Monday, August 24, 2009

Jacob and I were eager to play Roads and Boats again, so persuaded Matthew to join us for a Sunday afternoon game. I was a bit hesitant, not knowing if Matthew would latch onto a game that can be a bit of a brain burner and would hardly be considered light. Given he enjoyed War of the Ring, I should not have been surprised with his pleasure playing this.

Jacob is very much a natural at planning ahead on both logistics and production. He once again mostly ignored the wonder and focused on working towards coins and stock certificates. I was more aggressive in updating my transporters, getting to 5 wagons fairly quickly followed by a couple of rowboats. Matthew went long on the wonder, earning points in just about every row while learning his way around the production tree.

Matthew and I were fairly convinced that Jacob would be the runaway victor (again), but I researched specialized mines and new mine shafts (after building a "normal" mine so that I could grab some ore) and got a nice steady flow of gold. Jacob worked his way to a stock certificate and would have had a second soon, but Matthew forced the game to end by racing the wonder. I had a nice mix of wonder points, raw gold, and two coins and edged out a narrow victory (204 to 186). Matthew loved the game and this might become a staple in the house.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 12:29:39 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
I love Roads and Boats, but don't have a copy in my local group yet (played it when a friend from Seattle brought it down). I'm always torn on how much effort to invest in the wonder, but I've seen games like yours where someone used racing the wonder to prevent the leader from getting his stocks finished.
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