Catan Seafarers — Rules FAQ

Seafarers is the first official expansion to The Settlers of Catan. It introduces sea hexes, ships, gold-field tiles, and pre-built scenarios that turn the single landmass of the base game into archipelagos with islands to discover and settle.

Three core additions: (1) Sea hexes interspersed with land, (2) ships built along sea-edges that act as movable trade routes, and (3) gold fields — when a gold-field is activated by a die roll, the player picks any single resource of their choice. Many scenarios also feature multiple discovery islands worth bonus victory points.

A ship costs 1 wood + 1 sheep (vs. a road's 1 wood + 1 brick). Ships are placed on sea-edges connected to your road or ship network, just like roads on land-edges. You can have a chain of ships that extends across the sea.

Yes — once per turn, you may move one of your "open" ships (a ship not directly connecting two settlements/cities and not the most recently built) to a new sea-edge connected to your network. This is the ship rule that makes Seafarers strategically distinct.

Gold fields produce no fixed resource. When the gold field's number is rolled, every player with a settlement or city adjacent to it receives one resource of their choice (or two for cities) — they pick from the bank, any resource type they want.

In most Seafarers scenarios, the first player to build a settlement on a previously-uninhabited island earns a "settlement on a foreign land" bonus victory point. The exact bonus varies by scenario; check the scenario card you're using.

The pirate is the sea equivalent of the robber. When activated (typically by rolling a 7 or playing a Knight in scenarios that use it), the active player moves the pirate onto a sea hex; ships adjacent to the pirate cannot be used as part of the longest-road/route bonus, and a card may be stolen from a player adjacent to that hex.

Most Seafarers scenarios target 13 victory points (vs. 10 in base Catan), and the larger maps take longer to traverse. Expect 90–120 minutes for a 3–4 player game.

Yes — but only at a settlement or city. A road cannot directly connect to a ship across an open intersection; one of your buildings has to bridge them.

Replaces the longest road in Seafarers scenarios. Counts both roads and ships as a continuous route; otherwise scored the same — 5+ unbroken segments, 2 victory points, can be taken from another player by exceeding their length.

No. The rulebook lists multiple scenarios (Heading for New Shores, The Four Islands, The Forgotten Tribe, etc.) of increasing complexity. New players typically start with Heading for New Shores. Each scenario has its own setup, rules tweaks, and victory threshold.

Yes — the rulebook for Cities & Knights includes a section on combining with Seafarers. You'll need both expansions on the table; some scenarios are designed specifically for the combination.

Use this site's Seafarers map generator to randomise the terrain and number-token layout, then place ships, port chits, and victory-point chits per the scenario you're playing. Initial settlement placement happens in the standard Catan two-pass turn order.

The introductory Seafarers scenario. A small main island plus two or three discovery islands separated by sea hexes. It's the first scenario most groups play, and the layout this site's generator emulates.

The base Catan box plus the Seafarers expansion box, which contains sea hexes, gold-field hexes, ship pieces, scenario cards, and additional number tokens. For 5–6 player Seafarers you also need the 5–6 player expansion plus the Seafarers 5–6 extension.

Moving an open ship can break or re-route your trade chain — the new ship position is what counts for trade-route length, not where the ship was before. If moving the ship breaks your chain below five segments, you lose the longest trade route bonus immediately. Conversely, a clever ship move can complete a longer route by bridging two previously-separated ship chains through a new intersection. Ship-move tactics are one of Seafarers' deepest strategic layers; players who treat ships as immovable miss most of the expansion's decision space.

Yes, but the pirate doesn't affect your own production hexes — it only disables ships adjacent to it and prevents card-stealing from those adjacent to its sea hex. Unlike the robber, which blocks production on its land hex, the pirate is a sea-only piece and doesn't interfere with the land-resource roll. Moving the pirate onto a sea hex adjacent to an opponent's busy port can throttle their trade-route count without affecting their settlement income directly.

Gold fields produce resources of the player's choice when activated, so functionally they count exactly like any other producing hex for resource generation. Settlements and cities adjacent to gold fields use the resulting resources normally. A gold field does not change road or trade-route adjacency rules — the gold field is a land hex, so coastal gold fields support both road and ship building from settlements on its border, but a gold field is not a sea hex.

No — ships must connect to your road/ship network or directly to a settlement. The initial setup gives each player two settlements and two roads (not ships); ships are built during normal gameplay only. Once your settlements are placed, you may build a ship on any sea-edge connected to your starting roads, and from there extend across the sea.

Forgotten Tribe is a mid-difficulty Seafarers scenario where pre-placed neutral settlements occupy strategic intersections — players cannot settle on those spots but can interact with the tribe through trade. The scenario adds a layer of negotiation: tribe members may provide resources or development cards in exchange for the player meeting specific build conditions nearby. It's a popular step up from Heading for New Shores because the fixed pieces give the board a more puzzle-like character without changing the underlying rules drastically.