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There seems nothing unethical about such a move - opposite to your example of pretending to want to trade (which in my book is clearly unethical because it involves active lying), this move is just one of two main winning strategies: Get more points for yourself Limit points of the opponents There is no lying or obfuscation - you are making it harder to ...

The owner of the longest continuous number of train cars is the winner. (It works just like longest road in Settlers of Catan) Here is an image provided my Matthew Frederick from his original edition of the game. He also notes that the online versions provided by Days of Wonder work this way.

No, you are limited to the 45 trains you started with. From the rules, under Claiming a Route (emphasis mine): 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 trains on each space of this route If you do not have the trains available to place ...

Well, it depends on how much longer you want to keep playing board games with your wife! :-) Every gaming group tolerates a different level of "screwosity" - people making blocking moves such as yours only to derail an opponent. My group loves it. It sounds like your wife doesn't. It's not specific to Ticket to Ride. If your wife wants to play where you ...

It will speed up with a few additional plays. Honestly, I suggest starting with people getting more experience before modifying the game. You asked about how your ideas will effect gameplay, so I'll tackle that, having been involved in balancing a lot of games. The game was playtested hundreds of times to reach the balance it's at now, so some things to ...

I have won games with a bad initial draw by simply forgoing tickets. This really works best when you have two tickets that are only worth 4 - 5 points. Keep the lowest value tickets, return the highest. Ignore the tickets completely Immediately aim for as many five and six train routes as possible. If you can hit the stretch of three six train routes ...

You may keep 1, 2, or all 3 destination tickets. You must make your decision before the beginning of the next players turn (not before your next turn as you stated). The only two ways you may discard destination tickets are during your beginning of game ticket selection (you must keep at least two) and when using the Draw 3 Tickets as your action for the ...

In my opinion, there shouldn't "always be a potential path towards victory". I've never found it a big problem to get my routes finished - though obstacles and impediments are often flung in my way! There are a few things you should be doing to ensure that you always have the best chance of success, though: (1) Obviously, don't overcommit. Know how far ...

The only time a situation like this can become unethical is in a multiplayer game. As long as every player makes moves with a goal to win it is perfectly fair. On the other hand, if a player desires that they are going to carry out some personal vendetta this game, and instead of working to win just tries to block one other player, letting a third party ...

Yes. The section about scoring says: 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. So the only thing that matters is whether those cities are connected to each other. It's very possible ...

Yes, obtaining longest continuous path of routes certainly does highly correlate with winning. It's pretty simple to see why: Multiple routes that "cooperate" by overlapping are obviously more efficient than short routes in different parts of the board that have nothing to do with each other. Longer routes are vastly more cost-effective than short routes. ...

Finish your routes, prevent others from completing theirs Ticket to Ride doesn't strike me as a strategy-heavy game. It's all about making good tactical decisions - completing your tickets in light of random card draws and other players' actions. Remember that unfinished tickets count for negative points at the end of the game. My basic gameplay goes ...

I don't actually see any ambiguity here. You've quoted the rule saying a Station allows you to use someone else's route. I don't see how that could imply that a Station can complete a route that hasn't yet been filled in by anyone. The reason you are allowed to place Stations on any city, including currently unlinked cities, is to allow you to place a ...

By your mention of "build long trains" I take it you're talking about the USA edition. (The Nordic Countries edition, for example, doesn't have a longest route bonus, but a "most routes" bonus instead.) Ticket to Ride USA is a pretty simple game, but there is still a reasonable depth of strategy. One of my favourite tactics is: end the game early. Keep a ...

The cards you discard/return must be from the three you drew this turn. Here's how the rules phrase it: 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. It's not so much that you "discard" ...

No, These rules do not stack. You can only in 3 cards to fill the designated locomotive spots. You can use locomotives to fill in the colored spots. You cannot use the first to get a locomotive and then trade that in for the colored card. This question was asked of designer Alan Moon, on BGG and his response was as I have given here.

The card distribution for train cars is in the rulebook, it is 8 colors 12 of each, and 14 locomotive wilds. There are 30 destination tickets, they can be read here in high resolution with a BGG account. They are listed here Denver to El Paso (4) Kansas City to Houston (5) New York to Atlanta (6) Chicago to New Orleans (7), Calgary to Salt Lake City (7) ...

The original and Europe versions differ HUGELY, it's not just a different board. The US version is the simplest formulation of the game. It accommodates up to 5 players, I believe, and it'd be a great one to play with non-boardgame-obsessed family members, including the old and the young. It's still got a great deal of strategy and depth to it once you ...

The general rule is that if a card is drawn without looking at it, then it doesn't matter whether it's a locomotive or not - you get to keep it regardless. So the answer to both your scenarios is "yes". In fact, if you're really lucky, it's possible to draw two locomotives from the stack. When you are considering picking up a visible locomotive (i.e. one ...

It varies by which Ticket To Ride game you're playing. In USA, Europe, and Asia, you may do any of the following on your turn: Draw a face-up locomotive draw two face-up non-locomotive card draw two cards off the deck draw one face-up non-locomotive and one card off the deck, in either order. In Switzerland and Nordic Countries: draw two face-up ...

If none of the drawn cards match the colour of the cards you chose to play, then you are in luck - the tunnel does not cost any additional cards. To put it another way, the tunnel costs 0 additional cards. This case isn't explicitly discussed in the rules, but I think it's quite clear. When attempting to claim a Tunnel route, a player first lays down ...

Was it a misprint? It appears that the minimum number of trains required to complete a destination ticket was only the starting point for assigning each ticket a point value. The claim is made (in this post by Days of Wonder Forums user "Caboose") that Alan Moon (the game's designer) said the ticket values were not supposed to be the shortest route ...

In that situation, I would recommend getting rid of one of the three, and then drawing additional tickets immediately. These additional tickets will either give you your corresponding transcontinental route to put you in the situation you like, or give you a bunch more short routes, some of which likely correspond with the ones you already have. If none of ...

The obvious approach is to simply reduce the number of carriages each player has available, by enough to allow another player to join in. Normally each player has 45 carriages. In the 5 player game that makes 225 carriages available to place on the board. Divide by 6 instead, and you get 37 carriages per person. So your only issue then is where to get your ...

Play more games You said yourself that you've only played once. It'll go faster once you get a few games under your belt and everyone gets over the initial analysis paralysis. I'm hesitant to recommend any of those proposed changes. I've played maybe a half dozen games and my gut feeling is your suggested house rules would all have a negative impact in ...

Ticket to Ride Asia has a double-sided board, one side for up to 5 players playing individually, and the other side for 6 players in 3 pairs. It's very well written and playing in pairs doesn't just mean a straightforward teaming up as you only share half your information with your partner. Complicated on first play... but all the best games are!

As for a strategy to overcome this, it seems like that you're using only one strategy which is based on completing a long route, with overlapping tickets, as the main method to gain points. Something you may be missing is that if your tickets are only short routes, you can finish them easily and them spend the rest of the time doing two things: Claiming ...

You guys did a good job of pretty much everything, so I'll just add this: Don't be afraid to draw destination cards early in the game. I almost always draw destinations in my first few turns. If you draw early you can plan routes that will let you easily access anywhere you need to get. Usually there's some redundant track between one of the new ...

Sault Ste. Marie to Nashville is right. You can get there in 8. Sault Ste. Marie - Oklahoma City 9 points is probably an error. The value for this ticket is 8 in the 1910 expansion. I'd say stick with the shortest distance when setting the value for your own tickets.

You know, it never occurred to me to ask whether playing a completely legitimate move in a competitive game is "ethical". The designers already figured that out when they made the rules. Now, if you are making up your own house rules that say you can make binding contracts with players, like "if you give me the Edinburgh route, I'll let you build to ...