Ticket to Ride: Märklin Edition
Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition is the third installment in Days of Wonder's best-selling boardgame series that has won over 15 international game awards, including the prestigious Spiel des Jahres.
The boardmap for the Märklin Edition is based on a map of Germany and introduces Passengers and Merchandise to the Ticket to Ride gameplay.
Passengers are used to pick up merchandise worth different numbers of points along the routes that they claim. Varying stacks of merchandise tokens with different point values are placed next to the different cities on the map. Players can place one of their 3 Passenger tokens on any city along a route that they claim. On his game turn, the player can choose to then move one of his passengers from the city it currently occupies along any or all of his continuous routes, picking up Merchandise Tokens from each city he moves through. Of course he'll always take the highest remaining tokens. The point total of the tokens is then added to his score.
Other game play changes are the vertical orientation of the German map, and instead of a bonus for longest route, the 10 point bonus card goes to the player who completes the most Destination Tickets.
User Reviews (3)
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The passenger element added to this game adds a great deal of strategic depth to this game. It plays just like the base game with the following exceptions:
– You have 3 passengers which you can place on the board at either end of any newly claimed route.
– There are two types of additional cards in the game, passenger cards and 4+ Locomotives. Passenger cards help you move your passengers when you chose that action. 4+ Locomotives are just like normal locomotives except you can only use them in routes of length 4 or longer, and they don’t take up your whole turn when taking them from the face-up cards.
-In addition to the normal 3 actions you can choose from on your turn (take train cards, claim a route, draw new tickets), there is the move passenger action. Taking this action allows you to move one of your passengers along your routes, picking up “merchandise tokens” from each city along the way. Your passenger may only move along routes belonging to you, except each passenger card you have allows you to move across one opponent’s route. Most cities have only 1 token, worth 2 points, but others have stacks of 3 worth 4/3/2 or 3/2/1. (You take the highest token available when your passenger passes through. Berlin has four tokens worth 7/6/5/4. Once used the passengers are removed from the game.
The passenger addition adds a good deal of strategic depth. Figuring out when to best use your passengers to gain the most points adds a unique challenge to this game. Obviously connecting to Berlin is very competitive, but like in all TTR games, getting routes that go well together is very important as well.
The components of this game are the same as all TTR games. The cards are absolutely beautiful, however. Each card is unique, depicting a different Marklin model train car of the appropriate color.
My only real issue with this game is that with the addition of the passenger cards, you can get into a situation where the card display has to normal locomotives, two passenger cards, and one other card. Since the display only refreshes when there are 3 locomotives or 3 passenger cards, this situation can really slow the game down if nobody wants the single face-up colored card available.
Despite this one minor drawback I really enjoy this game. If you’re a fan of TTR it’s definitely one of the better games in the series.
Ticket to ride is a nice, light, easy to learn game which has a fair amount of replay value. I find the ticket to ride games are easy to learn and teach, but add a lot of depth for players that are used to games like Monopoly.
For those that do not know the game is fairly simple. Each player selects a certain number of “destination cards” which they try to complete for points. Each turn the player either draws cards, builds a track between two cities, or draws more destinations.
The game comes with a huge stack of colored rail cards which are used to build tracks between two cities. To complete a track the player must have enough cards of a single color that match that track or wild cards that make up the difference. If you wanted to build a track which was 4 orange long you would need 4 orange or 3 orange and one wild card as an example. The value of the tracks you complete vary depending on the length with longer tracks being worth more. The increasing value is somewhat exponential so saving for longer tracks can be worth it. In some maps a few longer tracks are often raced to be finished as building them is worth many points even if it does not help with your destinations.
Destinations have a great effect on the game as the players all race to complete them and often block each other off which prevents players from completing their line or forcing them to use more cards and turns to go a roundabout way. the destinations are worth anywhere from small amounts up to huge amounts depending on the map you play. the danger is that if you fail to finish a destination you lose the points so taking more , especially later in the game means you could be stuck with commitments you don’t have time to finish.
This addition adds a nice twist by adding the passenger which mixes up the strategy from previous editions while leaving the core game intact. The Map of Germany is interesting with the two sides of the map, divided by short and long tracks, which can add a variety of paths people can use to victory. In my various plays I did find that the left hand side of the map, made up of shorter tracks often had much more competition for tracks than the longer tracks on the Berlin side. I can not honestly say if this is due to player selection or the design of the destination cards.
I find that Ticket to ride Europe or America to be easier to introduce to newer players but this is a solid experience. All in all I find this a great game and worthy to have in your collection. For more experienced gamer’s, or those who like to have more meat on their bones, than this may not be for you.
This game, while not an expansion for ticket, is likely not the first ticket you’ve played. Because of that, I’ll move straight to the new features. Passengers!
You have 3 (I believe) passengers at the start of the game. You play them on a city you connect to using your turn, then on a future turn, send them for a ride. Each city has a number of numbered tokens under it. When you send your passenger for a ride, you pick up the top token as you go through a city. You can only send your passenger to cities that you have trains connecting, or, with the new passenger card, you can use one opponents route for each card you have. The tokens you pick up are added to your score.
Overall, this is a fun new version giving the game an interesting new mechanic.