Ticket to Ride: Europe takes place in a beautifully recreated early twentieth-century Europe. As a player, you have the opportunity to travel through famous European cities using train tickets. However, the question often arises whether you are a solo traveller with a Euro rail pass, or whether you are building a rail empire. The details may be a little fuzzy, but what matters most is the enjoyment of the game. After all, who can resist the charm of trains and the joy of placing little plastic trains on an exquisite map?
The rules
Let's look at the basic rules of Ticket to Ride: Europe. Each turn, a player can take one of four actions:
Action 1: Pick Up More Train Cards At the beginning of your turn, you can choose to pick up two train cards, either blindly from the deck or from the face-up cards. If you choose a Train card, you can't pick up a second card unless you draw blind. However, you can never choose a locomotive from the face-up cards as your second option.
Action 2: Pick Up More Tickets You start the game with three short cards and one long card. You have the option of discarding some of these if it's strategically wise. Later in the game, you can pick up three more tickets, but you must keep at least one. Be careful, as incomplete cards deduct points from your score.
Action 3: Build a route To build a route, play train cards that match the colour of the route and place your trains on the board. Remember, routes must be built in one go and cannot be built piecemeal.
Action 4: Build a Station Stations allow you to use another player's route to complete one of your cards. The cost of a station varies, with the first costing one card of any colour, the second costing two trains of the same colour, and the third costing three matching train cards.
The game ends when one player has two or fewer trains left to build. Each player gets a final turn and scores are calculated based on Routes built, Tickets completed, Stations not built (each worth 4 points), Longest continuous route (worth 10 points). The player with the highest score wins!
Our journey through early twentieth century Europe
Our Ticket to Ride: Europe experience was an exciting journey through early twentieth century Europe. We embarked on this adventure with a full complement of players, including Tobi (red), Noah (green), Katja (black), Fredy (blue) and Marijo (yellow). With the exception of Tobi and Fredy, everyone was new to the game. The rules were easily explained and quickly grasped, which made for a smooth start to our gaming session.
As the game progressed, the first trains found their place on the board and each player had plenty of room to expand their network. It wasn't until the last few rounds that the competitive spirit between us intensified. Everyone was eager to complete their remaining cards and secure victory. It was a neck-and-neck race, with no clear winner in sight as we played. In the end, newcomer Noah edged out Tobi by the slimmest of margins.
Ticket to Ride: Europe proved to be an excellent choice for our gaming session. It's a board game that's easy to pick up and play, even for those who aren't typically avid gamers. Yet it offers enough mechanical depth to satisfy Eurogame enthusiasts.
We enjoyed our journey through early twentieth century Europe and can't wait for our next gaming adventure at CU on 25/06/2023, when we swap our trains for bikes and take part in the biggest bike race in Flamme Rouge...
