Play: The Beltway

The centers of power in Washington, D.C. are often referred to as “the Beltway”.

Beltway the Strategy Game is unlike anything you’ve ever played before, (but you may have dreamed of it).

The Beltway can be enjoyed by children and by adults. Everyone enjoys moving their pieces on the roads.

The Beltway is played with only five pieces, but it gives you a classic strategy game. You have the opportunity to block your opponent’s pieces or to “go around” your opponent’s pieces. The idea is to get all of your pieces across the board in the fewest number of moves.

AND, you get TWO moves on a turn.

The object of the game is to be the first to move your five pieces across the board on the intersecting roads of the Beltway in Washington, D.C., in order to occupy the POWER POINTS OF GOVERNMENT on the other side of the board. (These power points are labeled as the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the Media.)

The first player takes ONE move. The second player takes TWO moves. After that, each player gets TWO MOVES on every turn.

In the Classic Game, you must vacate ALL of your starting power points on your first five moves, before you start moving your pieces across the board. In other words, in the Classic Game, you must first get all of your pieces “out”.

In all of the games, on a single move, you can move a piece through as many intersections as you like, as long as you stay on the same road (the same color) on that move. You cannot jump a piece. Moves must be to unoccupied intersections. After your first five moves in the Classic Game, (and on ANY turn in the other games), you can take your second move by moving a separate piece, or you can move the same piece a second time. If you decide to move the same piece a second time, you must change roads (change colors) for the second move.

In the Classic Game (and in the “Dice” game), you cannot move a piece back into the power points on your side of the board, once they are “out”. Other than moving back into your power points, you can move a piece in any direction on any move, including backward, (which is often done to block an opponent’s piece from getting to where it wants to go.)

Enjoy the Beltway!