OUR REVIEW

Onwards to new shores!

Die SiedLer von Catan

Entdecker & Piraten

The latest expansion for Settlers of Catan takes players into five different scenarios which can be combined with each other, but all of them need the basic Settlers game to play.

Scenario 1 „Land in Sicht / Land Ho!“ is a very simple scenario and only serves to introduce you to the new buildings, playing pieces and landscape tiles.

Scenario 2 „Die Piratenlager / Pirate Lairs!“ introduces the new terrain tiles, Pirate Lairs, and has you discovering and conquering them.

In Scenario 3 „Fische für Catan / Fish for Catan“ players try to discover shoals of fish and then go on and catch them to provide food for Catan and deliver them to the home island of Catan.

In Scenario 4 „Gewürze für Catan / Spices for Catan“ the new terrain tiles for spices are put to use.

Scenario 5, at long last, is the real „Entdecker & Piraten / Explorers & Pirates“ Scenario and is a combination of Scenarios 2, 3 and 4, Pirate Lairs, Fish for Catan and Spices for Catan.

Here I would like to remark that the ascending order of difficulty in the scenarios results in scenarios 1 to 4 being absolutely geared for a target group of friends, but Scenario #5, Explorers & Pirates, is in my opinion geared for expert players, especially when you combine this scenario with other Catan expansions, because it is possible to combine those scenarios with all other expansions that have been published so far and thus to create ever-changing new situations in a game.

For some expansions it will not be easy to achieve a feasible combination and it might not even make sense to try it – for instance with the Seafarer expansion. On his website www.catan.de, designer Klaus Teuber has published an overview evaluating the possible combinations of this expansion with all the other expansions and in this overview also gives hints on the use of components. In general, though, as he mentions on his website, those tips and advices are not binding or mandatory and that players can set up and should set up their own rules for certain combinations.

To start with, for me as a reviewer it is impossible to describe or even to mention all possible scenarios or game set-ups that result from combining this expansion with all others, as the possibilities are nearly unlimited! So I have restricted myself to the first two scenarios in combination with the core game only and will only mention some important aspects for the other scenarios.

The box is filled to the brim with new components; I will list only a few of them for examples – harbor cities, units, ships, settlers, pirate ships, shoals of fish, spice bags and the new landscape tiles „Pirate Lair“, „Fish“ and „Spice“.

For our first game we acquainted ourselves with the rather easy scenario „Land, Ho!“ In this scenario each player takes five settlements and fifteen roads from the core game in his chosen color; the expansion provides four harbor cities, three ships and two settlers for each player. Other components that are needed from the core game are two dice, all terrain tiles, all number chips, the six long frame parts and all resources cards. Development cards as well as the special cards for “Longest Road” and “Largest Army” are not needed.

We decided to play with the example set-up given in the scenario rules for the island of Catan and did lay out the respective terrain tiles and number chips from the core game. Settlements, harbor cities, settlers and ships were also placed according to this example. For the placement of the starting settlement players received the resources from the adjacent terrain tiles.

At the start of this scenario each player owns one settlement, one harbor city with a settler and one ship with one settler on it.

In all scenarios that are played with this expansion there are always two islands created with face-down terrain tiles and which need to be reached with ships first and then uncovered. There are terrain tiles that show either a green or an orange dot, and there are green and orange number chips which are stacked next to the board. The Land, Ho! scenario does not feature the Robber as a playing piece, but all the same players need to discard half of their resources in case they own more than seven resources when “Seven” is rolled.

The course of the game follows the usual scheme; the active player rolls the dice and players receive income/resources according to their settlements in relation to terrain tiles. When no “Seven” was rolled and a player does not receive resources he receives one gold as a consolation.

For two gold you can buy one resource and you can do this transaction twice in your turn, provided you have that much gold.

This scenario does not use harbors, as the basic frame parts are placed in a way to make the harbors invisible, but the general exchange rate for resources in this game is 3:1. Thus, the game starts as usual with the resources phase, then – also as usual and in the core game – follows the phase for trading and building, you can do this, again as in the core game, in any order you like.

New is that you can build Harbor cities, settlers and ships in this phase of the game.

Harbor City:

A harbor city is worth two victory points like a city in the core game and can only be created by upgrading a settlement. A necessary requirement for an upgrade is that the settlement has been built at the coast. Settlements not adjacent to the ocean cannot be upgraded to a harbor city. Contrary to a city in the core game a harbor city only yields one resource for each terrain tile that is adjacent to it. The cost for building a harbor city is two Ore and two Grain. The harbor city features a port basin in which you can place one settler or two units or two spice sacks.

Ships:

The cost for building a ship is one Lumber and one Wool. When a player has built a ship he places it next to one of his harbor cities; the ship must be placed with the bow or stern of the ship pointing to the harbor city. A ship provides storage capacity in which you can place settlers, units, spice sacks and shoals of fish; the shoals of fish are not featured in the “Land, Ho!” scenario.

Settler:

Building a settler costs exactly the same as to build a settlement – one Lumber, one Grain, one Wool and one Brick. A settler that was acquired can either be placed into the free port basin of a harbor city or into the free storage area of a ship that points at a harbor point with its bow or stern. A settler brings you no income and earns you no victory points. He simply enables you to found a new settlement on the undiscovered, face-down terrain tiles of the unknown islands once they are discovered.

When the active player has completed the phase of building/trading, this phase is followed by a movement phase. In the movement phase the active player can move all his ships. Ships move along the edges between ocean tiles and can move in any direction. For each ship the active player has four movement points and he may buy two additional movement points for each ship. One movement point costs one Wool, but you can hand in two gold for it, too. To load or unload a ship does not take up movement points.

When a ship points its bow or stern at a face-down terrain tile you turn over this terrain tile. Should it be a tile belonging to the green island you place a green number chip face-up on this terrain tile.

A player must turn up a terrain tile when the bow or stern of his ship points to it and it is still-face-down. Should a ship, carrying one settler, point with bow or stern to the corner spot of a terrain tile that was already discovered, that is, turned up, this player may found a settlement there and he can do this also when he has just discovered this terrain tile.

To found a settlement you take back the ship including the settler into your stock and place a settlement on the respective corner spot. Should a placer have already build a settlement on a discovered terrain tile, he can then also build roads on this tile, but is prohibited to build roads on edges that border terrain tiles that are as yet undiscovered / face down.

Discovering / turning up of terrain tiles is only possible with a ship; the construction of additional settlements – normal distance rules apply - on the island is only possible when terrain tiles have been revealed. You can build a settlement along the coast using ship plus settler anytime, you only need to apply the distance rule.

The winner of this “Land, Ho!” scenario is the player who is first to accumulates eight victory points.

As each player begins the game with three victory points (one settlement and one harbor city) this scenario plays - in contrast to the other scenarios provided – rather quickly and can be won easily within 30 to 45 minutes by an experienced Catan player.

In Scenario 2 „Die Piratenlager / Pirate Lairs“ the components used are supplemented by three additional terrain tiles „Pirate Lair“ for each of the two islands, complete with the respective number chips, and the units and the pirate ship will be used.

“Pirate Lair” tiles are shuffled into the respective green and orange stacks of island terrain tiles and then the tiles are laid out to form two islands – as those islands are of course bigger now you need additional frames and ocean tiles.

You start this scenario, too, with one settlement, one harbor city complete with settler and also one ship with settler. All units, the pirate ship, the remaining settlements and harbor cities are stock for each player.

Then you need the mission card for conquering the pirate lairs and the victory points tile „Greatest Pirate Scare”, worth one victory point. Each player also has one marker piece of his color which is placed on the starting spot of the mission card. The mission card shows a track of eight spots, one starting spot plus seven spots for pirate lair conquests. Markers in positions One and Two of the track earn you special victory point, markers on positions Three to Five earn you two victory points and markers on positions Six and Seven score three special victory points for you.

The pirate ship virtually replaces the robber. When “Seven” is rolled the usual rule applies – if you hold more than seven resources you discard half of them. The first player rolling “Seven” places his pirate ship onto any ocean tile but those ocean tiles that directly border terrain tiles of the starting island of Catan. From then on, whenever any player rolls “Seven”, he either relocates his own pirate ship if it is on an ocean tile or returns the pirate ship of another player and places his own ship instead on a valid ocean tile. Whenever another player wants to move along the edges of an ocean tile with his ship and there is a pirate ship of another player on this tile he pays 1 gold for a tribute to be allowed to move onto or across this tile. This also applies when the ship is already on the same tile as the pirate ship at the start of the move.

Pirate Lairs:

When a player uses his ship for discovery and discovers a pirate lair he places a pirate number chip face-down on this tile. This pirate lair is now up for conquest by all players. A pirate lair is deemed to be conquered when three units are placed on the pirate lair tile; at that point in the conquest it is not relevant if those units were provided by one or by several players.

This is only relevant to determine how many spots a player can move his marker on the mission card track. For this each player who has contributed at least one unit to the conquest rolls the die and add the result to the number of his contributed units. The player with the highest total advances his marker two steps, all others by one step. In case of a tie the player who provided more units moves forward two steps. Then the player whose marker is furthest advanced takes the victory point card “Greatest Pirate Scare”.

To win this scenario you need twelve victory points.

As regards to the remaining scenarios I can only say that they are getting more and more complex and thus offer more and more possibilities and choices to all players. Scenario 5, “Explorers & Pirates” is only well-suited to really experienced players.

The graphic design of the new terrain tiles and all other components is excellent and provides assistance for players not so familiar with the Catan family of games to cope with the new ways and possibilities to play. Handling of settlers, units, spice sacks and shoals of fish takes some time to get used to, and it happens again and again when moving a ship that objects in the ship fall off.

Scenario 1 „Land in Sicht / Land, Ho!“ facilitates access to the game enormously and reduces the rules substantially. But with each successive scenario play gets more complex, but due to the well-structured scenarios and the equally well structured rules access to the game should not be a problem. The glossary at the back of the rules makes it easy to search for and to find specific sections of the rules, because especially when you combine this expansion with other expansions it happens again and again that you have to re-read part of the rules.

I mentioned it already, the scenarios get more and more difficult, and are at the start absolutely suited to the target group that we call “for friends”, but Scenario 5 “Explorers & Pirates” in my opinion definitely is suited for expert players only, especially when combining this scenario with other Catan expansions.

In my series of test games it soon transpired that Scenario 1, “Land, Ho!”, is only intended to be an introductory game, as it is rarely played again once players have become acquainted with the other scenarios, yet all players involved in testing this expansion were all of the same opinion, that they would be willing any time to play all the other scenarios and not only Scenario 5, “Explorers & Pirates”, which is of course the highlight of the expansion, but really rather complex.

The new ways to play and act in this expansion extend the familiar game mechanisms considerable and will probably present inexperienced players with unsolvable tasks so that in practice I can recommend this expansions only to fans of Catan or players with a lot of experience. Those players will find nearly unlimited ways and means to create individual scenarios and situations, due to the possibility of combinations with other scenarios.

This expansion in part presents vastly different game situations and courses of events so that the fun in playing it will be of long duration and considerable. If you only can use or want to use the expansion with the core game, you also find enough variety in the five scenarios that are provided so that I can recommend to fans of challenging games, too.

To players who have little gaming experience and have rarely played the core game of “Settlers of Catan” I would recommend to get familiar with the core game before acquiring the expansion, because otherwise it might be too demanding.

My conclusion:

For the experienced fan of the Catan family of games this expansion is an absolute must, for all other fans of Catan and somewhat experienced players if offers an interesting challenge and an expansion the offers diversity and fun for some time to come. For players with little or no playing experience this expansion is definitely too much of a challenge. And, finally, I would recommend to all players who decide to buy this expansion to take a look at www.catan.de, the home page of Klaus Teuber, and at the overview of possible combinations with other expansions that is provided there, as this information and those tips and hints are interesting and helpful when creating your own individual set-ups.

Maria Schranz

Players: 3-4

Age: 12+

Time: 120+

Designer: Klaus Teuber

Art: Michael Menzel

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Kosmos 2013

Web: www.kosmos.de

Genre: Development game

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: de en fr pl

In-game text:

Comments:

Well-structured rules

Nearly endless combinations with the core game and other expansions

Ascending degree of difficulty

You need to be familiar with the core game

Compares to:

All Catan expansions

Other editions:

Catan Explorers & Pirates, Mayfair Games; also at Filosofia Games, Galakta

My rating: 6

Maria Schranz:

A nearly absolute must-have for experienced Catan players, for all other Catan fans and other experienced players an interesting change.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 3

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0