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I've recently gotten Cities & Knights and plan to play it with my existing Seafarers of Catan expansion once I get the hang of it. Looking through the manuals for both Seafarers of Catan and Catan: Cities & Knights, I can't find how many victory point should I play to when combining the expansions.

Both expansions can be played together, but it doesn't say how many victory points to play to. I assume since Cities & Knights increases the number of victory points you play on the base settlers map, it would do the same for the Seafarers maps, but I can't find a reference for this.

When playing a Seafarers Scenario with Cities & Knights, do you play to the number of victory points for the scenario, or do you increase the number of victory points you play too?

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  • I'd caution against doing this. I love both expansions (especially C&K), but the one game I tried with both was just too bogged down and lost focus.
    – xorsyst
    Jan 19, 2016 at 16:49

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The rules for Seafarers (pdf) do not address combining the two expansions. The rules for Cities and Knights (pdf) do address combining the two games (page 13), warning that only certain scenarios work well, and providing rules for things like how to treat ships as roads and how a knight can chase away the pirate. They do not, however, specify how many victory points to play to. The FAQ on combining the two expansions addresses a few questions, but not the victory point question.

There is a thread on BoardGameGeek about combining the two expansions, in which two separate people mention that the official rule is to add 2 victory points to the Seafarers scenario if you're playing with Cities and Knights. According to Daniel Johnson:

Also, Klaus Teuber's website has a FAQ at http://www.klausteuber.com/en/index.php?page=seefahrer_staedte_und_ritter.html with a few questions that might not be answered by the Almanac.

...

2. The victory point goal should be 2 more than in the Seafarers scenario.

Sadly, the site linked to seems to have been reorganized, and that link just redirects to the home page of catan.com. However, this seems to be the best answer that is available so far; to add two victory points to the conditions listed in the Seafarers scenario.

I have never tried this, as I tend to prefer not to combine expansions in games. I find that in general, combining too many expansions makes a game bog down too much. I love Seafarers, and find Cities and Knights nice too, but combining them would just add too many extra things to think about, and too many confusing interactions (like this one) that need to be answered in separate rules, FAQs, and the like.

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  • I've noticed the omission from the rules books, hence why I asked the question. Even with my limited play of Cities & Knights, I've noticed it does slow the game down. I can see why people prefer not to combine the expansion because of the game length issue. I'm willing to try it, but I will make sure this is a large mass, ever on random maps.
    – ICodeForCoffee
    Nov 2, 2010 at 16:31
  • @ICodeForCoffee Yeah, you mentioned the rule books, but I wanted to be thorough about looking for any official sources for the answer, and documenting their failure to provide an answer, before referring to BGG. I also thought it was worth checking the online rules, in case they were newer than what you had and had been updated with the answer.
    – Brian Campbell
    Nov 2, 2010 at 16:51
  • Some of these links to the Catan website are now dead. See my newly-posted answer; the Catan website now officially supports the "add 2 victory points to the scenario" option.
    – BradC
    Jul 1, 2020 at 18:52
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I'm pretty sure there's no official rule, but increasing the victory point target seems basically mandatory if you want the whole game to develop.

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I have played with both these expansions ever since I started playing. We have always played to 13 victory points and it has worked very well.

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Some of the links in other answers are obsolete; the re-designed Catan website now has a whole section for combining expansions, including the following under Combining Seafarers with "Cities & Knights" Expansion:

The number of victory points specified for each scenario should be increased by 2.

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I would say 16.

The reason is we use the rule to increase the amount by 3 for each expansion.

In this case, you use both so 10 + 3 + 3 = 16.

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  • Welcome to B&CG! Do you have a source for this answer?
    – Pat Ludwig ♦
    Aug 12, 2012 at 14:35

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