Catan: Merchants and Barbarians is the third big-box expansion for Klaus Teuber 's Catan game. It introduces a series of rules and components that can be played separately. It also includes the option to play Catan with just two players.

Catan: Merchants and Barbarians is made up of five small expansions, as well as additional rules for playing Catan with only two players and various variants to help players. These variants include the Merciful Thief variant, which doesn't steal from "poor" players who have few victory points. Also interesting is the deck of cards that replaces dice rolls, ensuring that no one can complain about chance. These cards reproduce the statistical distribution of normal dice rolls and add events to give even more variety to the games. Another notable variant is the Harbormaster variant, which introduces the option of trying to be the most powerful player in terms of port points. Similar to the Great Highway or Great Army variants we already knew from Catan, in this case we can score points by having settlements and cities in the ports on the board. The first player to have three port points takes the Harbormaster card and gains two victory points, although, as in the previous cases, this position can be taken by another player who manages to overtake the current Harbormaster. If this variant is used, the game is played to 11 victory points instead of the usual 10.

Among the five expansions included in the Catan Merchants and Barbarians box, we highlight The Fishermen of Catan, in which players can fish in the lake and in coastal areas without ports and obtain fish to exchange for various actions, or The Great River of Catan, which incorporates two rivers, one with four hexagons and one with three. These rivers produce gold for players who place settlements on their banks, and with the gold they can obtain other goods, in addition to assigning the titles of "poor settler" and "rich settler," which subtract or add victory points. Another interesting expansion is The Caravan Route, which, starting from the former Catan desert, now an oasis, introduces the formation of camel caravans that will support trade routes or give more importance to the settlements and cities they visit. The Barbarian Onslaught and The Campaign are the two final and most complex expansions of the game, suitable only for experienced players.

Catan: Merchants and Barbarians is a rich expansion, so it acts as a Pandora's box of ways to make your Catan games an ever-changing experience. You can combine and use them however you like to suit your fellow players' style.