The cross country adventure game
by Alan R Moon

Published by Days of Wonder

For 2 - 5 players
ages 8 and above
30 - 60 minutes

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 for 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…

Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure. Players compete to connect different cities by laying claim to railway routes on a
map of North America.

Components

 

1 Board map of North American train routes
240 Colored Train Cars (45 each in Blue, Red, Green, Yellow and Black, plus some extra replacement cars in each color)

These are replaced with shaped tokens in the accessible version.

144 Illustrated cards:
110 Train Car cards (12 each of Box, Passenger, Tanker, Reefer, Freight, Hopper, Coal, and Caboose cars, plus 14 Locomotives)

30 Destination Ticket cards
1 Longest Continuous Path Bonus card

5 Wooden Scoring Markers (1 for each player in Blue, Red, Green, Yellow
and Black)
1 Rules booklet

Setting up the Game

Place the board map in the center of the table. Each player takes a set of 45 Colored Train Cars. Use one of the replacement shapes for the score marker.

Each player places his Scoring Marker on Start on the Scoring Track running along the map’s border. Throughout the game, each time a player scores points, he will advance his marker accordingly.

Shuffle the Train Car cards and deal a starting hand of 4 cards to each player ∑.
Place the remaining deck of Train Car cards near the board and turn the top five cards from the deck face-up.

Place the Longest Path Bonus card face up next to the board .

Shuffle the Destination Ticket cards and deal 3 cards to each player.

Each player looks at their Destination Tickets and decides which ones they wish to keep. A player must keep at least two, but may keep all three if he chooses. Any returned cards are placed on the bottom of the Destination Ticket deck. This deck is then placed next to the board. Players keep their Destination Tickets secret until the end of the game.

You are now ready to begin.

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.

The Game Turn

The player who is the most experienced traveler goes first. Play then proceeds clockwise around the table, each player taking one turn at a time until
the game ends. On his turn, a player must perform one (and only one) of the following three actions:

Draw Train Car Cards – The player may draw 2 Train Car cards. He may take any one of the face-up cards or he may draw the top card from the
deck (this is a blind draw). If he draws a face up card, he immediately turns a replacement card face-up from the deck. He then draws his second
card, either from the face up cards or from the top of the deck. (See Train Car Cards for special rules for Locomotive cards).

Claim a Route – The player may claim a route on the board by playing a set of Train Car cards that match the color and length of the route and then placing one of his colored shapes on the extruded up portion of the route. Place the number of shapes of the route (minus 1) back in the box. No one else may now claim that route.

He then records his score by moving his Scoring Marker the appropriate number of spaces (see Route Scoring Table) along the Scoring Track on the board.

Draw Destination Tickets – The player draws 3 Destination Tickets from the top of the deck. He must keep at least one of them, but he may keep two or all three if he chooses. Any returned cards are placed on the bottom of the deck.

Train Car Cards

There are 8 types of regular Train Car cards, plus Locomotive cars. The colors of each type of Train Car card match various routes
between cities on the board – Purple, Blue, Orange, White, Green, Yellow, Black, and Red.

Locomotives are Multi-colored and act as a wild card that can be part of any set of cards when claiming a route. If a Locomotive card is one of the five face-up cards, the player who draws it may only draw one card, instead of two. If, after having drawn one card the replacement card is a Locomotive, the player cannot take it. If at any time, three of the five face-up cards are Locomotives, all five cards are immediately discarded and five new ones are turned face-up to replace them.

Note: If a player is lucky enough to get a Locomotive from the top of the deck in a blind draw, it stills counts as a single card and he may still draw a total of two cards that turn.

A player may have any number of cards in his hand at any time.
When the deck is exhausted, the discards are reshuffled into a new draw pile deck. The cards should be shuffled thoroughly, since all the cards have been discarded in sets.

In the unlikely event that there are no cards left in the deck and there are no discards (because players are hoarding many cards in their hands), a player cannot draw Train Car cards. Instead he may only claim a route or draw Destination Ticket cards.

 

Claiming Routes

To claim a route, a player must play a set of cards equal to the number of spaces in the route. A set of cards must be of the same type. Most routes require a specific type of set.
For example a Blue route must be claimed using blue-colored Passenger Car cards. Some routes – those that are Gray colored – can be claimed using a set of cards of any one color.
When a route is claimed, the player places one of his color shapes on the extruded pin and puts the same number of shapes(minus 1) of the spaces of the route. All the cards in the set used to claim the route are then discarded.

A player may claim any open route on the board. He is never required to
connect to any of his previously played routes. A player may only claim
a maximum of one route, hence connect two adjacent cities, never more,
on his turn.

Example 1

To claim the route from Montréal to New York, a player would need
a set of three Blue Passenger Car cards.

Example 2

To claim the route from Montréal to Toronto, a player could use any
set of Train Car cards, as a long as they are the same type.


Some cities are connected by Double-Routes. One player cannot claim
both routes to the same cities.

Important Note: In 2 or 3 player games, only one of the Double-Routes
can be used. A player can claim either of the two routes between cities, but
the other route is then closed to other players.

Route Scoring Table

When a player claims a route, he records the points he receives by moving his Scoring Marker on the Scoring Track:

Route Length Points Scored

1 gives 1
2 gives 2
3 gives 4
4 gives 7
5 gives 10
6 gives 15

Drawing Destination Ticket Cards
A player can use his turn to draw more Destination Ticket cards. To do so, he draws 3 new cards from the top of the Destination Ticket Deck. He must
keep at least one of the cards, but may also keep two or all three if he chooses. If there are less than 3 Destination Tickets left in the deck, the player
only draws the cards that are available. Any returned cards are placed on the bottom of the Destination Ticket Deck.

Each Destination Ticket includes the name of two cities on the map and a Point Value. If a player successfully completes a series of routes that connect
the two cities, they will add the amount of points indicated on the Destination Ticket to their point totals at the end of the game. If they do not
successfully connect the two cities, they deduct the amount of points indicated.
Destination Tickets are kept secret from other players until the game's final scoring. A player may have any number of Destination Ticket cards during
the game.

Game End

When one player’s stock of colored plastic trains gets down to only 0,1 or 2 trains left at the end of his turn, each player, including that player, gets
one final turn. The game then ends and players calculate their final scores.

 

Calculating Scores

Players should have already accounted for the points earned as they completed different routes. To make sure no mistakes were made, you may
want to re-count the points for each player’s routes.

Players should then reveal all their Destination Tickets and add (or subtract) the value of their Destination Tickets still in hand, based on whether
they successfully (or not) connected those cities together.

The player who has the Longest Continuous Path of routes receives this special bonus card and adds 10 points to his score. When evaluating and comparing path lengths, only take into account continuous lines of plastic trains of the same color. A continuous path may include loops, and pass through the same city several times, but a given plastic train may never be used twice in the same continuous path. In the case of a tie for the longest path, all tied players score the 10 point bonus.

The player with the most points wins the game. If two or more players are tied for the most points, the player who has completed the most Destination
Tickets wins. In the unlikely event that they are still tied, the player with the Longest Continuous Path card wins.

CREDITS

 

Game design by Alan R. Moon
Illustrations by Julien Delval
Graphic Design by Cyrille Daujean
A special thanks from Alan and DoW to all
those who helped play test the game:
Phil Alberg, Buzz Aldrich, Dave & Jenn Bernazzani,
Pitt Crandlemire, Terry Egan, Brian Fealy, Dave Fontes,
Matt Horn, Craig Massey, Janet Moon,
Mark Noseworthy, Mike Schloth, Eric Schultz,
Scott Simon, Rob Simons, Adam Smiles, Tony Soltis,
Richard Spoonts, Brian Stormont, Rick Thornquist
Days of Wonder, the Days of Wonder logo, Ticket to Ride -
the boardgame and Ticket to Ride Europe are all trademarks or
registered trademarks of Days of Wonder, Inc. and copyrights ©
2004-2015 Days of Wonder, Inc. All Rights Reserved.