Do you miss the time when you could travel to Europe freely? Now you may even experience travelling to Europe by playing Ticket to Ride Europe Board Game at home. This tabletop game is everything you will need to explore Europe in a fun way by reading the maps and moving between cities to cities with train, just like how you travel in real life! Read on to find out how you play this game.
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Category - Family
Difficulties - ★★☆☆☆
Players - 2-5 Players
Playing Time - 30-60 Minutes
Recommended Ages - 8+
Components
1 Board map of European train routes
Coloured Train Cars: 45 each in 5 different colours
15 Coloured Train Stations: 3 each matching the trains' colours
5 Scoring Markers
110 Train Car Cards
46 Destination Ticket Cards
1 European Express Bonus Card
1 Rules booklet
How to Win
A player who has earned the highest total number of points is the winner.
Setup
Spread out the board map in the centre of the table. Each player takes 45 coloured Train Cars, the matching coloured Train Stations and its Scoring Marker.
Place the Scoring Marker on zero (start) on the Scoring Track running along the map's border.
Shuffle all the Train Car cards; deal four to each player at the start.
The remaining Train Car cards will form a draw pile. Turn the top five cards face up from the deck. Make sure there are no more than three Locomotive cards or discard all these five cards then replace them with five new ones.
Place the European Express Bonus (the longest chain of train cars) card next to the board during the whole game.
Separate the 6 Long and 40 Regular Destination Tickets; Shuffle the Long Tickets and deal one to each player. Any remaining Long Tickets will not be used in the game.
Shuffle all the Regular Tickets and deal three to each player; place the remaining deck of cards facedown as a draw pile next to the board.
All players must decide which Destination Tickets they would love to keep for the entire game before taking their first turn. Each player must keep at least two Destination Tickets or more if they wish. Keep the tickets secret until the end of the game.
How to Play
Choose a starting player and proceed the game in a clockwise direction. On your turn, you must perform the only one of the following four actions:
Draw Train Car Cards - Draw two Train Car Cards from the face up and/or facedown draw pile; or just one if you select a face up Locomotive card.
Claim a Route - Play a set of Train Car cards from your hand that match the colour and quantity of the spaces that you would like to claim the route for. Move the Scoring Marker up for a specific number of points (indicated on the Route Scoring Table) that you earned for this action.
Draw Destination Tickets - Draw three new Destination Tickets from the draw pile. Keep at least one of them.
Build a Train Station - Play a specific number of Train Car card (one of any coloured card for building the first Train Station, a set of two for the second one, and a set of three for the third one) in order to build a Train Station in any city that does not yet have one.
End of Round
The only way you can score points during the game is to Claim a Route between two connecting cities on the Board map. Remember to move the Scoring Marker each time you score points.
End of Game
The game ends when any player who has two or less Train Cars left in their hand. Each player will then proceed one more round before the End Game Scoring begins.
Points will be added/deducted if you fulfil any of the following condition:
A player who has owned the longest continuous path of routes wins the European Express Bonus card which is worth 10 points;
Each Train Stations has not been built is worth 4 points;
Adding the points of any completed Destination Tickets indicated at the top left corner of the card.
Deducting points for each Destination Ticket that has not yet been completed by the end of the game.
Review
Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride Europe Board Game is the perfect gateway game that gets everybody falling in love with the tabletop gaming world. Any newbie who first plays this game can pick it up very easily. The game is well-developed with a great balance of strategy and luck. The theme of the game is adorable. We absolutely love this game.