>(No cybernetics either; it's just a board game.)

It looks more involved than just a board game.  You have to manage 
funds in bidding on move priority, and since there are multiple 
players and the turn order is indeterminant, I don't think a stock 
alpha-beta lookahead strategy is going to work that well.

Then there is the travelling salesman aspect to picking packages to 
deliver and what order to deliver them in.

All in all, it looks like a very interesting (and hard) problem.

-- 
      -- tim