How to Take Longest Road

Among players with a continuous road of at least five segments, whoever has the longest continuous road earns longest road (+2 victory points).

Even after you take longest road, if another player builds a longer continuous road than yours, longest road is taken away from you.

Because this is a road-building strategy, it works well when your initial setup gives you more wood and brick than the other players.

Once initial placement is done, if you can collect more wood and brick than the other players, longest road is easier to aim for.

However, even if you collect plenty of wood and brick, you won't necessarily take longest road. It's also important whether you can secure more room to extend roads than the other players.

If you were boxed in by other players during initial placement, longest road is hard to take even with plenty of wood and brick. In such cases, we recommend switching early to a strategy that secures sheep, wheat, and ore and aims for largest army.

When wood or brick is scarce across the board, other players tend to focus on city upgrades and development cards—a situation that looks hard for longest road but is actually easier than it seems. Everyone extends roads only as much as they need, while late in the game resources pile up and trading gets easier, so after reaching 8 points it's often a cost-effective choice to bank-trade for road resources and go for longest road.

Conversely, on boards where wood and brick are plentiful, several players can extend roads easily and it often turns into a war of attrition. Easy road extension also tends to mean other players' roads and settlements leave you with nowhere left to expand, making it easier to have to give up midway—so this strategy is harder to recommend.

When playing for longest road, prioritize building settlements first. Settlements and roads are first-come, first-served, so it's best to secure room to extend roads early in the game.

You can only have five settlements at once, so city upgrades eventually become necessary. When playing for longest road, it's best not to draw development cards so you can save sheep, wheat, and ore for city upgrades.

Every strategy needs at least 6 board points. When aiming for longest road too, aim for at least four settlements including your opening placements, plus city upgrades along the way.

Because longest road is easy for others to steal, it often turns into a war of attrition, so it's best to secure 8 points first, then take longest road at the end to win.

Someone often takes longest road mid-game, but on boards where wood or brick is extremely scarce, no one may have longest road even late in the game. Even when you're not playing for longest road, we recommend checking once at 8 points whether extending your road to length 5 could let you take longest road and win at 10 points.

If you extend roads only to keep others from taking longest road early or mid-game, city upgrades slow down and you're often stripped of longest road late in the game. Longest road is relatively easy to win back, so watch that whoever holds it doesn't win at 10 points outright—and try not to be too attached to holding longest road through the mid-game.

If you're aiming for longest road and someone else holds it, secure room to extend your roads while keeping your road length within two segments of theirs. If the gap grows too large, you may not have time to steal longest road when they look ready to win, so staying close is recommended.

When whoever holds longest road reaches 8 points or more, steal longest road even if you haven't reached 8 points yet—stretch the game and improve your own chances of winning.

If you were aiming for longest road but other players' settlements block you from extending much, giving up on longest road and switching to another strategy usually makes it easier to score points.

When you give up on longest road, keep building steadily, draw development cards little by little, and aim for 10 points from board plus victory point cards. If you have plenty of sheep, wheat, and ore, going for largest army is also an option.

Longest road is easy to steal, but it also tends to turn into a war of attrition. When you give up after trying for longest road, winning often becomes much harder. Aim to reach 10 points as soon as you take longest road—or if that's not feasible, it's best not to pursue longest road from the start.