Ticket to Ride

Players and equipment

Two to five players, each for themselves. The box holds the map of North America, forty-five plastic train cars and a scoring marker in each of five colours, a hundred and ten train car cards – twelve in each of eight colours and fourteen locomotives, which stand in for any colour – thirty destination tickets, and the bonus card for the longest continuous route. This is a brief in our own words for a table that has played before; the rulebook in the box is the authority.

The deal

Everybody takes the forty-five trains of one colour and puts their marker on the start of the score track. Deal four train cards to each player, then turn five face up beside the deck as the market. Deal three tickets to each player: keep at least two, and put the rest face down under the ticket pile. A ticket names two cities and a number, which is what it earns you if you join them and what it costs you if you do not. Tickets stay secret until the end, and turns pass to the left.

Play

On your turn do exactly one of three things.

Draw train cards

A face-up locomotive counts as both draws; refill the market as you go, and if three locomotives ever show, sweep all five and deal a fresh market

Take two, from the market or blind from the deck

Claim a route

Grey routes take any one colour; locomotives stand in for anything

Play a set of matching cards equal to the route's length, place your trains, score it at once

Draw tickets

Whatever you keep, you are committed to

Take three, keep at least one

A face-up locomotive may only be taken as your whole draw: once you have taken any first card, your second may not be a face-up locomotive. A locomotive drawn blind from the deck counts as one card like any other.

A route is claimed by playing exactly as many cards as it has spaces, all of one colour, with locomotives filling any gaps. You may claim any open route on the map whether or not it touches your other trains, and you move your marker along the score track at once.

A double route between two cities takes one player per track, and with two or three players only one of the pair is in play. You may not claim both.

Scoring

Routes score the moment they are claimed. Tickets are settled at the end, and every ticket you kept counts one way or the other.

One car

1

Route length

Two cars

2

Route length

Three cars

4

Route length

Four cars

7

Route length

Five cars

10

Route length

Six cars

15

Route length

Completed ticket

Plus its value

The two cities joined by your own unbroken trains

Incomplete ticket

Minus its value

Not joined

Longest route

10

The longest unbroken path of your trains, shared if tied

A ticket is complete when a path of your own trains, of any shape, runs from one of its cities to the other; another player's trains never count. The longest continuous route is the longest single path along your trains, counted in cars, that never uses the same stretch twice; it may pass through a city more than once and need not serve any ticket. If two players tie for it, both take the ten.

There is no running score to enter here – the board's own track carries it, and the app records who won, or the podium.

A worked count

Alice ends the game with one train in hand. She kept three tickets: Los Angeles to Chicago, worth 16, Denver to El Paso, worth 4, and Seattle to Los Angeles, worth 9. Her trains run from Los Angeles through El Paso, Denver and Kansas City to Chicago, with a branch from Denver towards Seattle that never got there.

Two six-car routes

30

Fifteen each

One five-car route

10

Ten for a five

Three four-car routes

21

Seven each

Two three-car routes

8

Four each

Four two-car routes

8

Two each

One one-car route

1

One for a one

Los Angeles to Chicago

16

Joined, so the ticket pays

Denver to El Paso

4

Joined, so the ticket pays

Seattle to Los Angeles

−9

Not joined, so the ticket costs

Longest continuous route

10

Nobody matched her line

The route points come to 78, the only figure the track showed during the game. Two tickets add 20, the failed one takes 9 away, and the ten for the longest route goes on last: 78 plus 20, less 9, plus 10 is 99. Those routes used forty-four of her forty-five trains, which is what started the last round. A fourth ticket drawn late and left unfinished would have cost exactly its value: a ticket is a promise, not a hope.

Ending

When a player ends their turn with two or fewer trains left, everybody, that player included, takes one final turn. Then reveal tickets, settle them, award the longest route and count. Tap the winner; if your table plays for a podium, enter second and third too.

Which tickets to keep

Keep tickets that share a line. Two tickets along the same stretch of the map are one network to build and two payouts; two in opposite corners are two networks and probably one failure. Of the opening three, keep the long one and whichever of the others sits near its path. A long ticket is worth its risk early, when the whole map is open; a short one is worth keeping whenever it lies where you were going anyway.

Claim the contested routes first

Some stretches of the map are the only way from one region to the next, and more players want them than there are tracks. Find the single-track routes your plan cannot do without and claim those before you build anything comfortable: a long route in an empty corner will still be there in three turns, and the link everybody needs will not.

Two cards or the face-up locomotive

A face-up locomotive costs your whole turn for one card; drawing two gives you two. Take the locomotive when it finishes a set you can lay next turn, or when the colour you need has stopped appearing. Otherwise take two: the colour you need from the market when it shows, and the second from the deck rather than a card the next player wants. Long routes are worth far more per card than short ones, so laying a six-car route in one go is usually the best turn in the game.

Blocking

Claiming a route only to stop somebody else is worth it about once a game: it costs a turn and cards, and if the route is not on your line the points are all you get. Do it when the route is short, you have the cards spare, and you are fairly sure it is the last link in a rival's ticket – a player who has built steadily towards one city and stops two spaces short is telling you where they are going. Otherwise build your own line and let the others fight.

When to draw more tickets

Draw tickets only when your network is mostly down and new tickets are likely to fall across it, since one you keep and do not finish costs its full value. The middle of the game is the moment: your line is on the board, there are trains to spare, and a ticket between two cities you already join is free points. Never draw in the last few turns, when the odds of a ticket landing on your line are poor and the penalty is certain.

Ticket to Ride: Europe

The same game on a map of Europe with three additions. Tunnels are marked routes where, after you play your cards, you turn three from the deck and must pay one more card of the same colour for each that matches, or take your cards back and lose the turn. Ferries are grey routes marked with locomotives, and need that many locomotives among the cards you play. Each player has three stations: one placed in a city lets you use another player's route out of that city to complete a ticket, costing one, two and three cards of a colour for the first, second and third, and every station never used is worth four at the end. Each player starts with one long ticket and three ordinary ones, and an eight-car route scores 21.

USA 1910

The expansion for the original map replaces the small cards with full-sized ones and adds thirty-five new tickets, with three ways to play. The 1910 game uses the new tickets and the Globetrotter bonus, fifteen points for whoever completes the most tickets, in place of the longest-route card. The Mega Game uses every ticket in the box, deals five at the start of which you keep three, and awards both bonuses. Big Cities uses only tickets that touch the seven largest cities.

Two players

With two or three, only one track of each double route may be used, which makes the map tighter and the contested links matter more. Some tables playing two-handed open both tracks; the rule in the box is one.

First Journey

The version for younger children on a simplified map: twenty trains each, tickets with pictures of the cities, and the first to complete six tickets wins. Nothing is taken off for a ticket left unfinished.

The digital game

The official app plays by the same rules, deals and counts for you and settles the tickets at the end, against computer players or online opponents. The extra maps are bought inside it, and a game takes a fraction of the time one does on the table.

Can you take two locomotives from the face-up cards in one turn?

No. A face-up locomotive is your whole draw for the turn, and once you have taken any card your second pick may not be a face-up locomotive. A card drawn blind from the deck may turn out to be one; that you keep.

How many trains do you start with in Ticket to Ride?

Forty-five, in the base game and in Europe. The game ends when a player finishes a turn with two or fewer.

Can one player claim both tracks of a double route?

No. Each track goes to a different player, and in a game of two or three players only one of the two tracks is in play at all.

What happens if you do not complete a destination ticket?

Its value is taken off your score at the end, exactly as it would have been added had you joined the cities. Keep only what you mean to build.

Who gets the longest route bonus if two players tie?

Both of them, ten points each. The longest route is a single unbroken path of your trains counted in cars, which may pass through a city more than once but never uses the same stretch twice.

What happens when the train card deck runs out?

Shuffle the discards into a new deck and carry on. If both are empty, which almost never happens, players may only claim routes or draw tickets until somebody discards again.