Ticket to Ride game review

Ticket to Ride

General Information:
Manufacturer: Days of Wonder
Author: Alan R. Moon
Number of players: 3-5
Age: 13 years plus
Time: 30-60 mins.
Year: 2004

Awards:
SdJ 2004: Game of the Year
DSP 2004: 6th place
GCA 2004: Multiplayer Nominees

ENGLISH MAIN PAGE

Deutsche Spielerezension

Game Components:
1 Gameboard - 240 Train Cars - 144 Cards - 5 Scoring Markers - 1 Rulebook

The players are millionaires who meet once a year to perform a famous deed like the famous Phileas Fogg who travelled around the world in 80 days. Now - in the jubilee year of 1900 - they want to find out who of them is able to travel by rail to the most cities in North America. The winner gets 1.000.000 dollars.

Before the start of the game each player has to choose a colour. In that colour each player gets all the train cars and the according scoring marker. The train cards have to be shuffled and each player gets 5 cards. The other cards are placed facedown next to the gameboard and the first five cards are drawn and laid faceup next to the stack. At last the the destination ticket cards have to be shuffled and each player gets 3 cards. He/She must keep at least to cards but he/she is allowed to keep all 3 cards. Any unwanted ticket destination cards are placed on the bottom of the remaining cards. The remaining destination ticket cards are placed next to the gameboard.

The most experienced traveller becomes start player. The start player begins the game and the other players go clockwise. In his/her turn each player can choose 1 out of 3 possible actions:

The player can decide to draw 2 train car cards. He/She may take one of the five faceup cards or he/she may take the top card from the pile. If a player takes one of the five faceup cards he/she immediatley takes the top card from the pile to replace the card taken. He/She may take the replacement card. So there are always 5 faceup train car cards next to the gameboard. It does not matter if a player takes two cards from the pile, two faceup cards and so on - any combination is allowed.
The player can claim a route. To do so a player has to play as many cards as there are boxes in the route. With exception of the gray cards all routes require specific colours - so if a player wants to claim a blue route with 5 boxes he/she has to play 5 blue train car cards. He/She then places train cars in his/her colour in those boxes. He/She then owns this route. The cards are discarded. When a player claims a route he/she gets victory points according to the Route Scoring Table (1 point for a route of 1 train car, 2 for 2, 4 for 3, 7 for 4, 10 for 5 and 15 for 6).
The player can draw destination tickets. The player takes the top 3 destination tickets from the pile. He/She must keep at least one ticket and may keep up to all 3 tickets.

The game ends when one player has only 0, 1 or 2 train cars left in his/her personal supply. Each player - including the player who ends the game - gets one final turn.

Finally victory points have to be counted. The players know how much points they have already got for the routes they claimed but maybe want to recount the points. All players now have to show their destination ticket cards. The now get additional points according to the card if they managed to connect the towns as shown on the card. If they were not able to do so they loose that amount of points. The player who has the longest continous receives 10 points extra. The player with the highest total of victory points is the winner of the game.

(Troudi 08/02/05)

Further Information:
- Homepage of Days of Wonder

Troudi says 7 of 10 points:
"Ticket to Ride" is a good game of the year. Even if it is more or less a classical railway game the new theme of "the millionaires meeting to perform unbelievable deeds" makes the game interesting for families and especially railway-haters as well. The rules are very easy and can be explained within minutes. Each situation is explained in the rulebook and there are sufficient examples in the book. The game is fluent and can be played tactically - a player may decide to wait before he/she decides to claim a route or he/she may block certain routes by claiming them so that other players can not use them. The problem for tacticians are the destination ticket cards. The cards depend on luck only so if you draw a good card you may success in connecting the two towns if the card is bad you can not. Especially later in the game it does not make any sense to draw a destination ticket card because almost all routes have been claimed. If you leave away those cards the game becomes more tactical and you'll enjoy the game probably even more then before. All in all it's a nice game especially interesting for families and gamers who like quick and easy games. The European "Zug um Zug" costs about 28 Euros the American "Ticket to Ride" cost about 35 Dollars.

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