8.2 KiB
Ticket to Ride: A Tutorial by Zanthor the Wise
Greetings, traveler. I am Zanthor, once a sorcerer of considerable renown in the realm of Aethoria, now — through circumstances I shall not dwell upon — resident of a most peculiar age of iron carriages and glowing rectangles. Sit. I shall explain this game to you as I have explained a great many things over the centuries: thoroughly and with appropriate gravitas.
What Is This Game?
Ticket to Ride is a game of routes, ambition, and the quiet satisfaction of watching your rivals fail to claim the passage they needed. Players collect colored train cards, spend them to claim railway routes across the United States, and score points by completing destination tickets — journeys between two cities that you secretly committed to at the start of the game.
It reminds me, not a little, of the Great Cartographic Race of the Third Age, when the five Guild Masters competed to map the trade roads of the Sunken Continent before the rains came. The roads existed. They simply needed to be claimed. Much blood was spilled over the pass at Morveth. Here, no blood is required, though I have observed that tempers still run quite hot.
Components
- 240 colored train cars — 45 per player, in six colors
- 110 train cards — the fuel of your ambition
- 30 destination tickets — your secret obligations
- 1 map of the United States — a surprisingly accurate rendering, though it omits several ley lines
The Objective
Score more points than your opponents by:
- Claiming railway routes between cities
- Completing destination tickets (secret bonus points)
- Building the longest continuous railway (a bonus at game's end)
The player with the most points when one player runs low on trains wins. It is simple in the way that all truly elegant things are simple. The arcane formula for transmuting lead into gold has three steps. Fools always assume complexity is a virtue.
Setup
- Each player takes 45 train cars of their chosen color and the matching scoring marker.
- Shuffle the train cards and deal 4 to each player. Place 5 more face-up beside the draw deck.
- Shuffle the destination tickets and deal 3 to each player. Each player must keep at least 2. Return unwanted tickets to the bottom of the deck.
- The player who most recently traveled by train goes first — a charming conceit of this era. I have not traveled by train, having arrived here by rather more dramatic means, so I defer to whoever looks most like a commuter.
Turn Structure
On your turn, you do exactly one of three things:
Action 1: Draw Train Cards
Draw 2 train cards, either from the face-up row or the top of the deck.
The face-up cards are visible to all — a treacherous marketplace. You may take any combination, except: a Locomotive (rainbow) counts as 2 draws on its own. Take a Locomotive and your turn ends.
This reminds me of choosing spells from the Vault of Echoing Mirrors. You could see what others were considering, and the temptation to seize the powerful components before your rivals was constant. In the Vault, hesitation often meant arriving home with lesser ingredients. Here, it means your rival claims Kansas City before you do.
Action 2: Claim a Route
Spend a set of matching colored train cards equal to the length of a route to claim it, placing your trains on it.
- A 4-segment blue route costs 4 blue train cards.
- A gray route may be claimed with any single color — but all cards spent must match each other.
- Locomotives are wild and may substitute for any color.
Each route has a point value based on length:
| Route Length | Points |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 |
| 4 | 7 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 15 |
Longer routes are disproportionately rewarding. This is by design. The pass at Morveth was only one road, but controlling it was worth ten lesser roads combined. Build long when you can.
I once held the only bridge over the Ashwater River for six years by simple virtue of having gotten there first. My rivals spent those years constructing elaborate alternate routes through the Bleakwood. They arrived. I had already left. Control the chokepoints, traveler.
Action 3: Draw Destination Tickets
Draw 3 destination tickets from the top of the deck and keep at least 1.
Each ticket names two cities and a point value. Complete the journey — meaning your claimed routes form a connected path between those cities — and you earn those points. Fail to complete it, and you lose that many points at game's end.
This is the defining gamble of the game. More tickets mean more opportunities for glory. They also mean more ways to be undone.
In the autumn of my four hundred and twelfth year, I accepted three simultaneous quests from three different kings. I completed two. The third involved a dragon in Velothar that proved rather more stubborn than anticipated. I lost considerable standing with King Aldric. The analogy maps cleanly.
Double Routes
Some city pairs have two parallel routes. On the map, you will see them as side-by-side tracks.
In a 2-3 player game, only one of each double route may be claimed — and by the same player. In a 4-5 player game, both routes are available and different players may claim them.
This matters. Plan accordingly.
End Game
The game ends when any player has 2 or fewer train cars remaining after their turn. Every other player takes one final turn, then scoring occurs.
Final scoring:
- Add points for all claimed routes (tracked on the scoring track throughout play).
- Add points for completed destination tickets.
- Subtract points for incomplete destination tickets.
- Award 10 bonus points to the player with the longest continuous route. Ties share the bonus.
The highest score wins.
Strategy: Counsel from a Wizard Who Has Seen Empires Fall
Claim early, claim confidently. The routes you need will not wait. Other players are pursuing their own secret tickets, and the overlap may surprise you. I have seen the route from Chicago to Pittsburgh become a crisis by the third round. Act before crisis, not during it.
Locomotives are precious. Do not spend them carelessly. A Locomotive late in the game, used to complete a 6-segment route you couldn't otherwise afford, is worth more than two Locomotives spent on short fillers. Save the powerful card for the powerful moment.
Watch your opponents. The cards they collect tell you where they're going. A player hoarding blues is likely headed for a northern route. You need not know their exact destination — you need only be in their way, or get out of it.
Do not take tickets you cannot complete. The temptation to draw more tickets, especially when you've already claimed a large network, is real. Resist it unless you are confident. -15 points for three failed tickets can unravel a game you were otherwise winning.
The longest route bonus is worth chasing only if you're already building long. Do not sacrifice your destination tickets merely to claim it. Ten points is significant, but so is the twenty points you'll lose abandoning half your ticket obligations.
When I advised King Brennan during the War of Three Bridges, I told him: do not build a fortress in a place you cannot defend simply because it is impressive. Build where you are going. Fortify the path, not the spectacle. He did not listen. His fortress was extraordinary. It fell in eleven days.
A Final Word
This game is, at its heart, about committing to a destination and building the path to reach it — despite obstacles, despite rivals, despite the slow drain of resources and opportunity.
I know something about that.
The world I knew is long gone. The roads I traveled are dust. The mountains I crossed have different names now. But here I am, still moving, still building paths between one place and another, still finding that the journey, undertaken with sufficient resolve, usually arrives.
May your routes be uncontested and your tickets completed.
— Zanthor (Archmage Emeritus, Order of the Amber Sigil; current resident, 4th floor, 2-bedroom, reasonably close to the interstate)