Ticket To Ride – “Hurry! Grab A Seat To A World Of Extra Colorful Fun”
What The Objective Of Ticket To Ride?
The name of the game is getting the most points. You get points by completing railroad routes of all sizes. The bigger the route the more points you will get. Thats pretty much it, at the end of the game the person with the longest continuous route gets an additional 10 points to add to they’re score. Everyone adds they’re total score at the end of the game after someone gets down to they’re last few train cars left.
My strategy with every game i play of Ticket To Ride, is simple, only pick up routes that you can easily connect to your old routes. Any routes that you do not complete will be subtracted to your final score. Which means that you’ve already probably lost. If you can get all your routes to line up to one big long route. You’ll get that extra 10 points for longest route and then hopefully that will put you in first.
Outside of a looking at your routes trying to get the best probability of getting your colored train cars that you need. It’s all luck and drawing. To a certain extent you don’t have too much control of what train colors you’ll draw and what colors will be on your route.
Should I Buy Ticket To Ride?
Ticket To Ride is a classic, it’s been around for a long time, and if you’ve played any kind of board game you’ve probably heard of it. It’s simple and easy to learn, but it’s really not my cup of tea.
Let Me Explain
When i first started playing it with my family, my little brother got hooked on it and that’s all he wanted to play. For me i lost interest after the 5th time of playing it. Personally, i see it more as a great game for kids and people who just want to kill some time. There’s not really much strategy that goes into it and so much not knowing how well your doing in the game that it just kind of takes the fun out of it for me. Again this is all just my opinion, I’m not someone who takes games too seriously but i do like to play to win and learning how a game functions and coming up with strategies around that is a lot of fun for.
As for the people around me, like i said my little brother is hooked by it, he’s always convinced he’s got the longest route and will end up in first place so he’s just excited the whole game through. My boy just likes helping grandma move her pieces around the map and enjoying all the colors. I think for my wife and mother, they mainly see it as a stress free kind of game that’s just something to play at the time and enjoy everyone’s company.
Even though I’m not Ticket To Rides #1 fan, i know a lot of people who really enjoy this game and who talk about it a lot. I honestly would suggest giving it a shot if anything I’ve mentioned peaks your interest at all.
| Ticket To Ride General Information |
|---|
| Play Time : 30 Mins to 60 Mins |
| Publisher : Days Of Wonder |
| My Recommended Age Group : 8 and above |
| Player Count : 2-5 |
Each Turn What Actions Do You Have?
There are only 3 different actions you can do on your turn and there pretty easy to remember.
First if you want more route cards you can draw three new route cards, you must keep at least one of the three routes cards that you drew.
Second, you can grab two colored train cars from the “Train Display”. If you grab a rainbow train car from the train display, then you can only pick that one rainbow train. If you were to draw the rainbow train car from the top of the deck then you got lucky and get to pick another card.
Last but not least, you can lay down the colored train cards that you have for a route between two cities on the map. Claim them by placing your personal colored trains on they’re path.
What Is The Meat & Potatoes Of The Game?
After you take your one action for your turn, the player clockwise of you goes next. As the game slowly continues as the board gets filled up will colorful train cars taking different routes. Players will get cut off and lose they’re chances to fulfill their destination cards. Eventually someone will place down they’re personal colors trains and only have 2 or less trains left. At the point everyone including that player will have they’re final turn before everyone adds up their final points of the game. Then the winner will be known, good luck.
Ticket To Ride – Map
The map for Ticket To Ride is something to look over, just getting to see the major cities around where you might live or have traveled to. Also just getting to see cities that you’ve never heard before as well. For someone like me that hasn’t really been the best with geography its kind of fun to look around the game board seeing what’s what.
One thing to mention is that towards the end of the game you will have a difficult time trying to read the city names on the board that are blocked by the trains on their routes. Thankfully the destination cards you have will help show you the general area of where the cities are located.
How Old Should You Be To Play Ticket To Ride?
This is definitely a game for ages 10 and above in my opinion. When we played this game with my boy, he was 8. So, he helped grandma move her pieces and pick what color of train cards she wanted. Honestly, if he were to play on his own I’m not sure he’d really know the best way to connect cities together to complete his destination cards. So, i think he’d spend most of his time just getting a really long route. Which honestly might work out pretty well for him. So, i would say give it a try with your kids and see how they do.
Whats The Difficulty Of Ticket To Ride? How Hard Is It To Learn, Teach, And Play?
The difficulty of Ticket To Ride is really pretty low. When it comes to learning, teaching, and overall gameplay, it just sits low on the bar for me. You spend most your time matching up color train cards and then placing down routes in-between cities. Not really much that you can mess up or have a hard time with.
Ticket To Ride Artwork And Cards
When it comes to the artwork for the board, it’s all very well laid out. The trains themselves are fun and nicely detailed. All the different colors of train cars and they verity of trains are fresh and fun to look at. Whenever i think of this game i just think of the word “Colorful”. There are not too many games that i can think of that uses so many colors and makes it work as well as Ticket To Ride.
Ticket To Ride Box Setup
Ticket To Ride is the perfect example of how a game box should be setup. One big and custom plastic lining that holds all of the game pieces in easy to access places. It even has a extra bag with extra train pieces if you were to loose them. So nice to see them do it so perfectly and i love it every time i open the box.
How Many Different Ticket To Ride Games Are There?
Another cool thing to consider for this game is all the different versions of the game there are. Outside of just the normal (USA) map, they have : Europe, Nordic Countries, Switzerland, Asia, India, Africa, Nederland, Germany, and Japan. Thats just a few out of the list of 27 different versions of Ticket To Ride!
Things I Would Add To Ticket To Ride?
My family and i have played the San Francisco Ticket To Ride. One thing that i liked that they added was another way to make up side points. So that’s personally what i would suggest as something that i would recommend that they continue with. What i would call side quests for Ticket To Ride. Keep in mind that i have not played all of the Ticket To Ride versions. There very well might have already done what i suggest. I can’t know everything, but i think it would help some flavor the game.
Thank you very much for taking the time to look through my review. I know this review was little more on the negative side. I know lots of people who really enjoy this game. Its just not something that i get excited about. I hope i brought some kind of value to you with this review, God bless…