Welcome to Cities Online

Cities Online is a fully 3D version of the classic German board game Settlers of Catan, including the expansion Cities & Knights. It is completely open source, free to play, and user supported. It is integrated directly with this site (http://www.settlersonline.net) to provide game matching, forums, stats, friends, ladder play, and many other featuers which may or may not be implemented yet. :) Here is what you need to do to play games!

Step 1 - Download the Client

In order to play, you will have to download the client and install it from here: Cities Online Installer

IMPORTANT: If you receive an error after installing that says, " This application could not start because the configuration is not correct. Restarting the application could solve the problem", then you need to install the Visual C++ 2008 run-time package from Microsoft. Use this link to download and install the run-time.

Step 2 - Create a Name

Everyone needs a name to play with. Apply for a name here: Apply for Membership

Remember, the site is 100% free, open source, and user supported. Your email address will never be sold. We only use it for password recovery and to help deal with cheaters and griefers.

It will take a few minutes for your name to be approved. We approve names manually to weed out names that are inappropriate for our community. Make sure you click on the authorize link in the email sent to the address you use!

Step 3 - Login

Click the Sign In link in the upper-right corner of the site and enter your name and password to log into the site.

You must always be logged in with your name to play any games or do anything on the site. This is one of our many security measures.

Step 4 - Launch Cities Online

Once you are logged in, click on the link in the upper-left of the page that says Launch Cities Online!

The site will launch Cities Online using a special URL that starts with citiesonline://. The first time you do this after installing, your browser may ask you if it is OK to associate CitiesOnline.exe with URLs that start with citiesonline://. This is how the site works, so click yes.

If you look at the citiesonline:// URL in your browser you will see a very long string of letters and numbers. This is nothing dangerous. In fact, it is just the opposite. It is how the site keeps everyone safe by using a very strong form of encryption to communicate with Cities Online on your computer.

Once you launch Cities Online, it will immediately bring up a small window to enter your password. This is an additional level of security so that even if you are playing in a public location and forget to log out, no one else will be able to play as you.

Once you have entered your password, Cities Online does a quick check with the site to determine if you can host a game. It uses UPnP to allow you to host even if you do not know anything about routers or port forwarding.

Once the host check is done, your link will change to Find Games!

Step 5 - Find Games

You are ready to start playing! Click the Find Games! link in the upper-left of the page to go to the Game Finder page.

On the game finder page you will see a grid that contains all Current Games and their status as well as a section called Game Options that lets you look for or start up your own game.

To get into a game, simply set any options you want for Ruleset, Number of Players, Map, and Game Options, then click the Look for games! button. That is all you need to do! The browser window will darken and a small box will appear with your current status in the queue.

When you are in queue and your game fills up, your box will begin a countdown. When the countdown gets to zero, the Cities Online client will automatically launch on your computer and either begin hosting the game or connect to the host. You are on your way!

While you are playing, the game automatically updates the site in near real-time with the current status of the game. This lets everyone see how far along the game is. You can click on any game in the Current Games list to see details on its players, colors, current turn, points, cards, and game options. You can also click on the Watch this game! link to jump right into the game as a spectator!

Troubleshooting

If you have any trouble getting going, click on the Categories link at the top of the page and then take a look at the Troubleshooting forum.

Hopefully, you will find an answer for your problem in the forum. If you do not see any help, feel free to start a new Troubleshooting discussion (you have to be logged in) and you should get a response from a helpful member of the community shortly.