Ticket to Ride is a "gateway game" just as much as Catan is. TtR is simple, but fun, can be taught within minutes, and will have you coming back for more.

I Love the balance of tension, greed, and buddy fuckary. The longer you hold off from building your network (placing down trains), adding more cards to your hand, you leave yourself open to lose a critical route and possibly longest train (continous route). As stated above, the game is simple with very few actions and rules. At the start of the game players will select a color, choose from three route cards (tickets), although you can choose them all, then grab four random train cards. That's it! You get points by finishing tickets, claiming routes, and keep in mind - the longer routes, the more points you earn. You also get an end game bonus for the longest continuous route, which I believe is ten points.

This was my first time playing the digital version (Steam) and it went quite nicely. I was able to win the first game without scoring to big, but I'm sure the A.I. wasn't set to be challenging out the gate.I believe when you select your game you can click on the "gear" located on the A.I. opponent, then change the difficulty level for each one (I forgot to look). I also played another game, but instead of running it back I changed the map. I chose Pennsylvania not knowing what I was about to get into, which ended up being a learning moment for me as I have only ever played the base game and the Nordic version. I should've known better as this version has a game element I wasn't familiar with, and yet with that crutch the game was suprisingly close. Now, I brought the word "versions" up a few times already so let me explain a litte more. TtR has the base game which includes the elements of tickets (routes), train cards (color coded), and train placement. When it comes to the other versions of the game, it's not only the base game with a new theme, but new additional gameplay elements like my Penn State game which included stock purchasing. This way you can purchase a TtR geared towards a friends tastes, as was the case with my brother-in-law when he handed me a copy of TtR Nordic (I love Scandinavia). So take your time and search up the best thematic experience for you as well as friends and family.

On BoardGameGeek TtR is rated high coming in at 7.4 and this is after almost 20 years! The complexity is very low at just under 2 (out of 5), and this may be the reason it has sold over 10 million copies. I don't know if that number is base game or all other versions, but either way it is a staggering amount of games sold. You can pick up TtR anywhere from 25$ all the way to 50$, there is also a Rails and Sails version that can cost up to 85$. TtR also has a 15 year anniversary addition that looks very nice, and is still available as it was only about 5 years ago. This got me thinking, I wonder if they will go all out on a 20 year edition? Maybe a big box to hold all variations of TtR as well as fancy components, a boy can dream.

You can pick up TtR on a multitude of platforms: iOS/Google for your phone as well as through Amazon Games, and Steam: Ticket to Ride. I can't speak on all the versions, but I do know that the Steam version has 10 expansions available for purchase. Remember, there are sales often enough, you can pick it up for around 5$, and all the expansions can be had for usually under 20$. Enjoy!

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