The Trouble with Trouble

I bought the game Trouble for my son about a year ago. I figured it would be easy enough to teach my son to play a roll and move game. At the time, he could count, but just didn't get the how to count out his move correctly - often he'd say one before lifting his piece or otherwise miss-move. No big deal really. We pulled it out last week and played with all the rules (which is to say you land on someone and send them back - something we didn't do before when we were still struggling to move correctly). Now, a year later, he got it just fine. In fact, its a good game to play with him, because it helps him adjust to bad things happening to him in the game (which he actually has no issues with, he's really fun to play with in that sense - he's a really good sport). Also, its really easy to set up my pieces so that he is more likely than not going to land on them. Which also points to the main reason this game is not played by anyone who isn't six years old. Its bad. The strategy to the game is don't move a piece out until someone else just goes past your starting block, then come out and land on them. Yes, there is a little luck, but beyond that there isn't much to the game. With four players playing similarly, the game is not only about luck, but would become unbearable long. I can only hope my son learns this early on so I'm not stuck playing this over and over for long periods of time.