Step by step instructions on how to play Ticket To Ride. Ticket To A Ride is a very popular euro strategy board game. Learning how to play Ticket To Ride is very easy, but mastering it takes time. It is a simple game yet it runs deep in choices and overall strategy. Coming out in 2004, this popular board game has spawned numerous sequels and sold millions of copies. There is great set collection and resource management elements that will keep you entertained from beginning to end. This is your guide to how to play Ticket To Ride.
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HOW TO PLAY TICKET TO RIDE – WHAT IS IT?
On a blustery autumn evening, five old friends met in the backroom of one of the city’s oldest and most private clubs. Each had traveled a long distance — from all corners of the world — to meet on this very specific day… October 2, 1900 — 28 years to the day that the London eccentric, Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a £20,000 bet that he could travel Around the World in 80 Days.
When the story of Fogg’s triumphant journey filled all the newspapers of the day, the five attended University together. Inspired by his impetuous gamble, and a few pints from the local pub, the group commemorated his circumnavigation with a more modest excursion and wager – a bottle of good claret to the first to make it to Le Procope in Paris.
Each succeeding year, they met to celebrate the anniversary and pay tribute to Fogg. And each year a new expedition (always more difficult) with a new wager (always more expensive) was proposed. Now at the dawn of the century, it was time for a new impossible journey. The stakes: $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition. The objective: to see which of them could travel by rail to the most cities in North America — in just 7 days. The journey would begin immediately…
Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure. Players compete to connect different cities by laying claim to railway routes on a map of North America. Learning how to play Ticket To Ride is easy but mastering it is difficult.
HOW TO PLAY TICKET TO RIDE – STEP BY STEP
Time Needed: Approximately 30 – 60 minutes.
This is a step by step guide for how to play Ticket To Ride the popular route building strategy board game. Additional notions and special rules can be found below the list. These will be referenced for your convenience.
1. SETUP | Scoreboard
To kick off the setup for how to play Ticket To Ride, put the map game board in the center of the table.
2. SETUP | Give Out Player Color
Each player chooses a color and takes those corresponding marker and train pieces.
3. SETUP | Put Train Cards
Shuffle the deck of 110 various color train cards. Put out five of the cards from the top of the deck as a communal river. Give each player four cards to be their starting hand.
4. SETUP | Put Out Longest Bonus Card
Place the Longest Path Bonus card face up next to the board.
5. SETUP | Destination Cards
Shuffle the deck of 30 destination cards. Give each player three cards to be their main goals. Each player can pick what to keep but they must pick at least two. Please the remaining cards in a face-down deck next to the game board. This is the last step of setup in how to play Ticket To Ride before gameplay starts.
6. GAMEPLAY | Players Take Turns
The first player is the person who “is the most traveled” but you can randomly choose. Each turn a player can do one of three things and then the turn passes to the next player in clockwise order. Learning how to play Ticket to Ride is simple because you only have three actions to take.
7. GAMEPLAY | Choose Action | Option 1 | Draw Train Cards
The player may draw 2 Train Car cards. They may take any one of the face-up cards or he may draw the top card from the deck (this is a blind draw). If they draws a face up card, he immediately turns a replacement card face-up from the deck. They then draws his second card, either from the face up cards or from the top of the deck. (See Train Car Cards for special rules for Locomotive cards).
8. GAMEPLAY | Choose Action | Option 2 | Claim Route
The player may claim a route on the board by playing a set of Train Car cards that match the color and length of the route and then placing one of their colored trains on each space of this route. They then record their score by moving their Scoring Marker the appropriate number of spaces along the Scoring Track on the board.
9. GAMEPLAY | Choose Action | Option 3 | Take New Destination Card
The player draws 3 Destination Tickets from the top of the deck. They must keep at least one of them, but they may keep two or all three if they choose. Any returned cards are placed on the bottom of the deck.
10. GAMEPLAY | Score on Route
If you chose to claim a route as your action, now you score points based on the length of that route. Depending on if it is 1 – 6 pieces in length, consult the chart for how many points that give you. Move your game piece around the track that many.
11. GAMEPLAY | Score on Destination
If you complete one of your destination cards (connecting the two listed cities together), flip it over and score those points. Each card will have a different value on it, move your score tracker along the edge that many spaces.
12. ENDING GAME | Down To 2 Pieces Or Less
When one player’s stock of colored train pieces gets down to 2 or less left at the end of his their turn, each player, including that player, gets one final turn. The game then ends and players calculate their final scores.
13. SCORING | Subtract Missed Destinations
Take any destination cards where you did not connect the two cities successfully and subtract those from your score.
14. WINNING | High Score Wins
Whoever has the highest point total when everything is said and done wins the game. See, learning how to play Ticket To Ride is easy.
HOW TO PLAY TICKET TO RIDE – KEY INFORMATION
GAME CONTENTS
- 1x Board map of North American train routes.
- 240x Colored Train Cars (45 each in Blue, Red, Green, Yellow and Black, plus some extra replacement cars in each color).
- 110x Train Car cards (12 each of Box, Passenger, Tanker, Reefer, Freight, Hopper, Coal, and Caboose cars, plus 14 Locomotives).
- 30x Destination Ticket cards.
- 1x Longest Path Bonus.
- 5x Wooden Scoring Markers (1 for each player in Blue, Red, Green, Yellow and Black)
- 1x Rulebook
HOW TO PLAY TICKET TO RIDE – IN CLOSING
We hope you can now say you know how to play Ticket To Ride. The game is a top-notch euro-strategy board game that is an icon for a reason and everything you could want in a game of its type. This 2 – 5 person game is quick and lightweight but there are so many paths to victory and everything works together so much, that you have to think multiple steps ahead to win. This is one of those games that belongs on every board game shelf.
