Buy with wool, grain and ore
A development card costs one wool, one grain and one ore. You buy during your action phase while cards remain in the deck. The standard 19-tile game has 25 cards before any custom additions.
The purchase does not let you select the card you need. If you can already complete a useful building, compare that certain outcome with the possible card draw rather than treating a development card as a guaranteed rescue.
New action cards wait until a later turn
A newly purchased action card cannot be played on the same turn. On a later turn, an eligible card can be played before the roll or during the normal action phase. Only one action development card can be played in that turn.
Victory-point cards work differently: they contribute to your total automatically and are not played as an action. You can therefore buy a winning hidden point without needing to spend a card-play action.
Match the card to a concrete problem
Knight moves the robber and increases your played-Knight count. Road Building offers up to two legal roads without paying their resource costs. Year of Plenty takes two chosen available resources from the bank. Monopoly takes one chosen resource type from opponents.
Each effect has a different source. Monopoly does not need bank supply, while Year of Plenty does. Road Building still requires legal locations and available road pieces. A card removes a particular constraint, not every constraint on your move.
Check which game you are playing
The counts below describe the standard deck. Larger maps use a different deck, and an optional custom pack can add cards to some games. Review the table’s rules and custom effects rather than applying standard-deck probabilities to every island.
Hidden cards also make exact predictions impossible from purchase count alone. Played cards provide evidence about what has left circulation, but an opponent’s unrevealed cards remain private. Plan for possibilities rather than claiming to know their hand.
| Card | Copies | Main effect |
|---|---|---|
| Knight | 14 | Move robber; increase played Knights |
| Victory point | 5 | One hidden point |
| Road building | 2 | Up to two legal free roads |
| Year of plenty | 2 | Two available bank resources |
| Monopoly | 2 | Collect a chosen resource from opponents |