In Roads & Boats, each player builds a civilization over a long period of time, like in many other games. Unlike most games, however, the emphasis is not on warfare, population growth, city or statebuilding, but on logistics, or rather: on transport.

Each player starts the game with three donkeys, a pile of wooden boards, a number of stones and two geese. With these few resources, you try to build such diverse things as woodcutters, roads, boats, mines, a stock exchange... but beware! There is no concept of territory in this game: you cannot own land, nor buildings, so the things you build can be used by any other player...

The basic game contains a rule and scenario book in English and Germand, a pile of hexagonal terrain tiles, 120 means of transportation from donkeys to steamers (wooden pieces), 75 walls (little woorden rods), 4 research boards, 28 discovery stones (glass), a wonder of the world with 193 wonder stones (cardboard), 18 mines + bags, 115 factories (cardboard), 600 goods (cardboard) and several other parts.