It strikes me that I haven't covered any of the Holy Trinity of Gateway Games here on EN World yet, so why don't we rectify that? If you're unaware, I'm talking about the three games that most people suggest you break out to try and entice new people into the hobby, those being Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan and the subject of today's write up, Ticket to Ride.
Originally released back in 2004 and designed by Alan R. Moon, it's an award winning game that has spawned a series of alternate versions and expansions, but that first version is simply board gaming perfection. One of the first games I bought when I got back into the hobby seriously, my copy is well worn but much loved, and despite the fact my collection has increased to almost ridiculous proportions I'm still always happy topull it off the shelf and break it out for a play.
It's all about building a network. The beautiful board depicts a map of the United States circa 1910 and the players (the game caters for between two and five) are handed out forty-five little plastic train carriages in their colour. You're then going to get a bunch of cards, drawn from two piles, that drive the game – four Train Cards and three Destination Cards.
Destinations show a pair of cities that you'll be trying to join together using your trains. This is done by playing Train Cards of the same colour from your hand and placing those trains on the board – lines of between one and six spaces link cities across the country and you can only do one link at a time on your turn. Each time you add trains to the board, you'll score points – the longer the route, the more you get– and will also block your opponents from using that path. Some routes do thankfully have two lines meaning that you may not always have to go on such a circuitous journey.
Grey routes can be filled using a set of any single colour but if you find that you're stuck, perhaps you'll be able to use the locomotive wildcards.They're rare but can function as any colour at all, and will often get you out of some nasty situations! Your alternate options are to take Train Cards from a selection of five that are face up next to the board or get a few more routes; here you take three new Destination Cards and though you only need to keep one, you can retain all three if you think they're going to fit into your plans.
Because that's how you're going to win Ticket to Ride – through judicious planning! If you've never played it before, I can pretty much guarantee that your early games will be a mess of desperately trying to join up whatever you get given at the start of the game, even if they happen to be on different coasts. Quite soon you'll start realising the importance of having a central point to your network that you can spread out from; there's nothing better than playing a few Train Cards to complete more than one of your Destinations.
By the way, those are kept secret until the very end of the game – no-one else will know what cities you're attempting to bring into your network until the big reveal after one player gets down to either zero, one or two carriages. Every pair of cities that you got in your network will give you bonus points – the further the distance, the greater the amount – while if you've failed to join them, they'll cause your final total to drop... often quite badly. Another bonus is handed out to the player who has the single longest route, and whoever has the highest final total is declared victorious!
Ticket to Ride manages to strike that balance between simplicity and strategy, but it's never punishingly awful. Sure, you can sometimes find yourself blocked into a corner, but if that happens just draw a few new Destinations and see what you can work with. With such a simple ruleset, even novices will pick up the basic concepts quickly but once they have a few games under their belt they'll get as cutthroat as any expert player.
Once you've got to grips with the American map, you can move onto the Europe version of the game that adds in extra elements like passengers, stations and tunnels. Smaller maps are also available that focus on two or three players and there are even expansions that are specifically built for team play. The franchise has particularly blown up in recent years and can even be played on the move via iOS – if you fancy a game on that, give idlemichael a shout!
