Game: Roads and Boats

Thread: Re: What the overall strategy be?

amadan — 2008-07-01T08:35:15+00:00

taraba wrote:
The only thing that people in my group get real protective of is gold. We never usually have anyone coming in to take other resources someone might have unless the other person stopped using it and it's been piling up. They'll either take it because they need more of it in their area or they're just taking it to build wonder bricks with.
"As others have said, it depends a lot on the people you play with."

See [url=http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2376672#2376672]here how not taking care of what you leave lying around can kill your game, when playing R&B with a wargamer.

Thread: Re: What the overall strategy be?

bassie — 2008-06-30T03:10:26+00:00

As others have said, it depends a lot on the people you play with. Usually it's very easy to gain a short term benefit by taking somebody else's goods. (Meaning of course the goods that somebody else feels are theirs.) However, that person will then often retaliate. And if two people are fighting each other, the others who expand peacefully will win.

In my experience, the closer you get to the end, the more people are tempted to take stuff from other people and the more protective you have to get.

I expect this to be different with two players, where any loss to the other player is your gain, but have no experience with this.

Thread: Re: What the overall strategy be?

taraba — 2008-06-30T02:32:17+00:00

Understanding that others will take something of "yours" at any point is needed to play the game. I put that in quotes because people feel that everything that they've built of produced in the game is theirs even though the game says that you only control what's on your transporters. This means someone will come to "your" mine and try to take the gold.

The only thing that people in my group get real protective of is gold. We never usually have anyone coming in to take other resources someone might have unless the other person stopped using it and it's been piling up. They'll either take it because they need more of it in their area or they're just taking it to build wonder bricks with. We've almost never have anyone call turn order to use buildings. If I build a building that's easily accessible to others, it's usually something I know that I'm going to use only a few times. The decision is usually based on the fact that the tile I'm building it on is farther away from the rest of my stuff and I don't plan to travel there too much. So, like a truck or boat factory. Anything else is in a core area of production.

The game is about moving goods efficiently and if you're moving back and forth to someone else's area or fighting over buildings, then you're not moving goods efficiently. Gold nuggets, coin mints and stock exchanges are the exception because these are producing VP.

Thread: Re: What the overall strategy be?

Friendless — 2008-06-30T05:22:37+00:00

In general it takes a long time to cross uninhabited areas - you need a donkey, and he only moves two hexes per turn. If you're close to someone you can share, but in general you won't share with someone far away.

Thread: Re: What the overall strategy be?

dkeisen — 2008-06-30T03:57:22+00:00

It really depends on the nature of the group (and to some degree on the map) as to how much the players each have their own "areas". I like playing Roads and Boats with exactly three players and then do my best to negotiate with my neighbors to share production buildings under reasonable terms. None of these agreements are binding, of course, but they help players progress more efficiently.

Of course other groups play more aggressively and put more energy into "stealing" goods and access to buildings bought from each other.

That's one of the beauties of the game. It adapts well to different groups who can end up playing very different games.

Thread: What the overall strategy be?

asd123321 — 2008-06-30T03:18:11+00:00

I am wondering about some overall concepts of how
this would work. Is it that you would be building in
your area typically and it is too much effort for another
player to come over and use what you built?
When is it worth moving over to use stuff someone
else has built? It would seem you might be routinely
loading stuff on your transporters so others don't walk
off with it. Is there much going over to someone else's
area?