Learn how to play Ticket to Ride for rulebook haters
Condensed How to Play Ticket to Ride rules for those who hate trawling through the rulebook.
The Ticket to Ride game overview page introduces you to the game through a summary of the gameplay and videos shared by other gamer.
What is the objective of Ticket to Ride?
Ticket to Ride is a 2-5 player cross country train adventure game that is set in the USA. Players compete to score the highest points by: connecting key destination cities, claim and control railway routes between cities and completing the longest rail routes.
How do you set up Ticket to Ride?
Each player takes their trains and scoring track by
- taking a set of 45 coloured trains
- placing their scoring marker on 1 on the scoring track
Distribute Train Cards:
- Shuffle train cards and hand out 4 per player
- Place remaining deck next to the board and turn top 5 cards face-up
Distribute Destination ticket cards
- Shuffle cards and deal 3 cards to each player
- Players decide which to keep 2 or all 3 cards
- Returned cards placed under the deck and placed next to the board
- Destination Tickets kept secret until the end of the game
Train Car Cards
Colours of train car cards match the route colours (There are 8 different colours)
Train Car Cards are used to claim a route of a particular colour.
Locomotive car cards are MULTI-COLOURED and are wild cards that can be used to represent any colour.
Step by Step Guide on How to Play Ticket to Ride
- Oldest player starts first. Play proceeds clockwise around the table.
- Each player takes one turn at a time until the game ends.
- On each player’s turn, they choose one of the following actions: Draw Train Cards, Claim a route or Draw Destination Ticket Cards.
Turn Action: Draw Train Cards
Draw 2 train car cards.
- Option 1: Draw blindly from the deck.
- If a LOCOMOTIVE card is drawn, you may still draw a second card.
- Option 2: Take any one face-up card.
- Replace taken face-up card immediately from the deck.
- If you draw a LOCOMOTIVE card from face-up cards, you draw 1 card instead of 2.
- If replacement face-up card is a LOCOMOTIVE card, you cannot take it.
If 3 of the 5 face-up cards are LOCOMOTIVES, discard all face-up cards and replace with five new ones.When the train car card deck is exhausted:
- Reshuffle discarded cards into a new deck.
- If no discarded cards are available, players can only claim routes or draw destination tickets.
Turn Action: Claim a route
- Claiming a Route
- Play a set of cards equal to the number of spaces in the route.
- Cards in the set must be the same type (e.g., blue route with blue cards).
- Gray routes can be claimed using a set of cards of any one color.
- Place plastic trains in each route space.
- Discard cards used to claim routes.
- Claiming Rules
- Players can claim any open route.
- Players can claim only one route per turn.
- Some cities have double routes:
- Players can claim only one of the routes, not both.
- In 2 or 3 player games, only one of the double routes can be used.
- If one route is claimed, the other is closed.
Turn Action: Draw Destination Ticket cards
Destination Ticket Cards
- Contain names of 2 cities.
- Connect the 2 cities by claiming routes between them:
- Add points indicated on the card at the end of the game.
- If cities are not connected:
- Deduct points indicated on the card at the end of the game.
- Players can choose to draw Destination Ticket cards:
- Draw 3 cards from the top of the deck (if less than 3, draw what is left).
- Choose which cards to keep (must keep at least 1, can keep 2 or 3).
- Return unwanted cards to the bottom of the deck.
- Keep cards secret until final end game scoring.
End of Game
When a player has 0, 1, or 2 trains left at the end of their turn:
- Each player, including that player, gets one final turn.
The game then ends and players calculate final scores.
Winning
Calculate scores by:
- Referencing the score on the score track.
- Revealing all Destination Tickets.
- Adding or subtracting the value of Destination Tickets based on whether cities are successfully connected.
The player with the Longest Continuous Path of routes:
- Receives a special bonus card worth 10 points.
The player with the highest points wins.
