Bukkit

Development cards are a mechanic in Settlers of Minecraft, based on development cards in Catan, that are similar to "chance cards" in Monopoly. You have to use resources to craft them, and they can give you an edge in the game. There are five possible cards, outlined below.

Note that as of v1.0, there is a 30s (configurable) cool-down for playing all development cards that is shared by all players on a team.

Video Tutorial

Obtaining

Development cards are crafted with iron, wool, and bread. As soon as you craft one, it immediately takes the form of a specific card and can not be changed or un-crafted (you essentially draw them from a prearranged deck). There are 25 total cards that can be created; after they are used up, they are gone. You use development cards by placing them.

Knights

• The most common development card - there are 14 in the deck.
• Must be placed on a gold block, which exist at the center of each tile.
• Puts the "skull" on a tile; stops it from generating any refined resources on dice-rolls.
• Manual resource collection is unaffected by knights.
• Hostile monsters spawn on the "skulled" tile every dice roll.
• Only one tile can be "skulled" at a time.
• The player who plays the most knights (minimum 3) controls the largest army, worth 2 victory points.
• No resources are stolen when you play a knight, which is different from Catan.
  
  

Road Building

• Uncommon - there are 2 in the deck.
• When placed, gives you two roads that you are free to place anywhere that connects to your existing roads.
• You can place the road building card anywhere to instantly get your roads.
  
  

Year of Plenty

• Uncommon - there are 2 in the deck.
• When placed, gives you enough resource rupees for 2 of any refined resources you want.
• You can place the year of plenty card anywhere to instantly get your rupees.
  
  

Monopoly

• Uncommon - there are 2 in the deck.
• When placed, steals ALL of one specific refined resource from every non-teammate.
• The resource stolen depends on what block you place the monopoly card on.
• Does not steal resources from chests; only from players' inventories.
• Edit: the above image should say steal all bread, not wheat.
  
  

Victory Point

• There are 5 in the deck.
• When placed, permanently grants your team one victory point.
• There is no way to lose development cards, and your score is public, so it is best to save victory point cards and place them only when it will boost your score to 10.
• Can be placed anywhere for immediate effect.
• Does not trigger the development card team-shared cooldown; you can play them quickly in succession.