Pyramid Pick

The Seafarers of Catan

Published by Mayfair Games

Designed by Klaus Teuber

$35.00

There's no denying that Settlers of Catan was a landmark product. Not only did it win the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game of 1996, but it opened the floodgates for European strategy boardgames (German, mostly) to find a whole new market of American players. Settlers of Catan is a convention open gaming mainstay to this day, testament to the quality and replayability of the design.

And now, Settler's designer Klaus Teuber's supplement, Seafarers of Catan has been brought to America by Mayfair Games. This is a supplement, not a companion game -- you need a copy of Settlers to play (in one case, you need two copies, but I'll talk more about that later).

Seafarers of Catan adds -- obviously enough -- a naval element to the original game. Ocean hexes can be added to the original map, and additional islands can be built to expand to. Or you can build an islands-only game, or other combinations of the original pieces and the new ones in this set to create any number of scenarios.

There aren't that many new rules to deal with. Players use small wooden ships to build "shipping lanes" across the seas (and along the coast), which work just like the roads built in the original game. Shipping lanes have a little more flexibility, however -- unless you've locked your route in between two towns or cities, the last built leg of your lane-in-progress can move around . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.

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Article publication date: January 22, 1999

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