The world of Catan is no stranger to nobility. In fact, Catan is full of knights in shining armor, powerful lords, just rulers, and everyone in between. Where does all of this nobility live? Why, in castles, of course! Just look at the similarities between Catan's castle and Windsor Castle:

If you squint and ignore some major differences, they look pretty similar, right? Even if you aren't of noble birth or wealthy lineage, though, you can still enjoy the prestige and benefits of truly royal wedding this weekend. Here are three ways you can bring a marvelous marriage to your game:

Method #1: The Chapel

The base game of Catan has a development card called "Chapel." This valuable card is worth a victory point. If you happen to purchase this card, the Chapel may give you just enough victory points to win the game. Over the years, the Chapel has gone through a number of different design changes, as you can see below:

Method #2: The Wedding

Despite having exactly the same artwork as the "Chapel" development card, this Blue Progress card from the Cities & Knights game expansion is called "Wedding." As shown above, this coveted card is powerful. You can declare a wedding by playing this card at any time during your turn (how cool is that?). Luckily for you, all of your opponents are invited, and those with more victory points than you must bring a sizable gift! This is definitely one wedding you don't want to miss!

Method #3: The Wedding Tower

Much less common than the Catan cards (but far more interesting) is the special-edition release of the Catan "Wedding Tower" hex tile. The Hochzeitsturm (Wedding Tower, in English) was part of larger dice-cut sheet published and distributed at a number of German gaming events in 2014. Because this is a limited release, you can only find the Wedding Tower for sale here. The Wedding Tower tile works like this:

Game Setup: Replace the game's Desert tile with the Wedding Tower tile, and place the Robber on the Wedding Tower tile. The Wedding Tower tile does not receive any production number tokens, and thus cannot produce any resources.

During Play: If a production number of "7" is rolled (or drawn, if you are using Seasons event cards), normal rules apply: players do not harvest any resources, the Robber is moved to a new tile (and possibly steals a resource card from another player), and players lose half of their resource/commodity cards if they have eight or more in their hand. As usual, once the Robber has left the Wedding Tower tile, he cannot return.

Special Exception Rules: Players all receive a wedding gift when a "7" shows up! More specifically, when a production number of "7" occurs, every player with a building on an intersection adjacent to the Wedding Tower tile receives one (1) resource card that matches the terrain of the tile upon which the Robber has been placed.

Note: You can find more rules about the Robber and Desert hexes here.

So there you have it: Your very own Catan wedding, full of excitement, gifts, and guests! You can get started today, by playing a normal game of Catan, by breaking out the Cities & Knights expansion, or by making a purchase online.

Thanks so much for reading. If you have any questions or feedback about this topic, go ahead and fill out the following response form: