The first expansion I'm going to talk about is Cities and Knights. Why? Because I like it and it's my favorite way to play Settlers of Catan. If you've ever thought about getting an expansion this is the one to get! The big changes are the addition of commodity cards and knights along with the pirate ship. The pirate ship moves the barbarians one spot closer to Catan every time a 7 is rolled. Every seventh time a 7 is rolled the "black ship cometh" and there's a possibility for doom as the barbarians attack. Players build knights and activate them to counter the attack. The barbarians strength is measured in the amount of cities (not settlements) built. Catan's strength is measured by the amount of knights that have been built and activated. If the strength of Catan's knights is equal to or more then the barbarians then Catan wins and nothing happens (you can get a victory point by contributing the most knights to the "battle" though). If the barbarians win then whichever player(s) contributed the least amount of knights lose a city (converts back to a settlement). Obviously there's incentive to build knights. The knights can also block certain buildings along roads and have a few other functions.
The other big addition is the commodity cards. Instead of receiving two sheep for having a city on a sheep tile you now receive a sheep and a cloth card. A city on an ore tile receives an ore and a coin, and a city on a forest tile receives a wood and a paper card. Commodities purchase a building for your cities. Once you've built the 3rd building with a commodity you get a special ability. The 4th building makes one of your cities a metropolis (worth 4 victory points) and the 5th building cements your metropolis status in case someone tries to steal it.
Cities and Knights is still meant for 3-4 players and takes 2 hours to play. The nice thing about the version we bought is that it comes with an outer ocean section that locks all the tiles in place. It takes 13 victory points to win this version, but one of the nice features is the ability to build city walls which allows you to hold an extra 2 cards in your hand when a 7 is rolled.
We have the Seafarers of Catan which we haven't played with as much, mostly because we really enjoy Cities and Knights! Seafarers doesn't change the gameplay quite as much as Cities and Knights does, it just mixes the board up with water tiles which makes it a little more challenging. You build ships along ocean tiles that act like roads, but otherwise I think the gameplay is mostly the same. It still takes 3-4 players and takes about 90 minutes to play a game.
The 5-6 player expansion comes in handy when you have more then 3-4 players that want to play a game together! We've only played this once so far but it was interesting. The game takes a little longer (2 hours is the estimated time) mostly because there are more players to take turns and spend endless amounts of time trying to trade and strategizing. If I remember right you're allowed to hold up to 9 cards in your hand to make up for the fact that it takes awhile to get around to your turn with the additional players.
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