All aboard for adventure!
| Ticket to Ride (2004) | |||||
| Designer(s) | Alan R. Moon | Artist(s) | Cyrille Daujean, Cyrille Deaujean, Julien Delval | Publisher |
Days of Wonder |
 |
2-5 |  |
8+ |  |
30-60m |
This is a game that both Brian and I love that got us into board games about 4 years ago. For my 31st birthday, our newly opened friendly local game store (FLGS), Four Horsemen Comics & Gaming based in Clarksburg, WV, held a family board game night. A local board game group, WV Nerd Herd, were offering demonstrations of Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails. We had previously played Ticket to Ride with a group of friends, but we played entirely wrong. We thought, "why not give this another try." We ended up playing the base game of Ticket to Ride that night, and it has lead us purchasing nearly every version and expansion of the game.
Box and Components
The game consists of a map; this particular game is of the United States and is single sided. There are 5 different color train cars and score markers for each player. There are different colored train cards: red, blue, green, yellow, pink (or purple depending on how you see colors), black and white; there are also locomotive cards that can be used as a wild. The game also has destination tickets; these tickets have a start point and an end point you must successfully connect with trains to complete the ticket. The amount of points you can receive for completing it or you lose if you do not complete the ticket is shown in the lower right hand corner.
Setup
Setup the game board and provide each player a set of trains and a score marker of the color of their choice.
Shuffle the train cards, deal four cards to each player, and flip five cards face up beside the board. The remaining cards will become the train cards deck placed next to the five face up cards.
Shuffle the destination tickets, deal three of these cards to each player, and place the remaining cards beside the board becoming the destination ticket deck. Players must keep at least two of those ticket. Any discarded tickets will be placed at the bottom of the destination ticket deck.
You are ready to play Ticket to Ride.
Gameplay
Ticket to Ride is an easy game to learn and play. The object of the game is to have the most points at the end, and you do that by completing train tickets to different destination cities such as Las Angeles to New York City or Boston to Atlanta. Each destination ticket has a point value on it, the longer the track the higher the point value; the shorter the track the lower the points are. You also gain points based on the number of train cars you lay down; you can see the breakdown of those points on the play board. When we play, we typically count our train cars at the end before revealing our completed train tickets, because we get so into the game, we forget to move our point markers around the track. Depending on the version of the game, there are also end of game bonuses for either the longest connect route or most tickets completed.
Player Turn
Each player will perform one of the following actions on their turn.
Draw Train Cards
You can draw two cards from the face up train cards and/or deck. However, you may only draw one card if you select a face up locomotive card. However, if you draw a locomotive from the deck, you may still draw a second card; cards drawn from the deck should not be shown to other players. Drawn face up cards are immediately replinished. If at any point three locomotive cards are face up, all face up cards are discarded and replaced.
Claim a Route
You can discard a number of matching train cards from your hand to lay train cars on tracks on the board (claiming that route). The discarded train cards must match the color of the route you are taking and must be equal to the number of spaces on that route. There are grey routes that allow players to decide which color train cards to discard for that route; all discarded cards must match though. Certain routes are unavailable in 2-3 player games.
Draw Destination Tickets
You may draw three new destination tickets and must select to keep at least one; you may choose to keep more if you would like. Remember, any destination tickets not completed by the end of the game will subtract points from your score.
End Game
Once a player has 2 or less plastic train pieces remaining, all players will receive one additional turn and then final scoring begins.
If you weren't keeping up with the train car points during the game, you can total up the points you earned by referring to the chart on the game board.
Players will go through their destination tickets adding to their score for routes they successfully completed, and they will lose points for tickets they were unable to complete.
Depending on which bonus you are using, you will earn either an additional 10 points for having the longest connected train route or 15 points for completing the most tickets. Whoever has the most points is the winner of Ticket to Ride.
Other Versions and Expansions
There are many games in the Ticket to Ride series. There are a few base Ticket to Ride games which include the Ticket to Ride (US map), Europe, Germany, and Nordic Countries, and there are 7 (technically 8) map packs that provide new maps and matching destination tickets but require the trains and train cards from a base game. Each version tends to add in a new mechanic or two that is unique to that map. We still need to get the Map Pack 6.5: Poland, but that version is import only so we are still trying to get a copy of that for a reasonable price. There are also a few versions that are now out of print. There is a version called Ticket to Ride: Rails and Sails that adds in Boat routes and a few new rules to make the game even more interesting and strategic.
There have also been mini expansion adding fun creatures like an alien and dinosaur, dice variant, and even a stand alone card game. Recently, Days of Wonder have been releasing version that are based within cities and require less time to play, but they are still quite fun. At some point, we will likely do reviews on each additional game focusing on the unique elements they introduce.
Final Thoughts
The game sounds simple enough, right? It can be. However, in a 2-3 player, game some of the tracks are not available to lay your train cars on. When Brian and I play, it gets intense nearing the point of Monopoly table flips; we would never do that though because we love our board games too much to damage them. In a 4+ player game, all tracks are available to use, but that also means more players are likely to need the same routes as you.
This game is one of our favorites to break out whenever we get a chance. I wish I can say we own all the maps for it, but we are missing the anniversary box, non-US released maps, and a few of the different train car sets. This game certainly stands up to the name of “gateway game” as it gets people interested in trying modern games. The different maps also make it an educational game in a sense of learning the layout of the different countries or continents, which is a plus for me since my background is secondary education and history.
I hope if you get a chance to try this game out that you enjoy it as much as Brian and I have.
