Settlers Catan Game 2 Player Rules, Gameplay For Settlers Catan

Can you play the Settlers of Catan with two players?

The Settlers of Catan Game is meant for 3 to 4 players, but today my son didn't want to play, so my daughter and I tried the game with the 2 player variation.

1. Each Player uses two colors.

2. Trading with the other player is not used. Trade with the bank only.

3. 20 Victory Points are required to win (higher totals can be used for longer games.)

4. Increase the threshold from 7 to 9 where discarding on a "7" is
required.

She choose Red and blue and we set up the game with the usual random map. We played for both of our colors each turn and I thought that the game would go quicker with this variation, but it ended up lasting 85 minutes, not including set up time.

This game was unusual as no one rolled a 7 until 52 minutes into the game! Weird, then the seven rolled every 3 to 5 rolls as to be
expected. 55 minutes into the Settlers Catan 2 Player Game the score was 14 to 14, I had built more settlements and had won the longest road and largest army cards and she had upgraded to more cities. I had to extend my road to keep the longest road card, but then ran out of room to lengthen it anymore and she won the longest road card from me.

Several times when a 4 was rolled my orange and white settlements were the only ones to collect resources until she built a settlement on the remaining available space.

I was having a shortage of ore, so I tried buying as many development cards with my resources, but didn't really gain much with that strategy.

After 78 minutes in to the game I had 16 points with my Orange and
white and she had 19 victory points and soon built another settlement and won with 20 victory points.

We played by keeping the road building restricted to their own colors and think it would be interesting to try allowing the two colors on one side to mix when road building.
Overall the 2 player variation of Settlers Catan Game was a good game and fun enough to play again.

Found these rules at
http://www.universityofcatan.com/scenarios/soc-vfor01.html