|
From: Kosmos
Cost: $36
Players: 2-4 (additional 5-6 player expansion also available)
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Type of game: Family Strategy
Complexity: NA
Skill level: NA
Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 4.4 (16), Fall 1997
|
It keeps going, and going, and going...
It's the juggernaut that is Die Siedler von Catan (published in the United States as The Settlers of Catan by Mayfair Games). First they expanded it to accommodate up to six players. Then it spawned a two-player card game. Now the latest branch of this mighty oak lets your settlers take to the water in the Seafarer's Expansion.
Sadly, Kosmos knows they have a hit on their hands and isn't embarrassed to milk it for all its worth. The expansion comes in the same size box as the basic game (in a garish shade of Pepto Bismol) and carries a corresponding price tag— a bit absurd for an expansion which requires the basic game. So what do you get for your sheckles? Lots of wooden boats in four colors (blue, white, orange, and red), some additional number discs, supplementary hexes, bonus point tokens, jigsaw-cut border pieces, and a rule book with a dozen or so scenarios.
Seefahrer adds a new development, the ship, which can be built for one wood and one sheep (which is presumably shorn, the wool woven into sails). Ships can be placed on the edge of a sea hex, including those on the shore. Ships must connect, either directly or through other ships of the same color, to a player's city or settlement. This means you can't build a road right next to a ship— they must be separated by a building. Ships function just like roads, allowing players to reach potential building sites by sea. The longest road bonus is replaced by one for the longest trade route, which includes ships.
Ships can even be moved! Once per turn, a player can move any ship from the end of an open trade route (one not bounded by a player's settlements or cities at each end) to anywhere that player could legally build a new ship. This makes ships more flexible than roads, which can sometimes be wasted if it no longer becomes possible to build in the direction the road was headed. This makes another new rule more attractive: players building one of their initial two settlements on a coastal spot may opt for a free ship instead of a road. In fact, unless you get sheep less often than bricks, ships are usually the better choice along the coast if you don't need to head inland.
Ships wouldn't be very interesting if there was nowhere for them to go. That's where the scenarios and supplementary tiles come in. Using the additional sea and land hexes provided by the expansion, it's possible to construct a range of different configurations. The jigsaw border acts as a frame which is filled in with hex tiles, creating a map of islands of various sizes. One scenario has players starting on a standard island as in the basic game, but with four smaller islands accessible by sea. Another scenario starts with two large islands separated by a channel. One even combines Sielder with Entdecker, letting players discover unrevealed tiles as they sail to them.
To encourage players to set sail, many scenarios award bonus victory points for establishing settlements on new islands. Perhaps for this reason, they also require more victory points to win (typically 12). Of course, you could play to fewer points for a shorter game.
One new type of land is introduced in this set: the gold river. It produces one resource of a player's choice, which is obviously very powerful. Most scenarios put these tiles in hard-to-reach places, and with sub-optimal numbers to boot.
And did I mention the pirate? This villain of the sea can be moved around instead of the robber. He freezes the sea hex he's in, preventing any ships from being moved from or added to that hex. Moreover, the player moving the pirate can steal a resource from each player with a ship bordering the pirate's new hex (as opposed to just one, as with the robber).
A potential problem with the scenario system for frequent players is that they're subject to analysis. In many of them the setup is always identical, both in hex position and number assignment. With a little study and experience it may be possible to determine the most optimal building locations., giving a veteran of that scenario an advantage. The setup could be varied to avoid this, but doing so might disrupt the scenario's balance.
The most important question is whether or not the expansion enhances the game. To be honest, I'm still undecided. I've tried three scenarios so far. In the first (Big and Little Islands), the expansion never really made a difference. The second (Oceania, the one combining Siedler with Entdecker) was a fun change of pace. Fleets of ships explored the unknown, spurred by the promise of a free resource of whatever land type was discovered. When sailors clambered up to the crows nest to peer through a spyglass, however, they were far more likely to see nothing but more water. The next time the scenario gets played, there might not be such a rush to sail over the horizon unless the tile mix is modified to include more land or less water.
The third scenario, The New World, was the most interesting. Most of the tiles from the combined sets get shuffled and dealt into a 7x7 grid, creating a random and irregular arrangement of islands. Each land hex get a number at random as well, the only restriction being that red numbers (sixes and eights) can't touch each other. This results in some very unusual terrain with unique strategic considerations every time. Of course, there's no guarantee any given setup will be balanced— there might be only one good spot which the first player snaps up, leaving everyone else scrabbling. This seems unlikely, though, and you can always redeal. The New World offers plenty of incentives for shipbuilding, however, as the inevitable peninsulas and inlets make seafaring an efficient— and sometimes necessary— method of getting to new building locations.
Perhaps the best thing about this expansion is that it makes sheep more worthwhile. Underutilized in the basic game, the addition of ships makes sheep valuable throughout the entire game. A nice side effect is that players will be able to expand more often in the early game, since they can now do so with either a lumber/brick or lumber/sheep combination.
It doesn't reinvent the game like Konig & Intrigant does El Grande, but Seefahrer adds welcome variety to a game which has already made it to my 50+ games-played list.