The Settlers of Catan II and III

I already introduced my all-time-favorite board game: The Settlers of Catan.
The first two expansions showed up soon afterwards.


The Seafarers:
With the settlers setting off to sea there came the era of the seafarers. Finally they could go further than the borders of their island and set off in little ships towards unknown islands and wicked seas. Even the robber became a companion in form of a black pirate ship.
New was also an island hexagon called the gold plate. There is no gold in the game but when you built a village next to it you can choose whatever raw material you like.
For being able to set up ships there had to be a village at the coast. A street can't simply change into ships. I think the settlers are in need of a harbor to arrange their journey in the open seas. A ship costs wood and sheepskin. Well I could imagine something more effective for the sails but they have to use whatever they got.

I love playing freestyle most. This is in simply laying the home island and then building up sea and islands just as you like. The "board" can sometimes reach funny formes.

Here are the ships of the wooden version and the new version:

Cities and Knights:
The next expansion was a sort of conquest. Story is that the vikings are arriving in Catan. There is a small countdown for them (here in the up left corner), and everytime one of the additional dices lands on the black ship it comes closer.
When they arrive Catan you have to check how many cities there are and how many knights to defend them.
Through the game you can activate your knights as protection. There have to be more knights than cities for the Catanians to win. If so the player with the most knights gets a winner point.
If the Catanians are too weaks the vikings win with downgrading a city of the weakest player to a village.
Also there are additional materials you can get earn and trade. They are for building universities, kathedrals and convents. With each upgrade of these three buildings you get bonus features.

Here the red city has achieved the highest upgrade for convents and so is marked as a metropolos. Also the player has set up a city wall, resembled by the plate underneath. This allowes him to have two more raw materials on the hand when the robber comes with dicing the 7.

Result:

The Seafarers are easy to learn and nearly compatible with every other expansion of the settlers. It is very nice to not have to stick to your island.
I give them 10 of 10 points!

The Cities and Knights needs more concentration. It is better for being played seperatly. Playing with 4 dices and having to check knights, special features and the vikings is enough for a game!
I give them 8 out of 10!