Settlers of Catan, Seafarers expansion
|
|
The Seafarers of Catan is an expansion of the game Settlers of Catan. (It is sometimes referred to by its German name, Die Seefahrer von Catan, reflecting its German origins.)
In this extension of the game, play is no longer restricted to a single island: the board consists of several islands separated by sea. Players may build ships between water hexes, and place settlements at the other end of the chain of ships. Unlike roads, ships are not fixed in one location: ships may be moved until a settlement is built at the far end.
There is an additional piece, the pirate, which functions similarly to the robber. Placing the pirate next to an opponent's shipping line does two things: you steal a resource, and no ships can be built bordering the pirate.
This is also the first expansion with "Gold River" hexes, which produce one resource of any type rather than only one specific resource as with other terrains. Another suggested new rule is that the board is not laid down complete, but several hex tiles are treated as "unexplored territory": the player who first reaches an unexplored tile turns it face-up and may take one resource as a reward for exploring. There are more ways of obtaining Victory Points (VPs) than in basic Settlers of Catan, so games are generally played to a higher score than the win condition of 10 used in the basic game. This expansion also comes with a frame that you can assemble. This frame is useful in keeping the pieces together.
See the detailed rules article Settlers of Catan, Rules for comprehensive description of the combined rules for Settlers and Seafarers.
General setup
After you have built the frame of edge pieces, you will place the hex tiles. These hex tiles should be arranged exactly as shown in the scenario illustration, thus preserving the balance in the game. You will then set up the chit numbers denoting production of resources. These also must be placed per the scenario instruction and provisions. The only part of the Seafarers expansions that are random are the harbor tokens, commonly referred to as the ports. Take the harbor tokens listed in the scenario description, and shuffle them with the intention so as to randomly select these tokens and place one at a time in the designated port locations per the scenarios instructions. Note: Use only the harbor tokens provided in the seafarers expansion. Original Settlers harbor hexes are not used.
Ship building
In the Seafarers expansion, ship building is absolutely essential for a winning strategy. To build a ship costs one wool and one wood, which makes the wool resource much more valuable than in basic Settlers, where it is generally the least valuable resource. It is extremely difficult to succeed unless you travel to other islands, thus gaining extra victory points and newfound resources to harvest. Note, however, that ships cannot be built and placed directly next to a road. The ships must be built adjacent to existing ships or from a settlement/city. The only acceptable way to join Land Routes to Ship Routes is by building a settlement to join the two. This is important to remember when attempting to gain 2 VPs for the Longest Road, which is called "Longest Trade Route" in the Seafarers expansion.
Ships act as roads across water. The rules for building and placing apply just the same, though your resource demand is wood and sheep as opposed to wood and brick. The strong benefit to ships as compared to roads is that you can move one ship per turn, whereas roads are permanent in their placement. Beware, though, for shipping routes can be broken just as roads. This would happen if another player built a settlement directly on your shipping route. This would then cause a "Closed" shipping route and may affect the Longest Shipping Route VPs. Closed Shipping Routes are any shipping routes where all ships are between two settlements/cities. These ship now become immobile, and must remain in their positions. Note: If playing with the variant of volcanoes, and an applicable settlement is destroyed, thus opening the shipping route, then the ship at the end may be relocated.
Seafarers also has a scenario called Greater Catan which requires two original Settlers sets to play.