Ticket to Ride Europe is the first of TTR game I ever played and it is the one I prefer over thr original and Marklin.

Last night I played with two of the people I played my first game with in a 3 player game, Ray and Emily.

I kept 3 of my original tickets 1 long and two short - Edinburgh to Athens, Barcelona to Brussells, and Essen to something I can't recall. Ray kept three short ones and Emily I believe kept one long and two short as well.

I figured that my three tickets overlapped enough that I could plan them in one major line with only a few offshoots. I also figured that I could do a whole lot of 4 train links for points - there really weren't any 5 or more links in my lines - there was a 6 one close to Athens, but it would be a more round about way and when Ray built to Athens I took what I could.

So my strategy was to work on my three tickets in as much of a one route train as possible, with only a few offshoots, while building more 4 train links as I could. This I did and got an early lead which increased as the game went on.

Ray made about 8 links, most of them two or three links around Athens and the middle of the board. Then he picked up three more tickets. Before the end of the game he chose to pick up two more tickets for a total of 8 in his hand.

Emily seemed to be doing much the same as I was - complete her tickets with longer links for more points. Then she decided to go for more tickets. She picked her 3 up and didn't like any one of them - commenting that I would have loved them.

Ray went on building his links and ended up finishing 7 of his 8 (all of them short), and at one point attempted a two length tunnel with blue cards and ened up turning over two additional blues and couldn't do it - he attributed this failure to not completing his last ticket.

Emily tried working on her last ticket, but couldn't do it in time.

When I finished my last connection to complete my big ticket, I had 9 trains left. I had four purple cards, one engine, and three black. I used one turn to pick up a face up engine, then played the four purple and two engines for that 6 train link near Athens that required two engines and then on my last turn built a three link near Berlin or something - meaning I used all my trains and couldn't take the last turn - oh well.

I ended the game at about 124 points. While the other two had about 75-85 points.

Ray had said he started out with the idea of completing as many tickets as he could (I think 7 was really good) even if he had to use his stations - he only used one. He said he had wanted us other two to help do some of his work for him, but we weren't building where he wanted us to, so he had to start building his own self. However even if he had completed his last ticket he still would have ened up with less than what I had.

Emily had the longest consecutive links, but hadn't been able to collect as many points as I did while building them. That and her failure to complete her last ticket, hurt her, but again, I had enough to outscore her score if she had completed it.

This tells me that going for the long links is a viable strategy. I believe the first time I went for the 8 link tunnel I won, but lost the next time I tried it.

It isn't one that gets played too often around my gaming community, but its one that I enjoy as a very thought-light game - not too much AP going on which helps it move along swiftly.