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

The Components

USA 1910 comes with 181 cards and a rulebook in a tin.

The Cards: The cards are all full-sized, not half-sized like the cards in the original Ticket to Ride. They're all medium-to-heavy weight, linen-textured, and printed full-color.

110 of the cards are trains. These are just the colored train cards that you use to create routes in Ticket to Ride, except they're now full-sized, and thus easier to use.

69 of the cards are destination tickets. These include the 30 tickets from the original Ticket to Ride game, the 4 tickets from the out-of-print Mystery Train expansion, and 35 new "1910" tickets. The look-and-feel of these cards has been slightly revised from the originals, but they remain attractive and easy to use. Each of the types of tickets is labelled (as 1910, Mystery Train, or no label) so that you can easily choose the set of cards you want to play in any game (though it requires sorting through all of the cards). About half of the tickets are additionally labelled "Big Cities" which allows a new and different way to play.

The last two cards are bonus tickets: the old familiar "Longest Route" and the brand new "Globetrotter".

The Rules: The rulebook is 12 pages, printed in full-color, but that's because it comes with rules in 9 different languages. The English rules (which appear on page 3) are just a page long. They briefly describe the contents, then the three new ways to play the game.

The Tin: The game comes in an attractive tin which contains a tray to hold the cards. As is so often the case, the tray isn't quite tall enough to hold the cards and so the top few swirl about a bit. They do all fit in the tin though. The tin itself is quite attractive, though it won't fit in your Ticket to Ride game unless you take out that game's tray.

Overall the quality of the components is good, and the beauty is high thanks to Days of Wonder's always-good graphic design. The pricing seems fair for 181 new cards, especially because of the notable impact that they have on the game. I've thus let USA 1910 eke in a "4" out of "5" on Style: above average.

The Gameplay

USA 1910 provides 3 new ways to play Ticket to Ride.

1910: use the 35 new 1910 cards rather than the original destination tickets. Also, replace the Longest Route bonus with the new Globetrotter bonus which gives +15 points to whoever completes the most tickets. Otherwise, play as normal.

Mega Game: Use all 69 tickets. At the start of the game deal each player 5 tickets of which they must keep 3. Later, whenever they draw tickets they take 4 and must keep 1. Use both the Longest Route and Globetrotter bonuses.

Big Cities: Use only the tickets which are labelled "Big City" (which is a collection of 35 tickets culled from the original, Mystery Train, and 1910). Each ticket connects to at least one of the Big Cities: Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, or Seattle. Don't use either bonus card. At the start of the game, draw 4 tickets and keep at least 2. Later, whenever you draw take 4 and keep at least 1.

Relationships to Other Games

USA 1910 is an expansion to the original Ticket to Ride game that also includes 4 of the 10 cards from the Mystery Train expansion and also revalues a couple of the tickets from the original.

The 1910 game changes Ticket to Ride by focusing on different cities. Several cities which were never visited in the original game, like Las Vegas and Washington, now have tickets. Overall, the focus changes from the stagnant east-west lines of the original game to a much more spread-out game where you can play coherent lines in the east or the west without worrying about not having the traditionally good routes.

Even though Big Cities only uses half of the new tickets, it has much of the same effect. It also introduces a lot of fun new tension to the game because you know that the Big Cities are going to be heavily contested. I was amazed in my first Big Cities game to see a war being fought over the central corridor of the country, running up from Dallas-Houston, something I have never experienced in an old-fashioned game. Likewise, it was one of the few games I've ever seen where the entire southwest of the country got eaten up in rail wars.

It's a little harder to judge how much the Mega Game changes things, since it throws everything into the pot. Clearly the old east-west strategies are still valid, but the other portions of the country are all valid as well.

Finally it's worth noting that if you own the Ticket to Ride Computer Game, all of the new 1910 tickets are already available as alternatives for play. Just load up your game and you'll see an option to download version 1.0.6 of the software; do so and you can play 1910, Big Cities, or the Mega Game.

The Game Design

Ticket to Ride is a great game, make no mistake. It won the Game of the Year award in Germany, and deservedly so. However, it was also the least polished of the TtR games. With over a half-a-million copies sold, it's been put under the microscope, and you can see that some routes and some play styles dominate the game.

The 1910 USA expansion really seems to balance the game. I'm sure part of it is novelty factor: I'm excited to be able to play winning strategies in different parts of the USA map. However it also feels like there's much better opportunity to play and win in the East, in the Southwest, and in the center of the country, which were all hard sells in the original game. I think that USA 1910 is enough of an improvement that I hope that Days of Wonder makes it, or some part of it, the default set of destinations in some future edition of Ticket to Ride.

It's also really nice having some new ways to play the game. I think Big Cities makes the biggest difference, because it creates much more competitive play around those central cities.

I'd overall count Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 as a superb supplement to an already great game and one that totally revitalizes the USA map, bringing it up to the standards of the later Europe and Marklin releases.

If you play Ticket to Ride, you should buy USA 1910, period. It gets a "5" out of "5" for Substance, the same rating I gave the original game.

Conclusion

Ticket to Ride: USA 1910 is an excellent expansion which provides for some variation in your Ticket to Ride play, but also better balances the destinations of the original USA map. It's highly recommended for anyone who plays the original Ticket to Ride.

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