Catan: Explorers & Pirates

1 Overview

Catan: Explorers & Pirates is a major expansion requiring the Catan base game. It adds exploration of an unknown island chain, ships that can carry settlers and resources, harbor settlements, fish, and spices as new resources, and a mission-based victory system. It's one of the most complex and rewarding Catan expansions.

2 Ships & Seafaring

Unlike the Seafarers expansion where ships form static routes, Explorers & Pirates ships are mobile units. A ship can:

• Move up to 3 sea hexes per turn
• Carry 1 settler or 1 resource aboard
• Be built for 1 Wool + 1 Ore

Ships explore the unknown island chain by flipping face-down hexes when they enter adjacent spaces. Unknown hexes can be sea, productive land, pirate lairs, or fishing grounds.

Pirate Lairs: If your ship enters a hex with a pirate lair, combat occurs. Fight pirates by rolling dice, success clears the lair and earns a reward; failure damages your ship (it's returned to your supply and must be rebuilt).

3 Harbors & Outposts

When a ship with a settler aboard reaches a new island's coast, build a harbor settlement on an empty coastal intersection. Harbor settlements work like regular settlements for production but also enable on-island building.

Advance a harbor settlement to an outpost (using roads/paths and resources) to establish a permanent base on the new island. Outposts count as victory points like regular cities.

4 Missions

Explorers & Pirates uses missions instead of the standard Catan longest-road/largest-army bonuses. Missions are revealed during setup and scored when completed:

• Explore Mission: Reach specific hexes on the map
• Fish Mission: Deliver fish (caught at fishing grounds) to Catan's main island
• Spice Mission: Deliver spices (found on new islands) back to Catan
• Settlement Mission: Build a harbor settlement on designated island locations

Completing missions earns victory points. The game uses a fixed number of missions based on player count.

5 Scenarios

Explorers & Pirates includes five scenarios of increasing complexity:

1. To Catan and Beyond: Basic exploration, no missions
2. Fish for Catan: Adds fishing and fish delivery missions
3. Spices for Catan: Adds spices
4. The Pirate Islands: Full pirate lair exploration system
5. Explorers & Pirates (Full): All mechanics combined

Learn scenarios 1–2 before attempting the full game. Each adds rules and components.

6 Strategy

Early Ships Win Games

Reaching new islands first grants exclusive harbor settlement spots and mission progress. Invest in ships early even if it costs production development.

Don't Neglect Catan's Main Island

Production still comes from the main island. A player who fully abandons main-island development for exploration will run out of resources to build ships. Balance early expansion with main-island production.

Missions Are Your Victory Path

In the full game, missions replace standard Catan bonus cards. Understand which missions are active and plan your exploration toward mission completion rather than aimless discovery.

7 Common Mistakes

• Building ships without a destination plan. Ships cost resources and exploring aimlessly is expensive. Before building a ship, know which hex cluster you are heading toward and which mission it serves. A ship moving away from productive islands and mission targets wastes investment that could have gone to main-island settlements.
• Fighting pirates with only one ship. Pirate lair combat is dice-based and can fail, losing your ship. Entering a pirate lair region with only one ship risks losing your entire exploration fleet on a bad roll. Send 2 ships when possible: one to attempt the pirate encounter, one to continue exploration if the first is lost.
• Neglecting the main Catan island. New players excited about exploration sometimes spend every resource on ships and outposts while forgetting to build on the main island. The main island produces your core resources. If you have no productive infrastructure there, you will run out of resources to fund exploration mid-game just when you need them most.
• Playing the full game before completing scenarios 1 to 4. Explorers & Pirates is deliberately scenario-layered. Playing the full combined game before understanding individual mechanics leads to rules overload and player confusion. Work through scenarios in sequence before attempting the full game.

8 Explorers & Pirates vs. Seafarers

Both expansions add ships and multiple islands, but they are very different gameplay experiences:

• Seafarers: Ships are static route pieces placed like roads on water. You build them incrementally. No mobile units. Ships connect your network to new islands. Simpler to learn and adds exploration without fundamentally changing the Catan economy. Recommended first expansion.
• Explorers & Pirates: Ships are mobile units that carry settlers and resources. You explore unknown hexes actively by moving ships into them. Missions replace traditional victory paths. Fish and spices are new resource types. Pirate lairs add combat risk. Far more complex than Seafarers but also far more thematically rich for groups that want a different strategic experience.

If you are new to Catan expansions, start with Seafarers. Explorers & Pirates rewards players who already know Catan well and want a fundamentally different strategic challenge layered on top of the base mechanics.

9 Advanced Tips

Specialize Player Roles for Missions

In multiplayer, consider having different players specialize: one focuses on Fish missions (requiring repeated trips between fishing grounds and Catan's main island), while another focuses on Spice missions (one-way delivery from new islands). Specialization allows each player to optimize ship routes and resource management for their particular mission type, producing faster completion than everyone competing for the same missions simultaneously.

Choose Outpost Locations for Long-Term Production

When building a harbor settlement on a new island, evaluate the surrounding terrain before committing. An island with only low-probability hexes (2, 3, 11, 12) produces infrequently and is barely worth the settlement cost. Target islands with numbers 5, 6, 8, or 9 adjacent to your harbor settlement site for meaningful sustained production. Mission completion points matter, but the production from that outpost matters for the rest of the game.