2004: Ticket to Ride

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, will releasing the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles to be reviewed. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

For the fourth entry in Reviews from R’lyeh’s series of anniversary reviews, we look back to the year 2004 and the publication of a successful board game that has sold over three million copies in the ten years since. Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder would win the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award, the Origins Award for Best Board Game of 2004, and the 2005 Diana Jones award, amongst others, and it has also joined Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan—Spiel des Jahres winners both—in forming a triumvirate of gateway games. That is, games that can serve as an introduction to the hobby of playing board games, games that can be played by both board game enthusiasts and the family alike. This factor, along with its popularity, explains why Ticket to Ride has appeared on Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop series twice. First with Ticket to Ride and then with Ticket to Ride: Europe.

Designed for two to five players, aged eight and up, in Ticket to Ride the players undertake a race across the USA in the spirit of Phileas Fogg’s race around the world in eighty days. At stake is a prize of $1,000,000 for the competitor who reaches the most destinations and scores the most points. It is played out over a map of the USA and southern Canada marked with various cities connected by routes in different colours and of varying lengths.

At game’s start each player will receive a set of train pieces and some Destination Tickets. Each of these give two cities on the board that need to be connected, such as ‘New York to Seattle’ or ‘Duluth to Houston’. Completing these Destination Tickets will score a player points, but will lose him points if not completed. A player must keep one of the Destination Tickets he is given and can draw more throughout the game. He also receives four Train Cards. The Train Cards match the colour of the routes on the board and are used to claim routes on the board. For example, two four-space routes run between Denver and Kansas City, one in black, the other in orange. It would take four orange Train Cards to claim the orange route or four black ones to claim the black route. A Locomotive Card, which can be any colour, can be substituted in place of any of the cards. A player will score points for each route claimed and each route can only be claimed once.

On his turn, a player can do one of three things. He can draw two Train Cards, either face up or straight from the deck, or a single Locomotive Card; he can use Train Cards to claim a route; or he can draw new Destination Tickets. This sets up a dilemma for the player—does he take Train Tickets that he needs before a rival takes them? Does he claim a route before someone else does? If he takes new Destination Tickets can he complete them before the end of game?

The winner is the player who scores the most victory points, invariably because he has completed the most Destination Tickets and claimed the most routes. There is also an award for the Longest Route. Game play in Ticket to Ride is thus fairly simple, but challenging enough for the casual or family gamer. For the enthusiast, Ticket to Ride offers a number of strategies, such as attempting to claim as many long routes as possible or grabbing the short routes in order to block other players. Either way, Ticket to Ride is a gently competitive game that is easy to learn and easy to play.

It should be remember that what Ticket to Ride is not, is a train game. It has trains as a theme, but the game is about managing a player’s hand of Train Cards and collecting the right set of routes. That said, it can be seen as a stepping onto more complex train-themed games, for example, Ragnar Brothers’ Canalmania or Alderac Entertainment Group’s Trains. 

In the decade since its publication, Ticket to Ride has been supported with a family of core games and expansions. These enable gamers to play using dice rather than Train Cards or with new Destination Tickets, to play core games in Europe, Germany, and Scandinavia, and to take their trains onto maps set in Asia, India and Switzerland, Africa, and the Nederlands. The game has also been adapted to be played on PCs and tablets—both iOS and Android devices. This allows a player to enjoy the game by himself, against the computer or opponents around the world.

In 2014 Days of Wonder released Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition to celebrate the success of the game over the previous decade. Graphically, Ticket to Ride has been given a beautiful redesign and increased in size half again. This includes the size of the box, the map board, the cards, the train pieces, and the scoring markers. What will grab the gamer right out of the box is the board, because it is now in full colour with a colour background to the routes. The original map for Ticket to Ride was decidedly grey, but the map here is full of detail and geography, and the length of the spaces on each route is now a whole inch long!

Below the map, what will grab the gamer next are five colour tins—black, blue, brown, green, red. Each of these deep tins—labelled Black Powder Rail (black), Metropolitan Rapid Transit (blue), Dutch Flat Barrel Co. (brown), Hobo Caboose Central (green), Savannah, Florida & Circus Railway (red)—contains forty-eight sculpted, detailed plastic train pieces. These are not only visually appealing as they look fantastic when on the board, but they also bring a tactile physicality to the game. Similarly, the Train Cards have been given a major redesign. They are also increased in size to make them easier to handle and read, much in line with the Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 Expansion.

Notably, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition includes not only the Destination Tickets from the original Ticket to Ride, but also those from Ticket to Ride: USA 1910. Together, the Destination Tickets from Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 implement three different variants in which to play Ticket to Ride. These are ‘1910’, ‘Big Cities’, and the ‘Mega Game’. The ‘1910’ variant simply replaces the Destination Tickets from Ticket to Ride with the ‘1910’ Destination Tickets and gives a thoroughly new mix of cities to connect. Instead of the Longest Route Bonus in Ticket to Ride, in the ‘1910’ variant, the Globetrotter Bonus is given for the most Destination Tickets completed. Each of the Destination Tickets in the ‘Big Cities’ variant is connected to one of eight cities—Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and Seattle—which makes for a much more cutthroat game as the players compete to access the same connections. Lastly, in the ‘Mega Game’, all of the Destination Tickets are used, including those from both Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride: USA 1910, and both the Longest Route and the Globetrotter Bonuses are given out. 

Essentially, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition negates the need to purchase Ticket to Ride: USA 1910—or at least it should have done. For unfortunately, there is a flaw at the heart of an otherwise beautifully done, pretty reprint. What the full colour rulebook, which includes the rules in several languages as well as in English, does not include are the rules for any of the ‘1910’, ‘Big Cities’, and the ‘Mega Game’ variants. This is a major omission, one that undermines the inclusion of the Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 in the Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition.

Another issue is with the train pieces. All except one set is easy to spot and that one is the Dutch Flat Barrel Co. pieces. The problem is that the tin for them is brown and the main colour for the pieces is also brown, but they are not brown in the game. They are meant to be yellow as in the original Ticket to Ride. Admittedly, each of the ‘brown’ train pieces has a yellow stripe down each side, but surely they could have just been yellow and another type of wagon created instead of the Dutch Flat Barrel Co. wagons?

Lastly, in the ‘Mega Game’ when the Longest Route and the Globetrotter Bonuses are given out, there is not a separate card for each. Instead, they are printed on the obverse sides of one card. The question is, what happens when one player is awarded the Longest Route Bonus and another the Globetrotter Bonus?

Make no mistake, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is fundamentally flawed and incomplete. Which flies in the face of Days of Wonder’s reputation for attention to detail. Nevertheless, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is still playable and the rules for each of the ‘1910’, ‘Big Cities’, and the ‘Mega Game’ variants are available online, but again this is not a satisfactory solution given that this is a highly expensive version of an existing game and a prestigious redesign of Days of Wonder’s flagship title. Ultimately, Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is beautiful and impressive, both on the shelf with its black box and in play when the trains start being placed. Despite its flaws, Ticket to Ride is still a great game and the Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary Edition is a pretty addition to any gaming collection.

Read More

Going Dutch

With its fourth entry in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection, Days of Wonder has gone Dutch. Like the previous Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 3 - The Heart of Africa, Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 - Nederland includes just the one map as well as a new mechanic that makes game play tighter and ultimately forces a player to pay heavily in terms of points if he is not quick enough. As with the other titles in the series, it requires a base set to play, either Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride: Europe.

The map in Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland is laid out vertically, much like the maps in Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 3 - The Heart of Africa and Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. A riot of verdant green, cut by innumerable rivers and canals, and bound by the North Sea to the West, the Netherlands’ rivers and canals are bridged by Double-Routes, there being more Double than Single routes. Each route has a value attached to it between one and four. This is its Toll value.

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland also includes a set of forty-four Destination Tickets, five sets of Bridge Toll Tokens, and a set of Bonus and Loan cards. These Destination Tickets are of higher value than normal, six of them being worth between twenty-nine and thirty-four points and another seventeen being worth between seventeen and twenty-six points. The Bridge Toll Tokens are done in thick cardboard and valued either one, two, or four. 

Designed for between two and five players, the expansion mostly plays just like any Ticket to Ride map, except each player receives forty rather than forty-five trains, and five Destination Tickets of which he must keep three. He also receives Bridge Toll Tokens to a value of thirty. During his turn, a player can draw Train Cards as normal; draw more Destination Tickets – four, must keep one; or play Trains to claim a route. Claiming a route is where this expansion differs from other Ticket to Ride boards. When a player claims the first route of a Double-Route, he must pay the value next to it as a Toll in Bridge Toll Tokens to the Bank. If another player later claims this Double-Route’s second route, then that player pays the same Toll in Bridge Toll Tokens to the player who claimed the first route.

For example, the Double-Route between Den Helder and Haarlem has a Toll value of two. Richard claims the first route using four orange Trains Cards and pays the required Bridge Toll Tokens to the bank. Later in the game, Debbie finding that she needs the same route, uses four blue Train Cards to claim the second route. With Richard having already claimed the first route, Debbie must pay the Bridge Toll Tokens not to the Bank, but to Richard.

Obviously claiming the first routes of a Double-Route before anyone else is the key here. In doing so, the player who claims the first route is likely receive the value in Bridge Toll Tokens he paid to the bank from the player who claims the second route. Since this gives an advantage to players who start earlier and can claim routes faster, later players start the game with some bonus points. As game’s end, the players are awarded points based on the number of Bridge Toll Tokens they have in relation to each other. Should a player run out of Bridge Toll Tokens, he can take a Loan Card for each route claimed. Doing so means that a player cannot score any points based on the number of Bridge Toll Tokens he has at game’s end.

In addition to the new rules that make use of the expansion’s Bridge Toll Tokens, Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland gives rules for two other ways of playing the Dutch map. The first is as per the standard game, but without the use of the Bridge Toll Tokens, the Bonus Cards, or the Loan Cards. The second is a two-player variant that uses the Bridge Toll Tokens. It actually uses a dummy player as a third participant whose actions are determined in a semi-random fashion by the text at the bottom of some of the Destination Tickets. The effect of this randomness is to make this two-player variant a much more tense playing experience because the dummy player’s actions are not as predictable.

Physically, Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland is as attractive as the other maps available for Ticket to Ride. As pretty as the map is, the choice of font is too pretty, especially for casual play. Too often a player has to study the map to work out where the various towns and cities are, more so because their names are given in a slightly illegible font. This is offset by the Destination Tickets which clearly indicate where the two towns or cities that need to be connected are on the map. The various Destination Ticket and Bonus and Loan Cards are equally as attractive, though not as flawed. The game’s major flaw is the inadequate packaging – the space in the tray provided to store the Bridge Toll Tokens is utterly insufficient. It is possible to store them underneath the tray, but that was certainly not Days of Wonder’s intention.

In comparison to other Ticket to Ride maps, Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland might be seen as being complex and indeed, it does add another degree of resource management in the form of the Bridge Toll Tokens. That said, what Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland brings to the Ticket to Ride family is a means to turn on the pressure during the play. That is, claim the first route of a Double-Route as there is a chance that you will get your Bridge Toll Tokens back when another player claims the second route. Essentially this adds an economic aspect to the game in that paying Bridge Toll Tokens to the Bank when claiming the first route of a Double-Route actually serves as an investment in which the player has the potential to recoup the investment made.

As with any new Ticket to Ride map, Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland presents challenges anew and should be welcomed for that. Its ‘economic’ complexity relative to other entries in the Ticket to Ride family makes Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland suited to play by the Ticket to Ride enthusiast rather than its original family audience.

Read More

Back to Africa

Railway-themed board games, or Train Games as they are known, such as the 18XX series, Age of Steam, Railways of the World, Empire Builder, and so on, are all about their maps. Many of the expansions for these games come in the form of maps as the terrain presented on each board presents the players with challenges anew when it comes to making connections between each map’s destinations. Ticket to Ride is something of a latecomer to the concept, its publisher, Days of Wonder, having preferred to put out new core games like Ticket to Ride: Europe and Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries that stand alone rather than new boards that expand upon one of the core games. So the Ticket to Ride Map Collection series has been something of a breath of fresh air.

To date, Days of Wonder has published three volumes of the Ticket to Ride Map Collection. The first, Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 1:Team Asia and Legendary Asia added mountains as a new terrain and expanded the number of possible players from five to six players with a team play element. The second, Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 2: India and Switzerlandreprinted the Switzerland board from its original release in 2007 together with a new board for India that advanced the series’ timeline into the Edwardian age. Late in 2012 these were joined by the third and latest in the series, Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa.

As with the other titles in the series, Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa requires a base set to play, either Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride: Europe. Unlike other titles in the series, Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa only includes the one new map board and set of rules rather than two. So in comparison, it has to do the work of two new boards to be interesting, let alone challenging. The good news is that The Heart of Africa is challenging…

Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africaconsists of the new map board, forty-eight Destination Tickets, forty-five Terrain Cards, a new type of card, plus the twelve-page rules booklet, which includes the expansion’s rules in ten different languages. The map itself does not depict the whole of Africa, but rather the South and the West of the continent as far North as Nigeria in the West and Sudan in the East. Thus it does not include North Africa nor does it include the Horn of Africa. As with the Switzerland map, The Heart of Africa map includes destinations that are countries rather towns or cities. These are limited in number though, consisting of Nigeria, Tchad, and Sudan on the map’s northern edge. These destinations are reflected in the game’s Destination Tickets.

Physically, The Heart of Africa map reflects the Ticket to Ride line’s chronological progression. The original board game is set in the 1890s whereas the India map from Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 2: India and Switzerland is set in the Edwardian period. The Heart of Africa map is placed in the 1920s, as reflected in the artwork with its motorcar and its biplane. Elsewhere, the art on the map has a dry, dusty feel apart from the rich illustrations accorded to the country destinations depicted at the northern edge of the board.

Most Ticket to Ride maps reflect the type of terrain they depict in the routes that the players have to claim in order to fulfil their Destination Tickets. Thus, on the Switzerland map from Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 2: India and Switzerland, there are a lot of mountain routes that the player must claim if he has to connect to any of the destinations in the South of the country or over the border in Italy. Similarly, the map of Scandinavia from Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries has a lot ferry routes reflecting the difficulty of reaching certain destinations and the fact that the Baltic Sea divides the various countries on the map. The map in Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa does reflect the type of terrain it depicts in the type of routes available. Indeed, besides the standard type of route, there is only one other incidence of another type of route on the map, that of the ferry route to Madagascar.

So if The Heart of Africa map does not reflect the difficulty of its terrain in the types of routes it depicts, then how does it do it? It does so by grouping the route colours according to terrain type. So rather than distribute route colours across the map, here they are grouped – orange, red, and yellow for Desert and Savannah routes; blue, green, and purple for Forest and Jungle routes; and black, grey, and white for Cliff and Mountain routes. These groups are organised geographically, with the Forest and Jungle routes across the middle of the map, the Desert and Savannah routes to North and South of this, and the Cliff and Mountain routes to the North and the East.

This grouping has a strong influence on play. First, it will have players scrabbling for Train Cards of the same colour if they want to make connections through the terrain types. The map has multiple incidences of routes of one colour being connected to a destination out of which leads a route of the same colour. This is only exacerbated by the lack of double routes in the interior of the map – all of its double routes are located along the coast of the continent. The map also has very few grey routes that can be claimed using any colour Train Cards. Second, it will be obvious to the other players what terrain group a player a wants to claim a route from the colour of the Train cards he is drawing.

The Terrain Cards specifically work with the route groupings and so come in three types – Desert and Savannah, Forest and Jungle, and Cliff and Mountain. When a player claims a route he can also play a Terrain Card (or two Terrain Cards if the route is longer) that matches the colour of the route to double the value of the points scored for the route. He must have as many Terrain Cards of that terrain grouping as any other player – this is known because they have to be kept face up on the table where everyone can see them. Alternatively, Locomotive or Wild Train Cards can be used instead of Terrain Cards. Once played, Terrain Cards and Wild Cards are discarded.

Game set up is little different to that of other Ticket to Ride games. Each player receives his forty-five trains and four Train Cards as usual. He also receives four Destination Tickets, of which he must keep two, and a single, random Terrain Card. Two Terrain Cards are placed face up as well as the usual Train Cards. When a player decides to draw cards during his turn, he can choose to draw Terrain Cards as well, so either two Train Cards or two Terrain Cards, or one of each. Once drawn, a player’s Terrain Cards are placed face up so that everyone can see them.

Both the need to have Terrain Cards and the need to have as many Terrain Cards as another player adds the need to make more decisions in the game. Drawing more Terrain Cards gives the potential for a player to outscore his rivals, though this may come at the cost of drawing Train Cards and expending them to claim routes. Or should a player ignore the Terrain Cards and grab routes before anyone else does rather wait to score double points. In addition, a player can draw more Terrain Cards in order to have as many as his fellow players or more as a means to stop them scoring double with their Terrain Cards. In other words, the Terrain Cards can be used as means to block other players.

Over the course of the Ticket to Ride line, the distribution of the routes across the various map boards have got tighter and tighter and thus more competitive. The India map from the previous expansion, Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 2: India and Switzerland being the most recent evidence of that. With The Heart of Africa, the map is equally as tight and competitive if not more so because of the lack of the double routes and the grouping of the route colours. The tight nature and competitive play of the Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa map is enhanced by the use of the Terrain Cards making this the most challenging version of Ticket to Ride yet.

Read More

Trains, Chocolate, & Curry

Hot on the heels of one expansion for Ticket to Ride, Days of Wonder brings us another. First Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia and now Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India, the second in the series that provides the Ticket to Ride fan with more pairs of maps to explore and play on. The maps themselves each come on a double-sided boards and are accompanied by new tweaks to the core rules that provide new challenges and playing experiences. Like the first Map Collection, it requires the Train Cards and Trains from either Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe to play. Where Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia had a theme – both of its maps present different ways in which to play the game over the continent of Asia, Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India does not have a theme. Yes, one of its maps depicts India, but the other it depicts Switzerland, and that might be a bit of problem.

The problem with Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India is that its Switzerland map is not new, but instead a reprint of Ticket to Ride Switzerland which appeared in 2007 before quickly going out of print and becoming just a little bit collectible. Now if you are a Ticket to Ride devotee and do not own Ticket to Ride Switzerland, then its inclusion in Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India is to be welcomed. If you happen to already own a copy of Ticket to Ride Switzerland, then in buying Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India, you in effect buying something that you already have in order to gain access to the board that you do not have. Or indeed, effectively doubling the price you pay for the India map.

In addition, its inclusion means that I have to review Ticket to Ride Switzerland once again. Now, having just written a review of it, I am not going to do a full review again, but rather an overview and a summary. The Switzerland map is the first two to three player variant for Ticket to Ride that makes extensive use of tunnels and adds a new type of route card that connects cities to Switzerland’s neighbouring countries or Switzerland’s neighbouring countries to each other. The map’s routes are tight with high scoring opportunities being offered through Destination Tickets that replicate parts of longer Destination Tickets. Now, the Switzerland map is not the most popular of maps with many Ticket to Ride devotees. Some consider this map to be broken.

They could not be more wrong if they tried. The aspect of the replicated Destination Tickets is a design feature. It is not a flaw. The Switzerland map is designed with a focus on Destination Tickets. It presents a challenging playing experience that plays well with either two players or three and I recommend it. In the meantime, check out my full review of Ticket to Ride Switzerland here.

So that leaves the India map for which Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India is named. Where Ticket to Ride has for the most part thematically set in the 1890s, the theme being inspired by Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, the India map moves the game on another decade or so from the end of the Victorian era onto the end of the Edwardian period. The year is 1911 and in playing the India map, the players are undertaking a Grand Tour of the subcontinent.

The India map is designed for between two and four players. The map, like the map in Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries, is vertical rather than horizontal. The area encompasses the whole of British India, including areas that are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. The island of Ceylon – now Sri Lanka – sits off the Subcontinent’s South East coast, but is not part of the map’s playing routes. The India map, unlike the maps in Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia, does not introduce any new types of routes. Instead it keeps things very simple with its standard routes supported by a quintet of ferry routes as seen in Ticket to Ride Europe and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries amongst others.

Indeed, the India map introduces just the single new mechanic: the Grand Tour of India bonus. This awards a player a bonus for building continuous routes between the cities on his Destination Tickets. For each Destination Ticket whose cities are connected by two or more continuous paths of the player’s Trains the player is granted a Grand Tour bonus. This bonus rises as more of player’s Destination Tickets are connected by continuous paths, up to a total of five when a player will be awarded forty points!

Essentially, players on the India map are trying to build Mandalas – “Circles” in Sanskrit – as well as completing their Destination Tickets. This takes careful planning upon the part of the players and in comparison with some Ticket to Ride maps, the India map is prone to players spending no little time mulling over their Destination Tickets before play actually starts as they try and work out what routes and Mandalas they can complete. Of course, this is further hampered by everyone trying to work where their Destination Tickets start and finish, but then Ticket to Ride has always been a fun way of introducing players to foreign and sometimes, historical geography.

In play, claiming routes and building Mandalas will be hampered by your fellow players. The author of the India map advises players to claim routes early and be careful about colour Train Cards that they draw. Good advice for any Ticket to Ride map, but on the India map, there is a plethora of short coloured routes that need to be claimed to complete Destination Tickets and if necessary, Mandalas. During play it is not only easy to find your much needed routes claimed by the other players, but also to find access to cities blocked by the other players. Both of these sometimes frustrating elements are exacerbated depending upon the number of players. They are not so vexing with two players as they do not need to be quite so competitive over the claiming of routes, nor as maddening with four players, because then the map’s double routes are open and can be claimed. Yet with three players, the map’s double routes remain closed and the competition for routes is much, much harder.

The building of Mandalas though, offers a new path to victory in Ticket to Ride. It is possible to score a lot of points at game’s end if a player has created several Mandalas. If a player attempts to score points by this means, it pays to focus on the shorter Destination Tickets as these are easier to complete than the more likely to be blocked longer Destination Tickets. Alternatively, a player can still opt to focus on completing Destination Tickets, and there a lot of them provided for the India map. At game’s end, a ten-point Indian Express bonus is awarded to the player or players who have created the Longest Continuous Path on the board.

As with Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia, the new mechanics given in Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India can be applied to other maps available for Ticket to Ride. Not those in the Switzerland map, as these require an alternate type of Destination Ticket, but the new rules for the India map could be applied to other maps. Offhand, the Mandala mechanic would probably work with the Switzerland map and the map from Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries.

Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India is difficult to recommend. Not because of the quality and design of the maps themselves, but because it includes the Switzerland map. If you already have the Switzerland map, then it is an expensive purchase, even though the quality of the map and its cards has been improved for this expansion. If you want another challenging map, and do not mind purchasing a map that you already have, then the India map offers that. It is challenging because of the tight layout of the routes on the map and the lack of short double routes in addition to the difficulty of the new scoring method with the Mandalas.

If you do not own the Switzerland map, then Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India is another excellent purchase. It offers two good maps, both of which work well with smaller groups of players and which offer challenging and competitive play. Neither of the two maps is suited for players unfamiliar with the game, but for Ticket to Ride veterans, Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India offers new complexities and new challenges.

Read More

Efficiency & Trains. What Else Did You Expect?

Originally released in 2007, Ticket to Ride: Switzerland was the first expansion for Days of Wonder’s Ticket to Ride that was not a full game all by itself. Previously available only as part of the Ticket to Ride: The Computer Game, it provided a whole new board or country to play across. Most importantly, it required a full set of Train Cards, scoring markers, and Train pieces from Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride: Europe is needed to play. The cards from Ticket to Ride: 1910 can also be used, but the Train pieces will have come from somewhere else. Because its distribution of Train Cards is different, Ticket to Ride: Märklin is not considered compatible with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. So what do you get with this board? Simply, the board, the rules, and a new set of Destination Tickets.

What really set Ticket to Ride: Switzerland apart – and still does – is that it is designed for either two or three players only. Which was long before Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. Of course, in addition, Ticket to Ride: Switzerland adds a new type of Destination Ticket and a new way to play the Locomotive (or wild) Train Cards, all tied into the numerous tunnel routes which were first seen in Ticket to Ride: Europe.

Yet the first thing you notice about this expansion is the board. It a gorgeous piece of work, depicting Switzerland and its cities and routes, surrounded by the nations of Deutschland, Österreich, Italia, and France. These are not mere window dressing, but destinations in themselves that the players can connect to by claiming routes across their respective borders. The new cards are as equally nice, although everything does feel a little too like a chocolate box.

The simplest new rule for Ticket to Ride: Switzerland is a reduction in the number of Train pieces each player starts the game with – forty instead of the usual forty-five. A player also receives more Destination Tickets – five as opposed to three. Of these he must keep two. Any rejected Destination Tickets, including those rejected after drawing more during play are discarded from the game completely, thus making it possible to run out of Destination Tickets during a game.

Of the forty-six Destination Tickets, thirty-four connect two cities. The remaining twelve connect a city to another country or one country to another. The points scored for either of these new types of Destination Tickets varies and depends upon the country connected to. For example, completing the Zürich-to-country Destination Ticket scores a player just three points if he claims a route connecting to Deutschland, seven points to either France or Österreich, but eleven points if claims a route between Zürich and Italia. If a player does not connect either destination then he loses only the lowest point value for that Destination card, so in the previous example, only three points. Harder and longer routes of course, score more points, but these new city-to-country and country-to-country Destination Tickets make it easier for a player to score points, especially later in the game when a player draws extra Destination Tickets.

The way in which the Locomotive Train (or wild) cards are used in Ticket to Ride: Switzerland is radically different to that of the standard game. In ordinary Ticket to Ride, only one face-up Locomotive card can be drawn per turn and it is the only card that can be drawn on a turn. Here they are drawn as standard cards, so two Locomotive Cards can be picked up on a turn. Once in a player’s hand, Locomotive Cards can only be played to claim tunnel routes, either using all Locomotive Cards or combining with Train Cards matching the tunnel’s colour.

The last rule previously appeared in Ticket to Ride: Europe and concerns the tunnel routes, which are clearly marked with dots along their sides. To claim a tunnel route a player first pays the correct number of Train Cards, either in the matching colour, in Locomotive Cards, or a mix of both. He then draws the top three cards from the draw pile. For each of these three that match the colour of the cards used to claim the route, the player must an extra Train card of that colour. If the player has no extra cards of this colour, he receives his original cards back and his turn ends. He or another player can claim this tunnel route on subsequent turns, but either is still subject to what is the chance of having to pay a tunnel tax.

The first challenge with playing this expansion is answering the question, “Where the heck is…?” After all, Swiss geography is not going to be familiar to everyone and learning the routes is a whole new challenge by itself. Looking at the board it is clear that this geography is dominated by tunnels (well, this is Switzerland), mostly in the South and East. About a quarter of the tunnels are grey, meaning that any colour can be used to claim them, and the majority of grey routes are tunnels.

The second challenge is one that only happens in Ticket to Ride with five or six players – competing for routes. In a game with two or three players, there is usually very little competition and the game can feel as if everyone is playing alone. Not so with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, where there are not only fewer routes, but everyone has fewer Trains to place. Within the borders of Switzerland each city is usually connected by at least three routes, but most routes are quite short so it is easy to block access or at least force a player to find another route. This is slightly offset by the city-to-country and country-to-country Destination Tickets which provide multiple choices in terms of routes and scoring.

Initially, a game of Ticket to Ride: Switzerland lasts about an hour, but with practice our games now last less than this. What we did find is that routes were harder to claim and that there was more competition for them, and because Locomotive Cards are no longer available for use as wild cards (except in tunnels), we accumulated fistfuls of Train Cards as we waited to get the ones we needed. In fact, we wanted a means of displaying Train Cards as easily they are in the computer game, ideally some sort of display tray. The other issue we have is one of packaging. The new slimmer box is a great idea, but there is actually very little room in the bottom of the box for the new Destination Tickets. The need for components from another game in the series also adds to the set up time, but this is a minor inconvenience.

There are two problems with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. The first is minor, and a matter of geography. Any player receiving Destination Tickets following the board’s North-South axis and thus crossing the Alps via the many tunnels will find this game much more challenging. Of course, a player is free to discard these Destination Tickets and pick up new ones. The second is more of problem. It is possible for a player to complete the routes on his Destination Tickets and then when he takes new ones to find that the routes on these have already been completed or partially completed by the player. Essentially, this is free points for the player with no effort upon his part, and often, this can be done turn after turn by a player and this can be a game winning tactic with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. For some players this might not be within the spirit of the Ticket to Ride family, and to be fair, this is not an unreasonable point of view.

Given how tight the routes are on Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, my partner and I found it to be play a good, competitive two-player game. This is where this expansion primarily succeeds – making the smaller and shorter game more competitive and more of a challenge. The other area where it succeeds is in format, offering a new play area without making the purchaser buy a whole new version of Ticket to Ride. In fact, my partner commented on this at the time and suggested that it would be even better if future expansions in this format could have a double sided board and offer two countries to compete over. After all, other train games have done it. There are of course, problems with such a format, in particular the need for two sets of Destination Tickets, but it is an idea…

Packaged in a flat album-sized box, Ticket to Ride: Switzerland set the format for a pair of releases for Ticket to Ride in late 2011 – Map Collection, Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia and Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India. Indeed, the latter includes the Ticket to Ride: Switzerland board, itself long out of print, much in demand, and its second hand price often reflecting that. Fortunately, both volumes of the Map Collection come in deeper boxes and thus avoid the packaging error of Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. That said, whilst the re-release of Ticket to Ride: Switzerland is far from unwelcome, it is annoying that in order to get the India board, it necessary to buy it again.

There is a school of thought that believes that Ticket to Ride: Switzerland is broken and that it needs fixing. The fault being that the replication of routes on some Destination Tickets within other Destination Tickets results in there being an easier method of scoring. The fault being that some routes are replicated in the country to country Destination Tickets, so that a player could score for completing a France to another country Destination Ticket and then score for completing another country to country Destination Ticket with the same route back to France. Such a belief is absurd, as nothing could be further from the truth. Neither of these are faults. They are design features on what is a Ticket to Ride map that focuses heavily on Destination Tickets.

The tightness of the routes and the new country-to-country and city-to-country Destination Cards make Ticket to Ride: Switzerland a challenging and interesting board. It offers all of the competition previously only found in a four or five player game of Ticket to Ride, but just for two or three players. The board itself is stunning and the routes it gives the players to take make for what is arguably the most efficient Ticket to Ride expansion to date.

Read More

New Train Challenges in the Orient

2011 was a good year for Ticket to Ride, the introductory railway themed board game from Days of Wonder that won the Spiel des Jahres and the Origins Award for Best Board Game in 2004, as well as the 2005 Diana Jones award. In its closing months, the publisher inaugurated a new line of expansions in the form of the Map Collection series. Each title in the series features two new maps – on a double-sided map board – as well as new tweaks to the core rules that provide new challenges and playing experiences. The first of these is Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia, and it was quickly followed by Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India, each of which requires the use of the Train Cards and Trains from Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe to play. It is the first of these, Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia, which is being reviewed here.

So in keeping with the series, Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia contains two maps. The first of these is the Team Asia map, which introduces two elements that sell the Map Collection. One is team play, the other is the addition of another player, increasing the number of maximum players in Ticket to Ride from five to six, but requiring four or six players only. The second map, the Silk Road themed Legendary Asia, is more of a traditional affair designed for two to five players that harks back to Ticket to Ride Europe, but which adds a tweak of its very own. Team Asia was designed by Alan R. Moon, who also designed Ticket to Ride, whilst Legendary Asia was François Valentyne's entry in a competition to design and have published a new map for Ticket to Ride.

Each of the entries in the Map Collection series comes in a two-inch deep album sized box. Inside Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia can be found the new double-sided map, forty-five Trains (nine for each of the Train colours to be found in Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Europe), thirty-six Destination Tickets for Legendary Asia, sixty Destination Tickets for Team Asia, six wooden card holders, and two full-colour rule books. There is one each for Team Asia and Legendary Asia, and both are twelve pages long with the rules for each map being just a page long and given in ten languages. All of these components are nicely done and nicely packaged in the box with the two maps, one per side, being very attractive. If there is an issue with either map, it is that neither clearly state which variant they are for. Whilst the graphics for each map and accompanying Destination Tickets are similar, so is the geographical region that both maps cover, and it would have been simple enough for the designers to put the name of the variant on its map. This would make game choice and set up just that little more easier, and that much quicker.

Of course, there is the usual problem of learning the geography to be found in Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia, but there is plenty of similarity between the two maps in this expansion, and anyway, not only do the mini-maps on the Destination Tickets help, but learning about geography as basic as this and whilst playing Ticket to Ride, is after all, fun.

The changes in the Legendary Asia variant begins with its Destination Tickets. There are thirty-six of these, of which six are Long Route Tickets, such as Moscow to Calcutta and Khabarovsk to Karachi, that are worth sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen points. At game’s start, each player receives a single Long Route and three normal Destination Tickets of which he must keep at least two. Later in the game he can choose to draw three Destination Tickets of which he must keep at least one.

Opening up the map for Legendary Asia and it looks not unlike the map for Ticket to Ride Europe. There several ferry Routes which require the expenditure of wild or Locomotive Cards to complete in addition to the usual Train Cards, but there are also several where the one or two spaces on a Route are marked with an “X” such as between Kathmandu and Mandalay, a two-space Route with an “X” on both spaces. These are Mountain Routes, which when claimed, require a player to not only expend the Train Cards of the appropriate colour, but for each “X” on the Route, to also expend one of his Trains! This represents the wear and tear on the trains that traverse these Routes and is not as bad as it sounds, because for each Train discarded, he scores an additional two points. So to claim the purple Kathmandu-Mandalay Route, a player has to discard two purple Train Cards and two of his Trains, but scores two points for the Route claimed and another four points for the Trains discarded.

In addition some double Routes, such as that between Perm and Omsk has one Route that does not require the discarding of a Train Card and one that does. In other words, one Route does not go through the mountains. In most, but not all cases, the non-Mountain Route is a grey Route, meaning that any Train Card colour can be used to complete them.

The effect of the Mountain Routes is twofold. First, it increases the completion value of some of the map’s shorter Routes. Compare a three-space Route, like that between Moscow and Astrakhan, which would score a player a simple four points for completing, and the two-space Mountain Route between Agra and Kathmandu which has one space with an “X” and which would score a player a total of four points to complete, two points for the Route itself and another two for the Train discarded. Second, the expenditure of Trains to complete Mountain Routes can be used to speed play towards the moment when a player has four Trains or less and thus trigger the game’s round of last turns.

The other additional rule in Legendary Asia is that of the Asian Explorer Bonus. This is awarded for the highest number of cities connected rather than the Longest Route as on many other Ticket to Ride maps. This encourages the creation of a network of Routes rather a single long Route and emphasises the value of the shorter Routes as they are generally easier to connect to and thus create a network with.

Overall, Legendary Asia feels like a traditional Ticket to Ride board. It offers a new map, but not a radically different playing experience. It is the easiest to adapt to, and in terms of complexity, sits nicely alongside Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Europe.

Team Asia though, is a different experience. It offers complexity via a radical means of play that also restricts the number of players. It is played with teams of two players, with space for either two teams or three teams. Which means that there must be a minimum of four players if there are two teams playing, and a maximum of six players if three teams are playing. During the game the members of a team have to sit together with two of the wooden cardholders sat in front of them. These cardholders are used to store the team’s shared Destination Tickets and Train Cards, this sharing being the only means that the members of a team can communicate. In other words, during play, a team cannot talk about the Destination Tickets that either has to complete nor about what Routes that either wants to complete.

At game start, each team receives its cardholders and a total of fifty-four Trains in the same colour, the extra ones being provided with Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia. The Trains are divided equally between the two members of a team so that they have a pool of twenty-seven each. During play, a player will draw only from his supply of Trains and just like standard Ticket to Ride, when their combined supply of Trains reaches four or less, the end game rules are triggered in which everyone has one last turn, including his teammate. So a player has to keep an eye on his supply of Trains as well as those belong to everyone else, including that of his teammate.

Then the secrecy begins. Each player receives four Train Cards as normal and a total of five Destination Tickets, of which he must keep three. Out of the kept Destination Tickets, a player must take one and simultaneously with his teammate reveal it and place it in one of the shared cardholders. When a player later draws additional Destination Tickets, he must not only keep one of the new Tickets, but also place one of the Tickets in his team’s cardholder used for their Tickets. Similarly, when a player draws Train Cards, he draws two as normal, but one of them has to go into his team’s cardholder used for the Train Cards. This must be done as they are drawn – a player cannot draw two and decide which of these Train Cards to share.

One additional option that a player has during play is that he can choose to share two of the Destination Tickets in his hand with his teammate by placing them in their shared cardholder. Whilst this can be helpful, it does deny that player the opportunity to pick up new Train Cards or claim a Route.

During the game, play order is by team. Both players on a team will take their turn one after another, then the players on the next team will have their go, and so on. Players in a team always take their turns in the same order.

At game’s end, the members of a team scores together. A ten point Asian Express bonus is awarded to the team with the Longest Continuous Path on the board whilst a ten point Globetrotter bonus is awarded to the team who has completed the most Destination Tickets.

Looking at the Team Asia map, it looks quite open, if not similar to the layout of the Ticket to Ride map of the USA with its long Routes over the top in the North, and shorter Routes to East and South. Three triple Routes run the length of the Chinese coast. In a two-team game, two of these triple Routes can be claimed, possibly by both players on a team, thus wholly blocking that Route to the other team. The map also contain two unnamed destinations – they cannot be cities as neither is named – that are black instead of the grey of the map’s actual cities. Being close to Kathmandu and Lhasa, they are probably the peaks of Everest and K2 in the Himalayas.

The other addition to the Team Asia board is not a new type of Route, but a variant upon a type of Route – the Tunnel. On maps with Tunnels, such as Ticket to Ride Switzerland and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries, if player wants to claim a Tunnel Route he has to draw three more Train Cards from off the top of the draw deck, and if any of the drawn cards match the colour of the Route, that player must pay an extra Train Card for each extra drawn. If he cannot, he forfeits that turn. In Team Asia, the number of extra Train Cards varies, being determined by the number of the Route. For example, the yellow Route between Lhasa and Cawnpore is one space long, but is marked with a six, meaning that it requires a player to draw another six Train Cards and hope that he does not draw any yellow Train Cards and so have to pay extra Trains Cards. As with Ticket to Ride Switzerland and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries, a player could also use Locomotive Cards to complete a Tunnel Route in this fashion. Overall, this makes Tunnels a much riskier affair and more difficult to complete.

In purely mechanical terms, Team Asia is not a complex addition to the Ticket to Ride family. In play style, it is much more complex, not just for the fact that the players within a team have to keep quiet about strategy, but also for the fact that Team Asia is not a five, or indeed, a six-player board. Rather, it is a two or three player board that it is as tight as Ticket to Ride Switzerland and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries before it, though with more trains between the members of a team than is the norm.

Another factor in Team Asia that is similar to Ticket to Ride Switzerland is the high number of Destination Tickets. There are sixty in this set, and like Ticket to Ride Switzerland, once a player has completed his current Destination Tickets, there is the chance that a player will draw new Destination Tickets that he has already completed. It should be made clear that this is not as extreme as in Ticket to Ride Switzerland, which many players of Ticket to Ride consider to be broken for this reason. In our playing experience, this is less of an issue in Team Asia as there is less replication of Routes.

Team Asia feels almost, but not quite as tight as the other two or three player options, Ticket to Ride Switzerland and Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries because its tight play is offset by the higher number of Trains that each team begins play with. The co-operative, though silent play, adds another level of enjoyable challenge to the game and means that this variant requires a bit more thought than is the norm with Ticket to Ride. The means of adding a sixth player is innovative for Ticket to Ride, and the fact that it involves team play means that it still leaves room for someone to design a Ticket to Ride board for use with six players rather than three teams of two. Similarly, the addition of Team Play raises the question of how many other Ticket to Ride maps would its rules work with, something for the game’s fans to experiment with.

For years now, Ticket to Ride has not been receiving the support that it should have been. It did not need dice or a card game variant, nor did it need kaiju themed bits of plastic that were never in keeping with the line’s late nineteenth century, early twentieth century style. What it needed was new maps. Ticket to Ride is a train game. A very light train game it must be said, but train games are all about connecting Routes to new places, whether familiar or exotic. Every single other train game series does this and it works because gamers like new maps and the new challenges that they present. It has been three years since the release of a new map expansion in the form of the two-three player base game, Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries. It has been four years since the release of Ticket to Ride Switerland, the map expansion that sets the pattern for the Map Collection series, which appears in Map Collection Vol. 2 – Ticket to Ride India.

Hurrah! And “Hurrah!” again, because the wait has been worth it. Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia is an excellent expansion that really does add to the Ticket to Ride family. The Team Asia gives a clever means of adding a sixth player to Ticket to Ride combined with a nice hidden objective dynamic between the members of each team. Despite it being a four or six player game, the organisation into team actually turns it into a tight two or three player board. Lastly, the six wooden card holders are nice additions can actually be used in Ticket to Ride game to hold and organise each player’s cards. The Legendary Asia is a more traditional board that offers less radical play than in Team Asia and is the easier option to get out and play. Together, Legendary Asia and Team Asia combine to make Map Collection Vol. 1 – Ticket to Ride Asia a great start to a new series of expansions and a cleverly designed challenge for the Ticket to Ride fan.

Read More