Buy Seafarers of CatanSeafarers of Catan Product Description:
- Expansion Set of separately sold Settlers of Catan strategy game
- Use the resources of the island to build amenities and develop settlements
- Take advantage of trades with other players
- Some scenarios may require two sets to play
- For 3 or 4 players
Product Description
A game expansion of seafaring, exploration and trade. Embark on a quest to settle the island, build ships, and chart the nearby waters. Guide your settlers to victory with clever trading, cunning development, and by establishing the most productive sea lanes. Acquire your resources through card play and luck of the dice. Discover far-off mines and use gold and combinations of resources - grain, wool, ore, brick, and timber - to develop your ever-expanding empire. Of course, the best strategy and a dash of luck decide who will be the undisputed ruler of the Isles of Catan. Includes 60 wooden ships in 4 colors, 1 pirate ship, 14 edge pieces, 24 hexagons, 8 victory point chits, 10 numbered chits, 12 harbor tokens, and instructions. The Settlers of Catan is required to play this expansion set. For 3 to 4 players.A 2002 Games Magazine Games 100honoree in the Family Strategy Games category.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
111 of 111 people found the following review helpful.
Makes Settlers even better
By Michael Fehlauer
If you're reading this, you no doubt are already a fan of Settlers of Catan. You're deliberating, trying to decide if you want to shell out more $ for this expansion. "Is it worth it?", you ask.
As one Settlers fan to another, allow me to encourage you. Yes, it is definitely worth it!
Seafarers adds additional water and land tiles, as well as an additional land type: Gold Field. Gold field works like every other resource, except that when the number comes up you get to pick *any* resource card.
The game also includes little ships, of four colors. These ships function just like roads, and can be joined to roads through a settlement. You use them to explore from the mainland of Catan in search of additional lands (and additional resources).
The rulebook contains several scenarios, accomadating 3 or 4 players. Some scenarios start with all lands revealed, other scenarios include an exploration element. In these scenarios, only the mainland is revealed: the surrounding seas and the other land tiles are placed face down. These are turned over when a ship reaches them, revealing either a sea, in which case exploration must continue, or a land, in which case the discovering player gets one card of that land's resource.
You can see that one of the best things about Settlers, the random board setup, is made even better by hiding the concealing the nature of the unexplored tiles.
My only complaint is that the rulebook, which contains diagrams of specific tile layouts for each scenario, is printed in such a way that it is hard to read. The text is understood easilly enough, but the board layouts are dark and indistinct.
But this complaint is minor, and with practice is easilly remedied. Seafarers is a terrific expansion that makes the already great game of Settlers even better.
46 of 47 people found the following review helpful.
A simple, great expansion for Settlers of Catan
By Thomas J. Vasel
The Settlers of Catan is a fantastic game, and it would seem that in the board game world that means that a sequel was inevitable. So, eventually the Seafarers of Catan (Kosmos and Mayfair Games, 1997 - Klaus Teuber) was released. It was a fitting expansion, and so simple were the add-on rules, that I almost always include it in with the base game. The game offers very few more choices with the expansion included, and the amount of scenarios included with the book are excellent; some of them are truly fun! The Seafarers expansion adds a number of things to the base game, including...1.) Gold Fields: These are basically "wild" hexes that produce whatever resource the player wants if they have a settlement or a city bordering them. This makes the gold fields very valuable, with everyone wanting a piece of the action. The scenarios counter this by putting gold fields in hard to reach places, with less than an optimal number on them, like a "3". Still, it doesn't stop me from trying to get to them!2.) Water Hexes: As well as adding in some additional hexes of each of the five resources (and the gold hexes), twelve water hexes are added to the game. When combined with the fourteen edge pieces that hold all the hexes together, one can create many maps - many with more than one island. When using the water hexes, players usually start with their first two settlements on one island, and then must expand to the other islands. The edge pieces hold the board together in a large rectangle, keeping the tiles from sliding around on the table. Cities and Knights also comes with a frame; but it's more of a hexagonal one, allowing only the setup from the basic game - so I prefer the Seafarers one more.3.) Ships: Players expand in the seas with ship pieces. Each player receives fifteen ship pieces in their color at the beginning of the game. Ships cost one wool and one lumber to build (this raises the value of wool). Ships are placed between two water hexes and act similar to roads. In fact, the Longest Road (Now called the Longest Trade Route) now includes ships as well as roads. The first ship must be built next to a settlement on the shore, and then can be placed adjacent to other ships. Ships can also move, if they are the last ship in an "open" shipping lane (does not connect two cities). Players may move one ship per turn, to a location that they could have built. This makes ships sound more exciting than they really are - in reality, they aren't moved that often. But either way, the ships are a big improvement, and they are the only way to get to other islands. Players are allowed to start with a ship instead of a road if one of their starting settlements is on the coastline. Ships are the crux of the game (that IS why it's called "seafarers"); and while they don't add much in terms of complexity, they add one more option for players to explore and make games more interesting.4.) Special Victory Points: Some scenarios award special victory points - tokens included with the game. Many times this occurs when a player lands on a new island. This allows a scenario to dictate a change in strategy and a bit of variety to the game.5.) Pirate Ship: A pirate ship is added to the game and is the counterpoint to the Robber. Whenever a player rolls a "7", they may move the pirate ship instead of the Robber, placing the Pirate on any ocean hex. The player then can steal one resource from one of the players who has a ship adjacent to that hex. New ships can't be placed next to the Pirate, giving even more reason to move him. Either way, it seems that the Robber is moved a lot less in games involving the Pirate. This actually increases the power of the Robber, and the game can get slightly nastier. If the Robber is stifling the production of your best cities/settlements for dozens of turns, it can get rather annoying. Players must think even more carefully when moving the Robber/Pirate, and Soldier cards become that much more useful.6.) Scenarios: There are eleven scenarios included with the book, some of them rather good, others good for maybe one play or two. Either way, if a player would get tired of these scenarios, there is plenty more available on the internet. The first scenario, "New Shores", can be played many times, as it's basically the generic setup for Seafarers. The last two scenarios require multiple sets of the basic Settlers, so I'm not sure how often they'll come into play.Seafarers offers a lot of variety to Settlers without adding very many rules - probably the best epitaph an expansion can have. I won't say that it's necessary; indeed, one can play Settlers many times without the expansion and never miss it. But I doubt that you would return to basic Settlers after trying Seafarers - especially when you see the variety it includes. I'm certainly glad I picked the expansion up; Settlers fans will enjoy it greatly.Tom Vasel"Real men play board games."(...)
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
Worthy expansion to the original game
By Chris Peters
Seafarers is a wonderful expansion, in that it adds new material to Settlers of Catan without destroying the wonderful game that it is. The ability to build ships as ocean-bound roads and "sail" to far away islands is great, and fits perfectly within the fictional world of Catan. You won't stop playing the original game, but rather you'll probably prefer a nice mix of original Settlers and Seafarers.
Seafarers simultaneously adds some wonderful balance to Settlers while destroying one of its strengths - the 5 resources are now fully balanced, and victory can come from many strategies. Wool is now an important resource, roads and ships are necessary through the very end of the game, and gold adds an important "super resource" element to the game. But the nature of Seafarers "ocean/island" maps means that most games require a pre-established scenario instead of a random map. While the scenarios are beautiful and very ingenius, playing them a few times makes them too familiar. I wish Mayfair would release more scenarios for people who own this expansion, because otherwise it is money well spent.
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