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I play Ticket To Ride with my gf and friends and we love it! So much so that we always reach the end thinking, 'this went too quickly!'. We've toyed with playing two maps simultaneously, has anyone else tried this? If so, what was the experience like? Is this a viable way to get a longer version of Ticket to Ride? Would we need to modify other things to make it work? Is there a better way to achieve this?

I'm expecting that playing two at once can be even more infuriating and head-hurting than just one! Trying to complete different tickets on different maps, trying to keep up with what I need on this map while you're doing something on the other one! I have the Europe and Asia versions.

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    I've voted to close, since there doesn't seem to be anything to this question other than "What do you think of this variant?" and I'm not sure that there's any other question that can come from it.
    – ConMan
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 23:49
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    I see no reason to close this question. Per house-rules - "Discussion about ways to vary a boardgame are definitely on topic here." and "As with most other subjects, you will get the best answers if you make the question specific. For house rules, this typically means giving a specific goal that you would want to achieve with a house rules."
    – Pat Ludwig ♦
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 17:37
  • And there's no specific goal. "What's playing with two boards like?" isn't an objective of any kind. This question is subjective at its core. @ConMan is right here.
    – generalcrispy
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 17:45
  • @generalcrispy I think it's fairly clear that the OP wants a longer game. I edited to make it a little more explicit, but honestly, it's even in the title.
    – Cascabel
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 20:49
  • I can't see that this would work in a satisfactory manner. You're only extending the game by playing what would effectively be two separate games. The only ways I can see to extend the game are to add extra requirements to lay track. e.g. require a loco on top of existing requirements (so for 2 green you would require 2 green + loco), or to treat all track as tunnels (ugh!).
    – Phil Sumner
    Commented Oct 2, 2014 at 13:52

2 Answers 2

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Firstly, to extend the game you will need to add twice the train pieces as well as 2 boards. Maybe you should double the tickets too. This soon degrades into playing two different games at the same time, where you choose which one to play each round.

The second problem is all the advantage is on the side of playing on only one board. This is because adding more trains to a single board makes it easy to get more tickets on that board, while trains on both boards leads to spreading yourself thin. My solution to this is to modify (or replace) the longest railroad card to include a benefit for using both boards. (eg. longest railroad on board A * longest railroad on board B)

I think this variant is not a good idea, but you can try it and see what its like. Seems to me an interesting experiment at least.

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  • If you want to get creative, you could also add a third set of cards with some additional variations. I was thinking a simple one would be to use letters, perhaps from cards or tiles from Scrabble-based games, to offer comparable bonus points for building into all the towns starting with some of the common letters on both boards. More complexities could be quickly thought up, but making a game your own with some peculiar unique rules is fun and challenging.
    – JeopardyTempest
    Commented Feb 10, 2017 at 7:07
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We just tried a variant of this last night, having six players and wanting to use two boards (Europe & North America). This seemed to work, but probably needs some tweaking:

TEAM RULES - 3 teams of 2. Each team gets two bags of one colour of train. - Each player gets a turn. Arrange the players so that team-members are separated. - 2 short* Europe tickets for each player, 2 short NA tickets for each player - 1 long** Europe ticket for each team, 1 long NA ticket for each team - Teammates can discuss strategy, but must do so openly, giving the other teams a chance to block them. No whispering or notes or codes! Don't share personal tickets, only team tickets. - All points are for a team, not an individual. * Short is under 17 points ** Is over 17 points

BOARD RULES - Start play in the 'old world' board, but have the 'new world' set up. - Each team must complete their 'long' contract in EU to start building in NA. So achieving your long ticket 'unlocks' the new board. - You can still build on either board. The NA deck now comes in to play, only for those teams who have unlocked NA. - Once you have achieved 100 points on the EU board, switch your point-maker over to the NA board to continue counting.

CARD RULES - You can on only draw from the NA deck once you have unlocked NA - You can draw face-up from only one of the two decks (EU and NA) - You can draw face-down from one or both. So you could draw one face-down EU ticket and one face-down NA ticket. - You can spend either cards in either continent

This was a lot of fun and there was a lot of anticipation for the new board, and a reward for those who got there early. We will probably try adjusting the tickets.

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    While I like the idea of "unlocking" the second board, it seems that tying this to completing your long ticket is way risky. For Europe, at least, it's really not too hard to block a player from completing a long ticket once you have an idea which one they're going for (and since there's only six, experienced players should be able to figure it out pretty quickly)
    – goldPseudo
    Commented Dec 25, 2016 at 21:47
  • @goldPseudo well, Europe has stations, and since nothing in text mentiones changes about them, I suspect they are used as per usual rules. That way you always can complete your main ticket.
    – Deo
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 8:55
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    This is an interesting idea. However, it can use some streamlining and tweaking. First of all - I would throw away team aspect, since it's irrelevant. Second, why do you separate NA and Europe train cards, those two decks are supposed to be the same, aren't they? Third: I would propose a variant, that you can't build on either board, once you switch to second board, you're locked to it. This would create an interesting decision point: do I switch to NA and rush to finish my tickets there, or do I build up in Europe and farm some more points?
    – Deo
    Commented Dec 26, 2016 at 9:01

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