Die Entdecker (The explorers)

"Die Entdecker" from Die Siedler von Catan: Das Buch
Players: 3 or 4
Duration: c. 100 minutes
By Hannes and Christian Till
Translation by Christian Beijner.

1. Components

Required Settler sets:
Basic game.
Seafarer expansion

Additional Buch Components needed:
None

Each player can use:
15 roads
5 settlements
4 cities
15 ships

2. Building the playing area:
Construct the scenario as depicted in the image on page 44..The land hexes placed constitute the "Home Island". Put the four 3:1 harbors in the positions indicated by the image. Separate the remaining hexes into two groups, they represent the "undiscovered lands", one group with the 12 sea hexes and the 5 special harbors, and one group with the remaining land hexes. Randomly mix the separate groups and create 2 stacks of hexes, one with the sea/harbor hexes, and one with land hexes.

Put the 9 number counters (see list on page 45) into a bag for random drawing.

Setup:
Each player the places 2 settlements on the "home island", as in basic settlers.Any player who places a settlement on the coast, should [must?] set a ship instead of a road at the settlement.

3. Rule changes.
Rules works as in basic settlers with seafarer expansion, with the following exceptions:

Roll of "7"
When a player rolls a "7" on the dice, the players first lose resources (if the have more than 7), but the robber and the pirate will not be activated until a settlement has been established outside the "Home Island".

Discovery.
When a player places a ship or road that connects to an intersection adjoining a missing hex, a new hex will be discovered. The player takes the top two hexes from the face down pile and places the land hex (face up) in the empty space, draws a random numbered counter to place on it, and place the sea hex in any open hex adjacent to the newly placed land hex. If no free hex is adjacent to the new land hex, then the player can put the sea hex in any missing hex. If the sea hex contains a harbor, then the hex must be turned so that the harbor connects to land, if at all possible.

Going around Catan.
The map connects from the left edge to the right edge, but not top to bottom. A shipping lane can extend from the left hand side of the map to the right hand side or vice versa. Whenever half a hex exists on both edges, treat this as a single hex. [See illustration on pg 44: Like the one above the D-D mark on the left hand side and it's mate on the right hand side] See also the "Die Welt Catan"-scenario.

Resource depletion
If there are no more numbered counters remaining in the bag when a player wants to put a counter on a newly discovered land, a chip will be allocated by removing it from the "Home Island" and placing it on the new hex within the following limitations:
a) A counter cannot be removed if this would remove the last counter adjacent to any settlement or city.
b) A player must take a counter adjacent to one of his own settlements/cities, while still following rule a) above. Only if there is no other alternative, may a player take a token not adjacent to his own settlements/cities.
c) A red counter (numbers 6 and 8) may not be placed adjacent to another red counter(numbers 6 and 8)

But: If for some reason a player can find no token that can be removed from the "Home Island", he can remove a counter from anywhere on the map, to place in the newly discovered hex. He must still obey the limitations of a) through c) above.

4. End of the Game
The player who on his turn has 12 victory points wins.