Roads and Boats (board game)

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Roads and Boats is a board game by Splotter (http://www.splotter.com) for 2 to 4 players (6 with an expansion pack). It can also be played as a solitaire.

The object of the game to gain more victory points than the oponnents. These can be gained by owning some types of resources (gold, mint, stock).

The game is played on a hexagonal board and the main elements are transporters (donkeys, trucks, boats etc.), resources (wood, boards, stone, clay, paper, fuel, geese, iron, gold, mint, stock etc.) and factories. Some factories only produce new resources, while other convert some resources into another ones - for exameple a Sewmill converts one wood into two boards, while a Woodcutter (which can be built only on a square with a forest) creates one wood per turn.

Each transporter belongs to the player who created it, unlike resources and factories. Resources can be used (for building) or loaded (onto a transporter) by any player who has a transporter on the same square, but if they are loaded onto a transported, other players cannot manipulate with them.

Players can build walls to deny other players the pass; walls can be passed only by their owner, but they can be destroyed. They can also build roads and bridges over rivers to enhance the mobility; these can be used by anyone.

There is another way to gain victory points: a player can spend some resources to add a brick to a "Wonder"; one neutral brick is added each turn. The end of the game is defined when the total number of bricks reaches a value, which depends at the number of players.

At the beginning, the board is set up according to a picture in a rulebook. For any number of players, the rulebook offers several maps (for example a map with one big continent encourages much player interaction, while map with three islands for three players will more probably allow a relatively isolated development).

The game can be played as a solitaire - the goal is to gain as many victory points as possible within the defined number of moves. There are several maps for solitaire playing and the current word record can be found in the website.