Venice Freeway

A tactical board game about owning the best waterways and building strategical bridges in a randomly generated venice-like map.

Setup

Place the starting tile on the table. Each player picks a meeple and places it on one of its water squares. (Starting tile = land/circle in center, water all around.)

Create and shuffle the remainder into one deck of tiles.

Objective

The game can end in many ways, whatever comes first.

Deck runs out.
No player can move anymore.
All territory is filled or occupied.

You score for each territory in which you have the most player tokens. (If multiple players have that, they all score.)

You score +1 point for each square by default. But tokens and other special powers will mess with that.

Gameplay

On your turn, you can take 4 actions from the following list.

Place a new tile. It must be adjacent to the current board and all its sides must match.
Place a token on an unoccupied adjacent space. Team tokens can always be placed (don’t need to be bought), also on your current location.
Move your meeple around. It can move 4 spaces over water and 1 space over land.
Buy new tiles or tokens. (This is just an open market where you can get those for free? Or you must be adjacent to specific “market” locations on the tiles? Or you can also collect money?)

Importantly, all tokens are general (not colored or bound to teams).

Each player simply has one extra pile of team tokens. They do nothing on their own, but you need to place them in territories to actually gain points from them.

(This has a nice push-and-pull of: you want to enhance territories … but it might backfire if you’re not in time to also claim them by plopping down equally many team tokens.)

@IDEA: That idea of placing a “bridge” over water to connect territories is great. Use that somehow, intensively.

Tiles/Tokens

@TODO

Expansions

A way to upgrade your boat so you’re faster or things get cheaper?

Inspiration

Inspired by Mexica from Wolfgang Kramer.

I just love the idea of …

Very freeform building, constantly in each other’s face.
Set in Venice with cute little canals and boats sailing around.
(Obviously inspired by the canal and bridge mechanic from Mexica.)

General idea:

The game has loads of 2x2 or 3x3 tiles showing a combination of land and waterways.
You constantly place these tiles and grow the board, where sides obviously have to match.
An “enclosed space” (trapped by waterways on all sides) is a territory. You score points for controlling and enhancing those.
You are a meeple (or cube in my case) that can only sail around on the waterways to reach other territories.
Where you can plop down other tiles for control/special powers

A tactical board game about owning the best waterways and building strategical bridges in a randomly generated venice-like map. ## Setup Place the starting tile on the table. Each player picks a meeple and places it on one of its water squares. (Starting tile = land/circle in center, water all around.) Create and shuffle the remainder into one deck of tiles. ## Objective The game can end in many ways, whatever comes first. - Deck runs out. - No player can move anymore. - All territory is filled or occupied. You score for each *territory* in which you have the *most player tokens*. (If multiple players have that, they all score.) You score +1 point for each square by default. But *tokens* and other special *powers* will mess with that. ## Gameplay On your turn, you can take **4 actions** from the following list. - Place a new tile. It must be adjacent to the current board and all its sides must match. - Place a token on an *unoccupied adjacent space*. Team tokens can always be placed (don't need to be bought), also on your current location. - Move your meeple around. It can move **4** spaces over water and **1** space over land. - Buy new tiles or tokens. (This is just an open market where you can get those for free? Or you must be adjacent to specific "market" locations on the tiles? Or you can also collect money?) Importantly, all tokens are *general* (not colored or bound to teams). Each player simply has one extra pile of **team tokens**. They do nothing on their own, but you need to place them in territories to actually gain points from them. (This has a nice push-and-pull of: you want to enhance territories ... but it might backfire if you're not in time to also *claim* them by plopping down equally many team tokens.) **\@IDEA:** That idea of placing a "bridge" over water to connect territories is *great*. Use that somehow, intensively. ## Tiles/Tokens \@TODO ## Expansions A way to upgrade your boat so you're faster or things get cheaper? ## Inspiration Inspired by **Mexica** from Wolfgang Kramer. I just love the idea of ... - Very freeform building, constantly in each other's face. - Set in Venice with cute little canals and boats sailing around. - (Obviously inspired by the canal and bridge mechanic from Mexica.) General idea: - The game has loads of 2x2 or 3x3 tiles showing a combination of land and waterways. - You constantly place these tiles and grow the board, where sides obviously have to match. - An "enclosed space" (trapped by waterways on all sides) is a *territory*. You score points for controlling and enhancing *those*. - You are a meeple (or cube in my case) that can only sail around on the waterways to reach other territories. - Where you can plop down other tiles for control/special powers