How to play: Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder)
Overview
Your objective is to travel to more cities than your opponents using the North American rail system.
Game type: Planning – Strategy
Number of players: 2-5
Suggested age: 8+
Game Pieces
map of the North American train routes
240 colored train cars split into 5 colors (45 each of blue, red, green, yellow, and black).
110 train car cards (12 each of box, passenger, tanker, reefer, freight, hopper, coal, caboose, and 14 locomotives)
30 destination cards
5 wooden scoring markers (1 for each color)
1 “Longest Path” bonus card
Pregame Setup
Assign each player their own set of (45) matching color train cars
For each train set that was assigned to a player, place the corresponding colored scoring marker at the “1” position on the game board.
Shuffle the train cards and deal out 4, face down, to each player. Draw the next 5 cards and place them face up for all players to see.
Shuffle the destination cards and deal 3 to each player face down. Each player may choose to return 1 destination card to the bottom of the deck or keep all 3.
Place longest path bonus card to the side of the board.
Playing the Game
Decide on who goes first, then take turns clockwise around the table.
The turn is divided into three actions
Draw train cards: The player may draw two cards from the deck or from the face-up cards. The player can decide to split their draw.
If a face-up card is taken, then another must be drawn to replace it.
If a player draws a locomotive card from the face-up cards, then that player may only draw 1 card for that turn. If a player draws a locomotive from the deck, then they may still draw another card.
If the draw pile runs out of cards then reshuffle the discard back into the draw pile. If all cards are drawn (and in players hands) then skip the draw step.
Claim a route: To claim a route a player must play the correct number of cards that match the color of the route.
Grey routes: are neutral and can be claimed by any color but they must all be the same color.
Route scoring: 1 (length) = 1 (points), 2 = 2, 3 = 4, 4 = 7, 5 = 10, 6 = 15
When you claim a route you place your plastic car tokens over the route and you move your score marker forward on the board.
Locomotives are wild cards and can be used with any color set.
Players may only claim one route per turn.
Draw destination tickets: at the end of their turn a player may decide to draw 3 new destination tickets and must keep at least 1. Returned cards are placed at the bottom of the deck.
Destination tickets are worth points if you can claim a route to them. You may have as many destination tickets as you want, but if you fail to claim a route to them then their point value is deducted from your total.
You cannot discard destination tickets that you already have and you must always keep at least one if you draw new tickets. You will want to keep your tickets secret.
Winning the Game
Game end: once any player reaches two or fewer plastic train cars at the end of their turn, then every player gets one last turn including the player with two or fewer train cars.
Scoring: take each players base score from the routes claimed during the game and add or subtract the total value for each destination ticket that was completed or failed.
The player with the longest continuous route (loops included, must match color) wins the longest route bonus card worth 10 extra points.
The player with the highest score wins the game. If there is a tie then the player with the most completed tickets wins. If there is still a tie then the longest continuous route wins.
