Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Easier to teach
High replayability
Low interaction
Scales well
Deep strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Draft the order of five phases, lay polyhex crop fields, fill riverboat contracts, and send surveyors to New Orleans for opportunities and final scoring.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Action Drafting
Choose actions from a shared supply before opponents can claim them.
Set Collection
Gather related items that become more valuable when scored together.
Tile Placement
Place tiles to build a shared or personal spatial arrangement.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Hexagon Grid
Use a hexagonal map where each space connects evenly in six directions.
Read the full game description
Riverboat is a four-round farming euro built around choosing not only what to do, but who acts first in each phase. Players draft phase tiles, then share the same crop-placement card as workers are assigned to colored spaces on individual hex fields. Polyhex crop tiles reward careful grouping; completed sets load riverboats bound for New Orleans, while opportunities, barns, wells, agents, and a harbor-master track create several linked scoring paths. Surveyors can activate opportunity cards or score estate improvements, so committing workers to the city competes directly with cultivating the farm. Michael Kiesling’s design stays highly structured yet gives every player a different spatial puzzle and repeated chances to profit from timing.
