Catan: Seafarers - Tips & Strategies

PROSPERITY OF CATAN

RULINGS FOR A CUSTOM SCENARIO FOR THE SEAFARERS OF CATAN

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1) Standard Settlers/Seafarers rules apply unless stated otherwise.

2) Board preparation:

-Sea, desert and gold tiles should be placed as shown on the picture. Other tiles should be distributed randomly (face up!).

– Eight number tokens (1×2, 3×6, 3×8, 1×12) should be positioned on the fields shown on the picture. Other number tokens should be distributed randomly onto all the resource producing tiles.

– Two 3:1 ports should be placed as shown (at the shores of the small islands). The remaining ports should be placed at random (face up) on the spots marked on the picture. Caution! Specialized ports must not be placed on the edges of corresponding tiles. E.g. the wood port must not be placed on the edge of any wood tile. If such a situation happens, ports need to be rearranged (at random).

– The pirate and robber tokens are placed as shown.

3) Starting settlements.

– Players may place their starting settlements only on the 3 big islands. They may place them on one or two of these islands at will.

– If a settlement is a coastal one a road or a ship may be built, but a ship cannot be placed on a line adjacent to the pirate token.

4) Small islands:

– When a player builds his first settlement on each of the three small islands he gets one victory point (token) and he may draw one development card. The “first settlement” is considered separately for each player and for each small island.

5) Wonders:

– Each player may buy one (and only one) wonder card. The building conditions (restrictions) do not apply, i.e. each player may buy any available card. To buy a card the player pays the amount of resources show on that card.

– Freshly bought card counts as a “level 0” one. Paying the specified amount once more the player upgrades the wonder level (acquires a victory point token to be placed on the card). Wonders can be upgraded up to level 4 (4 victory point tokens). The wonder card itself is not worth any victory points, only tokens are.

6) Game end:

– The game ends when a player declares a victory having 15 or more victory points during his turn (in settlements, cities, VP cards, road/army cards and victory tokens). Only the players with a wonder cards bought (upgrades are not necessary) may declare victory.

The pirate ship seems much more inferior to the robber and is moved much less often. We like to increase the power of the pirates with the following house rule:
As an alternative to placing the pirate ship on a hex, you may instead place it on a port blocking use of the port for the owner. You can steal a card from this player too.

Unlike roads, ships are mobile. Don’t forget that you may move your ships as long as the end-point of a shipping lane does not end at a village or city. The flexibility this gives is enormous! Roads often lead to nowhere when an opponent is a little bit quicker in acquiring wood and brick. But ships may be rearranged when an opponent sails past the spot you needed. Remember: one ship per turn! So some careful considerations may be necessary. But it is possible to turn a useless shipping lane into a better one. With roads you will never have this luxury.

I often add this expansion even without playing one of the suggested scenarios, or add it to Cities and Knights. Its a great way to add a bit to the game and keep things fresh, as well as give people more ways to expand, explore, and enjoy the game.

This game can take some time to set up. Ask another player or two to help out, to make setup go faster.