Game Review – Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries

Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries
Number of Players	2 - 3
Play Time	45 minutes
Ages	8 years and up

Since Days of Wonder recently announced their Ticket to Ride World Championship, I decided that it would be a good time to review another game in the Ticket to Ride family.  This time I have chosen Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries.

The theme of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries is the players are owners of train companies that are building rail lines in the Northern European countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.   The goal is to establish routes between the cities on the tickets that the players receive.  If the players connect the cities on a ticket they will receive bonus points at the end of the game based on the value on the ticket.  If they do not connect the cities on a ticket the player loses the number of points on the ticket.  Points are also scored for placing trains between two cities on the board.  The more trains needed the more points are scored.

The core rules of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries are the same as all of the other games in the Ticket to Ride family.  The players start out the game with five tickets that have destinations that they can connect of which they must keep at least two.  They will also receive four train cards. An additional five train cards are placed face up by the side of the board along with draw decks of train cards and tickets

The train cards are the core of the game.  They come in eight different colors and there is a ninth card type which is a wild card called a Locomotive Card that can be used as any color.  These train cards are what are used to make the connections between the cities.  Each connection is represented by a number of spaces that are a single color.  If a player wished to claim a connection between two cities they must turn in the number of cards of that color.  They then place trains from their reserve on that connection.  After a connection is claimed no other player may use that connection.

The players choose one of three actions to take during their turn.  The first is that they may take train cards from the five cards that are face up or from the draw deck.  The second option is that they may claim a connection between two cities.  The third option is that they may take two additional tickets and keep at least one.

Game play continues until one of the players has used all of their trains.  The player with the most points in city connections and completed tickets wins.

There are two special rules for the Nordic Countries variant of the game and two special track types that can be built in the game. 

First there are the two track types.  They are Ferries and Tunnels.  These track types started to be added to the variants with the release of Ticket to Ride Europe.  In order to place a Ferry a certain number of Locomotive Cards must be included in the set of cards being used to claim the route.  This is usually one or two wild cards and will depend on the location of the route being claimed.  When placing a tunnel the player may need to lay out additional cards to complete the route.  The player puts down the initial cards they are using to claim a tunnel route.  Then the top three cards train cards in the deck are revealed.  If any of them are the same color as the route requires or a Locomotive Card, the player must add an additional card to the set he is using to claim the route equaling the number of cards reveled in the draw to be able to complete the route.  If the Player cannot do this then they can take back the cards they were using and try again on a future turn.

The special rules for Ticket to Ride are the rules that are specific to this variant.  The first is that Locomotive Cards can only be used to help claim Ferries and Tunnels.  This limits the versatility of the Locomotive Cards when compares to of versions of Ticket to Ride.

The other special rule regards a specific route on the board, the Murmansk – Lieksa route.  For this 9 train route, a player may use 4 cards of any type, including Locomotive Cards, to replace a single card in the set when claiming the route.  For example, the route can be claimed using 7 red cards and 8 other cards which represent the other two cards.

I find Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries to be a good edition to the Ticket to Ride family.  It does have the limitation of being only a 2 – 3 player game.  It does come as a complete game unlike most of the other variant editions, so you do not need to have a set of Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe around to be able to play it.

The thing to remember when playing the game is that even though the board looks like there is plenty of room on it and there will be very little competition for routes, there are a number of choke points on the board so you need to be careful when selecting your tickets during the game or you may find yourself losing a lot of points at the end of the game.

If you enjoy any of the Ticket to Ride family of games, Ticket to Ride: Nordic Counties is a worthy edition to your collection.  Like all of the Ticket to Ride games it is a great game to use to introduce people to board gaming.  The rules are simple to learn and game play usually lasts about 60 – 75 minutes.  It can be more of a challenge to play with three players than either Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe because the bard is designed to play with a maximum of three players.  This is something to take into consideration it you regularly play with only three players.