Ticket to Ride
My sister gave us this game. I am not a huge game player, mostly because I suck at games like Balderdash, Nerts, and Scattergories. But this game is really fun for an evening after the kids are in bed. Strategy is required, but not so much that your head hurts. The pacing is just right — the game is completed in 30 minutes to an hour. Longer if chatty women are playing and not paying attention to the game flow. It is really embarrassing to lose to such women when you are trying your hardest to win.
The goal is to connect cities together on predetermined routes you draw from a pile of route cards. Points are awarded for connecting distant cities by connecting routes of adjacent cities, and lost when you fail to complete the route. Train track connections between cities can be used by only one individual (except for double track connections), which creates an interesting strategy when you think your opponent is trying to connect two distant cities and you can disrupt the flow by claiming a connection along their route. Stations allow use of your opponent’s tracks at a point cost. Points are also awarded based on the length of each segment connected and the longest overall route.
We started with Ticket to Ride: Europe, which is the base game with some fun variations, including tunnels and ferries. Other variations include Switzerland (2-3 player game) and a number of United States variations.
(I have given up on trying to get the margins right on the picture)