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Ticket to Ride - the card game
Zug um Zug - das Kartenspiel
Author: Alan R. Moon
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Year: 2008


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‘Ticket to Ride’ the board game is widely regarded as one of the best gateway games around: very suitable to introduce new people, especially families, to the wonderful world of board games. Since it may be quite cumbersome to take the board game when traveling, the card game on the same subject is a good alternative; at least an interesting one to investigate.
Just as in the board game the goal is to score the highest number of points by completing destination tickets. Bonus points can add up to the score for completing the most destination tickets for each of the six large cities. A big difference with the board game is that the destination tickets are not completed by making routes from city to city, but all at once, by obtaining a set of cards that match the destination ticket by colour and number.

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At the start of the game each player is dealt seven train cards, one locomotive card that acts as a joker and six destination tickets. Each player must as least keep one ticket. All remaining train cards and tickets are placed face down as the train card deck and ticket deck. Five train cards are placed face-up from which a player chooses his cards. The goal is to obtain the train cards - or, in fact, the colours – to match those on the tickets in a player’s hand. This all sounds easy enough, but of course there are some obstacles on the track.
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A player’s turn consists of two steps. First, the player takes the last card from all rows of cards that he played in any previous turn. He puts the collected cards face-down on his personal stack of train cards. These are the now secured cards that can be used to match the destination tickets and get their printed score.
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In the second step, the player performs his actual turn. The player may take one of three possible actions. The most common one is to draw two new train cards; beit blindly from the top of the train deck, or from the five face-up train cards. When the latter is the case, the face-up card row is refilled to five cards immediately. This sounds all very similar to the board game, together with the rule that only one open locomotive card can be taken.
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A second possible action is to draw four new destination tickets, keeping any number, even zero. As a last action, a player may place train cards face-up in front of him: either a suit of two or more train cards of the same colour - including locomotive cards - or three cards, each of a different colour.
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This is where players encounter their first obstacle along the ride: train cards of a colour that already have been played and are in front of another player may not be played, unless more of them are played. In this case, the opponent must discard all cards of this colour. If a player is not harassed by this, another obstacle is found along the way: a player may not inspect his personal collected train cards until the end of the game. Using plain memory or smart guessing, the player plays on, hoping the destination tickets can be fulfilled. It is unnecessary to say that the locomotives play an essential role filling in the gaps!
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When the last card of the train deck is drawn each player has one last turn. After this the players finally get an overview of their personal train cards and get to see which of their destination tickets can be completed. Points from uncompleted tickets are subtracted from the score. During scoring, the bonus cards should not be forgotten: maybe it is better to forget about two minor routes, while completing another 10 point ticket that includes New York, that gives 15 bonus points…! Experience shows that these bonuses usually make the difference. In a game with four players play continues a second round with additional scoring.
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Although the card game plays completely different, it arouses very similar feelings as the board game: ‘Will I able to finish that ticket, and will they allow me to take those train cards?’ ‘Should I take some additional tickets, although, the game is almost finished and there are not that many turns left…’ All plays slightly lighter than the board game, unless there are ‘card counters’ among the players. One can try to remember exactly which train cards have been collected, and calculate which destinations will be completed at the end of the game. There are players who at the end of a game state they knew there were so many cards of a specific colour left. But this is not an advanced memory game, and for this kind of players a warning should be placed on the box: ‘Card counting may damage your and your companions’ health and can lead to serious headaches’!
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We collect train cards, take an action, and the next player already takes his turn! ‘Ticket to Ride – the card game’ plays like a fast train! With two players it is a bit too mild, harassing each other is often not worthwhile or even possible. With four players it is a completely different game, where it is much more difficult to obtain any train cards, let alone getting the right ones. A disadvantage with four players is that the playing time increases to more than 45 minutes, which is beyond the limit of a simple card game. The ‘sweet spot’ of this game is with three players, with a very enjoyable playing time of 20 minutes, thereby giving enough time for a second game. Tactical decisions are light: ‘Should I try to complete the more ‘easy’, small-point, destination tickets, that possibly give several bonus points, or should I try to complete several large, +20 points, tickets?’ All this also depends on the luck of the draw of the destination tickets.

‘Ticket to Ride - the card game’ is, with the above side remarks, a good addition to the series, very nicely graphically designed, and quite easy to take with you on any holiday trip!
© 2008 Edwin van de Sluis

Ticket to Ride - the card game, Alan R. Moon, Days of Wonder, 2008 - 2 to 4 players, 8 years and up, 45 minutes


Before it's your next turn, most played cards are cancelled by your opponents
No planning possible. Very artificial gameplay. Memory aspect is possibly included in fear of 'analysis paralysis'
With four players a half point deduction, as the game then is too long for what it is
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