People are rarely ever satisfied. The settlers of Catan have everything their heart desires, until news reaches them that diamonds are found on a few of the neighboring islands. The greedy inhabitants immediately leave to seize as much as possible.

Of course the pirates stand ready to rob them of their precious stones. Most settlers, however, succeed in getting some stones back home. But who will become the richest of them all?

• 4 Island Hexes
• 50 Diamond Counters

The original "De Diamanten" by 999 Games used these colourful pieces as the diamonds.

Preparation

• Build the scenario as showed on the map at the side or create a custom map with the four island hexes included.
• Place 5 diamonds on every island village and 10 diamonds in a separate cache beside the playing field.

Rules

Every rule from the base and the seafarers game is valid, except the changes discussed below:

• Diamond trade
  As soon as a player finishes a sea route to an island village he’ll have a trading route with this village. He will instantly receive a diamond from the village cache. For the rest of the game he will receive a diamond every time the number corresponding to the village is thrown. If two or more players have a trading route to a village they will each receive a diamond. If the village no longer has enough diamonds to pay the players the diamonds from the general cache beside the playing field will be used. Every pair of diamonds is worth 1 victory point, An uneven number of diamonds will be rounded down, so 1 diamond equals 0 victory points and 3 diamonds equal 1 victory point.
  
  Players may not build villages on the island village spots.
  
  
• Placing ships
  The last ship in an open sea route can still be moved as allowed by the seafarer rules. A trading route between an island village and a harbor is considered a closed route, ships which are part of this route can no longer be moved. It’s allowed to further extend a closed route, so it’s possible to have a route between 2 island villages. It is allowed to start a new route from every available connection of an existing route.
  
  
• “7” is thrown
  The rules from seafarers are in place except for the following exceptions:
  - Robber : This may only be used when at least one of the players has 3 or more victory points. The normal rules for drawing a card from the victim’s hand apply.
  · Pirate : A player may only place the pirate ship when he has at least one closed trading route with an island village. He may rob a card or a diamond from the victim. The victim is the player who’s trading route or ships are next to the pirate ship.

Longest road

The card “Longest Road” will not be used in this scenario. “Largest Army” may be used if playing the base game.

Trading and building

The player can randomly trade and build only during his turn.

Game Ending

The game ends when one of the players has 14 victory points in his or her turn or when only 3 island villages have diamonds left, when this happens the player with most victory points is declared the winner. In case of a tie, the player with the most diamonds wins.

Released by 999 Games as De Diamanten (2005). Originally listed in "Das Buch zum Spielen" by Klaus Teuber (2000).