Variant Section 4: Seafarers' Discovery Scenarios

The Seafarers of Catan rules includes a number of Discovery Scenarios. This generalizes them and permits the players to select the starting options, bonus victory points options, and amount of discovery desired. In each case, the known isles are place, sea hexes are placed around the isles, then the remaining tiles are shuffled and deployed upside down. The players need to decide before play whether the number chit placement restrictions will be used for discovered land.

Seafarers - Known World Tile Major Options

1. One starting isle with two each of ore, wood, grain, sheep, and brick. [10 Tiles]

2. One starting isle with three each of ore, wood, grain, sheep, and brick. [15 Tiles]

3. Two starting isles with a total of two ores, woods, grains, sheep, and bricks. [10 Tiles]

4. Two starting isles with a total of three ores, woods, grains, sheep, and bricks. These islands can either be near to each other or at opposite ends of the map. [15 Tiles]

5. One starting isle per person with one each of ore, wood, grain, sheep, and brick. These isles should be as far as possible from each other and each player must deploy both his starting settlements on the same island. Each isle should have the following number chits, one of 6 or 8, one of 5 or 9, one of 4 or 10, one of 3 or 11, and one of 2 or 12. [5N Tiles]

Option: Replace for all players the 2 or 12 chit with a 4 or 10 chit or even a 5 or 9 chit. This will speed up the early game by marking resources less rare.

Alternate Option: For less experienced players replace the 2 or 12 chit with a 3 or 11 chit (very light handicap), a 4 or 10 chit (light handicap), a 5 or 9 chit (moderate handicap), or a 6 or 8 chit (significant handicap) to provide handicapping of players based on their skill.

Seafarers - Known World Tile Minor Options

These options can be applied to most of the major options above.

1. Scarce ore - reduce the ore tiles by one or two. This tends to defer the building of cities until the later game after some exploration has occurred.

2. Scarce brick - reduce the brick tiles by one or two. This will slow down the building of roads and encourage sailing.

3. Plentiful wood - increase the number of wood tiles by one. This will speed up the early game.

4. Initial Gold - add a gold tile to the starting mix. This will speed up the game, particularly is a likely number chit is placed on it.