Search Amazon for a CATAN expansion and you will get results. Whether any of them is the thing you were looking for is a different question.
The line has a base game, four expansions, a player extension for the base game, a separate player extension for each expansion, a space game that only sounds related, and scenario packs that need an expansion you may not own. They share a logo, a colour scheme and the same sunrise on the box lid. Sorting them out from a results page is genuinely hard.
This page is about which box does what, which ones need something else to work, and one that you currently cannot buy at all. If you have not played before, our guide to how to play CATAN covers the rules first.
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The Short Answer
| You want | Buy |
|---|---|
| To play CATAN at all | CATAN, the base game |
| Five or six people at the table | CATAN 5-6 Player Expansion, plus the base game |
| The deepest, most strategic version | Cities & Knights |
| A longer campaign with ships and missions | Explorers & Pirates |
| Several smaller scenarios, or rules for two players | Traders & Barbarians |
| Seafarers, the usual first recommendation | Nowhere, at the moment. See below. |
Every expansion on that list needs the base game. None of them plays on its own.
What Changed in the 6th Edition
CATAN reached its 6th edition in 2025, with new artwork, a square box, redesigned components and a rulebook rebuilt around examples. The rules of the game are the same. What changed is everything you touch.
Three things matter if you already own an older copy.
Old and new can be mixed, with a caveat. Catan Studio’s compatibility page says previous and current editions can be used together, but that some combinations have different card backs, which you can solve with card sleeves or replacement cards, and that some accessories no longer fit because component sizes changed. For an expansion that shuffles cards into a shared deck, a visibly different back is a practical problem rather than a cosmetic one.
The base game no longer includes port markers. They now come with Seafarers. If you are used to an older copy, that absence is deliberate rather than a missing piece.
The player extensions changed colour. Catan Studio’s own compatibility notes say the 5-6 player expansions now use purple where they used brown for one of the additional wood colours, and that they include a paired player rule that was not in older printings.
1. CATAN, the Base Game
3 to 4 players | Ages 10+ | 60 to 90 minutes
The one everything else attaches to. You settle an island, collect resources on each dice roll, trade them with the other players and build roads, settlements and cities until somebody reaches ten points.
Buy this first. There is no route into CATAN that skips it, and every other box on this page is an add-on to it.
Worth knowing: the board is different every game, because the terrain hexes are laid out fresh each time. That is why the base game survives hundreds of plays without an expansion, and why you should play it a few times before buying anything else.
2. CATAN 5-6 Player Expansion
5 to 6 players | Ages 10+ | 90+ minutes | Requires the base game
Extra hexes, extra pieces and extra cards so that five or six people can play. The listing says so directly, which is more than most add-ons manage.
Buy this if your usual group is bigger than four. It is the most commonly needed box in the whole line and the one most often bought too late.
The trap worth understanding: this extension covers the base game only. Each expansion has its own separate 5-6 player extension, sold separately again. The Traders & Barbarians player extension states its own requirements plainly: the base game, the base game’s 5-6 player expansion, and the Traders & Barbarians expansion. That is four boxes to put six people around a table, and nothing on the individual listings makes it obvious.
Also worth knowing: a longer game with six people is a noticeably longer game. The listing’s ninety minutes and up is honest.
3. Cities & Knights
3 to 4 players | Ages 12+ | About 90 minutes | Requires the base game
The expansion long-time players name first, and with Seafarers unavailable it is the practical starting point for most people. It adds knights who defend the island against barbarian attacks, three tracks of city improvements covering science, trade and politics, and metropolises that change what a good position looks like.
Buy this if the base game has started to feel thin, or your group wants more to think about than roads and settlements.
Worth knowing: the age rating goes from 10 to 12, and that is not decoration. This is the heaviest of the expansions, it makes games longer, and it is the wrong first purchase for a household that plays CATAN twice a year.
4. Explorers & Pirates
3 to 4 players | Ages 12+ | About 90 minutes | Requires the base game
The most ambitious of the four. It pushes CATAN away from the single island and into exploration, with ships carrying settlers and goods, missions to complete and unknown territory that turns face up as you reach it.
Buy this if you want CATAN to feel like a different game rather than a deeper version of the same one.
Worth knowing: it is the longest of the four and the most involved to set up, and its scenarios are built to link into a longer progression rather than to be played once and shelved. It rewards a group that will come back to it.
5. Traders & Barbarians
3 to 4 players | Ages 12+ | About 90 minutes | Requires the base game
Less a single expansion than a collection. It holds a full campaign, several separate scenarios covering river crossings, merchant caravans and barbarian attacks, and a set of variants you can add individually. It is the most modular box in the line.
Buy this if you want several smaller changes to try rather than one large system to learn.
The reason it matters for small households: this is the box that carries official rules for a two player game. The base game is built for three or four, so if CATAN is usually two of you at a kitchen table, this is the expansion that solves that rather than the one that adds depth.
Worth checking before you order: an earlier edition of Traders & Barbarians is still widely listed on Amazon alongside the 6th edition one, carrying a different publisher name in the title. Catan Studio says editions can be mixed, but this is the case where the card back difference is most likely to show, because several of these scenarios add cards to the game. If you are building a 6th edition collection, check which printing the listing is for.
Seafarers: The One You Cannot Buy Right Now
Seafarers is the expansion Catan Studio itself calls the ideal first one. It adds ships, a pirate, gold hex fields and the Wonders of Catan, with nine map setups, and it is the natural next step after the base game.
It is also, at the time of writing, out of stock in both of the obvious places. On September 18, 2026, the Amazon listing for the 6th edition read currently unavailable, with a note that they do not know whether the item will come back. On the same day, the publisher’s own shop listed the box and would not add it to a basket.
That leaves independent game shops and smaller online retailers, several of which still list it. We are not naming one, because we have not checked their stock, and a recommendation that sends you to a second empty page is worse than no recommendation.
Why you could not find it even before it sold out
This part is worth understanding, because it applies well beyond CATAN.
Search Amazon for Seafarers and you get Explorers & Pirates, Traders & Barbarians, a scenario pack that requires Seafarers, an unrelated space game and a premium 3D edition. Search with the edition attached and you get the base game and the wrong player extension. At one point the results included a third-party storage organiser whose title mentions Seafarers, while the expansion itself did not appear at all.
A listing without an active offer tends to fall out of results, because the shop is showing you things it can sell. So a product vanishing from search does not mean it is discontinued, and the absence of results is not evidence that something no longer exists. When a game you know exists will not show up, check the publisher’s own site before concluding anything.
Boxes You Will See and Should Not Confuse
- CATAN Starfarers. A separate space game with its own rules and board. It shares the brand and nothing else. Not an expansion, and it does not connect to the base game.
- Scenario packs. Boxes like the Hawai’i scenario state plainly that they are for CATAN Seafarers. They are expansions of an expansion, so buying one without Seafarers leaves you with nothing to play.
- Imported editions. German boxes from Kosmos appear regularly in US results, sometimes with machine translated titles that turn Seefahrer into wording you will not recognise, and occasionally with nonsense product details attached. They are the same games in another language.
- The 3D and premium editions. Real products, in an entirely different price bracket, and not the way to start.
- Storage organisers. Third-party inserts that list every box they fit in their titles. Useful if you own the games; confusing if you are still buying them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do CATAN expansions work without the base game?
No. Cities & Knights, Explorers & Pirates, Traders & Barbarians and Seafarers all require the CATAN base game, and each says so on the box. So does the 5-6 player extension.
Which CATAN expansion should I buy first?
The publisher points to Seafarers, which is not currently available. Of the ones you can buy, Cities & Knights adds the most. If your group is bigger than four, the 5-6 player extension comes before either.
Can I play CATAN with six people?
Yes, with the 5-6 player extension and the base game. If you also want to play an expansion with six, that expansion has its own separate extension, which is a second purchase.
Can you play CATAN with two players?
The base game is designed for three or four. Traders & Barbarians includes official rules for a two player game, which is the usual route for households that play as a pair.
Do older CATAN expansions work with the 6th edition?
Catan Studio says previous and current editions can be used together. The caveat is that some combinations have different card backs, which sleeves or replacement cards solve, and that some accessories no longer fit because component sizes changed.
Can you combine two CATAN expansions?
Yes. Catan Studio states that the expansions can be combined for more variety. The rules for doing so come with the expansions themselves, so read those rather than improvising.
Is CATAN Starfarers an expansion?
No. It is a standalone game set in space. It shares the name and none of the components.
What age is CATAN for?
The base game and the 5-6 player extension are rated 10 and up. Cities & Knights, Explorers & Pirates, Traders & Barbarians and Seafarers are rated 12 and up.
Where This Leaves You
Buy the base game and play it several times before buying anything else. If your table is five or six people, the player extension is the next box and not an optional one. If your table is two people, Traders & Barbarians is the one with rules written for you.
After that, the choice is about what you want CATAN to become. Cities & Knights makes it deeper. Explorers & Pirates makes it something else. And if Seafarers is the one you want, a local shop is currently a better bet than any search box.
Whatever you buy, read the listing past the logo. Every expensive mistake in this line comes from a box that looked like the game and was an add-on to it.
If you are still learning the game itself, start with how to play CATAN. If you are shopping during a sale, our guide to telling a real discount from a fake one covers how to check a listing before you order. And if you are still building a shelf, Top 10 entry level games is the place to start.
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