6 players are simultaneously competing for the most Victory Points in an unknown ocean area. The crucial difference to the classical Catan Board Game is that all players simultaneously are building and trading. By means of this simultaneity, the game is developing its very own dynamics.

The players are always facing each other in groups of two, and they have two neighbors. The neighbors of the 5th and 6th player are at the same time the players 1 and 2. Each player starts on his/her main island. The inner belt of islands is either above or below him/her, and it must be discovered because at the beginning, the rest of the game area is still unknown. But the other players should also be scouted out, because it is the only way to know their current number of Victory Points and the land already discovered or colonized by them. As long as one hasn’t discovered another player yet, Catan’s scenery thus looks deceptively calm.

In principle, the game rules of the Basic Game apply, with a few exceptions:

1) At the beginning, you build two settlements on your main island, one of which you can immediately expand to a city.  You can also build either 1 road or 1 ship next to the settlements.

2) The dice are always rolled automatically, as soon as all players have finished their turns.

3) The game lasts for 72 rounds, whereupon the player with the most Victory Points wins. In case of a tie, the number of resources determines the winner.

4) The Largest Army (LA) and the Longest Road (LR) count only after having discovered at least one opponent. From that moment on, getting the Victory Points depends on which player has the highest scores. As distinct from the Board Game, players with equal scores can share the LA and the LR. In this case, each of them gets 2 additional Victory Points.

5) The Robber has a branch on every main island and thus establishes himself with every player when a 7 is rolled. As before, he can be driven away with a Knight card; the player then receives a resource from the terrain he/she drove the Robber away from.

6) Knight cards can also be played if no Robber is present. In this case, the player obtains 2 resources of his/her choice.

7) Various treasures are hidden on the oceans and on the inner belt of islands. If a road or ship is built next to a treasure, one either obtains resources or the possibility to build additional roads or ships.

8) You can only trade with players you already have discovered. To be able to perform a trade, at least one of the trading partners must not have finished his/her turn. It is also possible to trade after finishing your own turn if the trading partner is still active. Otherwise, you just have to wait until the next turn.

9) Building a settlement on the inner belt of islands or on a foreign main island earns you 2 Special Victory Points each. However, the inner belt of islands counts as a unit, meaning that here you can get the Special Victory Points only once, whereas each main island of the opponents brings you additional Victory Points.

10) Among the Development Cards you can find Knights, cards for building roads, and Victory Points, but no Inventions and Monopolies.