| Manufacturer | Days of Wonder |
| Year | 2004 |
| Designer | Alan R. Moon |
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Ticket To Ride
Another Alan Moon game with
connections/route planning and card drafting/set collection mechanics?
Hasn't he done this before? Well yes, he has, (Union Pacific, Get the
Goods, Airlines, Elfenland, Santa Fe Rails/Clippers, Freight Train,
etc.), and yet, there was still room for another, and Ticket to Ride
may in fact be one of his best.
Each player begins the game with a pile
of 45 trains, a handful of "train cards", and two or three destination
tickets. The board shows the United States, and a bit of Canada.
Between the cities on the board are between one and 6 rectangular
boxes, either in one of eight colors which match the train cards, or
grey, (which are usable with any color of train card). The destination
tickets show two cites and a point value. At the end of the game, if
you have a connection between the two cities, you will get the points
shown on the ticket. If you do not have a connected set of trains
between them, you will LOSE the number of points shown on the card.
Five train cards are placed face up, and
the game begins. On a player's turn, the player must perform one of
three possible actions. These are:
1) Draw new train cards - A player may draw two train cards, either
from the visible cards or from the face down train cards still in the
deck. 2) Claim a route - To claim a route, a player must have the
appropriate number of cards in the proper color for the section of
track being claimed. So if a player wants to claim the four length red
route between Denver and Oklahoma City, four red cards would have to be
played. The cards are played, and the player puts four of their trains
onto the route. Whenever a route is claimed, the claiming player gets
victory points for doing so, ranging from 1 point for a 1 length route
to 15 points for a 6 length route.
3) Draw new destination tickets - A player may draw three new tickets,
and must keep at least one, (but may keep all three).
When one player has only two or fewer
trains left at the end of their turn, each player gets one more turn,
and the game ends. Each player then adds or subtracts points for their
destination tickets, and the player that has the longest connected,
un-branching set of trains gets an additional 10 points.
And that's it. Very straightforward and
simple.
So what could possibly make this simple
quick game of recycled mechanics so great? The simple answer is that it
just works. The decisions are primarily "do I go for some more cards,
or do I need to claim that route NOW, because if I don't someone else
will, and then I'm going to have a really hard time making that 14
point ticket". And this type of decision makes for good turn angst. The
game plays quickly, and as with all of the Days of Wonder published
games, the components are of very high quality. Many people are saying
that this is now their first thought for a game to introduce non-gamers
to designer games, and I have to agree with that sentiment. Many of
those same people, (myself included here as well), feel that Ticket to
Ride is the odds on favorite to win the Spiel de Jahres, (game of the
year in Germany), as the game is fun, fast and family friendly. And it
did in fact win this award.
Praise for Ticket to Tide has been pretty
uniform across the board, although there are those that feel that the
destination tickets create too much "luck of the draw". There certainly
is luck involved, as if you are about halfway through the game, decide
to draw tickets and get a couple you've already gotten, or can easily
get, you are going to be looking good. Conversely, if you draw
Seattle-New York, and have been building trains in the Southeast the
whole game, you probably aren't going to win. However, the fact that
when you draw tickets you draw three, and only have to keep one keeps
this from being too devastating. The ""lucky draw" is far more likely
to occur than the unlucky one.
Some other people feel that the game is too simple, and that there
really isn't all that much going on. I personally cannot refute that,
having not played as many times as some others. Those that have played
quite a bit more feel that defensive, blocking plays are a valid part
of a winning strategy. There has also been talk of an "unbeatable"
strategy, although repeated play has shown that while it is a strong
strategy, it won't always win the game.
| Strategy: | 6 |
| Complexity: | 2 |
| Fun: | 8 |
| Overall: | 8 |