Ticket to Ride

Subject: Category: Geography

Ages: # of players: 2 to 5

Time to play: Mechanics/Game Type: Card collection strategy

Ratings (1 to 5) Educational Value: 5

Gaming value: 5

Aesthetic value: 5

Price value: 4

Ease of play: 4

Younger adaptability: 5

My comments: Ticket to Ride has become one of the most popular board games around, as evidenced by the large variety of version available.  If you are studying geography of the US or Europe then these games are both fun and educational.

The game has Destination cards and various color Train cards; the board has railroad routes of various colors and lengths connecting various cities (gray routes can be any color.)  You try to collect enough of the same colored train cards to claim a route between two cities, placing your own set of neat plastic trains on the board when you do so.  Claiming a route earns you point, which you keep track of by moving a scoring marker around the outside of the board.  Ultimately you try to claim routes to connect the cities listed on your Destination cards.  The game ends after the first player runs out of plastic trains, when the final scoring for longest route and completed destination cards happens.

Each turn you have a choice of one of three actions: draw Train cards (up to 2), or claim a route, or draw Destination cards.  As for the deck of train cards, five are face up on the table while the rest are face-down in a stack.  You can draw either a face up card, and then replace it by turning over the top of the stack, or one from the stack.  If you draw a face up wild card your turn is over; if you draw a single-color face-up train or a card from the pile then you get to choose a second card from either source (other than a face-up wild card.)  When you draw Destination cards, you pick three but you only keep what you want.

The game is long for younger players, though fewer players speeds it up.  No reading is needed, and if you play open-handed then even younger players can enjoy this game, or get the dice expansion.  The biggest issue is the appeal for kids to play with the trains.  While you get extra, every player needs 25 trains since that determines when the game ends.

The basics of the game are easy to learn, but game variations have rule variants.  Even the basic game has some variation depending on the number of players; in a three-player game, for example, only one side of a double route can be claimed.  Ultimately the variations make play more challenging or interesting, but it can get confusing if you don't play often.

Here is another description on the Games by Johnny! blog about the game with pictures and details about playing.

BoardGameGeek.com links to these games:

Ticket to Ride;  Ticket to Ride Europe;  Ticket to Ride: Marklin Edition (Germany);  Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries;  Ticket to Ride: Switzerland expansion.  And there's more expansions--dice, cards, 1912 editions.  Check out the Days of Wonder website for the full line.