Month: January 2026

Ticket To Ride

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Published Games, Ticket to ride , , , , , , , ,

Number of Players: 2-5

Year of Publication: 2004

Creators: Alan R Moon (designer), Cyrille Daujean (artist) and Julien Delval (artist)

She’s Got A Ticket To Ri-iiide, She’s Got A Ticket To Ri-i-iiide, She’s Got A Ticket To RIDE, And She Don’t Care!!

Ticket To Ride is a straightforward route-building game featuring a lovely map of North America with major cities marked on them as route destinations, all the way from Miami, down in the South-East, to Vancouver, up in the North-West, and many in between. The objective is simple: score as many points as possible before the game ends. You play as an industrial railroad builder, who is trying to forge routes across North America, each hoping to build the most lucrative routes before their rivals.

“On a blustery autumn evening five old friends met in the backroom of one of the city’s oldest and most private clubs. Each had traveled a long distance – from all corners of the world – to meet on this very specific day… October 2, 1900 – 28 years to the day that the London eccentric, Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a £20,000 bet that he could travel Around the World in 80 Days.

When the story of Fogg’s triumphant journey filled all the newspapers of the day, the five attended University together. Inspired by his impetuous gamble, and a few pints from the local pub, the group commemorated his circumnavigation with a more modest excursion and wager – a bottle of good claret to the first to make it to Le Procope in Paris.

Each succeeding year, they met to celebrate the anniversary and pay tribute to Fogg. And each year a new expedition (always more difficult) with a new wager (always more expensive) was proposed. Now at the dawn of the century it was time of a new impossible journey. The stakes $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition. The objective: to see which of them could travel by rail to the most cities in North America – in just 7 days. The journey would begin immediately…” – excerpt from the Rulebook

What’s In The Box:

  1. Game Board
  2. 110 Train Car Cards
  3. 30 Destination Ticket Cards
  4. 1 Longest Continuous Path Bonus Card
  5. 1 Summary Card
  6. 5 Wooden Scoring Markers
  7. 225 Coloured Train Cars (45 of each colour)
  8. 1 Rules Booklet
  9. 15 Replacement Train Cars (3 of each colour)

Setting Up The Game:

To begin place the board in the middle of a decently large table. A largish table is necessary as the board itself is pretty big and you need space for all your train cars, as well as the Train Car and Destination Ticket Cards. Each player should choose a colour and take all the appropriate Train Cars, as well as the Wooden Scoring Marker that matches. The Scoring Marker should be placed on the 100 on the scoring track, which goes around the edge of the board. The 100 also doubles as 0 for the start of the game. The Train Car Cards are shuffled, and a starting hand of four cards is dealt to each player. The remaining cards are then placed, face-down, on one of the long edges of the board and the top five are turned face up, and laid out down the edge of the board, for all players to see. Place the Longest Path Card next to the board as well. Now shuffle the Destination Ticket Cards and deal three to each player. The players may now look at them, and decide which they want to keep. All three may be kept if a player wishes, or a maximum of one can be discarded. Discarded Destination Ticket cards are placed on the bottom of the pile, which is then put at the side of the board, once each player has finished deciding. You are now ready to begin and the most experienced traveller plays first, with play continuing clockwise after they have taken their turn.

Playing The Game:

On each players turn, they may perform one of the following three actions:

  • Draw Train Cards – a player may draw two cards; one either from the face-up cards lying on the table, or one from the top of the face-down pile of Train Car Cards. If they draw from the face-up cards a new card is immediately taken from the top of the face-down pile to replace it. There should always be five Train Car Cards face-up on the table. Once the first card has been drawn the player can then decide where they want to draw their second card from, as before. *See below for special rules applying to Locomotive Train Car Cards
    There is no limit on hand size in this game; a player may hold as many cards as they wish and continue to draw new cards. Only if the draw deck runs out will they be forced into one of the other two permitted actions.
  • Claim A Route – various routes are indicated across the board by small coloured rectangles connecting two cities. In order for a player to claim one they must lay down the appropriate number of cards for the route they wish to claim. Additionally, the rectangles are coloured, indicating which type of Train Car Card must be used to claim that particular route. A route can only be claimed if a player has the required number of cards all in the correct colour. If a route is comprised of grey rectangles then any colour of Train Car Cards may be used, as long as they are all the same. Once a route has been successfully claimed the player lays their Train Cars onto the route, discards the cards they used to claim it, and moves their Scoring Marker up the scoring track the appropriate number of spaces. How much each route is worth is indicated both on the board itself and on the small Summary Card. Special note regarding routes: on some sections of the board there are routes that show a double line of rectangles. This means that that route may be claimed twice during play. HOWEVER, in a two-player game, each double route may only be claimed once, in order to increase the challenge of the game a little, as there is less overall competition for routes. *Special Locomotive rules apply here too
Here you can see a selection of short, double-grey routes. In a game with more than two players both sets of grey would be useable all the way from Duluth to Houston, however, as this was a two player game, once red had claimed most of them, they became inaccessible for blue.
  • Draw Destination Tickets – the player draws three new Destination Tickets from the top of the deck, looks at them, and decides which they want to keep. A minimum of one must be kept, but the player may keep two or all three if they so wish. Any discarded Destination Tickets are returned to the bottom of the deck.
This card indicates how many points a player gains when claiming new routes. As you can see, a long route can be quite lucrative, if you have the right cards to claim one!

Special Locomotive Train Car Rules!

Locomotive Train Car Cards are easy to spot as they are multi-coloured. They act as a wild card and can be used in place of one regular Train Car Card of any colour when claiming a route. When drawing cards, if a Locomotive is one of the face-up cards on the table you may take it, HOWEVER if you do, you may NOT draw a second card. Additionally, if you draw a regular Train Car Card from the face-up five and the replacement card is a Locomotive, you MAY NOT take that card. If, however, a Locomotive is drawn blind as the first card taken from the draw deck, the player is lucky, and may still draw a second card either from the deck, or from the face-up cards.

IMPORTANT NOTE: IF AT ANY TIME THREE OF THE FIVE FACE-UP TRAIN CAR CARDS ON THE TABLE ARE LOCOMOTIVES ALL FIVE CARDS MUST IMMEDIATELY BE DISCARDED AND NEW ONES DRAWN TO REPLACE THEM.

An important thing to know regarding Destination Tickets is that they each have a point value. If the route indicated is completed by the player holding the card before the game ends, those points are added to their final score when the game has ended. If the route HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED the player loses those points at the end instead. Destination Tickets are kept secret until the end of the game and the points from them are added only once play has finished, no matter when a player completed the route. As with hand size, there is no limit to the number of Destination Tickets a player may hold.

Ending The Game:

The game ends when one players supply of trains is either 0,1 or 2 at the end of their turn. After this each player, including the player who triggered the end of the game, may take one more turn before final scoring is done.

This was how our two-player game ended. Below you can see the routes that Blue (me) had claimed, plus the 10 point bonus for the Trans America Express. Total I had 107 points this time round. Above you can see the routes that Red (my husband) has claimed. Although he had more routes than me, he was unable to catch up points-wise, as they each (bar the Portland-Nashville route) only gave him a small number of points, and they did not connect well to form a long route. This is the first time I’ve ever beaten my husband at this game, and I am rather smug.

Strategy:

There is a limited amount of strategy that can be employed in a game as simple (relatively speaking) as this. We have found that completing routes, and often going for the Longest Continuous Path Bonus makes a large difference in final scoring. No matter how many individual routes a player has claimed they will most likely always be bested by someone who has one or two Destination Ticket routes completed. Especially as a few of these are rather high-scoring. It’s also worthwhile to claim routes as soon as you have the cards rather than waiting to hoard up more cards, as whilst you’re collecting cards there’s always a chance another player will steal away the route you had your eye on. If you’re approaching the end of the game and you’ve completed all your Destination Ticket routes and aren’t feeling brave enough to draw new ones, it’s worth it to try and extend your existing routes in order to claim the Longest Continuous Path Bonus, which gives you 10 extra points at final scoring. It is likewise worthwhile to lay claim to long routes, even if they do not connect you to anything particular, as these give you a good point-boost too.

To Conclude:

This is a lovely game. It’s good for a wide range of ages, so appropriate for families, and straightforward enough for both beginner and advanced board-gamers. The limited amount of reading required is very handy if younger children wish to play, though if you want to keep to the rules extremely strictly then children under the age of 6 probably cannot play alone, as they won’t be able to read the city names on their Destination Tickets. When we play with children we usually play open hand with all Destination Tickets face up on the table, in order to be able to help them plan their routes. It’s also a very nice choice if you want a relatively quick round of something, as each players’ turn doesn’t usually take more than a minute or two, and the game naturally progresses and ends quite speedily.

I personally like this game for several reasons:

  • Aesthetics – the board map is really nice to look at. City names are easy to read and the colours are bright, but not garish. The design is good. Playing pieces are also sturdy and simple, therefore unlikely to break.
  • Simplicity – the rulebook is a mere four sides, with plenty of pictures to explain, making it extremely easy to understand, and leaving little room for ambiguity or misunderstandings during gameplay.
  • Speed – my children often like to play board games, but their current ages mean that committing to a game can be a big deal, due to short attention spans. This game is fast enough that we can usually get through a round before anarchy descends.

I have rated this only a 3.5 though because, although the game is well thought-out, attractive and easy, I like a bit more challenge to my games. However, we have a later version of the game, Ticket To Ride: Europe too, and that version expands beautifully on the originally, introducing some new rules and one new game piece, which will likely, when we come to reviewing it, bump up the rating to a 4 or 5.

Update – January 2026

manaiaclemim Updates , , , ,

Happy New Year!

The last update I posted was September of 2018, and, as I spectacularly failed to post anything following that for five and a half years, I’m somewhat apprehensive about writing/posting this. However! An opportunity to regularly play board games, many of which are not completely new to me, but ARE new to the blog, has arisen, meaning that over the next few weeks I could theoretically play through a good number of games, and possibly (she writes, with much optimism) actually write posts about them!

Doing the post for Saboteur was fun, and a good way to break back into writing, as the post wasn’t all that long. We’ve got an expansion for that game, as well as several games we’ve owned for a while but haven’t managed to play yet. So, the possibility for a reasonable number of new posts to go up truly exists! Only time will tell whether or not my momentary enthusiasm actually holds momentum…

Watch this space for a review of the popular, classic game, Ticket To Ride…

Mim

Saboteur – back with a quick card game!

manaiaclemim Childrens/Family Games, Quick Games, Saboteur , , , ,

Number of Players: 3-10

Year of Publication: 2004

Creators: Frederic Moyersoen, (designer), Andrea Boekhoff, Alexander Jung, Frederic Moyersoen (artists)

Are you a dedicated miner, searching for the gold with your crew? Or a sneaky saboteur, trying to bring down the tunnels on the heads of your compatriots!?

Saboteur is a silly, easy, quick-to-play (average play time for one round is only 30 minutes, but can easily be less with experienced players) card game where each player randomly draws either a regular Dwarf card, or a Saboteur Dwarf card at the start of the game. These cards provide you with your goal. The objective is simple; Dwarves are mining, and, as you might expect, are searching for the gold; Saboteurs are trying to thwart their comrades, and prevent them from striking gold!

Nothing makes the heart of a dwarf race quite like a nice shiny gold nugget. As one of these intrepid folk, you naturally want to collect as much of the yellow stuff as you can. But are you a gold digger… or a saboteur? – excerpt from the game rulebook

What’s In The Box:

  1. 44 Path Cards
  2. 27 Action Cards
  3. 28 Gold Nugget Cards
  4. 7 Gold Miners
  5. 4 Saboteurs
  6. 1 Game Instructions sheet

Setting Up The Game:
Before the game begins there is a very small amount of setup required. You’ll need a reasonable sized table in order to lay out the cards that form the “mine map”. Cards must be separated into the above shown decks to begin, though regular Dwarf and Saboteur cards can remain in one pile. The number of Dwarfs and Saboteurs required for a round depends on the number of players, and is indicated clearly in the rulebook. The needed number are separated, and any unneeded player cards are returned to the box before the pile is shuffled. Each player then randomly receives a card which they should look at without showing the other players. Now you know if you’re a miner, or a saboteur. There will always be one Dwarf or Saboteur card leftover once all have been dealt; this is placed, face-down, to the side until the end of the round.

Next, you need to locate the Start Card, which is the only Path Card with a ladder on it, and the three Goal Cards, easy to spot, as one has a large gold nugget on it, and the other two a lump of coal each.

As shown here!

The three Goal Cards are then shuffled and placed face-down upon the table with one cards-length of space between the bottom of the top card and the next, making the width of the defined playing space five cards high. You then need to measure seven cards width across before placing the Start Card on the same row as the middle Goal Card. This represents the “edges” of the mine map. In total your map area will be nine playing cards wide, and five high, like this:

Now you’re ready to start the game, all that’s left to do is to shuffle together the remaining 40 Path Cards with the Action Cards, and deal a starting hand to each player. The number of cards each player receives is determined in the rulebook by the number of players present. Once each player has their hand the youngest player begins the round.

Playing The Game:

A players turn is very straightforward; you use the cards in your hand to further your goals. Each player must play a card on their turn. This means one of three things:

  1. add a Path Card to the maze,
  2. place an Action Card in front of yourself or another player,
  3. pass your turn by putting a card face down on the discard pile (this means the discard pile will have cards both face up and face down in it, this is completely okay)

When playing a Path Card you must connect it to the Start Card in a logical way, meaning, the tunnels shown must connect, and, if connecting to more than one card (either above, below or on either side) must connect properly to all adjoining tunnels. Like this:

NOT LIKE THIS:

Path Cards must also be played long side to long side or short side to short side. It is not permitted to connect the long side of one tunnel card to the short side of another.

Playing An Action Card:

There are four types of Action Cards; Broken Tools, Fix Tools, Rockfall and Map

Broken Tools are useful cards both for Saboteurs and Miners; you can play them on another player by placing them in front of that player, and a player with Broken Tools is unable to build tunnels until they, or a different player, have been able to play the appropriate Fix Tools card.

Broken Tools do not completely hinder a player though, as Rockfall and Map can still be used until such time as your tools can be repaired. Rockfall is an excellent tool for a Saboteur, as it allows a player to remove one section of tunnel, effectively setting the Miners back one turn. As some Path Cards allow Saboteurs to build dead ends into the map the Rockfall can be a useful tool for the Miners too, as it will enable them to remove problem sections of the map created by nefarious Saboteurs and build functional tunnels. Map allows a player to chose one of the Goal Cards and look at it, without showing the other players, giving them an edge on potentially knowing where the chunk of gold is.

Ending A Round:

If a route is completed to a Goal Card, one of two things happens. Firstly the Goal Card is flipped over; if it’s revealed that the Goal Card reached was only a lump of coal, then the round continues as before. If, however, the Miners have struck gold, the round ends. At this point all Miner/Saboteur cards are flipped, revealing who was who all along.

If the draw pile is exhausted the round continues with each player continuing to play or discard cards as necessary until either a route to a Goal Card is achieved or no player remains able to play a card. At this point, if no route has been completed to gold, the Saboteurs win! At the end of a round, no matter who won, gold must be divided up between the victors.

When the Miners win the round the player who laid the last card to complete the path draws Gold Nugget cards equal in number to the number of Miners, looks at them secretly, chooses one to keep (not all Gold Nugget cards have the same value), then passes the remaining cards to the next player, going anti-clockwise, until all Miners have a Gold Nugget card to keep.

When the Saboteurs win the gold is divided up slightly differently. If only one Saboteur was playing they take Gold Nugget cards from the deck equaling four Gold Nuggets, if two or three are playing they each get three Gold Nuggets, and if four are playing each receives two Gold Nuggets.

Note: It is possible for a round to be played (in a game with only three or four players) in which no one is a Saboteur. If this happens and the gold is not reached before the round ends due to lack of cards, none of the Dwarfs receive any gold.

At the end of a round each player keeps their Gold Nuggets. The Miner and Saboteur cards are returned to one pile, including the one that was put aside at the beginning of the round, they are then shuffled and redealt, for the start of the new round. All Path and Action Cards are returned to the deck, and everything is shuffled together, for new hands to be drawn. Likewise the Goal Cards are shuffled and laid on the table again. The next round is played the same as the first.

At the end of three rounds the game is over and each player counts their Gold Nuggets. The player with the most wins! In the event of a tie, the players share the win.

Strategy:

This is not really a game in which a whole lot of strategy is required. Obviously you’re on the lookout for who might be Saboteur, and aiming to hinder them if you’re one of the Miners. Likewise, as a Saboteur you’re aiming to hinder the Miners without being immediately obvious, and also hoping not to accidentally hinder other Saboteurs if there are any playing. Other than that you mostly have to go with which cards are in your hand, available to play.

To Conclude:

I like this game a lot. It’s quick, easy to learn, easy to set up/put away and all-around good fun. It’s also good for kids, as there’s not any reading required, once the rules have been looked through, and the high player limit make it an excellent choice for a family game. The only slightly irritating thing is that the game is not playable with only two people, however, Saboteur 2, which we also have, and will be reviewing, expands on the base game, and gives new depth with teams added and new roles introduced.

This game is a solid 4.5 on our rating, as it’s interesting enough in structure to be fun, easy enough to learn quickly, and a good game for casual gamers, who might not be invested in the kind of games that require 1-2 hours of set up and rule reading before you even get to gameplay. The last .5 that would bring it to a 5 rating is that we wish it would be playable with just two people.