All Roads (2022)

Overview

Develop the surroundings of Rome with Houses, Villas, Spas, and Monuments in a tile-laying game of co-operative competition.

Each player starts with a set of wooden structure tokens and a hand of four tiles. On your turn, place two tiles freely; the only rule is that roads must connect to Rome. Build dead-ends to place Houses, and upgrade them to Villas by enclosing them within a road loop. Enclosing empty areas awards valuable Monuments. Houses by a lake upgrade into Spas. Victory goes to the player with the fewest tokens left when all tiles have been placed.

Place a few Houses in an area an opponent is working to enclose; let them do the work. Lure others to help upgrade your Houses by leaving some good moves in the right places. Or co-operate with a temporary ally on an area with lots of Houses.

The gameplay evolves as players run low on different tokens in mid-game, which may invite co-operation or exploitation. A player low on Houses has a strong incentive to work on upgrading – a prime time to slip a couple of Houses into their area for free upgrades. Perhaps all opponents have placed all their Monuments? Great. You no longer need to worry about leaving easy monument spots on the board.

All Roads is easy to learn and features a social element, yet its simple rules produce a game with a lot of depth.