The Story

There are rumors of a new land of resources just over the sea. You are commissioned by your majesty to discover this island, colonize on it, claiming the resources it possesses for your country. You set out on your ship with enough resources to pave a road inland and start a settlement further onto the island.

When you finally reach the island, you compass about to find the perfect spot for your exploration inland to begin. Only to discover, you are not alone, other countries have also sailed to claim this island. You make haste to settle on the island and send your ship back with news that the island is indeed real, full of resources, and trying to be claimed by other countries. With the news, you also request more resources to speed up expansion.

But alas, news travels abroad, and characters of ill-repute may be visiting your island soon.

Components Recommended

While this could be done with the base game only, the limited amount of hexes and numbers will hold back the randomness of this variant.

Base Game
Seafarers Expansion
Bag for numbers

Optional:

Extra numbers, to remove need of the dreaded 2 and 12 numbers
Extra tiles to increase randomness

We play with 2 base games, seafarers, and cities and knights, with 5-6 and 7-8 extensions (repainted silver and black).

Setup

All hexes are shuffled and put in a pile upside down. (any gold/desert tiles are not used yet)

The border is set up, and then a tile is revealed and placed, then proceed around the edge revealing only 1 tile deep into the island.

No numbers are placed on tiles.

The Initial Rounds

Placement Round

Players do not place a settlement, and then a city like normal. Instead your ship can "dock" to any space and start a road from there, without need of a settlement to be placed first. If your road is placed, and no tile is at the end of it, reveal the next tile in the stack. Place your settlement at the end of your road. Then randomly draw a number from the number bag to find how difficult it will be to gather resources from an area. Pick which hex you want that number to be on. This is part of the risk and reward, where do you place it? Then draw another number, pick the hex, and finally draw your last number.

The next player clockwise will pick a location along the edge to start. They can be close to you and be along one of your hexes, then will only draw 2 numbers, since one will have a number already.

This goes around until all players have picked locations for one settlement.

When all players have placed their road and settlement, each player selects 3 resources they will request from the mainland. They will place these face down in front of them with their ship on top of the pile. They cannot be used until the ship returns the 4th round.

Rounds 1-3

The characters of ill-repute have not noticed the island yet so re-roll any 7s and ignore the event die totally. The barbarians will not move towards the island, and there are no cities yet.

4th Round

The 2nd voyage ships have arrived, and so has trouble.

At the beginning of the 4th round, the last player's ship will arrive first, they will collect their requested resources, and another road and settlement. They have a special building turn. They can build from cards in hand, and place their new road and settlement, either from a spot on the shore, or if they were able to build a road off their settlement, placing their new road next to it and then the settlement, obeying the 2 segment away rule.

Placement goes counter clockwise so it ends with the first player going last (like normal). No dice is rolled during this special phase.

Play proceeds clockwise again after with the 1st player.

If not playing with C&K the 7's start counting immediately as the robber stowed away on your ship.

If playing with C&K the event die starts counting since the black ship followed your ships back. The robber is with them, and when they land, he will be on the island, until then, re-roll any 7s, and move up the ship each time a 7 is rolled as well.

Shuffle in the gold/desert tiles for any new reveals.

Play proceeds as normal from here on out.

Variations

I have included some variations of this mode, as well as some interesting ones for any time you play.

Discovery of Isle

Quick Start

To speed up the game, sometimes we do not play 2nd journey, so no resources held, and instead and place 2nd road and settlements(or for even faster game, a city) like in a normal game, 1st goes last on 2nd placement. In that case, the robber appears with barbarians attack, or after 7 is rolled two times.

Mainland Progression

Each country has sent their knowledge with their settlers to try to improve their chance of claiming the island. Players draw 3 progress cards to start with. If they choose their country is advanced in science: they draw green, or politics: blue, or trade: yellow. Or their country could be well rounded and they receive 1 of each color.

Vetoing Numbers

Up to two numbers per player drawn from the bag can be veto'd, left out of play for anyone to draw. This benefits not only the first player who chose to repick, but all subsequent players. You will need more numbers than tiles for this. We play with no 2's or 12's even in the bag, and thus 3's and 11's are vetoed often.

General Play

Robber

The robber steals, instead of destroys resources. The player who owns the robber gets the production, instead of it being destroyed.

He is -1 VP (opposite of merchant), for those who employ such nefarious people are viewed as lesser in standing.

Bountiful Harvest

When doubles are rolled, the players all collect, then the dice are rolled again. This speeds up production for some, allowing more choices on their turn, but also, the robber takes note of the increased bounty and will show up more often (dive into probability that the 2nd roll is a 7...)

Welfare

I found this online, but every time a player does not receive production from a non 7, they get a poverty token.

On their turn, they can trade in poverty tokens equal to their victory points for a resource card.

Desert Oasis

I found this online as well that turns the desert tile into a random source of goods. Who is visiting the oasis when you check there? Roll a die to see!