Review #15: Ticket to Ride

# of Players: 2-5
Playtime: 30-60 Minutes

Core Mechanic: Network Building/Set Collection

Theme: Trains
Type: Family Euro

Weight: Light

Year: 2004

Rating: 7.5*

When I first played Catan, I thought everyone should play Catan. Then I eventually discovered heavier games, like Agricola and Power Grid, and at the time never wanted to go back to the simplicity of Catan. I began a campaign of pushing heavy games and disregarding lighter, gateway ones. However, as I have played more games, I have come around to gateway games and understand and appreciate their position in the industry. Ticket to Ride is one such game, and although I might prefer heavier train games like Steam, this game is no slouch either.

This game is part set collection and part network building, all themed around trains. At the start of the game you are given three Destination Tickets, of which you need to keep at least two. If you are able to connect two cities shown on a Destination Ticket, you gain the number of victory points shown on each ticket. However, if you fail you will lose the victory points instead. Players will take turns either drawing train car cards, placing trains, or drawing more Destination Tickets. The game continues until one player has two or fewer trains left in their supply. At that point, everyone gets one more turn and then the player with the most victory points wins. Victory points will come from the aforementioned destination tickets and from placing trains during the game. Bonus points will be awarded to the player with the longest continuous path.

Cities on the map are connected by 1 to 6 train cars of the same color. Some cities are connected together by double routes while others only have single routes. To place your trains to claim the route, you must play the corresponding train car cards from your hand and then add train cars from your supply to the board. When routes are claimed, you score victory points depending on how long the route is - longer routes equal more victory points. In general, players will want to connect cities that fulfill the requirements on their Destination Tickets, although the last few rounds may end up being a mad squeeze for whatever points are left from claiming routes.

Back to the train car cards, when you draw them you are able to choose from five face-up cards or press your luck by drawing from the face-down deck. Typically you are able to draw two cards, either two face-up, two face-down, or one of each. The exception is if you decide to take a face-up locomotive card - if you do so, that is the only card you can take. Locomotive cards are wild cards and count as any color, making them important in terms of flexibility. This set collection aspect is also a key part of the game - it could be a great idea to continue collecting sets so you don't reveal your plans to early and then get blocked, but wait too long and the routes might get claimed anyway.

The rules are easy to learn and the game play is very straightforward, but underneath this unassuming surface there is a good amount of depth and interaction. As a result, I would say that this is the perfect gateway game for me, in contrast to Catan or Carcassonne which are also very successful  gateway games but have grown a bit stale for my tastes. In another post I will talk about the expansions for Ticket to Ride, but in general where the Catan expansions past Seafarers add a ridiculous amount of bloat and the Carcassonne expansions start to get too numerous and the different rules become complicated, the changes for the expansions to Ticket to Ride are limited to each map, therefore varying the game in sometimes quite significant ways but without adding too much either. And for a gateway game for me where I am used to games that are heavier, Ticket to Ride can be modified in such ways that it adds something for me but not making it cumbersome for casual players.

The production values are high as all Days of Wonder games are. These colorful components and the familiar map will help draw new players and the box art is not intimidating in the slightest. In another review I will talk about the app, but it has definitely helped me get more plays of this game and keeps the ranking relatively high. This game should without a doubt be included in the Gateway collection. I think it might be a bit too light for the Middleweight collection, but when I get to the reviews of the expansions this might change. As a classic, it belongs in both the Essential and Collector collections as well and as previously mentioned is my gateway game of choice.