Game: Ticket to Ride: Switzerland

Thread: Re: Why have you not yet bought this expansion?

carl67lp — 2008-09-05T01:26:16+00:00

Hobermallow wrote:
carl67lp wrote:
The nice thing about the rule book is that it comes in multiple languages (I haven't counted how many, but it's got to be at least 95,231, possibly including the language of the Children of Tamar. (Geek points if you get the reference.)

Do you mean The Children of Tama, from the TNG "Darmok" episode? I can't believe no one has answered that yet. I guess the TTR demographic doesn't match that of TNG.

J-F
"When the Walls Fell"

Bing! Major Geek points for getting the reference. One of my favorite episodes of TNG.

Thread: Re: Why have you not yet bought this expansion?

Hobermallow — 2008-09-04T21:05:23+00:00

carl67lp wrote:
The nice thing about the rule book is that it comes in multiple languages (I haven't counted how many, but it's got to be at least 95,231, possibly including the language of the Children of Tamar. (Geek points if you get the reference.)

Do you mean The Children of Tama, from the TNG "Darmok" episode? I can't believe no one has answered that yet. I guess the TTR demographic doesn't match that of TNG.

J-F
"When the Walls Fell"

Thread: Re: Just one gripe with the new cards

jcb231 — 2008-09-02T04:41:09+00:00

The new cards are supposed to be as good as the original TTR or TTR Europe cards, right?

If that's the case, I would think it would be really easy to tell them apart, as the Switzerland cards I have feel like they are made of greasy tissue, and the Europe cards are high quality playing cards.

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

nocadlee — 2008-09-02T04:15:50+00:00

jcb231 wrote:
Are they also replacing the board? Is there a new one with score charts on it?

No, but in the replacement deck there is a card with the score charts.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/347709

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

jcb231 — 2008-09-02T04:02:25+00:00

Are they also replacing the board? Is there a new one with score charts on it?

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

YellowLab — 2008-08-30T21:46:42+00:00

Confirmed that if you have registered TTR:NC then you can add the replacement cards to your cart.

Bob

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

MusicToEat — 2008-08-27T06:34:40+00:00

I ordered TTR:Nordic Countries and TTR:Switzerland to go with it. Either I got old stock of TTR:S or DoW hasn't updated the cards in the base game yet. My cards were slightly different sizes and had the misprint that was mentioned in this thread.

I don't own TTR or TTR:E but when I registered TTR:NC I was able to add the replacement deck to my cart for free. So it looks like they updated this offer to include people who only own TTR:NC too. So, if you're in the same boat as me and were planning on playing TTR:S with TTR:NC as the base set, you can get the free replacement cards if you need them.

Image

Daley — 2008-08-16T19:25:00+00:00

Bluff (Ticket To Ride: Switzerland - this is a very psychological game!)

Thread: Variation...what do you think?

sovereign_72 — 2008-07-23T22:02:53+00:00

My wife and I have been playing TTR:Switerland for a l;ittle while now and we were finding that the cards going from 1 country to another were too powerful.

We found that if you were to connect up countries and then sit there and draw cards, ultimately the game came down to pure chance on who could "double up" with the country destination tickets.

To fix this problem we decided to remove these tickets. This resulted in a succession of tight games, with good strategy being the prime reason for victory.

Just wondering what everyone else thinks and if they have any other suggestions for variants.

Thread: Re: Card quality?

eldrbarry — 2008-07-19T06:38:26+00:00

Yes and they send them to you free!

http://blog.daysofwonder.com/2008/05/28/ticket-to-ride-switz...

Thread: Re: Card quality?

Oderus71 — 2008-07-18T22:26:47+00:00

This might be old news but you can go here for replacement cards

https://www.daysofwonder.com/en/buy/?family=XX&groupp=SwissC...

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

weishaupt — 2008-07-16T14:14:09+00:00

ixnay66 wrote:
Cool. I bought Ticket to Ride YEARS ago and that card is already expired so it is indeed free for me.

It doesn't matter whether it's expired or not. It's still registered in their system and that's all that matters. So you're covered, man.

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

ixnay66 — 2008-07-16T05:23:18+00:00

Cool. I bought Ticket to Ride YEARS ago and that card is already expired so it is indeed free for me.

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

Cannibal Ox — 2008-07-04T20:47:38+00:00

I got the confirmation email about 3 weeks ago. Contacted DOW and they said that they were sent out. Guess I'll keep waiting...

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

BaSL — 2008-07-04T05:29:20+00:00

GeoMan wrote:
Cannibal Ox wrote:
To the people who've already received their replacement cards, how long did it take for you to get them? It's been almost a month now and I haven't seen anything in the mail yet.

Well... i got a confirmation email on June 19 that my order was shipped. Two weeks later i contacted DOW and they replied that they are using a slow (and cheap) shipping method that may take 3-4 weeks to reach some destinations.

I am still waiting... maybe they sent the cards hand to hand?

Confirmation on May 29.
Got them June 25.

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

scwont — 2008-07-04T05:11:21+00:00

Pretty sure mine arrived within a couple of weeks (to New Zealand).

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

jimmcmahon — 2008-07-04T01:53:41+00:00

Mine took about a week. They arrived in a padded brown envelope with two uncanceled stamps.

Jim

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

GeoMan — 2008-07-04T00:12:07+00:00

Cannibal Ox wrote:
To the people who've already received their replacement cards, how long did it take for you to get them? It's been almost a month now and I haven't seen anything in the mail yet.

Well... i got a confirmation email on June 19 that my order was shipped. Two weeks later i contacted DOW and they replied that they are using a slow (and cheap) shipping method that may take 3-4 weeks to reach some destinations.

I am still waiting... maybe they sent the cards hand to hand?

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

jearles — 2008-07-03T23:54:54+00:00

Cannibal Ox wrote:
To the people who've already received their replacement cards, how long did it take for you to get them? It's been almost a month now and I haven't seen anything in the mail yet.

I believe it took 2 - 3 weeks for ours to arrive in Toronto, Canada.

Have you received any emails from Days of Wonder since you ordered the replacements? We received a "confirmation of order" email immediately and then a "your order has shipped" email (2 days later).

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

Verkisto — 2008-07-03T22:42:45+00:00

I received mine within a week of the initial post about the offer. Did you place your order that day, or later?

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

j Bird — 2008-07-03T22:42:40+00:00

I received mine within a few day of placing the order.

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

MWAlbion — 2008-07-03T22:42:24+00:00

About a week.

Thread: Replacement Cards

Cannibal Ox — 2008-07-03T22:26:31+00:00

To the people who've already received their replacement cards, how long did it take for you to get them? It's been almost a month now and I haven't seen anything in the mail yet.

Image

nocadlee — 2008-06-28T13:18:26+00:00

Scoring card from DoW's replacement deck

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

imyourskribe — 2008-06-19T19:42:58+00:00

baba44713 wrote:
To put it bluntly, I thought I was getting an expansion nicely suited for 2-3 players, but I didn't now I was also getting an expansion suited almost solely for ultra-competitive gameplay with experienced players. So right, it isn't "broken", the OP was wrong about that. But it's not a light gatewayish family game either, although it disguised itself as such near-perfectly.

Yeah, I addressed the broken v. not-what-I'm-looking-for argument in my previous message. Broken was the first descriptor that popped into my head when making the session report, though, and sadly I started writing too soon to have time to come up with something more appropriate.

I'm pleased with the thread here, though. It's nice to see an academic discussion on the internet that doesn't degenerate into a flame war within 3 posts (a comparison to other web forums-- not to other threads on BGG)

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

baba44713 — 2008-06-19T19:14:52+00:00

OK I used the word "we" because I tied in to another thread which already had this discussion. To fix my sentence, I understand the game works in a competitive environment, and I personally don't consider it broken. I do consider it just a bit too heavily biased towards extremely competitive cutthroat play, and I consider this a bad thing, because many people I introduce TTR to do not perceieve it as such a game and rather enjoy playing it the way it seems it's supposed to be played - by drawing and finishing your routes.

To put it bluntly, I thought I was getting an expansion nicely suited for 2-3 players, but I didn't now I was also getting an expansion suited almost solely for ultra-competitive gameplay with experienced players. So right, it isn't "broken", the OP was wrong about that. But it's not a light gatewayish family game either, although it disguised itself as such near-perfectly.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

Drew1365 — 2008-06-19T18:31:12+00:00

the_kid wrote:
baba44713 wrote:
Yes, we are aware that in competitive environments Switzerland works, ok, noone disputes that.

What?? Every person on this thread and most of the ones who post on the Switzerland page complain that the game needs to be changed, tickets taken out etc., when in reality what needs to be changed is the way the players approach the game.

I agree with this. I am always hesitant to call any game broken unless I've played it enough times and found the problem repeatedly occurring. And "enough times" isn't just a half-dozen.

Switzerland is probably a surprise to people who are used to only the U.S. Ticket to Ride, precisely because you can't use the same tactics. But you can't declare it broken after just a few plays. I do question whether a game that can be won by just drawing ticket after ticket is worth playing, however. But I haven't played Switzerland enough to determine this either.

There's also a big difference between "Broken" and "Just don't care for the way the game is played."

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

imyourskribe — 2008-06-19T17:49:18+00:00

baba and the_kid, you both make excellent points.

baba, I agree with you that to play the game casually, you need to remove some tickets and/or add some other house rules to make drawing tickets risky.

the_kid, I agree with you that if you play the game as-is, you can't play it to win without using a blocking strategy.

The question is simply: in what kind of environment do I usually play Ticket to Ride? I, personally, play 95% of the games of TtR that I play with my fiancee in an incredibly low stress environment. The point isn't to have a serious competition and go crazy with strategy. I've got a lot of other board games we can play that way (some of which are co-op, which is nice because we get to strategize together). Ticket to Ride, though, is played (in my house) as a light, fairly quick game. So the_kid is very correct, and after considering his points, I probably shouldn't have called my session report "broken gameplay." I think "2 player Europe is much better for casual play" would have been a more suitable title.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

the_kid — 2008-06-19T17:06:52+00:00

baba44713 wrote:
Yes, we are aware that in competitive environments Switzerland works, ok, noone disputes that.

What?? Every person on this thread and most of the ones who post on the Switzerland page complain that the game needs to be changed, tickets taken out etc., when in reality what needs to be changed is the way the players approach the game. So if you play a game and blowout your opponent, and play again do they play the same stupid way or do they try something new?

First you must understand that it is not your God given right to create a linked set across and up and down the board. Anyone that looks at the board for more than a minute has to realize that there are ways of stopping this. In 3 player it is much harder to do and 3 player is not my favorite way to play, 2 player is wayyyyy better.

But the interesting thing is that the key route in the game changes when you play with 3 as opposed to 2, and that doesn't really happen as much on the other maps.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

baba44713 — 2008-06-19T16:52:29+00:00

Yes, we are aware that in competitive environments Switzerland works, ok, noone disputes that.

However, not every player enjoys an ultra-cutthroat game. You seem to totally disregard the fact that most of the players who bought TTR:S aren't playing it online but rather in home environments with casual players who aren't hellbent on blocking and lowering other people's scores to ridicilous extents.

What is enjoyable online with experienced players is not necessarily enjoyable when played in real life, with real people. While I enjoy beating the figurative crap out of some anonimous but undoubtedly experienced player online and climbing up some high-score ladder, when I have 150 points more then the rest of my friends at the end of a real-life game it usually sucks big time and doesn't create an enjoyable experience for anyone.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

the_kid — 2008-06-19T16:24:59+00:00

There's nothing wrong with the game, play with someone good online and you'll have trouble scoring 50 in a 2 player game. By the way that's about what my points against average is .

Thread: Re: Just one gripe with the new cards

Rygel — 2008-06-19T16:02:41+00:00

I would not think this would be difficult. Mine are fairly different in color and texture.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

scottsnew1 — 2008-06-19T15:24:55+00:00

yes, in our first game, i just kept drawing cards, and won by over 150 points. crazy.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

Drew1365 — 2008-06-19T15:10:10+00:00

In my first game, I lost by a wide margin because I didn't realize how non-risky drawing tickets was. I won the second game with 124 points coming from tickets alone. (Only 42 points from routes.) I think this is a flaw that needs a fix, but I did like the tighter board and the way wilds could only be used on tunnels.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

baba44713 — 2008-06-19T07:19:17+00:00

One of the biggest problems for me is that destination drawing in Switzerland is severely non-risky. More often then not at least one of the three cards you get will be either:

a) a route already completed
b) a route which only needs very few trains to complete
or
c) a route which you cannot complete, but which has such a low penalty score it doesn't really matter

This means that destination route drawing is ALWAYS a viable strategy, unless your opponent's gameplay is solely oriented towards defusing this strategy with his carefully executed blocking and game fast-forwarding.

One of the interesting variants I read apart from pulling out duplicate country cards (which is more often then not a must) is that instead of three, you can only draw TWO destination cards on each turn. While this enhances the luck factor, it also pulls up the risk and disencourages maniacal destination drawing, which is nice.

Thread: Re: Broken gameplay

pastabatman — 2008-06-19T07:06:11+00:00

I had a very similar experience, described in this thread:Ok, I had an experience tonight that made me think there are just too many overlapping tickets in this game. I had a tight network encompassing Zurich, Geneva and Lugano, in order to get my initial tickets (I kept all five). After that, I just kept drawing tickets, often keeping 2 of 3, and often without having to lay down a single train. I ended up with 18 tickets, and a score of about 170. I nearly lapped my wife, and would have had I not mistakenly failed to connect to Italy. No satisfaction in that win - I should probably encourage my wife to start blocking more.
Note we were playing with house rule that you cannot score a duplicate ticket twice. Once you get a long, border to border network, all you have to do is keep drawing tickets to pile on the points - no fun. Your opponent has to be aware of this, and do everything to stop you from building that network in the first place. But that kind of cut-throat blocking game is not to everyone's taste.

I'm considering evaluating all the tickets to determine if there is a reasonable subset that would make blocking less of a necessity and drawing tickets more risky. Drawing tickets should always be risky, in my opinion. For starters, I think there needs to be fewer tickets that completely overlap others.

Thread: Broken gameplay

imyourskribe — 2008-06-19T04:42:40+00:00

I'd make this session into a review, but as it's only based on a few games with 2 players each, I don't think that's particularly fair.

I recently got my replacement deck in the mail, so my fiancee, Brooke, and I decided to play a quick game. We had only played with the old deck a couple times before, partially because we're playing relatively little TTR recently and partially because we were underwhelmed on our first couple plays of Switzerland.

This play-through simply reminded me why we didn't care for the expansion in previous plays. I started out with 4 of my 5 initial route cards chaining perfectly together and giving me a really long path from one corner of the board to the other (including a decent chunk of points for connecting France to Italia). Brooke's hand didn't start out so favorably, so at the beginning of the game her track was much shorter with a number of small branches poking out. That's fine, though. That's just luck of the draw and has happened before in Europe many times.

It took me a while to get my first 4 cards taken care of, at which point Brooke had already started drawing some extra route tickets. Once I got to drawing some more tickets, though, I drew tickets for three turns in a row and kept 2 or 3 of the tickets each time without having to lay a single train down. Quite a few of these freebies were city-country or country-country tickets that I had already connected thanks to my very lucky first hand, so I accumulated a handful of high point tickets. By the end of the game, it made no sense for me to gun for finishing the game-- I just spent every turn drawing tickets and keeping at least one for free (or at the expense of only a train or two).

It seems that, with the addition of all the country-______ tickets, it's too easy to draw tickets and get at least one you can keep for free. Out of all my stack of tickets, 81 points came from freebie country-_______ connections. I'd like to say it's the fault of bad shuffling, but this happened with about 8-10 shuffles before the game.

Perhaps with 3 players, the game gets better. Or maybe I really just didn't shuffle well enough. Or it's possible that there's no problem with country-______ tickets and my excellent beginning hand just carried me through the game. Whatever the case, this was the most unsatisfying win I can recall in a game of Ticket to Ride.

Image

nnjed — 2008-06-18T21:57:57+00:00

End of a 3 player game

Thread: Re: How do you disencourage maniacal destination drawing?

pastabatman — 2008-06-14T16:58:30+00:00

baba44713 wrote:
Nope, just instruct your wife to start drawing more cards.Oh, she gets that, and does so. But it doesn't help (and in fact hurts) if it's too late, and I already have the network I described. Blocking was called for. We use the duplicate country tickets, but we don't allow each other to score duplicates. That seems fairer, in that both players have a chance of getting each one.

Thread: Just one gripe with the new cards

baba44713 — 2008-06-14T12:37:33+00:00

DoW could have made just a teensy weensy difference in printing to distinguish them from the other cards.

I didn't see this as a problem until last night, when my friend gleefully took the deck of new cards and the old cards and before I succeeded in yelling STOP! he did a quick little split-shuffle with both decks.

I'll let your imagination fill up what was our main activity the next twenty minutes or so.

Thread: Re: How do you disencourage maniacal destination drawing?

baba44713 — 2008-06-14T12:27:10+00:00

Nope, just instruct your wife to start drawing more cards.

My gf never warmed up to blocking, because she vastly prefers a relaxing game to a cutthroat one. But I somehow managed to convince her that drawing cards is a risk worth taking, and our last play she finally decided to risk it which in the end resulted in her winning by 3 points. Of course, I could have blocked her silly about a dozen times at least, but choosing not to do so resulted in a much more involving gaming experience. Oh, and the duplicate country tickets were sleeping in the box throughout the game, of course. I've had quite enough of mega-scoring extravaganza, thank you.

And yes, the new cards are great, especially the "personal scoring cards". It feels so strange to play a game where you don't have to constantly answer to the question "So, how much was this route worth then"?

Thread: That Pfarffikon-Sargans Tunnel...

Ronaldo — 2008-06-08T04:50:02+00:00

I had been sworn vengeance after I won our last 2 games of Kingsburg which included a pair of newbies each.

"After you put the baby to sleep, I will have TTR:Switzerland ready"
"Ok"

A few minutes later...

"Why are we finally playing this game?"
"Days of Wonder is sending replacement ticket cards and this made me want to finally try it."
"BTW, I think they arrived earlier today."
(Why didn't you tell me before I just openned the old cards? You are so lucky you are cute.)
"That's great honey, we can use them as replacements in the future!"

After quick explanation about the differences from the original TTR, we start.

I keep what I read here in mind: more blocking, get as many country to country tickets as possible. From the initial draw, I keep four tickets. One coutry to country and three that involve Geneva, Basel, Luzern and Brig.

I work to connect France to Austria via Geneva, Basel and Luzern. After that I collect the cards and in successive turns I connect the system to Brig and I have only two trains left.

"This is the final round."
"What? I can't believe it? I only need one more yellow card to complete that tunnel (Pfarffikon-Sargans) and get all my three country to country tickets connect for maximal points."
"I am sorry, that is so unlucky"
"I don't believe you are doing this. What did you do that for? My heart hurts. I am not going to play."
"Honey, you know you will eventually have to play."

Up to that point, the game had lasted 27 minutes. After 15 minutes of drama, she finally played, we counted her points and with tickets and longest road alone, I had already almost the same score so we didn't finish counting mine.

"Why are you putting the game away?"
(Because it is 11:15PM on a monday!)
"I didn't know you wanted to play again, this is great!"

This time I keep three convenient tickets: Geneva-Basel, Basel-Zurich and Zurich-Geneva.

The north got busy early on and I claim some routes just to ensure access to Zurich and Basel.

(One black and I can claim the routes I need.)

A few rounds later...

(One black or one white.)

...

(One black, one white or one green.)

...

(One black, one white, one green or one yellow, this is getting ridiculous.)

At that point, I decided to start blocking.

After a couple of blocks...

"What is the fun in doing that?"
"This is a tight map and it is good for blocking."
"#*+%$@!!!"

She eventually works around my blocks and I also get to complete my original tickets.

I draw and keep three more. One is a country to country which I will get highest points if I make to Austria. This is great because I have another ticket to a city that way. With two black cards I complete my third ticket going to Bern.

After a few rounds, I only need one more route to complete all the tickets and rush to end the game. I have four cards to complete that three-train yellow route from Pfarffikon to Sargans. I put the cards down and draw from the top: one locomtive, one yellow and one blue. I don't have two to pay so I lose my turn. I try again next round and fail again. I only succeed on my third try.

This ends up deciding the game because with the draws, my wife picks up a bunch of green cards and claim a six-train grey route on her last turn more than offsetting the swing that her seven-point incomplete ticket caused.

We count the points and I am up 106 to 103 but we haven't counted the longest road.

It is unfortunate that her longest path has 26 trains and mine only 24.

That Pfarffikon-Sargans Tunnel decided both of our games.

Final score:
She wins 113-106.

(At least now I can go to bed.)

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

Kestril — 2008-06-05T22:43:40+00:00

Yes, something along the lines of "Let her score now so you can score later "

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

weishaupt — 2008-06-05T21:57:38+00:00

baba44713 wrote:
4) Allow a player to score the same route twice if the player in question is a very pretty member of the opposite sex.
Isn't this a rule in ALL games?

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

baba44713 — 2008-06-05T18:59:37+00:00

4) Allow a player to score the same route twice if the player in question is a very pretty member of the opposite sex.

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

weishaupt — 2008-06-05T18:32:06+00:00

a2greg wrote:
I think I see where things went a bit wrong here. I own the T2R computer game and play online some too. I don't recall ever playing the Swiss map as a 2-player game. If I play by myself, I always play against two other bots on the Swiss map (and 2-3 bots on USA and Europe maps). When going online, getting 2 other players to play the Swiss map isn't a problem either. So I think what I'm feeling mostly here is that a 2-player game on the Swiss map has the most problems with the country tickets and that it may simply have been overlooked in terms of playtesting. The main house rules created so far seem to be:

1) Remove duplicate country tickets before play.

2) Don't allow a player to score on a second (duplicate) country ticket. They can discard it but that's all.

or

3) Allow a player to score on duplicate country tickets but each ticket must score on a different route.

Is that all them?

I think that's it.
(Apart from the cynical house rule: play a different game! )

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

a2greg — 2008-06-05T18:20:08+00:00

I think I see where things went a bit wrong here. I own the T2R computer game and play online some too. I don't recall ever playing the Swiss map as a 2-player game. If I play by myself, I always play against two other bots on the Swiss map (and 2-3 bots on USA and Europe maps). When going online, getting 2 other players to play the Swiss map isn't a problem either. So I think what I'm feeling mostly here is that a 2-player game on the Swiss map has the most problems with the country tickets and that it may simply have been overlooked in terms of playtesting. The main house rules created so far seem to be:

1) Remove duplicate country tickets before play.

2) Don't allow a player to score on a second (duplicate) country ticket. They can discard it but that's all.

or

3) Allow a player to score on duplicate country tickets but each ticket must score on a different route.

Is that all them?

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

pastabatman — 2008-06-04T18:56:13+00:00

We have a house rule that you can't claim duplicates. That way everyone has at least a chance of getting the 2nd ticket, but if the same player gets both, his only benefit is denying someone else the opportunity. Seems very simple, and more fair. I don't like windfalls in any game.

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

weishaupt — 2008-06-04T18:46:00+00:00

baba44713 wrote:
Duplicate country tickets threadjacking again, huh? Well, the replacement cards subject is already exhausted, so...

IMO, one of the reasons why Alan would choose to include duplicate country tickets is to make it more probable they will appear in every game, therefore enforcing the need to block and play competitive. It's sort of a diametrically opposite approach from TTR:E, which was designed to lessen the competitiveness as much as possible (which is why I pretty much think TTR:E is the weakest of them all - stations, ).

Bear in mind that TTR:S was originally restricted to online play, and folks playing online are more often then not a radically different crowd then what you see on your usual family TTR gatherings. Therefore, it is logical that TTR:S is designed in such a way competitive play is preferred.

T'would be interesting to hear a word from Alan himself about this, though...
I see what you're saying, Baba.
I guess I'd be happy with it if the ticket required you to have constructed the connection in one direction, i.e. you connected France and THEN connected Austria (yes, you'd need to place one train crooked on the board or something to remember what connection you made last). Then the country connection cards would come up just as often, but there'd be a difference between France to Austria and Austria to France.

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

baba44713 — 2008-06-04T15:31:04+00:00

Duplicate country tickets threadjacking again, huh? Well, the replacement cards subject is already exhausted, so...

IMO, one of the reasons why Alan would choose to include duplicate country tickets is to make it more probable they will appear in every game, therefore enforcing the need to block and play competitive. It's sort of a diametrically opposite approach from TTR:E, which was designed to lessen the competitiveness as much as possible (which is why I pretty much think TTR:E is the weakest of them all - stations, ).

Bear in mind that TTR:S was originally restricted to online play, and folks playing online are more often then not a radically different crowd then what you see on your usual family TTR gatherings. Therefore, it is logical that TTR:S is designed in such a way competitive play is preferred.

T'would be interesting to hear a word from Alan himself about this, though...

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

a2greg — 2008-06-04T14:20:18+00:00

I wasn't hoping for anything. I just asked if the new deck still featured the duplicate cards.

(I don't get why Switzerland was done that way, though, and to me it's a design error.)

I too am curious about the design decision on duplicating these tickets. Why not choose to create a couple more "City-to-Country" tickets instead of duplicating the "Country-to-Country" tickets? It is an odd design feature given the history of the series.

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

weishaupt — 2008-06-04T12:44:04+00:00

Wraith wrote:
weishaupt wrote:
Baba's right -- that's what I meant.
I hate those duplicate cards. To me it breaks the delicate balance present in every single Ticket to Ride incarnation.
I always play without them.
Playing without them is fair enough, if that's what you and your friends care to do, but you weren't seriously hoping that DoW would distribute the replacement cards without all the cards necessary for other groups to play by the written rules, were you?
I wasn't hoping for anything. I just asked if the new deck still featured the duplicate cards.

(I don't get why Switzerland was done that way, though, and to me it's a design error.)

Thread: Re: TTR: Switzerland Replacement cards now available

Wraith — 2008-06-04T03:31:25+00:00

pdclose wrote:
I really, really like the new cards and they will definitely breathe new life into this game for us!
They will certainly breathe new life into the game for me. Due to an accident, some of my cards were lost before my set was ever used, and as a result I've never played Switzerland on the board. I've been considering buying a new set just so I have a complete game, but now I don't have to.

(I've been secretly hoping that DoW would start selling replacement decks for Switzerland - not as a freebie to make up for poor quality, just for players whose decks get worn or damaged. I'd have been happy to pay.)

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Red Wine Pie — 2008-04-06T09:59:28+00:00

All Aboard Pub Games Night April 2008

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Kerbster76 — 2008-03-16T05:11:20+00:00

Using my Swiss Army Knife to open up the shrink wrap

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gollum — 2008-03-16T00:34:33+00:00

GOJIRA - DESTROY ALL GAMES (Episode I - Godzilla vs. Ticket to Ride: Switzerland)

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jeRm! — 2008-02-26T17:24:21+00:00

Green destoys yellow and black in a game of TTR: Switzerland. Those country-to-country tickets can really throw the game.

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Blackbadgers — 2007-12-31T14:12:39+00:00

Winter gaming at its best

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LDP1010 — 2007-12-22T15:42:45+00:00

All boards: USA, Europe, Marklin, Switzerland

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Goodsound — 2007-12-15T15:36:18+00:00

Back of the ticket cards