Number of players: 4 Players (would have been five but a piece was missing :o)
Time it took to play: We played for around 20 minutes but we didn't get close to finishing.
Object of the game:
The object of the game is to score the highest number of total points. Points can be
scored by:
- Claiming a route between two adjacent cities on the map;
- Successfully completing a continuous path of routes between two cities listed on your Destination Ticket(s); Completing the longest continuous path of routes.
- Points are lost if you do not successfully complete the route given on the Destination Ticket(s) you kept.
Rules:
Each player gets 4 train cards and 3 Destination Tickets. The rest are put aside in a stack. At the beginning the players can look at their Tickets and decide which ones to keep (they must keep at least one).
Each turn the player can either:
- Draw train cards: The player can draw two train cards; 2 face-down, 2 face-up, or a mix (if they pick a face-up wild-card they can only get one card or if they pick a face-up card and it's replaced with a wild card they can't pick it up.
- Draw Destination Tickets
- Claim a Route
Major Observations:
Things I Liked: I liked the fact that the game was a territorial acquisition game as that is my favorite type of board game. I liked that there is an as equally strong emphasis on strategy as there is on the luck involved with the cards you pick up. The game requires you to plan ahead as opposed to other territorial acquisition games such as monopoly which I've found is generally based around luck and how much money you have.
The fact that the player with the longest route gets extra points is a nice addition to the game as it allows players to adapt different playing styles; you can play dangerously and take the longest routes possible to get points but run the risk of being blocked by another player or you can play cautiously and claim routes taking the shortest route possible but run the risk of not getting the longest route. This creates an interesting dynamic as the game goes on because you'll find players have to change their strategies if they get blocked or if they don't have enough train cards to claim the longest route. Players may also aggressively block one another as opposed to trying to create their own routes. There's many different ways to play and the game allows you to adapt accordingly.
I also appreciated the addition of the rules limiting players from picking up wild-cards, because otherwise this would create an extremely unfair advantage for a player whose turn happens to bring out multiple wild-cards.
Things I Didn't Like: I didn't like the fact that it takes very long to get into the game itself; it takes time to get your routes set up and it seems like you could wait very long to gather the perfect hand such that you can claim large routes. The rules were also very simple, but I feel that the rule book makes it seem more complicated than it really is. I also found the mechanic of claiming a route slightly confusing, but after watching a short round on YouTube I understood that mechanic better.
Something I Would Design Differently:
I would allow the player to pick up three cards on every turn as opposed to just two. The reason for this is because it takes quite a bit of time to get enough matching cards to lay down a route, and that means a good player can be stuck for quite some time due to bad luck. I feel that this would speed up the game slightly more so that players can begin claiming tracks earlier, and it would give players a higher probability of collecting the right cards. This might make players more aggressive in their style of play, but that would also make it more fast-paced and still maintain the strategic thinking required by the game.
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