Ticket to Ride

Today I wanted to write a bit about Ticket to Ride.  I plan on talking about the game in general not one particular map, there are a lot of different board available and each plays slightly differently.  I have got Europe, United Kingdom, Pennsylvania, Switzerland, India, Asia and Legendary Asia.  The basic mechanics are the same no matter which one you use, but normal they all have one or two different ways of scoring or a new action to take.

How to Play
The winner of the game is the one who scores the most points at the end of the game.

To start with each player picks a colour and is dealt a hand of train cards and destination cards.  The destination cards are routes that the player must complete, they are worth points at the end of the game if players has connected the two cities with the their colour trains.  If they don't complete their tickets they lose the points on the card.  Players can discard a number of destination cards before the start of the game if they don't think they will complete them but must keep at least 2 in their hand.

On their turn players can take one of 3 actions.  The first action is to pick up train cards.  These are different colours and match the colours of the routes on the board.  Players need to collect sets of these in order to lay their train pieces down on the route to claim it.  There will be a deck of cards and a row of them face up, players can pick up two cards either face up or blind from the deck.  There are Locomotive cards which are wild and can count as any colour. If a locomotive is face up and players choose to take it they can only pick up one card.

The second action players can take is to play their train cards to claim a route.  They need to play the same number of cards of the same colour as the route you are trying to take.  You can't claim part of a route so must have the full number of cards to take the whole thing.  Grey routes can be claimed with any colour, but all the cards must be the same colour.  When players take a route they get points based on how long the route is, with longer routes worth more points.

The final action players can take on their turn is pick up new destination tickets.  Players can draw 3 new tickets and discard up to 2, keeping the rest.

The game ends when one player only has 2 trains left.  Then each player gets one more turn and that is it.

Once the game finishes there are end of game bonuses added to players scores.  The first is points earned for completing destination tickets and lost for incomplete tickets.  On most of the maps one player will also earn points for the single longest continuous route they control.  After everything the player with the most points wins.

The Maps
As I already mentioned their are a lot of different maps available for Ticket to Ride and you can get new map packs to give you new boards to play on.  Some new maps can be more or less competitive if they are tight or have a lot of destination cards which mean players are all trying to go through the same part of the map.

There are 4 base games which give you everything you need to play and then the map packs can be added to any of these base games.  You can not play the map packs without one of these base games.  The base games are Ticket to Ride (a USA map), Ticket to Ride Europe (a Map of Europe), Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries (a map of Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and Ticket to Ride Marklin (a map of Germany).  I have Ticket to Ride Europe and haven't played the others so can't really talk about them.  I will talk about the maps I have got briefly just to explain the differences between each map.

Europe

The Europe map is a base set so it comes with all the train cards and train tokens players need to play the game and use with other map packs.

It adds tunnels, ferries and stations to the basic game.

Stations can be added as an action for the cost of 1 card for the first, 2 for the second and 3 for the third.  They let you use another player's route coming out of the city you placed a station on to complete one of your tickets.

Ferries count as normal routes but need an additional locomotive card to complete.  Tunnels are normal routes but when you play them you will flip over the top 3 cards from the train deck, any cards which match the colour you have played will mean you have to pay an additional card of the colour to claim the route.

UK

The UK map adds technology cards which I think changes the game most of all the new maps I have played.  Players will start only being able to claim short routes in England and as the game progresses they they will be able to buy technology cards which let them do new things like claim longer route, claiming route in Wales, Scotland or Ireland or get extra points for route.

I think this is the map which will appeal to "gamers" the most.  The technology gives players much more strategy and more decisions to make.

I did find early on routes in England can be quite tricky because all players start there so everyone will be trying to claim them, but as players start to spread out you might be the only one able to build in Scotland so there is no-one else competing for routes with you.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is the other side of the UK map.  It introduces shares to the game.

Each time a player claims a route they get to take a share card from one of the different train companies.  Players get points at the end of the game based on how many shares they have in each company.  It does add some interesting choices to the game as now players might take different routes from the most direct just because they need shares for a company that is on another route.

Switzerland

Switzerland is a 3 player only map so I got this to have a map that was still tight and competitive with fewer players.  The base set Nordic Countries is also 3 players only.

As well as being 3 players there are also changes to the destination tickets in game.  Some tickets will have different destinations and players will earn different amounts of points depending on which destination they go to.

India

India comes on the other side of the Switzerland board.  I got the pack because of Switzerland but India is also an interesting map.  It is very tight and competitive in the middle of the board and isn't just limited to 3 players.

The big change here is that players do not score end of game points for the longest route but instead score points for having the most loops, connecting two cities via two completely different routes.  It is an interesting change and if players want those bonus points they might have to buy a few routes which in a normal game would be useless to them.

Asia

Asia is a team map which plays 4 or 6 players.  I got this map pack because it allows more players.  The team play is interesting, each player has a hand of cards and a set of shared cards.  Players can buy routes with a mix of cards from their hand and the shared cards.  Teams share a colour train so there are only 3 different colours on the board but each player gets their own turn so they can both lay trains themselves.

Legendary Asia

Legendary Asia is the other side of the Team Asia board.

The big change here is mountain routes.  These routes are marked with an X.  When a player claims a mountain route they have to discard a train from their reserve.  They gain two points for each discarded train but lose it for the rest of the game so aren't able to use it to claim routes.

My Thoughts
Ticket to Ride is a simple game.  Some more serious gamers might find it too simple but I do think it is a fun game.  It is one of the most common gateway games to get new people playing board games and I think this is deserved.  It is very easy to teach and fun to play.  It doesn't have as much strategy as other games but I think it has enough to keep it interesting.  It might not be a go to game for me every time, but if you are looking for a game at the end of the night that is a little more relaxed it is a good, fun choice.  The number of different boards and the slight differences between each does give it plenty of replayability.  Overall I think it has a place in my, or anyone's, game collection.