Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Ticket to Ride (Europe)

The first version of this game, simply called Ticket to Ride was made in 2004 and features cities in the US; it was then adapted, with a few additions, to create Ticket to Ride, Europe in 2005. This is the version we were given a few years ago by some good friends.

The aim of the game is to create routes between different cities which are displayed in a vague approximation to a hundred-year-old map of Europe on a large board. Each player chooses from the five colours available, and starts with forty-five plastic train pieces, and three pieces representing stations.

There are also two sets of cards. The train cards display different coloured trains, and are used to buy routes during the game. The destination cards show routes between European cities. On the board, different tracks between cities are shown with coloured paths, and the aim of the game is to place trains that travel the 'missions' given on the destination cards. Each given route must travel through several cities before arriving at the destination - and the ability to place them must be bought with train cards matching the particular track concerned.

Sounds confusing? It is, at first. Nonetheless, four of us managed to teach ourselves to play it from the instructions, without any idea of what we were doing. That's not easy with most board games, so we were quite impressed. We realised, afterwards, that we had missed one or two points, but even so - it's not a difficult game to learn, even if the strategies take longer to grasp.

Here's a picture showing train cards laid out - two orange, two purple and one blue, which happened to be drawn - next to the upside-down draw pile, and the brown-backed destination cards. Each player starts with some destination cards and train cards, and on each turn can choose either to play trains (if they have the appropriate coloured cards), draw more train cards or - if they have completed all their missions - three more destination cards.

Ticket to Ride cards laid out by the game


For any given destination card, there are a variety of possible paths, but some of the routes may overlap. So players must regularly revise their plans as other players may take a part of the route that they had hoped to use. They must also weigh up whether it’s worthwhile using a station (which costs them four points, and differing numbers of cards) or whether to play several extra trains to take a more roundabout route to their destination.

We've tried playing 'Ticket to Ride' with varying numbers of people. With only two, it's not particularly interesting as there's no real challenge, although it works well and is good for beginners.

A three-player game works well: here's the board towards the end of a game with just three players, showing how the yellow trains go around the edge of the board, a long-winded route in some cases, but with the aim of gaining an extra ten points from the 'longest route' - ie the most contiguous train tracks. The three-player game is limited in that, in places where there are two tracks running alongside each other, only one may be used.



We more often play with four or even five players, five being the maximum.  The board can become quite crowded with five people, as several may hope for the same piece of track, only to find another player snatches it out of their grasp, meaning they must revise their plans, either collecting different cards for different routes, or using stations as a way of taking advantage of someone else's track.

Here's a view of a board towards the end of a four-player game:


Ticket to Ride (Europe)  has a rather different feel from most of the other games we like to play, and is simple enough to teach someone who has not played it before. It’s not particularly competitive; each player is trying to create his or her own routes, so deliberate blocking is unlikely.

It’s a game that can be played with adults or teenagers, or indeed any child who is able to read well enough to work out the routes, and who is careful with the placing of trains, and the strategy needed to work out the routing. We have played it with children as young as ten, and it has worked well, although we usually just play with adults or older teens.

It's not a game we want to play often - it can begin to feel 'samey', and doesn't have the repeat playability of, for instance, 'Settlers of Catan'. Nor is it a game that encourages much conversation, as each person has to keep thinking about what cards they have in their hand, and how they hope to place them.  It goes quickly, too; each player takes just one action on each turn, and if they don't announce what they're doing, a round can go by very quickly.

But as a change, we like this very much.  It's quick to set up and a game typically takes about half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes.


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