I just had a miserable game experience (https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=306478815) with a player who blocked just for the sake of blocking. - Not because they had a genuine need for the track. At one point red made a circle around my track, cutting off my final area of track in all directions! - Just "to get their jollies" (their words).
IRL it's generally agreed upon that this is a jerk move, as most people prefer to win by getting longer trains and more tickets completed. Blocking someone and sabotaging their entire hour of play and all the long effort they put into collecting the necessary train cards, just because you anticipate their direction, is something that CAN be done. Sure. But it's mean and a lot of us don't enjoy playing with people who play that way!
If there's any way of having blocking as an option for those who play aggressive games and also games where everyone agrees to just mind their own tracks and only block when they fairly need a track to reach a destination or longer train, that would be great! Otherwise, I may just wait for Europe and stations to hit BGA! It's hard enough playing 4 players without stations to escape an accidental block when we all need the same tracks.
But having players blocking people on purpose just kills all the fun as far as I'm concerned.
IRL it's generally agreed upon that this is a jerk move, as most people prefer to win by getting longer trains and more tickets completed. Blocking someone and sabotaging their entire hour of play and all the long effort they put into collecting the necessary train cards, just because you anticipate their direction, is something that CAN be done. Sure. But it's mean and a lot of us don't enjoy playing with people who play that way!
If there's any way of having blocking as an option for those who play aggressive games and also games where everyone agrees to just mind their own tracks and only block when they fairly need a track to reach a destination or longer train, that would be great! Otherwise, I may just wait for Europe and stations to hit BGA! It's hard enough playing 4 players without stations to escape an accidental block when we all need the same tracks.
But having players blocking people on purpose just kills all the fun as far as I'm concerned.