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All Roads is a tile laying game where it is your aim to advance the infrastructure around an infant Rome, building roads, mansions, spas and monuments, in order to become the ultimate builder and win the respect of the Roman Emperor!
You See A Dead End? I See An Opportunity
Each player has a stack of hexagonal tiles which they shuffle and place face down in front of them in a pile. On your turn, you get to lay two tiles, aiming to meet the criteria set out in the rules, so that you can successfully place one of your structures and bank those all important victory points. Of note, you must build on your turn if the criteria are met, and you draw two tiles again at the end of your go.
Dead end roads allow you to build houses, whereas dead end roads which are part of a closed loop allow you to build mansions. If your closed loop contains a lake beside your dead end, amazing, you can build a spa! If, however, you manage to make a closed loop without any dead end roads, you can place a monument (worth 4 victory points!). We really enjoyed this mechanic, because the tiles you place may actually pave the way for your opponents to build something more valuable on their turn. There is nothing more frustrating than watching the player after you capitalise on something you did on your turn, so this made for a lot of tricky decisions, especially for such a simple, quick fire game!
We’ve Been Down This Road Before…
There's nothing better than a game you love that you can play over and over again. This is definitely one of those games, however, I do think that game has the potential to be so much more. The tiles you lay, whilst they are drawn randomly, are from the same stack of tiles each time. There are also only 4 types of building available and only space for 2-4 players.
As it is, All Roads is a great game to pull off the shelf on a whim and you can definitely enjoy multiple rounds of tense, road building competition. For us, I think this game has lent itself to the possibility of an expansion, maybe to add up to 6 players, some new road tiles or even some new buildings which would really add to the strategy and replayability of this game! Here’s hoping that Lautapelit.fi have an expansion is under construction!
We Built Rome in a Day!
In an age of expansive Eurogames, weighty strategy games and oversized boxes, All Roads is a brilliant, quick fire game - perfect if you only have 15-30 minutes to spare in an evening!
All Roads is a game which, out of the box, you can learn and play within 5-10 minutes. The rules are straightforward and scoring is simple, making it easy to teach to new players and fast enough to let you cement yourselves down for at least 2-3 games, without feeling like you’ve spent all day doing the same thing over and over again!
When we play, we tend to have at least 3 rounds of the game, meaning that there is always the opportunity to improve on your last score and try out new strategies before we down tools and pack it away for another day.
We Came, We Saw, But Did This Game Conquer?
All Roads is easy to teach and quick to play, which out of the box, makes it a strong little game. Its speed of play and fun mechanics have us hoping that the developers will have future road works planned to expand it, improving the only speed bump in the road which is its replayability. I would recommend this game as a great introduction for people looking to try a tile laying game with a sprinkling of strategy hidden under its bitmac surface!