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Those who believe that Ticket to Ride is heavy on luck, have a gross misunderstanding of the game. Beside being lots of fun and full of tension, TtR is deep and allows for lots of tactical and strategical plays. It also has great balance for such a multi-player game. Luck plays a very small role in it; perhaps a smaller role than in the highly regarded "Age of Steam", for instance.

Another sign of misunderstanding the game is comparing it to TransAmerica and rating the latter higher. TtR is by far the superior game- deeper and with infinitely higher replayability factor than the one dimensional, more luck-based, and even simplistic TransAmerica.

Let's look at the two mechanisms in which 'luck' is introduced into TtR.

First, the destination cards. Even based solely on the initial 3 cards, the luck factor is negligible. The fact that you can always draw more destination cards and choose to keep the one(s) that work best for you, more than make up for any initial less-than-favorable distribution of the cards.

Second, the "train car" cards. The sheer number of train car cards that each player ends up picking and recycling throughout the game, greatly balances the distribution, including the number of wild cards each player will receive. The five face-up cards further eliminate any remnants of luck of the draw. You always have many options to choose from. It is practically impossible to get stuck with a route for which to have to chase a certain color cards. A slight route modification can take care of this as well. Yet, another luck-diminishing factor is the presence of the colorless (wild) track segments. Any colors that are not needed for the colored track segments can be used there. It is practically impossible to end up with any useless cards in your hand, especially with a little bit of planning.

In conclusion, TtR is an elegantly balanced, tense, and entertaining game with a fair amount of depth. It lets the players be creative and use tactics and strategical planning throughout the game. Highly recommended for both gamers and non-gamers. Also perfect for introducing casual players to Euro/German-style games.

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I'm not sure about this thought. I'll agree with the train cards thought, so I've snipped it from the original post. However, the destination cards (and one getting certain ones) is based upon luck to a degree, IMO. There are some bad routes... should you pick them, you could be screwed. As opposed to someone else that has been given a great 3 to choose from, either from the beginning of the game or after some track has been laid. It's just a part of the game. Bad draws of the destination cards can really hurt. And conversely, someone could get lucky and draw a few mid game that really helps out.

What are the the basic strategic principles of this game? I've played it a few times online now (I've been a heavy wargamer for over 20 years) and its a TON of fun. And, I think I've figured out a few things about what not/what to do in each game. But, I'm interested to see how tactical one can really get??

Andy

@Destination cards:

If you draw new destination cards mid-way through the game, you can of course get some that fit nicely into your existing connections, or some that would require you to build long new connections (or even require you to build to cities you can no longer access!)
That means: If you're lucky, you can get 10 to 20 victory points practically for free (and might consider taking some more destination tickets in the near future). If you're not, you'll have to struggle not to lose any victory points.

So I don't fully agree with the OP on that, but see the importance of the secret and random destination tickets for other reasons (keeping every player's true intentions secret). Plus, I don't think it's a game breaker in any way.

Maybe a variant on the draw rule (e.g. every player gets 5 tickets of which he can keep 2 at the beginning or 3 during play) would even things out a bit.

He he, well I could give you 10 straight off the top of my head...but I'm not going to as you can find them on the game's page here. Hell, I probably contributed a few idea there way back, but I can't remember and anyway, I don't want you beating me online now, do I!

Yep the TtR knockers, of which there aren't that many it has to be said, have mainly dismissed this game before really thinking about it enough. There's plenty going on here - I'd say it's a light game, but with light-medium strategy. There's enough there to keep anyone thinking - if they want to do it (and some don't). I have about 5 interchangable main strategies depending on my initial draw. They are all possible winners, but it depends what the other players do. After that, there are sub-strategies.

To a slightly lesser degree, Pirate's Cove suffers the same fate from some of the harsher critics. They took one or two looks at it and dismissed it as being too random. They never stopped to think about ways of overcoming some of the random elements. But of course, PC prospers from randomness, it's actually VERY apt in that game - in this one, it's just part of the whole.

But you know, folks, you don't want to get too het up by those who periodically diss anything that's not as heavy and dry as PoF. Some of those guys choose weight over fun every time, and you have to read in between the lines to see that.