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I've been eagerly awaiting 'Seafarers of Catan' for months now. My girlfriend Tammy is a big fan of the original game, and unfortunately I'd gotten a little tired of the original before she showed up in my life full-time. So I figured that this would make things a little smoother: She'd get to play Settlers, and I'd get something a little different.

This has, indeed been the case. In fact, I think she's getting a little tired of playing it.

(A Note. Seafarers of Catan is printed to be compatible with the 3rd edition of the game, which has hand-drawn hexes and red, blue, white and orange pieces. If you only have the 1st edition (red/blue/green/yellow) or the 2nd (white/orange/black/violet) then you're going to have two problems: half of your pieces don't match, and you're going to have to get used to different pictures for each resource. This is because Seafarers comes with 10 original hexes, 12 water hexes, and 2 gold hexes. The combination is playable, if annoying. If you've got both the 1st and 2nd editions, then you can swap hexes around - We've put all of the matching colors in one Settlers box, and then swapped the non-gold non-water hexes between the 2nd edition box and the Seafarers box. This works nicely.)

Compatibility questions aside, you may be thinking, how does it play?

Pretty nicely. The addition of ships, which count for longest road, means that people who don't concentrate on putting their roads all in a row aren't shut out from that competition. The addition of the Pirate Ship allows you to actually stop your opponent from extending in a direction, useful if you either want to get there first, or if you're afraid they might win by landing a settlement on an outlying island. This gives you a little more direct control over trying to stop your opponents, which is something that sometimes would bug me about the original game.

Extending to new islands is a little more expensive than building new road segments in the original Catan, since once you've built a 4 ship bridge to another island, you can't go back and drop a settlement in the middle. However, this is mitigated by giving people who land on islands an extra victory point the first time they build a settlement there.

The last new thing in the set is the Gold hex. There isn't a new gold resource -- every time you roll a gold resource you pick whichever resource you want. This isn't abusive, since any time there is a gold hex it isn't in the area people can set up, and it is always assigned numbers other than 8 or 6.

Seafarers could well be described as a set of games, more than just an expansion to one, because there are eleven scenarios in the book, all suggesting different variations of exploring a number of islands. When you begin, I suggest starting with scenario #1, since it involves the original 19-hex island, with a number of outlying smaller islands. This allows you to play close to the same game as your originally did, with an option of creating chains of ships to allow you to settle elsewhere.

After that, you can expand into other games, which include hexes that are kept blank (face down) until someone builds on it, with a similarly unknown number. This gives you a real feeling of discovery.

So, in conclusion: I like Seafarers and the new ideas it gives the game. It's not anything so wild as to make it too different with the original, but it revitalizes the game for someone who is tired of the original, like me. I'm a little upset with how long it took Mayfair Games to produce it (after all, there is nothing to translate here except for the rules – nothing else has game text). I'm also sorry that it isn't a cleaner match with the original set, for people like me who have been playing it since forever.

But it's a darn fine game, and I'll be playing it for months. Or until India Rails comes out. (Tammy loves crayon rail games more than Settlers. : )

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Seafarers of Catan
Author: Klaus Teuber Category: Board Game Supplement Company/Publisher: Mayfair Games, Inc Cost: 35.00 Page count: n/a Capsule Review by John Fiala on 02/01/99. Genre tags: none	I've been eagerly awaiting 'Seafarers of Catan' for months now. My girlfriend Tammy is a big fan of the original game, and unfortunately I'd gotten a little tired of the original before she showed up in my life full-time. So I figured that this would make things a little smoother: She'd get to play Settlers, and I'd get something a little different. This has, indeed been the case. In fact, I think she's getting a little tired of playing it. (A Note. Seafarers of Catan is printed to be compatible with the 3rd edition of the game, which has hand-drawn hexes and red, blue, white and orange pieces. If you only have the 1st edition (red/blue/green/yellow) or the 2nd (white/orange/black/violet) then you're going to have two problems: half of your pieces don't match, and you're going to have to get used to different pictures for each resource. This is because Seafarers comes with 10 original hexes, 12 water hexes, and 2 gold hexes. The combination is playable, if annoying. If you've got both the 1st and 2nd editions, then you can swap hexes around - We've put all of the matching colors in one Settlers box, and then swapped the non-gold non-water hexes between the 2nd edition box and the Seafarers box. This works nicely.) Compatibility questions aside, you may be thinking, how does it play? Pretty nicely. The addition of ships, which count for longest road, means that people who don't concentrate on putting their roads all in a row aren't shut out from that competition. The addition of the Pirate Ship allows you to actually stop your opponent from extending in a direction, useful if you either want to get there first, or if you're afraid they might win by landing a settlement on an outlying island. This gives you a little more direct control over trying to stop your opponents, which is something that sometimes would bug me about the original game. Extending to new islands is a little more expensive than building new road segments in the original Catan, since once you've built a 4 ship bridge to another island, you can't go back and drop a settlement in the middle. However, this is mitigated by giving people who land on islands an extra victory point the first time they build a settlement there. The last new thing in the set is the Gold hex. There isn't a new gold resource -- every time you roll a gold resource you pick whichever resource you want. This isn't abusive, since any time there is a gold hex it isn't in the area people can set up, and it is always assigned numbers other than 8 or 6. Seafarers could well be described as a set of games, more than just an expansion to one, because there are eleven scenarios in the book, all suggesting different variations of exploring a number of islands. When you begin, I suggest starting with scenario #1, since it involves the original 19-hex island, with a number of outlying smaller islands. This allows you to play close to the same game as your originally did, with an option of creating chains of ships to allow you to settle elsewhere. After that, you can expand into other games, which include hexes that are kept blank (face down) until someone builds on it, with a similarly unknown number. This gives you a real feeling of discovery. So, in conclusion: I like Seafarers and the new ideas it gives the game. It's not anything so wild as to make it too different with the original, but it revitalizes the game for someone who is tired of the original, like me. I'm a little upset with how long it took Mayfair Games to produce it (after all, there is nothing to translate here except for the rules – nothing else has game text). I'm also sorry that it isn't a cleaner match with the original set, for people like me who have been playing it since forever. But it's a darn fine game, and I'll be playing it for months. Or until India Rails comes out. (Tammy loves crayon rail games more than Settlers. : ) Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)