Ticket to Ride is a popular board game and video game where players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes across North America. The task is to connect cities and complete routes indicated on destination cards to earn the most points.
Ticket to Ride Cards
In Ticket to Ride, you can see 96 train cards in eight colors, with 12 cards of each color. There are also 30 destination ticket cards and 14 Locomotive Wild cards in multiple colors.
The Ticket to Ride Rules
In Ticket to Ride, players can earn points by building longer routes, connecting distant cities, and building the longest continuous railway. The game continues until a player has two or fewer train cars.
The players earn or lose points based on the number of destination tickets they fill out. The player with the longest continuous path of train cars on the map receives an additional 10 places. The player with the highest score wins the game of ticket to ride.
How to Play Ticket to Ride (Objective plus Gameplay)
The three objectives are:
- Set up a route between two adjacent cities.
- Map out a continuous path of routes between the two cities listed on your destination tickets.
- Finish the longest continuous path of routes.
In the play, additional points will be given to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous line of trains.
Draw and Claim Train Car Cards
Players can draw cards in any combination. If you draw a wild card first, your turn is done. If you draw any other card, you cannot draw a wild card as your second pick. Wherever you draw a face-down card, first or second, it doesn’t matter if it is wild.
In the play, players can claim a route by playing a set of cards of a similar type equal to the number of route spaces available, where most routes require a specific type of set. For example, a blue route might be claimed using blue-colored passenger car cards.
When a route is claimed, the player places one of his plastic trains in each of the spaces on the route. All the cards in the set used to claim the route are then taken out. A player may claim any open route on the board and is no longer required to connect to any of his previously played routes.
Draw Destination Tickets
To draw destination tickets, shuffle the destination ticket cards and deal three cards to each of the players. Then, each player looks at their destination tickets and decides which ones they might want to keep.
During the play, a player must keep at least two, but he may keep all three if he would like to. The returned cards are arranged at the bottom of the Destination Ticket deck and then placed next to the board. However, players keep their Destination Tickets secret until the end of the game.
Game End and Score Calculation
The game finishes when one person is down to only two or fewer trains left at the end of his turn. After that, each player, including that player, gets one final turn, and the game then ends, and players calculate their final scores.
