Catan: Seafarers

1 Overview

Seafarers expands Catan beyond its single island. The board is now an archipelago of multiple smaller islands separated by sea hexes. To connect your settlements across water, you build ships instead of roads. The first player to settle a new island earns a bonus VP.

Seafarers comes with 9 scenarios, from simple two-island setups to complex multi-island maps with gold rivers and pirates.

2 New Components

• 60 ships (15 per player color)
• Additional hex tiles (sea, gold river, new terrain)
• Pirate ship piece
• Scenario booklet with 9 maps
• Extra number tokens and frame pieces

3 Setup

Choose a scenario from the booklet, each has a specific map layout and special rules. Set up the board exactly as shown. Players start on the main island as in the base game. Sea hexes fill the gaps between islands.

4 Building Ships

Ships cost 1 Wool + 1 Lumber. They work like roads on sea hexes. A ship route must begin at your settlement or city and extend outward continuously, no gaps allowed.

Moving ships: Once per turn, you may move the last ship in an open-ended route (one with no settlement at its far end) to any other legal position connected to your network. This lets you redirect exploration without wasting resources.

5 Exploring New Islands

When you build a settlement on a new island (one not containing your starting pieces), you immediately take a Discovery Token and earn the reward shown. Most tokens grant 1 Victory Point.

Gold River hexes: When a gold river hex's number is rolled, each player with a settlement or city adjacent to it collects any resource(s) of their choice, one per settlement, two per city.

6 Scenarios

Each scenario changes the map, the victory point target, and sometimes the rules. Highlights:

• Heading for New Shores, The introductory scenario. One main island, two smaller islands with VP tokens.
• The Four Islands, Four equal islands; build on all four to win bonus VPs.
• Through the Desert, A desert blocks the center; gold rivers provide rich rewards.
• Fog Island, Hexes are face-down; you discover terrain as you explore.

7 Winning

Victory point target varies by scenario (usually 12–13 VP vs. the base game's 10). VPs come from the same sources as the base game, plus Discovery Tokens from new islands.