order but somehow ended up being the first pick for the next 8 games. It only went back to actual random order once we force quit the game. Not to mention how obscenely improbable these dice rolls are.
Game sucks! The computer/AI never wants to accept a trade with us. They declined every trade we want to make. Because of this, it is near impossible to win.
Game would be great if the online actually worked. We can never finish an online game because it constantly stops and rejoins or is so slow you get kicked out despite having great internet connection. We dont get it.
We love Catan, but this app is constantly freezing on the loading screen. Our friends and we have played 5 games and have only been able to complete 2 out of the 5 due to this issue. The game gets stuck on Rejoining when you minimize the app and come back to it. Maybe a server issue? For a paid game, we expect more.
The CPUs in this game are supposed to try to win, not just team up to take you down. They always rob from you, even when you have 3+ less victory points than the other CPU. They make a lot of illogical moves that dont help them win but lead to you losing.
This game is so rigged. If youre in the lead suddenly the dice stop going your way. It would be nice every once in a while if you just whooped somebody. The game would rather start. Asking you lose intentionally to make it competitive. We been playing the live board game for years there are just games sometime you whoop or get whooped never happens on this game.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.6.3
- Size: 937.49 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: NL, EN, FR, DE, ES
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: United Soft Media Verlag GmbH
Last updated: 4th September 2025 | Genre: Board, Entertainment | Developer: United Soft Media Verlag GmbH