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Two of the islands are rich in gold, with all hexes producing on 5, 6, 8 or 9. The other two islands are rich in fish. In fact, there are four intersections where a player can collect on four production numbers (2 terrain hexes and 2 fishing banks)! Plus the fishing lakes yield higher that a 6 or an 8 production number (probability = 6/36, like a "7").The two types of islands work well for our group as some like the fishing grounds and some don't. Now you can have a choice.

We have played this board a few times. The winning score is 14 Victory Points. Place your starting pieces close to the coast so that you can reach the outer islands quickly. We have made a couple of changes to the starting rules. Because the main island is small, all "three hex" vertices can theoretically be used up after placing just 8 cities / settlements. For 5 or 6 players this would be a real detriment for placing the final 2 or 3 cities. Therefore, we have changed the order and allow each player to place their city first, followed by a settlement. The initial resource cards are determined by the placement of the city, not the settlement. Because of the low yielding numbers on the main island, the start of the game can be a bit slow. In order to help things out, the players should place their cities and settlements as per the normal setup phase, then place an inactive, single knight as well. This means that a player need only get a grain in order to activate the knight and stave off the first barbarian attack. There is also a bonus VP as each player connects to an island (for the first time), and 2 VP for the first player to do so.

This board was really fun to play. It takes about 2 hours to achieve the 14 points. I have recently added a Largest Fishing Fleet card worth 2 VP. It is like the Harbormaster card and is earned by placing settlements and cities next to fishing grounds (or the lake hex). A minimum of 3 fleet points earns the card and players with more can steal it.