Catan: Traders & Barbarians - Tips & Strategies

Harbormaster is simply a card that allows you score two victory points for having the most points on harbors. It adds a nice third option to the base game besides longest road and largest army. It also makes the harbors even more worth while besides improving trade ratio. I don’t play Catan without it anymore.

If you are just looking for the harbormaster card, you don’t need this expansion. You can find a jpeg of a harbormaster card that matches the older style longest road and most armies cards online. I printed it out and pasted it to cardboard. But, this expansion is worthwhile if you are looking for other ways to play your favorite game. I gives seven scenarios and other options (like harbormaster, and using cards instead of dice) to play. My favorite is the title scenario, Traders and Barbarians. I also like the expanded rivers scenario (expanded upon the previous rivers add on). My wife really likes the fish scenario because even if you are on bad numbers that don’t roll too often, you can turn in fish tokens for roads, resource cards, and development cards. This scenario is better than the previous add on in that it also comes with a “lake” hex to replace the desert hex!