As we set up the board and were explaining the rules to the two who hadn't played, Frank Woods wandered in and said, "What is that, and where did you get it?" Frank had heard about Ticket to Ride, but was upset that none of his distributors had offered the game to him. We sent him off on a quest to get the game, either in Texas or once he moves to Alabama. We played two 4-player games, and while I have no pictures, I can talk a little more about strategy. My usual tactic is to get an initial set of destination cards that are horrible and don't match at all. Then, after satisfying my first two destinations, draw another set of destination cards that serendipitously match extremely well. Initial 'Long Route' Strategy The first thing people pick up on is scoring long routes takes less time, and scores more points. So they choose a strategy that is all about 5-6 length routes. So how much do you make on this? There are 9 6-routes. Suppose you score 4 of them, and the rest in length 5 routes? That is: Length 6 (24 trains) 4 X 15 = 60 Length 5 (20 trains) 4 x 10 = 40 So you get, with luck 100 points plus a destination bonus. Nice, but not enough to win. The average win in our 4-player games was 140+. On the other hand, games reported on BGG are closer to 130 for the winner, so maybe this is enough to win with two average destination cards, but the reality is, this is too close to rely on to win. You have to use destination cards. Destination Cards As reported on the BGG (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewfile.php3?fileid=5211) destination cards don't always pay the same. My own analysis differs slight from this (rebarbativenoodle@hotmail.com), but same length routes payoff differently. Calgary to Phoenix (length 13) is worth 37 points (bonus plus the routes) whereas Boston to Miami (length 12) is 24-27. Calgary seems to be worth more, but Boston has a lot of short gray lines, and is much harder to block. In a cutthroat game, Boston is a safer move. Also realize cities are not the same, as some cities come up much more frequently: Frequency: City 5 - Los Angeles 4 - New York 3 - Chicago, Houston, Miami, Montreal 2 - Calgary, Denver, Duluth, El Paso, Nashville, New Orleans, Phoenix, Portland, Santa Fe, Sault Ste Marie, Seattle, Vancouver, Winnipeg Also note that some routes can make significantly more VP if you take a slightly longer route. Los Angeles to Miami is 19 trains long for 33-40 points, or you can go 20 spaces for 47 points. Its especially crucial to realize that the 19 space route takes 5 routes (6, 4, 1, 2, 6) whereas the 20 space route takes 4 (6, 6, 2, 6). If you draw 3 cards (out of the 30), that's 6 cities. 9 of the 60 cities are either Los Angeles or New York. Without doing the math, I'd bet there was almost a 50% chance of drawing one of these cities. And if you include the 3-frequency cities, that is 21 cities out of the 60, meaning you are have a very, very good chance of a card containing one of these cities. Second Generation Strategy(s) The second thing people seem to do is either put together networks of destination cards, or start playing more cutthroat games. My own feeling is that to play successful cutthroat you have to stop other's routes and strive to win yourself. Not to say anyone in our group would play the game just to attack others (Bill!), but balancing winning and blocking requires a good knowledge of destinations, and closely monitoring the actions of the other players. I'm not sure I'm to that level yet. My current strategy Like Transamerica, the initial deal of destination cards is followed by immediate and vehement cursing of your bad luck! While required, this is a smoke screen because, with planning, almost any initial cards can be the basis for a network of 4-7 destination cards. You want a route that is (or can be) connected, and that gives you access to most of the board. Thus, if you get cards so that two can be connected, that's probably, but not always, the best pick. For instance, I had San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta giving me a long high-point-scoring route. The problem was, once I was done with this (it took awhile to complete), I had a very hard time getting into the North. Still, the points are so good this couldn't be passed up. But I'd think long about an alternative central route, especially if it went through Chicago. If your cards are separate, you need to pick ones that touch the more frequent cities. In one case I had Portland-Phoenix (going through Los Angeles) and Montreal to Atlanta through New York). This was two North-South routes in the NE and SW. In contrast, Steven picked two North South routes in the NE and NW giving himself no east-west connection, and little access into the South in any event. Before picking a set of destination cards I want to have a plan ready. In the case of the SE and NW routes, I already went East to Phoenix, and held 5 white cards to get to Denver, making it much easier to get to the Midwest, and then to the East coast. I like to have a couple of sets of cards ready to at least partially move in whatever direction the destination cards may go. Game 1 As I said, I completed my initial destinations of Portland-Phoenix, and Montreal-Atlanta (mostly), then made sure I had 5 white to get to Denver before drawing more Destinations. Luckily I drew LA-Chicago, LA-New York, and Portland-Nashville (overkill on the luck here). I had it easy to push through to Chicago and Pittsburgh and had an easy victory. Bill Thompson quickly picked up on the initial strategy, and scored lots of long routes, ending up in second. He was very surprised to see the points scored in Destinations, and tried a different strategy next game. Before Destinations: John: 67; Bill: 80; Steven: 51; Tom: 56 Destination cards (Positive score - negative = total) John: 74; Bill: 24; Steven: 39; Tom: 32-20=12 Final Score: (Bill had the longest route for +10 points) John: 141; Bill: 114; Steven: 90; Tom: 68 Game 2 Now we started getting more cutthroat. I took El Paso-Denver and Denver-Pittsburgh. The El Paso route is a waste, with only 2x2 length routes, its worthless, plus while the routes are gray (wild) they are single and are easily blocked, as I found out. OTOH, going to Pittsburgh is a relatively well paying route. Bill tried something interesting, keeping all 3 of this destinations cards, and immediately drawing, and keeping 3 more. He eventually completed all his routes for 45 points, bring him in second. I immediately grabbed El Paso to Santa Fe, hoping to get to Denver before being blocked. Steven immediately cursed, because he had Vancouver to Santa Fe. He grabbed Denver to Santa Fe. I then took me many rounds to get cards to go around, to Phoenix (3 wild) and there to Denver (5 white). I thought that this waste of time would have cost me the game but it didn't hurt in the end. Once I did that I got quickly to Pittsburgh, going through Nashville because its on two destination cards. Bill was intending to go through Nashville, Atlanta to Miami, so he grabbed the Nashville-Atlanta route. In retaliation I took Little Rock to Nashville, making him go around via New Orleans. I made sure I had 4-5 Black cards (plus a wild or two) so I could get immediately to Los Angeles, plus 4 red (to get to Helena in the NW) and drew destination cards. I kept Los Angeles - ? (New York I think) and another central East-West route (going to Chicago). I immediately got to Los Angeles, and completed the rest of the routes. We were now near the end. I had 10 trains, and Bill 9. Bill had a medium sized hand, so I didn't think he could finish quickly. I collected a few sets, especially so I had 3 yellow (LA-SF) and 5 purple (SF-Portland) in case I had to go to the Northwest. I drew cards, keeping Portland-Nashville. As it happened, Bill laid down three sets of routes (all about length 3) going to 1 train in the next three moves. I just had exactly enough time to play LA-SF and SF-Portland as the game finished. I had a long, convoluted route of length 68 for the longest route. Before Destinations: John: 71; Bill: 68; Tom: 68; Steven: 59 Destination cards (Positive score - negative = total) John: 69; Bill: 45; Tom: 40-11=29; Steven: 40-10-30 Final Score: (John had the longest route for +10 points) John: 150; Bill: 113; Tom: 97; Steven: 89 Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 5 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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