Ticket to Ride

Overview

Players collect coloured train cards and spend them to claim railway routes across a map, trying to connect the cities named on their secret destination tickets.

Two to five players. Designed by Alan R. Moon, published by Days of Wonder.

This entry is checked against Days of Wonder's rules for the original North America map (2015 reprint, ©2004–2015). The other maps have their own rulebooks and change some of these rules.

1. Setup

Each player takes 45 plastic trains and a matching scoring marker.

Deal four train cards to each player. Place five more face up beside the deck.

Deal three destination tickets to each player. You must keep at least two, and may keep all three. Returned tickets go to the bottom of the deck. Keep your tickets secret until the end.

The deck has 110 train cards: 12 of each of eight colours, plus 14 locomotives. There are 30 destination tickets.

The rules say "the player who is the most experienced traveler goes first", then play goes clockwise.

2. A turn

On your turn you do exactly one of three things.

Draw train cards

Take two cards, from the face-up row or blind from the deck, in any combination. Replace each face-up card immediately.

Locomotives are wild. Taking a face-up locomotive uses your entire turn; you draw only that one card. Drawing one blind from the deck counts as a single card, and you still draw a second.

You can't take a face-up locomotive as your second card. If you take a normal face-up card and its replacement turns out to be a locomotive, you can't take it:

If, after having drawn one card the replacement card is a Locomotive, the player cannot take it.

No hand limit. Hold as many cards as you like. When the deck runs out, shuffle the discards into a new deck. If there are no cards left anywhere because players are holding them, you can't choose to draw train cards; claim a route or draw tickets instead.

If three locomotives are ever face up at once, discard all five and deal a new row.

Claim a route

Spend a set of cards matching a route's colour and length, then place a train on each space. Grey routes take a set of any one colour. Locomotives can be added to any set.

You may claim any open route; it doesn't have to connect to your other routes. One route per turn, never more.

Double routes between two cities may not both be claimed by the same player. In two- and three-player games, only one of each pair may be used at all.

Draw destination tickets

Take three from the deck and keep at least one; you may keep all three. Unkept tickets go to the bottom. If fewer than three are left, draw what there is. There's no limit on how many tickets you hold.

3. Scoring routes

Route length	Points
1	1
2	2
3	4
4	7
5	10
6	15

Score these immediately as you claim. Note how steeply it curves — a six-train route scores 15, while six separate one-train routes score 6.

4. Ending the game

When a player finishes a turn with two or fewer trains remaining, every player — including them — takes one final turn. Then the game ends.

5. Final scoring

• Add the value of every destination ticket you completed.
• Subtract the value of every ticket you did not.
• Add 10 for the longest continuous path of routes. On a tie, every tied player gets the full 10.

A destination ticket is complete if an unbroken chain of your own routes connects the two cities. The path may be any length and may pass through any number of other cities.

Highest score wins. Ties break in favour of more completed tickets; still tied, the longest path wins.

6. Strategy

Long routes are efficient but conspicuous. They score far better per train and there is only one of each.

Tickets are the real scoring. A failed ticket is a double swing — you lose its value instead of gaining it.

Blocking is legitimate and often decisive in two-player games, where double routes are restricted to one each.

Trading

The rules have no trading. They never mention it; there is simply no way to get a card except from the deck or the face-up row, and no way to give one up except by spending it on a route. Swapping cards or tickets between players is a house rule.

Commonly argued

• Taking a face-up locomotive ends your turn. Drawing one from the deck does not.
• You can't take a face-up locomotive as your second card, even if it has just been turned up.
• A tie for longest path gives every tied player the full 10.
• Routes don't have to connect to your earlier routes.
• Grey routes need all cards the same colour, not a mixture.
• Everyone gets one final turn, including the player who triggered the end.
• Uncompleted tickets are subtracted, not merely unscored.
• The longest path is continuous, and may reuse cities but not routes.