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sean johnson
United States
avon
Indiana
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We started getting into board games in the later part of 2008, so when we made our Christmas lists that year, we both put board games on it. We had played Ticket to Ride via the Xbox 360, and my wife liked it a decent amount. However, she asked for reasons I do not remember she asked for the card game instead of the board game. We played the game a decent amount after getting it, but we only played it once in 2010 and once in 2011. Is the lack of play from having too many games or because we just do not like it?
Game Overview
Like the board game, players in Ticket to Ride The Card Game are still collecting different colored train cards and playing them to finish destination tickets. At the beginning of the game each player receives six destination tickets, and must keep at lest one of them. These tickets show the different colored cards that are needed to complete the ticket. Short tickets only need one card of a single color, while longer tickets may require five cards of five different colors. On a player's turn they can take cards into their hand. This works just like the board game, with five face up cards for players to choose from. Also, like the board game if they take the wild it counts as taking two cards. They can draw new destination tickets, taking four and keeping at least one. The final action is play train cards. Players may play either two or more cards of the same color or exactly three cards of all different colors. These played cards stay out until the beginning of their next turn. While the cards are out, other players can not play the colors that are out unless they play more of that color. For example, if on my turn I play a red, orange, and blue card. Then my opponent can only play blue if they play 2 or more of them. If a player does play more of a color already in play, then the opponent must discard all of their cards of that color in play. At the beginning of a player's turn they take their played cards and put them face down in a stack. This stack is hidden until the end of the game and a player will use these cards to complete their tickets. This continues until the deck runs out (2 and 3 players) or runs out twice (4 players). Players get points for completed tickets, negative points for uncompleted tickets, and then there are bonus points for whoever completed the most tickets to various big cities.
The Game We Played
Like the last train card game we played, the abstraction makes it really hard to write about. We took cards and played cards until the game ended. My general strategy is to keep all destination tickets and then always take and play wilds. Since the cards that have been played are secret this game has large memory component. I find it hard to juggle six destination tickets at time exactly, so I just keep a rough idea and use the wilds to cover me. My wife's approach is to focus on one or two tickets at a time, make sure they are completed, and then focus on completing one or two more. Initially, I drew more tickets than she did but on the last turn she assumed she had enough extra cards in her stack to cover something, so she drew extra destination tickets and kept the small ones. It turns out that the destination tickets my wife had were in general bigger than the ones I had. With the exception of her last play, we both kept every ticket we drew, so it was just happenstance that she got higher point tickets. Once the bonus points were added in (which she got more of) it was very clear I lost. The final score was 225 to 160.
Our Thoughts
My Rating: 1.5 (do not want to play again)
My Thoughts: I just do not like this game. It is boring to play. The major skill in the game is memory based, and while the memory aspect is very doable it is not much fun. Other than that it really just comes down to dumb luck and who gets the best tickets. I am very much done with this game.
Her Rating: 2.5 (do not care for)
Her Thoughts: I like that it is a Ticket to Ride game, but it makes my head hurt to play and is not that much fun.
Verdict
Combined Rating: 4
I think the only reason why we still have this game is that it is one the games we got the earliest and for a while it was our only Ticket to Ride game. However, at this point we have Ticket to Ride, the Marklin Edition, and we have Ticket to Ride on our phones. With those options there is never going to be a time we are going to want to bring this game out again, so it really needs to stop taking up space on the shelf.
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