Journal stoolpigeon's Journal: Ticket to Ride - Europe 1
I can't remember if I mentioned it here but my wife got me Ticket to Ride Europe for my birthday. Pretty exciting. The instructions in the box were in Hungarian but downloading the English version was a trivial exercise. Actually playing the game requires no reading beyond the city names and they are all in what I assume is supposed to be the local name for the city at the time of the map - though they don't use non-latin character sets. If I remember correctly the time is 1901. Hungary and Germany are HUGE. Really - super big and worthy of all caps. There are a lot less countries than now and it's kind of fun from that perspective.
I've never played the original game on the American map. I watched the Ticket to Ride TableTop episode though and that's what made me want to get the game. I think the Europe version is actually better for our family. The addition of the train stations makes it a little easier to complete routes and that really helps my kids. I want them to have fun playing, not just feel frustrated all the time.
It's a fantastic, well designed game that is nice to look at. It works great as all 5 of us can play and the rules are pretty easy to grasp. That said, the fun of playing scales up well with the ability of those playing I think. With my kids it's all pretty straightforward, but I'm guessing with more adults there would be a whole additional level of trying to figure out what others are doing and stopping them if possible.
The game can be played on-line but I haven't tried that out. Not sure that I will. My favorite thing about table games is playing them with friends and family and just hanging out together.
Looks good (Score:2)