Players: 2-5
Time: 30-60 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)

Bits of this review, particularly the gameplay, mirror my original review of Ticket to Ride, which has similar gameplay and components.

Ticket to Ride Marklin is currently out in Europe and is scheduled for American release in mid-April.

The Components

Ticket to Ride Marklin manages to improve upon the beautiful graphical design usually found in the Ticket to Ride games. The complete contents are:

• 1 game board
• 240 plastic trains
• 15 plastic passengers
• 5 scoring markers
• 74 merchandise tokens
• 1 bonus tile
• 164 cards
• 1 rulebook
• 1 online access number

Game Board: A six-panel gameboard printed on heavy, linen-textured cardboard. This time around the board depicts Germany, and its a vertical map, rather than the horizontal maps used for the previous releases. The map depicts train routes of different colors and different lengths connecting together various cities and countries. Each city is also marked as yellow, red, white, or black, corresponding to merchandise token colors. A scoring track surrounds the board, running 1-100.

This newer game isn't set strongly in the early 1900s, like the previous games were. Thus the map, as with all the other components, is more modern looking.There's actually some nice texture and color to this map that really helps it stand out, where previous maps were a little plain.

To improve usability each route is marked with color-coordinated icons, which also appear on the cards. In addition, as another usability plus, there's a scoring chart on the board which lists the scoring value for each length of route.

Plastic Bits: The trains are simple plastic train cars molded in the five player colors: red, black, yellow, white, and purple. The colors are surprising because the very common blue and green are missing, replaced in this edition with white and purple. Being gamers my group immediately started considering whether 6- or 7-player Ticket to Ride game were now possible (since there are 7 different colors between this and any other Ticket to Ride set), but I don't think that any of the maps would support it.

The trains are made out of sturdy, hard plastic, with fairly simple sculpting. Each player gets 45 trains; there are also 3 extra per color, for replacement; they come in their own little baggy, and you should leave them there, so that they don't accidently get mixed in with the 45 intended for play.

The passengers are also in the player colors. Each player gets three. The passengers are a fairly simple mold of a man carrying two suitcases. They're very cute.

Finally, this time around the scoring markers are molded in plastic too. It's probably a better match for the rest of the components than using wooden markers that were used in previous editions. These plastic markers are all discs with nubs on the top, which allow you to stack the scoring markers without them falling down.

Cardboard Bits: The 74 mechandise tokens are each printed on linen-textured cardboard. Each token comes in one of four colors--white, yellow, red, and black--matching the four city colors on the board.

At the start of the game you'll lay out all 74 merchandise tokens on the board's cities, forming stacks of 1-4 tokens in each city. Later when you move passengers, you'll pick up these tokens. This whole process is very "fiddly", as there are lots of little tokens to put down and later pick up. It got better after a few games, but I would have preferred a more elegant way of doing this.

The bonus tile is a +10 marker given to the player who has the most successfully completed routes at the end of the game. It's big, linen-textured cardboard.

Cards: All of the cards are printed on full-sized, linen-textured cards of medium thickness with rounded corners. The production is quite high-quality.

108 of the cards are Train Cards. Each of these show a full-color picture of a Marklin train. The coolest thing about these cards is that every single one has a unique picture. You don't notice it really when they're in your hand, but when they're on the table it's fun to look at all the different trains. Colors are very prominent on these cards, and the color-coordinated icons appear at all four corners of each card, making them easy to sort.

The remaining 10 cards in the train deck are identical passenger cards.

The 46 remaining cards are Destination Ticket cards. These are divided between 23 long routes and 23 short routes. Each type of card has a different back, but they're similar enough that you can mix them up if you don't read the text on the backs. The two types of routes also have opposite colored fronts for when you're looking at your cards. Each card shows a map of Germany with two cities, or else a city and a country, marked and a score for the ticket.

The cards all have a new look to them, compared to older Ticket to Ride games which is graphically very beautiful. They're a big improvement over previous cards that I hadn't thought needed improvement.

Rulebook: A 8-page glossy rulesheet, filled with examples and large, clear pictures. I found some of the organization a bit confusing, but perhaps that's because I was skimming the rules looking for the new stuff.

Online Access Number: This is a number which gives you access to Days of Wonder's online games--currently computer versions of some of their smaller card games, the original Ticket to Ride, and Ticket to Ride Europe. Presumably an online Ticket to Ride Marklin is on the way.

Box & Tray: Ticket to Ride is packaged in a fairly standard medium square box. The tray inside is well designed. There's spaces for each component, from the train and cars to the little scoring markers--except that +10 bonus tile. (I slide it into one of the card holders.)

It worth mentioning that Ticket to Ride Marklin really is a "Marklin" edition. (They're a German model train company if you're not familiar with them.) The Marklin logo is all over everything, from cards to passengers. If you don't care, it's not a big deal, but if you're interested in this because of the Marklin tie-in, it's really there, with all the Marklin train pictures on the cards and all the logos everywhere.

Like all the Days of Wonder big-box games to date, Ticket to Ride Marklin has superb components. However, this time around there's also been a substantial upgrade to the graphic design of the cards and board, making this the prettiest Ticket to Ride game yet. I do have complaints about the merchandise tokens, but there's still no doubt that Ticket to Ride Marklin earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

If you're familiar with the original Ticket to Ride much of this will look familiar; however, you should read the sections on "The Map", "Setup: Merchandise", "Setup: Destination Cards", "Claim a Route: Passengers", "Draw Destination Cards" and "Move a Passenger", as they address the biggest changes in this new game.

The goal of Ticket to Ride Marklin is to build connections between various cities in Germany.

The Map: The Ticket to Ride map depicts about 40 cities in Germany as well as 4 countries surrounding it. Each city is connected to 3 to 7 other places by routes, while each country has two or three routes into it, but each connection is a separate "dead end". A route is a set length, between 1 and 7 spaces, and typically is one of eight colors (though approximately a third of the routes are instead gray, which we'll see is a special, free-building color). There's typically only one route between any two cities, but many of the more popular paths instead have two routes, which are often different colors, and there are a few triple routes between cities in the west.

Players will claim these routes throughout the game using Train Cards of the appropriate colors.

Setup: The board is laid out and merchandise tokens are placed on it. Each player chooses a color to mark his routes and takes the 45 trains and 3 passengers in that color. He also receives 4 Train Cards and 4 Destination Cards (of which he may discard up to 2).

Further, five Train Cards are flipped face up next to the draw pile.

Merchandise. Each city is this game is marked as white, yellow, red, or black. Merchandise tokens are placed on each city depending on its color. Each white city gets one "2" token. Yellow cities get a pile of three tokens: "3-2-1". Red cities get "4-3-2". The one black city, Berlin, gets four tokens numbered: "7-6-5-4".

For each city the tokens are placed in a stack of descending value, which is the order they'll be collected in.

Train Cards. These 88 cards each depict a color of train, related to the colors of the routes on the board. There are 8 colors total: pink, white, blue, yellow, orange, black, red, and green. There are also 14 "wild cards"--locomotives which may be used as any color--and 6 long wild cards--4+ locomotives which may only be used for longer routes. Finally 10 passenger cards, which assist in moving passengers, complete the deck.

Destination Cards. These 46 cards list two cities each (e.g., "Hamburg and Frankfurt", or as I like to call it, the fast-food express) and a score (e.g., 11), or else a city and a country (e.g, "France and Munchen") and a score (e.g., 8). Players have to contiguously connect the two destinations with their trains in order to score the points, and are penalized if they don't (hence the opportunity to discard).

The tickets are divided into "short" tickets, which have scores from 5-11 and "long" tickets, which run from 12 to 22. At any time he draws destination cards, including at the start of the game, a player can declare how many he wants from each deck, from 0-4.

Order of Play: Each turn a player takes one of four possible actions:

1. Draw Train Cards.
2. Claim a Route.
3. Draw Destination Cards.
4. Move a Passenger.

Draw Train Cards: There are always five face-up Train Cards next to a face-down deck of the same. You get to, one at a time, take two cards either from the face-up cards or the draw pile. Whenever you take a face-up card, you replace it from the draw pile. There's one catch: if you take a face-up engine (but not a 4+ engine or a passenger), that counts as two of your draws. Clearly, you generally want to make draws that help you complete sets to claim routes.

Claim a Route: To claim a route, you must lay down as many cards of the appropriate color as are needed to completely lay out the route (which will be between 1 and 7, depending on what's depicted on the board). If the route is light gray, you may instead lay down an appropriate number of matching cards of any one color.

Locomotives are wild cards, which may be used to substitute for any other color, while 4+ locomotives may be used to substitute for any color if the route you're taking is 4 length or more.

When you claim a route, you place your trains in the route boxes. This will keep anyone else from claiming that exact same route (though, as noted above, sometimes a pair of cities have two or three potential routes between them). You also score points: 1 for a length 1 route, 2 for 2, 4 for 3, 7 for 4, 10 for 5, 15 for 6, or 18 for 7.

You can only claim one route each turn, no matter how many Train Cards you have.

Passengers. When you're claiming a route you may place one of your remaining passengers at either city that you're connecting. You'll later be able to move these passengers as a separate turn.

Draw Destination Cards: Alternatively, you can draw 4 Destination Cards and return up to 3 of them. As at setup, you can mix between the two draw decks, short and long, taking 0-4 from each, for a total of 4.

Move a Passenger: As a final option, a player can move a passenger as far along his track as he can without doubling back over track. The player is awarded the highest value remaining merchandise token in each city he visits (except his starting city).

In addition, a player may cross individual links of track belonging to his opponents by paying one passenger card for each connection. This can allow him to jump between two separated segments of his own track or just to grab a couple of merchandise tokens an opponent was counting on.

When a passenger completes his run he's removed from the game. The player earns points for all collected tokens.

Ending the Game: The game ends when one player finishes a turn with 2 or less trains in his stock. At that point everyone (including the player who's almost out) gets one last turn. Then the game is done and scoring occurs as follows:

• everyone already has points for their routes played during the game.
• everyone already has points for merchandise collected during the game.
• If a player successfully completed a Destination Card by forming a contiguous route between the two cities, he adds the points from the card to his score, else he subtracts them (ouch).
• Whomever has the most successfully completed tickets earns a +10 point bonus.

The player with the highest score wins. Ties go to the player who completed the most Destination Cards.

Two & Three Player Games: If you play with two or three players there's one slight change: for the double & triple routes, where there are two or three routes between a pair of cities, only one can be used. This help keeps the game very tight.

Relationships to Other Games

Ticket to Ride Marklin is the third game in the Ticket to Ride game series. The original game was the simplest, and featured a map of the United States, while Ticket to Ride Europe featured a European map and a few more strategic elements. (There's also a Switerzland map that only appears in the computer game currently.) The new features in this game are the two decks of tickets, the 4+ locomotives, the country connections, and the passenger/merchandise system.

Again Alan Moon has managed to develop a map that feels very different from what's come before. This new one has an interesting split between the east and the west. The northeast has the wealthy city of Berlin as well as a pile of longer 5-7 length links, while the southwest has a pile of shorter routes, many of them gray. The southwest can also get very crowded, particularly in 2-3 player play.

Another big change in the game is the new focus on shorter links, which I'll talk about more shortly. Though there are plenty of long, high-value routes up by Berlin, shorter routes are supported well by the opportunity to collect more merchandise quicker.

Broadly, Ticket to Ride Marklin is a connection-based railroad game centering on set collection. This new game also has pick-up-and-deliver merchanisms, found in many railroad games, but not previous Ticket to Ride releases. Ticket to Ride Marklin also one of many railroad games designed by Alan Moon.

The Game Design

The original Ticket to Ride was definitely one of the best games of 2004, and quite deserving of all of the awards it won. To date I've played the original game and its Europe spin-off somewhere around 150 times, about half of them tabletop and half of them online. That's fairly spectacular for me, since I tend to prefer variety and newness in games. Ticket to Ride Marklin has all of the good points of the original game, which include: fast & simple, real strategy (in both which sets you're going to collect & which routes you're going to take to make your connections), great brinkmanship (as you hold off on playing cards to take your routes because there are more good cards up), and tough decisions (a combination of all of the above).

I've only logged three games thus far of Ticket to Ride Marklin, so I can't say with certainty, but I suspect it's better balanced than its predecessors. More than any other game in the series, it really feels like short routes and long routes are equally valid options (where, for the most part, long routes were usually more advantageous in the earlier games).

This is partially supported by the fact that you're now competing for a +10 bonus for most successful tickets rather than longest track. The change this makes is amazing, as people are no longer afraid to branch, double-back, or even create separate tracks. There's some penalty for this when you move passengers, but it's minor and can be overcome with the passenger cards.

The whole passenger/merchandise system makes quite a difference in the game. At the heart it's based upon the same gameplay idea as Ticket to Ride's track-building system: brinkmanship. You constantly have to be thinking about when you should play your passengers, and when you should move them, lest an opponent grab your best tokens. I find the decision hard and somewhat stressful, which is a perfect match for Ticket to Ride.

The merchandise also offers up a fun new degree of competition, since you can grab the tokens before your opponent does, and you can even do so in a sneaky manner by using passenger cards to cross their track. This is a nice way to add some aggession into the game, yet not have it be sufficiently in-your-face to spoil the more casual family atmosphere of the original release.

The split of destination tickets between long and short also allows for some interesting new strategy, because it better allows for a short-route (southwestern) strategy or a long-route (board-spanning) strategy, which was something that it was a lot harder to plan for in earlier releases.

There's no doubt to that Ticket to Ride Marklin is a more strategic and better balanced game than the original Ticket to Ride. In this regard it's somewhat similar to the likewise more strategic and better balanced Ticket to Ride Europe, though each game draws the system in very different ways. My only concern with the new system is an aesthetic one, the aforementioned fact that the merchandise tokens can be a bit of a pain to fool with. I'm personally feeling a bit of fatigue in the Ticket to Ride system overall, since this is the third or fourth release and the changes though notable aren't huge. Nonetheless I've decided to give Ticket to Ride Marklin full marks, as I did its predecessors: "5" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion

Ticket to Ride Marklin is the third game in the Ticket to Ride series, by Alan R. Moon. This new game features a new map, new tickets, and a handful of new rules. The balance of the map and the changes in the rules together create a different play experience, though one that's still obviouslly Ticket to Ride.

As with Ticket to Ride Europe this one feels more strategic and better balanced than the original. Because of the new orthagonal decisions required by the merchandise tokens, I definitely wouldn't suggest this to casual gamers as a first Ticket to Ride game, but more serious gamers who want a bit more grist in their play will definitely enjoy it.

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