In the dice game version of CATAN, you also build settlements, roads, cities, and knights.
Here, however, building doesn't mean placing wooden or plastic game pieces on a game board. Instead, each player has a sheet depicting a smaller version of the island of CATAN. You build by filling in the respective symbols for roads, knights, settlements, and cities.

Building a road, settlement, or city costs the same resources as in the big brother version of the game, but the way you obtain the required resources is completely different.