Games That Don't Suck: Ticket to Ride

(For a list of games in this series, click here and scroll down.)

Of the board games reviewed here thus far, Ticket to Ride (TTR, for short) has come closest to entering the mainstream, to the extent of having appeared on television. (Granted, the show in question was The IT Crowd). This does not surprise me. TTR is easy to learn, plays quickly, includes a bit of luck, allows both individual and player-vs.-player strategic decisions, and – unlike Monopoly and other "mainstream" games – is non-language-dependent. I have played many online games of TTR with European players, and have taught the game to Chinese and Korean students and scholars.

The premise of TTR is that the players are early-20^th-century travelers and tycoons, trying to claim railroad routes so that they may complete journeys ("tickets") from one city to another. Each player begins with two or three tickets to complete and may acquire more during the game. Routes between cities consist of between one and six colored or grey spaces; some cities, particularly major rail centers, have two parallel rail routes connecting them. To complete a route, a player must collect and play a number of train cards equal to the number of spaces in the route. The cards must all match the color of the route, unless the route is grey, in which case they need only be of one individual color (all red, all blue, etc.) Once a player claims a route, s/he marks it with his/her railroad-car pieces; thereafter, no other player may claim that route.* One of the strategic elements of the game is the ability of players to block one another's routes. Players must keep this in mind as they decide whether to wait and claim longer (and more valuable) routes, or seize shorter routes in order to complete their tickets before someone else blocks them.

On a player's turn, s/he may perform one of three actions: 1) draw up to two cards from the train card supply, 2) claim a route on the board, or 3) acquire new destination tickets.  Claiming a route is straightforward enough (see the previous paragraph), as long as one has acquired enough train cards of the appropriate color. The train card supply has two sections: an open layout where five cars are displayed for all players to see, and a face-down draw pile. Players may take two cars from either the open layout or the draw pile (or both). Some train cards are actually locomotives, and these are wild: each counts as one train card of any color. A locomotive costs two cards if it is in the face-up layout, but only one if a player blind-draws it from the face-down draw pile. 

As one takes train cards from the face-up layout, one replaces them from the draw pile. This may be very useful to a player trying to accumulate train cards of a particular color, but may be even more useful to that player's opponents!

A player may also, on his/her turn, acquire new destination tickets.  If s/he chooses to do so, the player draws three tickets from the ticket pile, and must keep at least one of them, though s/he can choose to keep two or all three. Tickets are worth between 4 and 22 points (depending on the distance between the cities on the ticket), but they are a liability until they are completed: each uncompleted ticket costs the player its face value in points at the end of the game.

Players earn points in two additional ways: 1) by claiming routes, and 2) by having the longest continuous route at the end of the game. Routes are worth an ascending number of points depending on their length, ranging from 1 point for a one-car route to 15 points for six-car routes. The longest-route bonus is worth 10 points; in my experience it is usually only important as a tie-breaker between two evenly-matched players. It does introduce another strategic decision into the game: should a player create a single long route to claim the bonus, and perhaps end the game before the other players can finish their tickets, or construct several web-like train routes in order to complete the most tickets?

Players begin the game with 45 train-car pieces with which to claim routes.  Once a player is down to two (or fewer) pieces, all players all are allowed one more turn, and then the game ends. Whoever has the most points wins the game, and all the honors that they may prudently claim.

While I occasionally grow tired of Ticket to Ride, it is usually only after I have played the game several dozen times. Half as many plays of Risk or Monopoly would leave me wanting to chew off my own leg to escape. I may safely say, therefore, that TTR is an easy-to-learn game with ample strategy and a high replay value – and, if you grow tired of playing with your friends and family, versions are available for play online, on your PC, or on your iOS device. (There are also several non-U.S. variants of Ticket to Ride, using new regional boards and new rules, for those tired of the 1900 U.S. map.)


* Unless it is a double-track route in a four-person game.