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I'm fairly confident in claiming it as my own favorite at this point, too. For starters, I love maps. I have loved them from about age 6 onward. So, any game involving maps - and I prefer real world maps to invented world maps - is already winning with me. For this reason, I love Pandemic, too. I also prefer a game in which no players are eliminated - everyone's in it until the end. Pandemic's great that way also. Where Ticket to Ride has Pandemic beaten is that with the former, I feel satisfied whether I win or lose. I get to build trains and building trains is fun. I am a little disappointed if I can't finish all of my routes but I can live with it. I can certainly live with losing. Pandemic, on the other hand, is a lot more stressful. It's a cooperative game and if we lose, the urge to play again right away is powerful. Mind you, it's still loads of fun but for a relaxing afternoon, I'll take Ticket to Ride every time.
While the original game is based on a USA map, the franchise has published several variants and expansions using others. This weekend, we tackled Africa. One of the main challenges in approaching a new map is, of course, the less familiar place names. Ticket to Ride also favors the names in the local language rather than the English ones as they should. However, it does make the names more difficult to remember, let alone pronounce. Most of the longer and higher-scoring African routes run North-South, as is also true with the India map. However in Africa, most of the action seems to play out along the coastlines whereas with India, it runs down the middle of the country.
With each new map, Ticket to Ride also adds a wrinkle. The Heart of Africa includes terrain cards which offer a bonus for building a route through Desert/Savannah, Jungle/Forest or Mountains/Cliffs. It's an interesting variant as it brings more importance to the colors of the train car cards. One also has to consider whether or not it's worth using a turn to get more terrain cards rather than simply playing a route. I'm not sure the change actually makes the game better but it is interesting for variety.
Overall, I would say the USA and Europe maps make for the best game play but I do enjoy exploring the others. We'll certainly play The Heart of Africa again.
While the original game is based on a USA map, the franchise has published several variants and expansions using others. This weekend, we tackled Africa. One of the main challenges in approaching a new map is, of course, the less familiar place names. Ticket to Ride also favors the names in the local language rather than the English ones as they should. However, it does make the names more difficult to remember, let alone pronounce. Most of the longer and higher-scoring African routes run North-South, as is also true with the India map. However in Africa, most of the action seems to play out along the coastlines whereas with India, it runs down the middle of the country.
With each new map, Ticket to Ride also adds a wrinkle. The Heart of Africa includes terrain cards which offer a bonus for building a route through Desert/Savannah, Jungle/Forest or Mountains/Cliffs. It's an interesting variant as it brings more importance to the colors of the train car cards. One also has to consider whether or not it's worth using a turn to get more terrain cards rather than simply playing a route. I'm not sure the change actually makes the game better but it is interesting for variety.
Overall, I would say the USA and Europe maps make for the best game play but I do enjoy exploring the others. We'll certainly play The Heart of Africa again.
As I think you know, my daughter gave me a version of this game for Christmas. It was fun to build railroads and steam ship lines to connect across the US and Canada. The African edition sounds interesting, too. There are some interesting rivers and challenges there, also (but I suppose if they wanted to be correct, they should have Chinese railroads and ports, as they are who seem to be most interested in building in Africa these days). Enjoy
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I haven't tried Rails and Sails yet - sort of working my way up to it. Sounds like fun.
DeleteI always forget how much fun board games can be. I think my brother would like Ticket to Ride.
ReplyDeleteBoard games are a lot more fun than they used to be, too - and I loved them before! There's a lot more variety, too.
DeleteI love board and some card games. I played them when the kids were at home. Puzzles also.
ReplyDeleteAdore maps. Kids today don't know the joy of unfolding one and looking at roads, mountains, streams just. Sometimes being a Luddite is fun !
parsnip
We have several maps posted around our home and I always keep them in my classroom, too, even though I'm not a social studies teacher.
DeleteI'm unaware of new games now that I don't have kids at home to play them with me. I still love Scrabble but the only person who would play with me lives far away now.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Scrabble's wonderful. I highly recommend Word Freak, a fantastic book about the game by Stefan Fatsis.
DeleteFor starters, I love maps.
ReplyDeleteMe too! I once owned an atlas printed back in the early 1930's. Looking at those maps was like viewing an alien world. And one time while my wife and I were browsing an antique in North Carolina, I saw a map printed right after the start of the Civil War.
Not a fan of anything to do with the CSA, but to see the country split into two sections was weird. I wanted to buy the map, but at a cost of over two-hundred dollars it was a no-go.
My parents have some old maps of southeast Asia hanging in their entryway - just beautiful
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