I'm not one of those people who loves to tinker with a game's rules. I prefer to play the game the way the designer intended. I am also adverse to declaring a game broken, or only having one path to victory, or having a runaway leader problem, or what have you after only playing a game a few times. As such, upon hearing that La Strada's two player version was horrible and not worth playing I was determined to play it and prove all the naysayers wrong. I was going to play it, enjoy it, and prove there was a good game there and that all the negative press about it was being spouted by people just not able to see the game for what it is.

Imagine my chagrin when I played the thing and found the game barely anything more than a way to pass some time. Wow, what a give up on game design the two player variation is. Was this thing even play tested or just included as a last minute afterthought? Well this was just not going to do as I love tile laying games, delivery type games, and hex pieces in general. There had to be a decent two player game in there somewhere and I was determined to find it.

I started to dig. After tearing apart the game and rebuilding with many, many permutations I think I've found it. As it turned out it wasn't even buried all that deeply and ended up being pretty close to what the 3 and 4 player game is. But what I think doesn't really matter. If I can save the game and make it an enjoyable two player experience for some other gamers then I'll feel like the search ended successfully. So if you have tried the two player game as written and were horribly disappointed in it, I ask you to give this version a try and let me know what you think.

Okay, enough of the droning prologue, onto the rules...

2 Player La Strada (Danger Style)

Each player gets the roads, merchant cubes, and warehouses of one color.
(Both warehouses are used)

Setup is as in the original rules: settlement tiles distributed randomly on the board, and warehouses placed in an alternating method with the player placing last taking the first turn.

After placing the warehouses the players are to put 6 cubes on each of their warehouses.

Place a cube of an unused color on the number 10 of the resource track in its color.

Cost and rules for placing roads are the same as the 3 and 4 player game with one minor addition that you can only build from settlements where you have cubes located (this will make sense in a minute).

Now onto the major change....

When you build a road to a settlement hex you can move as many cubes as you want from the origination settlement to the destination settlement. The only time you can transfer cubes from one point to another is the turn the road is built and only between the origination and the destination settlements. You may connect to a settlement that your opponent already has or that you previously did. You may not connect to your opponent's warehouse.

Both players may have multiple cubes on the same settlement.

You may build a road to a settlement and not transfer any cubes to it (for blocking purposes) but then you may not extend any roads from that settlement (see, I told you it would make sense later!).

The game ends after 10 rounds. Use that odd color cube to note rounds remaining by moving it down the resource track after each round of play (a round being each player having a turn).

Scoring is different than in the standard two player game.

On settlements with both players’ cubes on it only the player with more cubes will score. The player with more cubes then places one of his cubes from the settlement into the appropriate scoring section according to the 3 and 4 player rules - counting up all the cubes in the settlement (both players’ cubes). Only one cube scores from each settlement so any remaining cubes are just set aside. If the players have the same number of cubes on a settlement neither player scores.

On settlements with just one player's cubes, score as above placing one of the cubes in the appropriate section. If there is only one cube then it goes into the one cube scoring area for that settlement type, naturally.

Any cubes left in a player's warehouse scores a minus one (-1) point.

The player with the most points wins.

Some comments about the changes:
Being that both players can play cubes onto the same settlement, and must decide how many cubes to transfer upon building a road, the game becomes a tough decision of when to build to a settlement, and how many cubes to move. We have found the game to be one tough choice after another, as well as nasty and cutthroat, with hardly any moves being obvious except for the final round on occasions (see below). A big difference from the 2 player rules as written.

The one thing I'm still not sure about is the game length of ten rounds. Most games have gone right down to the last round with players battling for control of settlements. A few times one player had no decent move for the final round. Usually this was because of a bad decision early in the game. Still if you find the final round rather anticlimactic most games try playing with just nine rounds a game. But for us many times that final move can be the deciding factor.

I hope this lets you enjoy La Strada as a two player game.

- Nick