Ticket to Ride (TTR) Series featuring TTR: Germany
Ticket to Ride is a board game series featuring different continents, countries, and cities including Europe, France, and New York. There are somewhere around 30 different options for you to pick from. They’re all similar in design and purpose. Throughout the game, you compete against your opponents to build the most efficient and strategic routes between towns and cities. Your main goal is to complete your ticket destination cards without being blocked by your opponents.
Each edition is easy to learn and once you’ve played one version of TTR, the others are simple to pick up with only slight changes and adjustments. The rulebooks are short and straightforward with clearly explained and illustrated rules. Depending on the number of players, it can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to play. The game ends when one of the players has two or less trains left to place on the board.
The Ticket to Ride series is great for families. The low level of complexity and simple strategy is similar in each edition. With most versions, three or four players usually make the game better and increase the level of competition as the board gets more and more crowded. There are plenty of TTR options to consider and depending on your gaming situation, I recommend different versions. For two players, I usually go with Nordic Countries because the game board has fewer tracks and routes to select while still posing a challenge with ferries and tunnels. If you typically have three or four players, I think Germany and Europe are the best options because of the game board designs and the great additions… Germany with meeples and Europe with ferries, train stations and tunnels.
If you are interested in geography and you want to add lighter, family games to your collection, the TTR series is a great investment!
Title: Ticket to Ride: Germany
Designer: Alan R. Moon
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Type: Family
Players: 2 – 5 players
Recommended Age: 8+
Time to Play: 30 – 60 minutes
BGG Ranking: 7.6
My Ranking: 8/10
Game Level: Beginner
Ticket to Ride: Germany is a standalone game in the TTR series. As you place your trains, you also get to collect passenger meeples. While the main goal is to complete the routes on your ticket destination cards, you also want to collect meeples of different colors and complete the most tickets to get the globetrotter card.
The set-up of the game does take a bit longer because of the meeples but they add variety and provide a new way to win. Meeples make the shorter routes more viable and valuable as you try to collect multiple meeple colors and complete the most tickets without being cut off by your opponents.
As a collector and meeple lover, I wish more TTRs included meeples because they add something to the game that others are missing – that feeling of collecting and growing your resources without having to turn them in later to place trains. If you’re new to TTR or if the original version is getting boring, I recommend purchasing Germany because it incorporates one unique piece to the gameplay and stands out from the others with this addition.
Caroline’s Library 