die siedler

So I played Settlers of Catan with my housemates last night. I lost, as always. But here's something I need to know: didn't we play that you could only build one road at a time? Is that a house rule or is that just in the German version? Or am I making that up? 'Cause Jeff screwed me big time by building three roads in one turn, cutting off my hopes of connecting to get the GroBelangestrasse. And I thought you weren't allowed to do that.