How to play Catan: Seafarers

3–4 players (up to 6 with the 5–6 extension) Medium-high — base Catan plus ships, islands, and scenarios

What is Catan: Seafarers?

Catan: Seafarers is an expansion by Klaus Teuber that requires the Catan base game to play. It adds sea hexes, ships, gold fields, the pirate, and a collection of island-hopping scenarios — each with its own map, discovery tokens, and victory-point target. Rather than competing on a single island, players now race to extend sea routes outward and plant the first settlements on new land.

The roll-trade-build rhythm of base Catan remains intact, but Seafarers layers on meaningful new decisions: when to pivot from roads to ships, which unexplored island to race toward, and whether to move the pirate or the robber when a 7 lands. Founding a distant settlement at the right moment can leapfrog your point total in ways the base game alone rarely allows.

Setup

Use the scenario map from the chosen Seafarers scenario booklet — each scenario specifies which hex tiles, number tokens, and harbor pieces to place, as well as where to put face-down discovery tokens on new-island hexes.

Board setup. Set up the Catan base game board and pieces as directed by the scenario. Sea hexes surround and separate the islands.
Player pieces. Give each player their normal starting supply of roads, settlements, and cities, plus 15 ships in their color.
Robber and pirate. Place the robber on the desert as normal. The pirate starts off the board (set it beside it) in most scenarios and is brought into play only when a 7 is rolled or a knight card is played — check your scenario for the exact starting position.
Starting placements. Complete the reverse-placement starting round; collect starting resources as normal. The youngest player goes first.

How to play

Seafarers follows the standard Catan turn sequence — roll, trade, build — with the following additions.

Ships and sea routes: - Build a ship by spending 1 lumber + 1 wool and placing it on any sea edge connected to your existing network. Ships and roads may connect freely, forming one trade route. - A connected chain of ships leading away from your coast is your sea route. Extend it to reach distant islands and settle them. - Once per turn you may move one open ship — a ship at the unattached end of your route that you did not build this same turn — to any valid sea edge, letting you reroute toward unexplored land.

New islands and discovery tokens: - When your sea route reaches a new island, flip its discovery token to reveal a bonus (often a resource or victory point). - Most scenarios award bonus victory points for the first player to found a settlement on each new island — check your scenario card for the exact rewards.

Gold fields: - When a gold-field hex produces (its number is rolled), each adjacent settlement earns any one resource of your choice; a city earns any two.

The pirate: - On a roll of 7, or when you play a knight, you may move either the robber (to a land hex) or the pirate (to a sea hex). The pirate prevents ship-building on its hex and lets you steal one card from any player with a ship adjacent to it.

How to win

Win conditions use the same 10 VP target as the base game (some scenarios set a different target — check the scenario card). Points come from settlements, cities, Longest Trade Route, Largest Army, victory-point development cards, and any scenario bonus points for founding settlements on new islands.

Strategically, identify which new islands offer the richest bonuses early and commit your ship line toward them before a rival cuts you off. Longest Trade Route counts both roads and ships, so a long sea route can be doubly valuable. Watch the pirate: if an opponent parks it on your shipping lane they can bottleneck your expansion and drain your hand, so keep knight cards in reserve to clear it.