Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails

Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails takes the beloved gameplay of the classic Ticket to Ride and transports it across continents and oceans! Get ready to navigate both land and water as you embark on an exciting journey to connect cities around the globe.

Just like in the original Ticket to Ride, players begin with tickets representing two cities. Throughout the game, your goal is to collect colored cards and claim routes on the board using your unique train and ship tokens, all while scoring points along the way. The game wraps up when any player has six or fewer tokens left in their supply. At that moment, each player takes two additional turns before scoring. Successfully connecting the cities on your ticket grants you points, while failing to do so will cost you!

This edition introduces unique twists to the familiar mechanics, starting with split decks of train and ship cards. All wild cards reside in the train deck, and at the beginning of the game, three cards from each type are revealed. When drawing cards, you can replenish from your choice of deck, ensuring strategic flexibility. You can shuffle the card types separately to create fresh draws whenever necessary!

At the game's start, players also get to select their combination of train and ship tokens. To claim a train route (rectangle spaces), you’ll need to play train cards (or wild cards) and cover those spaces with train tokens. Similarly, for ship routes (oval spaces), ship cards (or wilds) are required alongside ship tokens. The ship cards depict one or two vessels, meaning if you play a double-ship card, you're able to cover one or two ship spaces. Additionally, during gameplay, you can trade train tokens for ship tokens (or vice versa) for a slight penalty of one point per swap.

Some tickets feature multi-city tour routes, offering even more scoring potential. If you successfully build a network that aligns perfectly with a tour route, you’ll reap greater rewards than simply including all listed cities in your network!

Each player starts with three harbors, which you can strategically place in port cities where you have established routes. To place a harbor, you must discard two matching color train cards and two ship cards, all marked with the harbor symbol (an anchor). At the game's conclusion, each unplaced harbor costs you four points, while placed harbors can grant you between 10-40 points based on how many of your completed tickets include that port city.

Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails features a double-sided game board: one side represents the world, while the other showcases the Great Lakes of North America. Depending on the side you choose to play on, players begin with different quantities of cards and tokens, adding an extra layer of variety to your experience.

Embark on a thrilling adventure across landscapes and seascapes with the incredible Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails!