Some minor rules clarifications, helped from Catan Studios! None of these change scores or final assessments about the expansions. (1) In Seafarers ships and roads can’t combine, they must be separated by a settlement (1:19). Also pointed out by a commenter below! (2) In Cities & Knights you will not lose a city that has a metropolis during a barbarian attack (9:18). 3. Also in C&K, if you play the deserter card it removes a knight from another player and you get to place a knight, but it must be in a legal position near your own roads (to avoid 15:12). Deserter card is still really good. (4) Players pirate ships in Explorers & Pirates replace each other when rolling a 7 to avoid choke points like in (27:28) Also pointed out by a commenter below.
In C&K the knight is allowed to be on the Crossroad of the roads. But if it gets chased away by either a certain card or a knight majority, and it has no axes to your own roads, then it is deleted out of the game. Also. To offset the balance of the die, we implement a rule where everytime when the dice are rolled, and you didn't get any resource (except 7) then you get a chip. Once you have as many of these as your current points total, you may choose the number dice on your next roll and turn them in. This can somewhat offset the balance towards the players behind in development.
Also. At 27:49 the ship stop move when discover a new land(E&P is my favorite game and will take a while to learn all the unclarified rules of the game) PS: Make more videos abou Catan. Is such a popular game and enjoying thing to watch. Keep up the good wotk
In seafarer's you can't just alternate roads and ships like that. It's written in the rules, there must be a settlement before you change your route type and the ships can't go across land. This difficult adds a lot to the game play
I agree. I really like catan universe because there's less to fiddle with and games take 50 mins on average. But Catan universe has been so buggy and the dice odds are just wrong
Cities and Knights is definitly slower and more complicated but that's what I love about it. It gives so many more options and allows for more tactical decisions with the knights and development cards. I agree on the randomness of the development cards and having to be able to get a knight before the first invasion being a bit annoying at times.
Getting knights early is a pain, but that can be kinda solved by implementing house rules (re-roll all 7s before first invasion). The real problem is how unbalanced the green development cards and aqueduct are relative to the other options
@@dusanslepcev2665 yeah, science is so OP but atleast it requires you to get Books from Forests which means you are less likely to get Knights and Cities etc and Knight bullying can definitly help wreck somebody who goes heavy into Science (also aqueduct doesn't scale insanely well when you are doing good with wood -> building lots of roads and settlements) Science is still OP but there are SOME balancing factors.
The most popular variant I've ever introduced is having the 2 and 12 tokens be treated as 2/12 tokens that generate a resource whenever either number is rolled. It has a very small effect on the game but people like it.
@@thomascocks9136 Yes. A small increase in the odds with a correspondingly small increase in resource production over the game but a very popular change despite that as it doubles the production of those hexes.
We in Europe have different pieces of C&K for knights, they are real miniatures holding a flag with 1,2 or 3 spikes so you can easily tell and when you activate then you put little helemt on them! Also cities upgrade looks different ad well
It still bugs me they updated to the new artwork in the US but didn't actually change any of the physical components. For instance, I find the old card backs really ugly and clashing in art style...They say because they didn't want to break compatibility with the old editions when the cards are mixed together but CMON like nothing matches so why care about the cards? HOWEVER, my point is that in Cities & Knights this issue is much worse because it has several times more "old" components and clashing artwork that did not get updated.
The Bazaar: any player with a settlement built on the desert may trade any four resource cards for a resource of their choice(as opposed to four of a kind to the bank). If the settlement is upgraded to a city then it's any three resources.
Explorers and Pirates is highly underrated. It makes the game longer but the different scenarios make it a lot more fun than regular/base Catan. Playing the full expansion i.e. all five scenarios takes an an average three hours. It's definitely not the ideal choice when you want to play something quick and have people who have never played Catan. But if you have a group of Catan fans and looking to make the game more exciting, this is the expansion. The pirate lairs, fish shoals and spice islands all employ similar but different mechanisms of scoring. We don't play Base Catan anymore. If and when we have time, E&P is the top choice.
Great video! My friends and I exclusively played C&K once we learned it. We played with a house rule that expending knights to fight off the invasion was optional. Really added extra strategy to being able to respond to them in ways to help ourselves or make others lose a city.
Isn't that a core rule of the game? Players decide in turn order, starting with the active player, how many and which of their knights defend. Allows for some great Knight bullying.
We basically have just always mixed seafarers and cities and knight together and we've always enjoyed it. We also always give people the choice if they want a resource or commodity from a city.
I love that combination but not a fan of the houserule. There's a bonus you can get that allows you to trade a commodity at 2:1 rates. This bonus would become almost useless.
I would recommend trying more Cities and Knights. It’s so deep and there’s a lot of richness to it. My online play group plays almost exclusively C&K. Though I would say combining it with Explorers and Pirates is the most epic way to play.
Game of Thrones Catan… best version yet! Adds the teamwork mechanic to defending the wall, but also can allow for alliances i.e. certain people only defend certain portions of the wall etc
Our family plays standard Catan with three elements added. We play with gold/taxes (bought a roll of pennies which we use as gold) which means that even if you don't get a resource, you're always getting *something* with every dice roll, and we tie resource trade with gold to how many victory points someone has. Players with less VPs will be able to get resources a little more easily and so don't get left behind so easily. We add fishing to add incentives to settle on the coast. And finally, we use the Catan Helper Cards! They are so much fun in adding an additional ability to someone's turn.
Cities & Knights is a great expansion, especially if you play it online (through catan universe or colonist) where the clarity issues are less of a problem.
once you understand C&K it is so good and so much fun sabotaging but working together at the same time, also combining it with seafarers makes it even more complex and you need 16 points, once you gain some experience you can finish in 2 hours easy
I got rid of my Settlers of Catan, but i could swear that my (german) version had way better quality materials. The cards were more colorful, the Knights were easily distinguishable and no miscuts. I'm quite sure the flipbook size was the same. Only had Seafarers and Cities and Knights, so can't comment on the rest.
I have all the expansions in Hungarian, and the European prints are much more solid. All the basic wooden components are replaced with very detailed plastic figurines, the whole game is a lot more colorful/saturated. I was honestly surprised to see how much American version of Catan looks worse than what we get here
@@siposbalint2000 what I mean is that the board pieces from the newer iteration of Catan is thinner than than say the 1st edition of the boardgame. The plastic pieces themselves are ok.
I got both seafarers and Traders and Barbarians with the 5-6 player expansions. We like to merge and house rules both games. We typically have a main Island where everyone starts and has the traders, rivers and fish. Some of the tiles (particularly on Islands we can expand to) have 2 numbers on them to increase resource generation for those who get out there. Also we go for high point games as we like longer games, but I know that is unusual.
Citied and knights is my favourite. Now i only play catan including this expansion. The best thing and worst thing about Catan is you can mix all the expansions together and get creative. You end up buying so many and can be hard to get them on the table as often as you would wish.
Explorers and Pirates is the most fun when you go big with it - playing the biggest map with the 5-6 expansion, and you include Pirates, Spices, and Fish
My all-time favourite variant is the Welfare variant. When anyone rolls the die and it's a number you aren't built (robber doesn't count) on you get a welfare token. On your turn you can trade in a number of these tokens equal to the number of victory points you have built on the boards (don't count VP cards) for a resource of your choice. I usually cap this ratio at 5 to 1 to keep it relevant in the later game. As this increases the flow of resources into the economy it tends to speed up gameplay and helps compensate for poor initial placement..
I no longer own Catan, but I owe to it my affinity for board games. If I were to purchase Catan again and could only purchase one of the expansions (never played Explorers and Pirates), I would buy Cities and Knights. I suppose I fall into that “niche” category. Lol. Still, I wonder how niche it actually is. There are indeed so many games to play, and so little time, but only two plays would not be the requisite amount to appreciate the nuances of this great expansion. The progress tracks (yellow, blue, and green flip-boards) are actually balanced fairly well. Each track comes with its own ways of earning unique victory points. The green one with its ability certainly seems more beneficial at first, but the other two have their own unique benefits. Also, one thing that was not mentioned is that a metropolis cannot be destroyed by barbarians. Regarding the Traders and Barbarians expansion, we only played the scenario with wagons once. Never again. It resulted in a stalemate because no more roads could possibly be built. No one achieved the required amount of points to win. Maybe that’s an unusual circumstance. Suffice it to say, we unanimously agreed to never play that variant again. Lol. Great video! Really takes me back to my Catan days. Happy gaming!
Heyo! Wow, thanks for this feedback! Yep, unfortunately I didn't get to play it more than 2 times, but for most board gamers that watch our channel, I suspect Cities & Knights will be a niche pickup, especially due to the role that catan is probably filling for their game nights as a casual experience. But yep, for those super into Catan, and are die hard fans already, then Cities & Knights is certainly the most 'serious' arena to take Catan, although I still stand by the development cards being a bit wonky. Will have to test the theory on green being about the same in value to the rest, but in our games, rushing it was just amazing tempo. We did consider that cities with metropolises cannot get blown up. I could also see the traders and barbarians scenario getting wonky, and possibly with 4 players it suffers more, but I suspect its more VP efficient to focus on wagons and building placement over roads. Time will tell on that one! Cheers! -Ashton
I think you misunderstood the rules of the last T&B scenario. You shouldn't be able to stalemate. The # of roads built shouldn't matter, at all. You can still move Wagons over dirt paths.
Yo I am SHOCKED! I thought this was a great review but i loooove cities and knights, it’s the only version I play anymore. I never knew anybody disliked it.
I've often wondered if it would be possible to combine EVERY Catan expansion into a single game. It would probably take a long time, but I figured it'd be cool to try! Seeing this though, some of them seem to be incompatible, or doubling up on mechanics in the same area, like with the ships or different uses for knights. EDIT: Thinking about it, Explorers & Pirates taking bits of the others might make it the neatest one to me, but the concept and mechanics were also done really well in the board game Explorers Of The North Sea, which I love and it's all in the base game rather than expansions.
I've played Explorers and pirates (last scenario with all additions) with Cities and Knights, it was a 6 hour game but luckily a very tight one. You could also add traders & barbarians to that but that would be too much work 🤣 Probably will never do this again as it was in my early getting into tabletop gaming phase.
@@Goldenwingz70 How many victory points did you play till? This past holiday weekend I played 4 player Greater Catan and it took us 5 and a half hours... The Greater Catan scenario when combined with C&K is a 20 VP total. That is just way to much in my opinion.
@@bertyd2124 We played until about 24-26 victory points, it was a year ago I don't exactly remember. Agreed, way too many 🤣 We knew what we were getting into so just decided to throw away a third of the day on Catan lol.
@@Goldenwingz70 24 or 26 points!?!? At least you all knew what you were getting yourselves into. I told my friends our game would only take at most 3 hours... they weren't too thrilled it went 5 and half hours. Do you remember coming across any problems combining C&K with Explorer's and Pirates?
@@bertyd2124 Lol that's rough, long Catan games are brutal. C&K with explorer's and pirates worked well for us. It was fun keeping track of the barbarian track while trying to go up the different explorer's and pirate VP tracks while trying to go up the city track. I feel like adding anything more to it like traders and barbarians would be too much maintenance for the fun it adds.
My family plays Catan (base game) with a house rule where each robber moved removes the number on the tile its going to. The number stolen is moved to the tile where the robber came from (including the desert). For us, it balanced the game for all players and made knights more powerful. Some players are even known to role a 7, move the robber to their own resource hex, only to use a robber to replace it with a better number. I recommend people give it a shot if they're looking to spice up the base game.
Explorers & Pirates is my favorite way to play Catan. It adds so much scale and adventure to the game. What I enjoy about Catan is that you can pick and choose what scenarios you want and then combine them. When people have multiple ways to rack up victory points, it just makes so much fun. While I respect base Catan for being an OG, I just find it too bland.
For me the only two expansions I need are C&K and E&P since they improve on the concepts of the previous two expansions. Everyone loves C&K for obvious reasons but E&P is such an overlooked expansion
I love C&K. It's the best expansion and tbh feels more like real Catan VS the beginner base game. Don't get me wrong the base game is fun and simple but the deeper strategies and sabotaging (with built in mechanics to get you back up) makes games feel closer and gets the heart pumping more. I feel c&k is always targeted at the highest ranking player and thus feels more balanced. There are significantly less runaway games in c&k which makes it feel better to play all the way through. Losing never means you've lost in c&k
Traders & Barbarians was originally a series of smaller expansions which ended up being complied into a single box to reduce analysis paralysis for buyers.
Super disappointed that he didn't play the true version of explorers and pirates, which combines together all three scenarios of pirate hunting, fishing, and spice trading. This creates the most epic Catan experience by far in my opinion. Also just want to give a shout out to star farers which is awesome as well.
Growing up my family played Cities and Knights exclusively, and we absolutely love that game. We only ever played with the original rule-set though, which includes the not rolling the extra die for 2 rounds and different development cards. (Except intrique, if you know this card you'll understand)
Catan with Cities & Knight is an awesome game…. It’s is the best expansion of all. It add some extra spice and new challenges to the overall game play but not too much like traders and barbarian… Sea fares is bit dry as it just have ships moving on the board … Cities and Knights add some additional activities such as managing barbarian, upgrading the island and keeping an eye on your knights….. perfect addition to the base game to make it a must have expansion. I will always play Catan with Cities & Knights only.
Small elements from T&B have become staple variant rules, like Harbormaster and Friendly Robber. Those mini rules + Seafarers = easy to implement optional styles that feel extremely in-line with the main gameplay of Catan. This video makes me hopeful for Explorers & Pirates... I think I can come up with a way to mix it with Seafarers and find my perfect exploration Catan that doesn't feel like an entirely different game lol
As a 10+ year Catan vet, Cities and Knights is the best expansion but it also has the highest learning curve. Once you've really mastered Seafarers and the base game....dive in to learning it. You will love it once you've got it down. It takes Catan from the level of checkers to chess. For casual players you will probably like Seafarers and the base game alone....but for those who are more strategic... definitely figure out Cities and Knights. Cities and Knights works best with 3 players. 4+ it can make it very difficult to have enough resources/good spots to save your initial city. Also as a heads up you can hold 4 development cards not 3.
I know I’m super late, but in regards to your last statement, I think catan is a great way of getting people hooked on board games, and then adding cities and knights later on so they can get gently introduced to more complicated games, while sticking with something they know. Now you have someone who feels comfortable with more complicated games really easily, at least in my experience
I play wth a house rule for cities and knights that the first barbarian attack doesn't count. It allows players to focus on building early in the game and makes it less likely for people to lose cities and slow down their game. I think it's a big improvement as the beginning of the game can be really slow with the standard rules of cities and knights
Have you tried not rolling the event die for the first two table turns? It gives people a chance to choose walls or knights plus you likely aren't too far into commodity trees yet.
Think of the first attack as essentially a prolongment of the placement phase. All players are focused on the same goal, and this makes for increased trading and collusion during these first few turns. You might deny your opponent the resource(s) they need for an active knight, and rather than getting a VP yourself you let their city fall because you think their initial placements are too strong. Each player's placements and their pacing during the first few turns crucially factor into their opponents' decisions regarding the first attack. This makes for a lot of drama and mindgames, which is to me is part of what makes C&K the most loyal expansion.
It's amazing how different our perspectives are. Cities and Knights is my favorite expansion combined with Seafarers, because I want the deep, meaty 2-3 hour game it provides. I don't go to Catan for a light one hour game; base Catan feels so boring to me. I cannot imagine playing without both Seafarers and Cities and Knights. It's so good.
I have both Traders & Barbarians and Seafarers! So far, I've enjoyed both a lot and haven't played every scenario. I am very hooked on the Fishermen of Catan. It spices up the game, makes it faster and more balanced, combos well with Harbormaster, and can easily be combined with other expansions.
I have them all but this video is amazing. A lot of effort and time went into it. I think seafarers is a must if you could just choose one. However my favorite of all is probably cities and knights but it’s so niche and you need the right people for it. For most people seafarers is your best choice.
the barbarian one looks really fun! I might buy that one. also because you have 2 tiny expansions for lesser known catan players and friends who are not that into boardgames
Cities and Knights viewers cant stand to see such an integral catan expansion at a 4. The noncommodities are purposefully made that way cause everyone needs more access to wheat with crazy army sizes as well as brick for walls. It balances the resources more so than any other expansion. Idk how u think turns sometimes taking longer is a bad thing. The mental game of what everyone else is doing with their resources is what makes it work and what I think encourages the most player engagement. Playing it irl might be slow but there are better ways to play.
Despite all the mistakes, I am glad you did a review of all 4 major Expansions! ... But that is only the tip of the iceburg! There is SO much more Catan stuff out there! 1) You got the Scenario Packs, further add-ons to the Expansions. "Legend of the Sea Robbers" (for Seafarers), "Legend of the Conquerors" (for C&K), and "Treasures, Dragons, & Adventurers" (for SF and C&K!). Both Legends games are story-based campaigns. While TD&A is 6 more scenarios that can use both Expansions... and you white Dragons in 2 of em!!! 2) Then there is the individual scenarios, each only costing a few bucks. "The Helpers", "Oilsprings", "Frenemies", and "Crop Trust" 3) And then there is all the stand alone Catan games... too many to list! 4) And THEN there is a bunch more stuff from the past that isn't sold anymore!!!
C&K is by far my favorite. One thing is that the physical can be very annoying for the reason said, but when you play online in Catan World, it is much cleaner and you can finish in 30 minutes. It’s much easier to appreciate the beauty of this expansion
My favourite expension is "Der Schokoladenmarkt" (The chocolate market). It adds an element similar to a stock exchange, but with chocolate resources. There's an English translation online.. P.S. C&K is goated, but definitely not beginner friendly..
Bro thank you fro this! Going away for a week with my family and I wanted to bring an expansion since we all love the game just wasn't sure what the easiest on ramp to one would be but this helped a ton!
My most memorable experience playing settlers of catan was the explorers and pirates expansion. Another player was attempting to bring his fish to sell st the market before me. My ships in the area didnt have anything to do, so i ended up blocking up the trade routes with my own ships, congesting the pass, and making him waste his turn going around me. My friends called me the villian of catan for the rest of the game.
I have never played catan, but I Imagine playing on a huge map with every expansion mashed together and tweaking the rules a bit so it would work, would be really fun
I just feel that Catan without C&K is incomplete. It adds so much to the replayability. With Catan base and with Seafarers, you are required to expand to win. If you get blocked in, you're screwed. However, with C&K, the strategies you can use to win are much more varied and accessible. I've seen people win with almost every strategy. I've won with only being able to touch 4 total tiles. With the loss of production of resources of cities, yeah you do lose some speed of building. But, you wouldn't have had that city in regular Catan in the first place, so it's a negligible difference. Plus, think about it another way. At the start of the game, you have to decide whether you want resources or commodities first. It's a strategic decision. Choosing where to build cities becomes a much bigger choice, because you have to balance getting more resources vs getting more commodities. And hand bloat? I understand why that might be an issue, but if you keep your commodities on one side of your hand, and resources on the other, it's a lot easier to keep track. The hand limit is still 7 without city walls, and so when you get attacked, the question is what to lose? The rarer commodities, or the more useful resources. Also, play C&K with Seafarers to like 14 points. It's the way to play.
Hand bloat is a far greater issue in base catan. There's no merchant, merchant fleet, or commodity 2:1 to burn excess cards. In base catan, if you don't have a port your options for downsizing your hand are extremely limited as there are simply less ways to spend cards. In C&K practically every turn you will be upgrading/activating knights and spending commodities. In base catan you can only build or buy devs (that are 56% knights). There are also no city walls nor alchemist to dodge 7. Rolling a 7 is also just more interesting in C&K. If you roll the 7 and have a bunch of knights activated, you could end up stealing two, three or more cards from your opponents. Plus, what you decide to block depends on your opponents knight positioning and whether or not they're active. And as you said, when you do get 7'd out, discarding involves twice as much strategy.
Love the Age of Empires music :). Nice review! Only played seafarers a few times and Cities and Knights once. I liked C&K! It was a different version, not with a booklet but with tiles you flip over. The knights also were plastic and had a hat if they were active. Was more visible. Seafarers, for me, is more of the same and doesn't add a lot.
You got one thing completely backwards. Adding another d6 in cities and knights does not make the luck worse, it makes it better. The more times you roll the more likely the dice results even out.
I bought Catan in the 2000’s and Seafairers and Cities and Knights shortly after. Played C&K expansion a few times but never opened Seafarers. Trying to get back into the game after 10+ years. Since we live next to a game playing family now. Came here for a refresher
I'm really surprised that a German table top game is so popular outside of Germany and Austria. It's one of the games I played with my parents quite often.
The rule about noone receiving fish if there aren't enough is just like the normal rule of how noone receives a rolled resource if there aren't enough of that resource.
You exactly hit the nail on the head with how I feel about cities and knights. I keep seeing how it's the best rated expansion, but in practice it all too often turns into an unsatisfying slog. Glad to see I'm not the only one who feels this way!
Dont forget the higher player expensions. 5-6 players. And the volcano. The volcano is like gold but if the opposite number is rolled everything around is destroyed(risk).
So well made. I've already played of these, but you definitely clarified and helped me understand each one on a deeper level. I really appreciate the work put into this.
Good, that I have the original City and Knights, where you can clearly see, which Knights are active: The once with the face aren't, the one with the 1-3 fists are. Really amazing, that they made this worse in newer editions. Or maybe you need the German edition. But the next time we play, I will certainly mention that "don't role the event dice for 2 turns" rule, that didn't exist back when we bought it...
The way I play Cities and Knights is that knights can't be moved and the metropolis can only be achieved at the final page of the flipbook. This makes the bandit pawn harder to deal with (And the action card associated with it), but also requires strategic placement of your knights to be able to keep your most important resource tiles running. Cities and Knights is by far the most complex and fun way to play Catan, and while it does make the game last longer, it also adds for way more variety and competition with the other players. (Also, the Dutch version uses way more distinct colors, with the 2 faces of the knight being completely different as well, so the clarity isn't an issue there)
absolutely remove inventor card that is some BS, when removing deserter the blue cards are really weak , but i have been thinking about removing that every time someone uses it. it does need a nerf. maybe it should take a full table turn for the army to cross over to you. so the minimum loss+gain when using this OP card would be worth 4-8 cards instead of the current possible insane number of 9-13 cards not to mention the possible +1 victory point.
@@urmoarr There are 2 inventors in the 18 green cards, so you have a 11% chance of pulling one. In a typical game the green deck is exhausted and reshuffled at least once, so you can hypothetically double this chance. That is, if an inventor is played it can likely be reversed, especially when you consider that invented spots are usually shared. There are similarly 2 deserters in the 18 blue cards. If the deserter is really punishing you, that tells me you might not be very good at C&K. You should always have weak knights to sacrifice, and these knights should never be positioned where said sacrifice could lead to losing a road battle or settlement spot. If you don't produce enough knights, that's a you problem, lol. Remind me again, what is this expansion called? Part of the beauty of C&K is the drama behind deserter, inventor and losing cities. If you can't take the heat, maybe C&K is not the expansion for you.
We have the old version of the Fishermen that doesn't include the desert replacement lake tile, which sounds incredible. Anyway, that's our favorite one to play with as it's so easy to incorporate to the base game and really helps freshen it up.
I haven't tried all the expansions but I have Seafarers and watched this review closely. Seafarers is the most no-brainer add on for anyone with the base set looking to jump. We got our copy for 50. 40 would've been more fair but this is less the 70 we've seen it for at some stores. I haven't found that Seafarers takes much longer if any. You get 2 victory points just for landing on an island across a single tile channel, i.e. 2 roads and a settlement can get you 3VP (1 for Settlement and 2 Chits for new island). Now the longest trade route is *easier to compete for and it makes for fun game play. In many of the scenarios you only play to 13VP. The reviewer kept saying that ships were more expensive because sheep are involved. But a sheep and a brick are the same value as one another (1 card). I'm assuming you're planning to put a settlement somewhere on pasture land for the building of settlements and Dev card purchases. You're going to be able to make shipping lanes too at the same price as roads (2 cards). We did not find that goldmines broke the game. They are low rolls (4) and there's room all around the island for others to sneak over to the other side of the hex and settle the other side. Admittedly though, if you can get some lucky rolls and settle gold first, then you can expand to put additional settlements that hex. It can be a ridiculous haul when that 4 is rolled and you have 2 cities on gold. You might consider putting a lower freq rolled number on it if it bothers you in order to balance. 3, 11?
Today I'd just play Catan base game with Seafarers at most, because of it's simplicity and purity. C&K and the other expansions turn it into a more complex game that by today's standards feels dated and there are just so many better games to play. It's only the base game that stands timeless in itself as a simple lightweight family game.
Fun fact: here in Spain I have only seen Catan with plastic figurines, and there is no flipbook, there are cardboardtracks which are much more readable. I played it twice in two-player mode and it was a bit clunky but overall a pretty good experience, and one I want to play more of with other people.
Imho just add some small expansions and keep VP score at 10. Harbormaster, fishermen, frenemies or the helper cards. We usually play with 2 of them. Not a lot of new rules but more meaningful options.
Wow, those components look bad on Traders & Barbarians, my localized version had plastic pieces and coins, I still use them as custom pieces for other game homebrews. About Cities & Knights, it has the highest score on BGG from all these expansions, even higher than base Catan, so I don't think it is as niche as you make it seem. I played it about 5 years ago and I remember it as being very good, although I felt like I wanted something more - it inspired me to look for a bigger, more epic board games - I was ready. So I found Twilight Imperium and 4th edition had just been released and we are still playing it every month.
The AoE music fits really well and nostalgia hit me hard. I grew up building massive kingdoms with my siblings on that game, way before I knew what Catan was! 😂
I thought the gold hexes in Seafarers give you the SAME resource with a city on it. Free year of plenty every roll?? Nah, pick a resource and get two of that single resource. That's how I play at least
Same. We do it with good friends who love it too and spend 2-3 hours on a casual game with lots of conversation and food. Some of the rules he had as downsides, our version have changes rules (ie deciding whether or not to commit knights or not instead of always being turned over and used)
