Explorers & Pirates Board Game Expansion (6th Edition) Embark on New Adventures, Strategy Game for Kids & Adults, Ages 12+, 3-4 Players, 90 Minute Playtime, Made by Catan Studio

Catan at Its Best – A Must-Have ExpWe absolutely love this expansion! If you already enjoy Catan, Explorers & Pirates takes everything to the next level. Instead of building on one island, you're sending ships across the sea to discover new lands, collect spices, catch fish, and defeat pirates — it’s like five adventures packed into one game. We played with 3–4 people, and every session was totally different. The added missions give you more ways to win, so everyone can choose their own strategy. It’s still competitive, but with even more depth. I especially like that the robber is gone — no more stolen cards — and the new gold system helps balance out the luck of the dice. Yes, it’s a little more to set up and learn, but once you get the hang of it, it’s amazing. The pieces are great quality, the rulebook is clear, and the variety keeps it from ever feeling repetitive. This expansion completely refreshed the game for us. Highly recommend for anyone who wants a richer, more adventurous Catan experience!ansion for Fans!

Our love for CATAN led us to explore the Explorers and Pirates Board Game Expansion, and it has proven to be an exceptional addition to our gaming collection. This expansion seamlessly integrates with the classic CATAN experience, introducing a new layer of depth and excitement. The adventure theme adds a refreshing twist, and the game mechanics are thoughtfully crafted to keep players engaged throughout. With an age recommendation of 12+, this expansion is perfect for both adults and families with older kids. The suggested playtime of 90 minutes allows for a more immersive gaming experience without becoming too time-consuming. The quality of the components is top-notch, a trademark of Catan Studio. The game pieces, board, and cards are well-crafted, ensuring durability for countless gaming sessions. What we appreciate most is the strategic element that Explorers and Pirates brings to the table. It introduces new challenges and opportunities, making each playthrough a unique adventure. If you're a CATAN enthusiast, this expansion is a must-have. It injects new life into the game, keeping it fresh and exciting. Highly recommended for anyone looking to expand their CATAN experience!

Important to note that you can not play this game without the original Catan game. It uses pieces from it to build the board, and for game play. We jumped head first into Catan during quarantine and loved it! I mean we played every night! Quickly, we decided to expand our Catan world and after trying to read about the different scenarios on all the other expansion packs, we chose this version as our first expansion. And boy am I glad we did! It’s enough like original Catan so you’re familiar with the rules - but adds enough new elements to make it fun and exciting each time. With 4 different scenarios, and so many ways you can randomize the board, it really is something new every time! The pieces are very well made and the box has a place for everything. You do need to be careful when removing the game pieces initially, as the paper liner will tear if you’re not careful.

Regular Catan is probably my favorite board game ever. This extension is also really fun. It is definitely a learning curve as a lot of the game changes. But the core of the game, trading and trying to win, is still there.

Great game but would be better if it had all the original pieces to be able to play the game. Mine is missing 1 orange harbor and 1 orange settler. So right now only 3 people can play until I can get the 2 missing pieces.

This is a fun expansion pack to play alongside original Catan. The coolest thing is that there are endless possibilities of play with the expansion pack. It has five scenarios of play which are each uniquely different. So you essentially are never playing the same game twice. It does take a while to play through and has a lot of rules but the possibilities are endless. A good buy for the Catan lover.

If you're an experience Catan player is there such a thing as a bad version? No and this one is no different, adds new aspects to an old favorite.

Our favorite expansion

This is a great expansion to the Settlers of Catan game. There are different levels of difficulty, so you can ease into learning it. Had lots of fun playing this with our family.

Primera expansión que compro, muy divertido de aprender y jugar, le da un cambio grande al modo de juego básico de catan, una vez pruebes este nuevo modo no volverás al modo base por un largo tiempo.

Nice expansion. The scenarios should be played in order and each scenario adds new rules. Makes it easy to remember the last scenario where all the rules apply. This is more like an expansion of 'Fog Island' scenario of Catan Seafarers. I have the 4th edition base and this works well with it. The resource hex has different designs but that kind of helps in sorting them while packing up the game. This also has cards that help in sorting the game pieces, i.e. which piece goes in which bag. This considerably reduces the packing up time!

Chosen as an add on to the original Catan which we bought at christmas, and loved. This was the expansion that seemed most popular (through a quick Google and reading reviews on board game sites that compared the various expansions available). Quick note - the ones labelled 'expansion' expand the game, as in create new goals and ways of earning victory points as well as physically expanding the size of the board, while 'extension' packs give you extra pieces so you can have more players - be careful which you end up buying because it isn't always clear from cut and pasted product descriptions! Our family (two adults, two teens aged 13 and 14) loved the original game but after enough games it can get a bit tedious, and so opted for this expansion. We're adding a single extra element at a time (there are several 'senarios' in this - you add extra islands, then pirates, then fish, then spices, but you can play with only one extra (pirates/fish/spices) at a time, or add each to the previous so first you play with extra islands, then extra islands and pirates, then extra islands and pirates and fish and so on. What we decided to do was add each new element and get comfortable playing that (so maybe four or five games) before then adding the next thing in, and that's working well for us - our thinking is that once we've played a game without having to check back in the booklet to clarify any rules or had any disputes along the lines of "But you already moved your ship so now it's too late to trade gold to get sheep to buy more moves for the ship" vs "No, because it has sheep for moves under the movement phase" countered with "but you're not using a sheep, you're trading gold for it THEN using it" then we have got our heads round it enough to add in something else. Add a lot of interest to the basic game, with much more going on and more things to keep track of, as well as being played on a physically larger board so do think about whether it will fit where you play! I'd highly recommended this expansion (though haven't personally played any of the other expansions so can't compare with them), but do keep in mind you need to use lots of pieces from the basic game so don't get this unless you already have ordinary basic Catan, as it will be useless! All in all, adds extra layers to the game, making it much more strategic and enjoyable.

Es muy entretenido!