Catan: Explorers & Pirates — A Complete Overview

What Explorers & Pirates is

Explorers & Pirates (originally 2013, with multiple reprints since) is a standalone-style expansion that requires the base game and provides its own scenario book. Unlike Cities & Knights (layered rules) or Seafarers (sea-board variant), Explorers & Pirates is structured as a series of five scenarios played in sequence, each adding mechanics.

The five scenarios:

1. Land Ho! — Exploration basics. Build ships, explore the sea, discover new islands.
2. The Spice Islands — Trade spices between islands. Each spice shipment delivered earns VP.
3. The Pirate Lair — Pirate combat. Build pirate-hunting fleets, defeat lair tiles for rewards.
4. The Fish for Catan — Catch fish, deliver them to ports. Hybrid trade-and-exploration.
5. The Conquest — All mechanics combined. The campaign finale.

Each scenario takes 90-120 minutes for 3-4 players. The campaign across all five scenarios runs 8-12 hours, designed to be played across multiple sessions.

What makes Explorers & Pirates distinct

Ships replace roads as the primary expansion mechanic

You build settlements on coastal hexes. Most expansion happens via ship movement across sea hexes. The role of roads diminishes substantially.

Exploration tiles are face-down

The sea board includes face-down "discovery" hex tiles. Ships flip them when they arrive — sometimes revealing gold fields, sometimes hostile pirates, sometimes neutral islands. This adds a Fog Island-like discovery mechanic.

Mission cards drive VP differently

Instead of just settling and building, you complete missions — deliver spices, hunt pirate lairs, fish. Mission completion grants VP and resources. This shifts the strategic feel from "build engine, then accumulate VPs" to "complete missions on a timeline."

Combat exists

Pirate lairs and hostile encounters introduce a combat layer — you roll dice to defeat them. This is the most direct combat in any Catan expansion.

Why it's under-discussed

Three reasons Explorers & Pirates has flown under the radar:

• It's a campaign expansion in a non-campaign world. Most Catan players prefer one-night sessions, not multi-session campaigns. Explorers & Pirates plays best as a campaign — running through five scenarios with the same group.
• It overlaps with Seafarers. Players who own Seafarers see the sea-board mechanic and assume Explorers & Pirates is "more Seafarers." It's structurally different but shares enough surface area to feel redundant.
• Print runs have been irregular. Multiple reprints over the years, with availability gaps. The 2022-2025 reprint cycle has been more consistent.

Who should buy Explorers & Pirates

Yes if

• You've played Seafarers extensively and want the next step.
• Your group can commit to multi-session campaign play.
• You like exploration mechanics and hidden-information discovery.
• You enjoy mission-driven scenarios over open-ended sandbox play.

No if

• You haven't yet bought Seafarers (start there first).
• Your group plays one-shot game nights.
• You dislike combat mechanics.
• You're a casual Catan player.

The strategic feel, scenario by scenario

Land Ho! is the gentlest. Pure exploration with no combat. Good for testing whether your group enjoys the ship-driven feel.

Spice Islands introduces resource-route planning. Spices spawn on specific tiles; you deliver them to other tiles for VP. The strategic feel becomes more logistics-puzzle than negotiation.

Pirate Lair introduces combat. Pirate lairs spawn defensive dice. Players who hate dice combat (separate from Catan's production dice) struggle here.

Fish for Catan is the most popular standalone scenario. Fishing tiles produce on rolls; fish deliver to ports for VP. Combines best aspects of Spice Islands' delivery mechanic with simpler discovery.

The Conquest is the campaign finale. All mechanics together; longest scenario; designed to play with the same group across multiple sessions.

The 5-6 player extension

Explorers & Pirates supports 5-6 players with the matching 5-6 extension (sold separately, $30-40). The scaled-up scenarios work well for groups of five or six, though session times stretch to 2.5-3 hours per scenario.

The acquisition question

Explorers & Pirates retails $50-70 when in print; secondary market prices vary widely depending on availability. Watch for the 2025-2026 reprint cycle from CATAN GmbH if you want a guaranteed-clean copy.

If you can find it: yes, it's worth picking up — especially as part of a "complete Catan expansion library." If it's selling at $100+ on the secondary market, wait for a reprint. The expansion isn't so good that it justifies extreme premiums.

To see how Catan's underlying board interacts with the various expansions, generate a base layout via the Catan board generator. Most expansions (including Explorers & Pirates' sea-based scenarios) start from the same hex-board foundation.

Related: top 10 Catan expansions · underrated scenarios · C&K vs Seafarers