Ticket to Ride - for desktop gamers

As I promised, I will continue to tell you about the interesting nastolki implemented under iOS. And today I have decided to introduce you to one of my favorite games - Ticket to Ride (aka "Ticket to Ride"). This game was invented by Alan Moon and left as many as 10 years ago, in 2004. Immediately she received many honors and awards such as "Best Board Game 2004" according to the Origins Award and «Spiel des Jahres 2004 ", a French award« As d'Or 2005 »,« Diana Jones award 2005 ", the second place in the category" Family Games "according to Schweizer Spielepreis 2004. Ticket to Ride: Europe, one of the varieties of the game, has received the 2005 Award «International Gamers Awards», and in 2007 - "The Best family game" and "Game of the Year" according to the site boardgamer.ru.

As is the case with CarcassonneI played in a table, as in the electronic version of Ticket to Ride. And I can assure you that the game for iOS realized just great, starting with the graphics and convenient location of objects, and the last music.

The game we need to build a railway linking the city and score the most points. There are several variants of Ticket to Ride, and almost every one of them has its own peculiarities. You can see the US map, Europe, Asia and Switzerland alone. As for the desktop version, the company Days of Wonder released and Africa map, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and India.

First, the rules may seem to you a little bit confusing, but after the first party everything will fall into place. The game is designed for 2-5 players, each of which runs at a time. You will have the opportunity to play with your computer online, as well as with several players on one or multiple devices.

In my opinion, to play on the same device is not very convenient, so how long it takes to transfer iPad hands. The advantage of online games is the ability to run multiple games simultaneously.

Consider the playing field. In the lower right corner is your icon, and the remaining number of cabins, there will display points earned by you. Icons other players are on the field.

Each player is dealt cards: 4 trailer and 3 jobs. They are located at the bottom left of your icons. These cards do not see the other players, because for them, it must remain a mystery.

Then, each player chooses which cards leave his job, the minimum number - two, but if you wish, you can pick up and three cards. Each completed task can bring a different number of points, important here is the path length and complexity of construction. The card may cost 5 or as many as 20 points, you only need to decide which path to choose.

You can click on each job card, so that the blue color of the city that you want to connect. If it does not suit you - one more click, the city will fade, and this card is selected. When you decide, press the button «Done» and start the game.

You selected the city will be illuminated in green, you only need to think about the route, which will connect them. You can go through a short or longer, depending on the kind of goal pursuing. Sometimes your plans may interfere with another player and mess up the set route. In this case you will have to change and go to the bypass.

Next to your icon, as I have already mentioned, shows the number of your cars. 45 - this is the maximum amount that you can put on the field. When one of the players is less than three cars, you warned about this, and you make your last move. After that, the game ends and scoring begins. Ibid at the bottom left of the icon shows your 4 cards wagons that were given to you from the beginning. The number on the card indicates how many cars of that color is in your hands.

On the playing field you can see different colored lines that connect the city - these are the segments of the path, which you will need to build. Each segment may consist of carriages 1-8. Here is a simple example of how to route segments must be built. If you need to build a black segment consisting of 3 cars, you have to collect the 3 cards black cars. If the construction you do not have enough black card, then you can take the locomotive. This card acts as a wild card and can substitute any of the car color.

For each turn, you need to perform one of three actions:

• take wagons cards
• put the cards on cars playing field
• take a job cards

On the right you can see the open carriages 5 cards and a stack underneath. There are two options: either you take already disclosed cards or rely on luck and get them out of a pile of unopened. During the course you can take only 2 cards of wagons, or one locomotive. If you take a card from the stack of unopened, you can get as many as two locomotives.

If you already have on their hands the right amount of cars cards, you can put them on the field. If a segment of the path is indicated in gray, you can put on it all the cars of the same color. For example, if the gray segment consists of 2 cars, you can put on it 2 black, 2 green and 2 red cards. If a segment of the path - yellow, then it is possible to put only yellow cars. The two cities are connected by one or two parallel segments. And it is not clear which player will have time to take this single segment, because it is not clear which route to choose your opponent.

Finally, you can choose several tasks cards. In the beginning, you have already taken these cards if you suddenly that was not enough, during the game you can to gather more and more... and then build routes connecting the city. A stack of tasks is over the open wagon cards. At this time, you can keep the only one card if you do not fit the other. But if you decide to take an additional job to reverse its decision, you will not be able and will have to leave in their hands at least one card.

Making certain moves, you try to score the most points. They can be obtained in three ways:

• put the cards on cars playing field
• perform job cards
• to build the longest path

For each segment of road built, you get points:

• segment of the car 1 - 1 point
• segment of the car 2 - 2 points
• segment of the car 3 - 4 points
• segment of the carriage 4 - 7 Points
• segment of the carriage 5 - 10 points
• segment of the 6 car - 15 points

When you perform a task, you get the number of points indicated on the card. If you do not perform, they are deducted from the amount you typed. And there's another bonus: the card "longest road", for it you get 10 points.

Over time, you will have its own strategy, and you'll feel how best to proceed in a given situation. Furthermore, to understand the features of other cards (Europe and Switzerland) will be very simple. I'll tell you only that the European maps are also present tunnels and road segments in the construction of which you will definitely need a locomotive. I can assure you that starting to play Ticket to Ride, you can not put it down for a few hours. Personally, I spent a lot of time in this business. Additional maps on the iPad are:

• Europe - 169 rubles
• Switzerland - 129 rubles
• Asia -129 rubles
• Expansion cards for US - 33 rubles

Price is not small, and the sell-off in this game appear very rarely. You may be enough and a map of the USA, but I tried all possible options. Believe me, this game is worth the money!