Product Description
For generations, the people of Catan have lived in an island paradise, surrounded by the peaceful sea. They have long known of the benefits of the sea: maritime trade has been crucial to their expansion since the beginning. But recently they have discovered that the sea holds other bounty, ready to be gathered and used in the never-ending quest for expansion and trade.
Customer Reviews
Outstanding addition to an outstanding game!
We have been fans of "The Settlers of Catan" for years. We have played all of the generally available versions (Settlers, Seafarers, and Cities and Knights) for 3-4 and 5-6 players. We enjoy them all, but most often we default to the classic "Settlers of Catan" when we sit down to play.
I was therefore intrigued when I saw "The Fisherman of Catan" game option. When we played this new expansion set we found it to provide an outstanding new dimension to the already great game "The Settlers of Catan."
OK, here's the scoop. First of all you must have the basic 3-4 player "Settlers of Catan" game to use this expansion set. The expansion set includes an easy to follow 2-sided sheet of instructions, 6 ocean tile covers, and a set of 1, 2, and 3-fish cardboard tiles, plus one "old boot" tile.
After you set up the basic game you place the 6 ocean tile covers on some of the blank ocean pieces as directed in the "Fishermen of Catan" instructions. Each ocean tile cover has a number on it - 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10. If you build a settlement or a city on one of the coastal spots that has one of the "Fishermen of Catan" tile covers on it, and the number on that tile cover is rolled you get to go fishing and collect one of the fish tiles (or the old boot) at random.
As you collect fish you can use them to do different things. You can, for example, use different numbers of fish to move the robber back to the desert, steal a resource card from an opponent, choose a resource of your choice from the resource card decks, build a road, or even obtain a development card. You can also include fish in trade deals that you make with other players.
All right, what about the old boot? The old boot is, of course, a bad consequence of fishing. If you collect the old boot that could be good or bad. It can be bad because as long as you hold the old boot you have to acquire 11 instead of 10 victory points to win the game. It can be good, however, because on your turn you can give it to any another player who has as many or more victory points as you have, thus making them acquire an additional victory point to win. Of course they can also pass it along later, so you never know what will happen.
The "Fishermen of Catan" makes most of the formerly useless blank ocean tiles more valuable places to build, and adds additional ways to add to your progress of dominating the settling of the island of Catan.
In summary the price for this expansion is extremely reasonable (we got ours for less than $6.00) and the increased fun for the game is significant. We thoroughly enjoy using this option and I doubt that we will every play "The Settlers of Catan" or any of the other verisons of the game without it.
This is an outstanding addition to a grand game!
Definitely 5 stars all the way from a long time fan of "The Settlers of Catan"!!!
These Rock!
This is the best of the Settlers of Catan add-ons. It features fish tiles that go over the blank ocean squares. Thus, if you've built on that square and roll the card's number (say a 6) in addition to all your resouurces, you get...fish! They're redeemable for tossing the robber back to the desert, and even roads and development cards. Makes worthless spaces much more useful and adds a great dynamic to the game.
a whole new dimension (for the basic set)
I bought this with the Seafarers expansion thinking they went together (they don't -- it's for the basic game). So anyway, we decided to try Fishermen before we tried Seafarers. Fishermen is so fun and accessible that we've barely even tried that other one. You'd be surprised how much it adds to the game play. If you have a settlement or city on a fish tile, you pick a random fish token when the proper number is rolled (just like resource production). This fish token can either have 1, 2, or 3 fish on it. Once you collect a few of these, you can 'spend' them for things like moving the robber, building roads, etc. (You can trade them too!)
The instructions tell you to put the tokens face down on the table to draw randomly, but keeping them in a bag works much better (we keep ours in an old Crown Royal bag!). Just watch out for "the Boot"! If you catch it, you need an extra point to win.
Happy fishing!
