The introduction of knights pieces that that can be upgraded and used to defend against barbarian attacks.

A barbarian ship that moves towards Catan.

An event die that determines if barbarians move closer or a progress card is handed out.

Progress cards (trade, politics and science) that replace development cards.

Commodity cards (coins, paper and cloth) that can be used to improve your cities.

Armies, technologies, commodities-it is almost as if Civilization was a board game. It adds a significant amount of complexity to the base game. The Cities & Knights expansions is my favorite of all the expansions. It’s easy to learn and adds a good bit more replayability. There are a handful of setups that are recommended.Īll-in all, this is probably the best Catan expansion for most people. With Seafarers it’s harder to do that and get an interesting game. With the original game you can essentially shuffle all the hex tiles and place them down. I’d say there’s also a bit more structure in setup. You can expect games to take a bit longer. In Seafarers the victory point threshold is increased from 10 to 14 points.

A pirate piece that can halt the building of shipping lanes.

A new tile type, gold, which grants a resource of your choosing.

Shipping lanes, which work as roads do, but on water.

It adds the fewest new rules and they mostly follow the same patterns as the original game.

If you’re thinking about getting a Catan expansion, Seafarers is probably the first one you’d want to purchase. I’ve had fun playing this version with 3-4 people, just because it provides a ton of room to expand. The additional tiles add a good amount of variability. Of course there are also two more sets of roads, houses and cities. What’s actually included? It adds another ring of tiles around the base game plus 2 port ocean tiles and 2 empty ocean tiles. You’ll need the original version of Catan to play. This has the exact same rules as the base game, but expands the game to accommodate 5-6 players. Not really an expansion, but including it here anyways.

Also, if you’re looking for a guide, here are some notes on the different elements each expansion adds.

Settlers of catan expansion