Naturelich Games

Sweden: Unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. Created by Gustaf Andersson. The original Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Gustaf Andersson has created an unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. The map can be printed on 10 sheets of A4 paper. The map contains new rules for Harbor and Flight connections. These routes are build like any other route. However, if a harbor or flight route is used, the player immediately loses 10 (harbor) or 20 (flight) points. A rather costly undertaking but it allows you to connect the two destination cities and might help you score additional destination ticket points.

Download the map at the author's homepage:
http://www.roselike.com/eng/ticket_eng.html

Posted by Naturelich at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new unofficial map of The Netherlands has recently appeared on BoardGameGeek. Currently, these images are not in printable quality.

BGG User Jukke has created the map.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ticket to Ride - Austria - An unofficial expansion map for Ticket to Ride by Bodo Malo. Ticket to Ride is copyright by Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder

Bodo Malo has designed an unofficial map of Austria for use with Ticket to Ride / Zug um Zug. The map was designed to resemble the Austrian railroad network to a high degree. The game is completely self-designed and includes a map with real tracks and holding areas for destination tickets and waggon cards. During the summer months, Austria offers plenty of trains with steam engines or diesel engines for tourists. All destination tickets show a real picture and the name of the actual train, including historic trains from 100 years ago. This is a wonderful idea for fans of the train hobby.

Rules
The Austrian map is best played with original Ticket to Ride rules. However, the game can be extended by train stations from Ticket to Ride: Europe as well as passengers from the Ticket to Ride: Märklin edition.

Some special rules apply. Touristic routes - indicated by a small zig-zag icon along the route - have to be build like a tunnel. These routes end in a dead-end and are covered by only 1 destination ticket. If players attempt to build these routes they need to complete the route and hold the appropriate destination ticket. Otherwise, they will lose a number of victory points as indicated on the ticket.

The destination tickets also contain 9 valuable, long routes that are highlighted on the map to indicate them for new players. On his webpage, Bodo discusses blocking strategies for these routes.

An extremely well designed map for Ticket to Ride with some great ideas. Download the map at the author's webpage.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ticket to Ride Finland - An unofficial expansion map to Ticket to Ride. Created by Esa Kujala. The original board game Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder

As time progresses almost every European country is being made available as a fan-produced map for Ticket to Ride. This shows clearly how popular Alan Moon's game really is. Esa Kujala has created a beautiful map of Finland. The design is 100% custom and looks very very nice. The game is set in the year 1938 and the map makes use of the Ticket to Ride Europe rules. This includes tunnels, ferries as well as different long and short route destination tickets. In addition to a regular set of tickets, the author provides a second extended set of tickets. This certainly increases re-playability.
In addition to the European rules, the map also contains connections to cities in other countries, such as Leningrad, Tallin, etc.

The map is available for download at: http://personal.inet.fi/cool/teeseitse/muuta/lautapelit/

Posted by Naturelich at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ticket to Ride: Italy is a fan-produced, unofficial expansion map to Ticket to Ride designed by Marco Chiesi. The Ticket to Ride board game is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Marco Chiesi has created a new unofficial map to the Ticket to Ride game. He lets us travel Italy, the beautiful country of pizza and pasta, of love and romance and of the best soccer team in the world (of 2006). If you are planning to go on holiday to Italy next year, this map might help you learn a little bit more about the geography in an enjoyable way.
In fact, since the map resembles the Italian railway (and ferry) system pretty closely, the game might even aid in finding the best routes if you want to travel by train.

To play, you either need to have the original Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe. The Italy map can be played with either rule set and components. However, there are some modifications. For both variants players receive only 42 instead of the usual 45 trains. The Europe variant starts with an initial destination ticket draw of three long and one short ticket. At least two tickets have to be kept.

The design of both the board and the tickets is wonderful. The game comes with a rule sheet for easy printing and is available for download at the designers web page: http://www.chiesi.net/ttr/

Posted by Naturelich at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ticket to Ride - China - An inofficial map for Ticket to Ride by Andreas Bummel. Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder

The unofficial family of Ticket to Ride expansions continues to grow. This time, it is time to build your networks in China. The map as well as the destination tickets are designed by Andreas Bummel, who is also responsible for a great map of North Africa. In this installation we get to visit Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and other fast growing cities. The game follows the original Ticket to Ride rules. While the destination ticket layout does not follow the original Ticket to Ride design the map is amazingly beautiful: it features a huge dragon on one side and inherits the usual TtR design. I am looking forward to playing this in conjunction with a quick game of Mah-Jongg maybe...

http://www.bummel.org/zugumzug/

Posted by Naturelich at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ticket to Ride Scandinavia was created by Andreas Ericson. The Ticket to Ride board game is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Andreas Ericson has designed an unofficial Ticket to Ride game of Scandinavia. The map has no double routes but slightly more cities than the original Ticket to Ride. The map covers a little bit more terrain than the Hansa map, but the Baltic sea is ever prominent and many, many ferry routes are available. On his website, http://ttr.servegame.com, Andreas describes what's new in his fan-prodcued game:

I have added some value cards to mix with the short route cards. That makes for pleasant surprises and gives the players incentive to pick new ticket cards. That in turn leads to a more ticket oriented game strategy, which I personally think is more challenging than just playing to get "the long ones". I also added six rule cards. I recommend to shuffle them and draw one before each game. Each rule card bends the characteristics of the game a little, to give the impression that every game is fresh and new. A couple of things with the kit that can hardly be called inventive, is the lack of double routes, long routes and tunnels. If that is good or bad is a matter of taste. The friends that have helped me with the testing think it works just fine.

Below is a short summary of the additional cards introduced to the game:

• Veto: Card owner may stop other players building a route


• Public Line: One route is build by a public company. This route is available for all players


• Ghost Line: At the end of the game, an unused route can be claimed in exchange for four victory points


• Jackpot: The player can pick up all 5 open train / waggon cards


• Overtime: Build two routes in the same turn


• Carte blanche: One (unfulfilled) destination ticket can be ignored at the end of the game


• Tax rules: Changes the number of victory points for claiming routes


• Ordinary times: Rules from original Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe may be applied


• Good times: Two cities give additional points to any connection to these two cities.


• 4-tune: The scoring track adds additional fun: If the play piece ends on a special symbol, players can draw or discard destination tickets (depending on the symbol)


• Risk capital: Additional trains are made available before the game starts


• Quarantine: One city is quarantied and no routes are permitted to connect to this city.

I believe these new cards contain some pretty interesting concepts and can spice up the game considerably. They might also be a good extension to the basic Ticket to Ride game. Scandinavia seems to be a well designed expansion. I will certainly try and build my own copy - maybe for Christmas?! :D

Posted by Naturelich at 5:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ticket to Ride: Portugal is created by Helio Andrade. The image above shows the light version for 2-3 players. The original Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Helio Andrade has created a map of Portugal for the Ticket to Ride board game. This map is the first fan-produced map intended for play with advanced Ticket to Ride: Märklin rules including merchandise tokens, passengers, long and short destination tickets.

The board is also available in two versions.

• Light version: The light version is recommended for 2-3 players. Few double routes make it difficult to reach some areas if you play it with 4-5 players (which can be nice if you like cut-throat games). During playtesting, the light version makes it difficul to complete some routes in the enf-game.


• Advanced version: The advanced version is recommended for 4-5 players and contains more double routes. This version is better for those who don't like others to block them.

Avanced version version of Ticket to Ride: Portugal

To download the map, go to the author's site by clicking here.

Posted by Naturelich at 1:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A new blue ticket from Barcelona to Angora

David Jouannetaud has created 18 new destination tickets for Ticket to Ride Europe. These tickets include 6 new long routes in blue color and 12 green tickets with points between 14 and 17. The rules need to be changed as follows: At the beginning of the game a player takes 1 blue, 1 green and 2 brown destination cards (from the base game). ThIs happens instead of drawing 1 blue and three brown destination cards. It is the only change to the rules.

A new green ticket for Berlin - Sochi

You can get the new tickets on David's homepage:
http://www.bdenvrac.com/aventuriers-du-rail/europe.html

Posted by Naturelich at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ticket to Ride - North Africa - An inofficial map for Ticket to Ride by Andreas Bummel. Ticket to Ride is copyright by Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder

Some exciting news today! A new fan produced expansion to Ticket to Ride is now available. This time we can heat the engines in North Africa. Andreas Bummel has created a new map connecting cities like Cairo, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tunis, Addis-Ababa, Marrakech and Monrovia (to name a few). This new inofficial expansion is played with the original Ticket to Ride rules. Andreas has also provided a set of destination tickets. Both map and tickets are available on his site:

http://www.bummel.org/zugumzug/

Posted by Naturelich at 1:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ticket to Ride - Bretagne by Skedus.
Ticket to Ride is copyright by Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder

The Bretagne is the setting for a new inofficial Ticket to Ride map. This fan-produced version was created by Skedus. With this map, the Bretagne becomes one of the most famous geographic locations with an existing inofficial Ticket to Ride map. Together with an earlier version (by Kokliko), there are now two different Ticket to Ride - Bretagne leaving Germany (with 5 inofficial expansions still at #1).

The map contains ferries as well as several long routes making use of some of the extended rules as seen in Ticket to Ride Europe. While I have not yet played the map yet, JP has pointed out that he found it to be okay after a couple of plays. Judging from first glance, Skedus has put some wonderful effort into this project.

The map is available for download at Skedus' site:
http://skedus.free.fr/spip/article.php3?id_article=5

Posted by Naturelich at 1:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Québec Province - An unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. Designed by Guilain (aka Alien). Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

You like playing the original Ticket to Ride game? Your favorite destination ticket is the 20 pointer from Vancouver to Montreal? Well, then here is your chance to look beyond Montreal! A new unofficial, fan-produced map is available on Canadian blog Les Plateaux. This French language blog - hosted by Philippe Beaudoin, Yves Phaneuf and Pierre Poissant-Marquis - is extremely well done. The map is designed by Guilain (aka Alien) who forwarded the map to Philippe.

Montreal and surrounding areas

The Québec Province map is played with the original Ticket to Ride rules and components. This includes the final 10-point score for the longest route. The map is the first to ever include a route of length 9. What a challenge! Such a long route will be difficult to complete without locomotive wildcards, as there are only 12 cards of one color in a standard TtR game. To compensate, the rewards are high: the lucky player finishing this route scores a heavy 24 points - and that's even more than the 20 points from Vancouver to Montreal in the original game.

To get the competition going, download the PDF-map and all the destination ticket cards from Les Plateaux. Enjoy!

Posted by Naturelich at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

A sample Random Destination Ticket by Silverpenny. Ticket to Ride is publsihed by Days of Wonder and designed Alan R. Moon.

Already a little while ago, Silverpenny developed a random ticket variant for Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug).

Preparation
In this variant two new destination decks are added to the game. Each new destination deck gets a different color, e.g. red and blue. Write the name of each city on the original Ticket to Ride map on one card of each color. The combination of different red and a blue tickets will be used to create new random destinations.

Modified rules
The following modifications are required to the existing rules.
At the start of the game, each player receives six destination cards:

• 3 from the original stack


• 3 red and 3 blue cards that need to be combined into at least two Random Destination Tickets

• A Random Destination Ticket (RDT) has to consist of both a red and a blue city.


• An RDT must consist of two different, non-adjacent cities. (e.g. Denver - Salt Lake City is not a valid RDT as the cities are directly next to each other on the map)


• Players may not form the same RDT twice in the same game (e.g. Player A pairs an RDT with a red Boston card and a blue Duluth card. This player draws the blue Boston and the red Duluth card. This combination cannot be used to build another RDT)


• Multiple tickets using the same city are acceptable (e.g. The RDT Dallas blue / Montreal red and the RDT Dallas red and Toronto blue are permitted).

At the beginning of the game, the player must combine and keep at least two RDTs. The player may keep all three.

During the game, players may draw additional destination tickets during their turn to form additional RDTs. This is done by drawing the top three cards from the blue and red deck. The player must form and keep at least one valid RDT from these six. It is permitted to keep two or three RDTs.

Unused red and blue cards are placed in two separate discard piles. When the ticket decks are exhausted, the dicard piles are reshuffled and placed back on the table to replenish the original piles.

Valid RDT combinations are kept hidden from all other players until the end of the game. However, once an RDT is formed it may not be altered. Thus, these pairs of red and blue should be put on the table very visibly.

Scoring
Each RDT is worth victory points. The number of victory points is calculated by counting the shortest route connecting the two cities. At the end of the game, players will add the ticket value to their score if the RDT is completed. Otherwise (i.e. if the route is not complete, or if the route is invalid), the victory points are subtracted from the player's score.

Variants
This variant can easily be adjusted, based upon the competitive nature of the players. Silverpenny also suggests a couple of variants for the RDT variant:

• Three ticket variant: Each player must form and retain a total of three valid tickets from their initial three potential ticket pairs and may not discard any red/vlue destination cards.
• Four destination card variant: When drawing destination cards during play to form additional Tickets, the player only receives two cards from the red/blue destination deck.

The full rules are available for download at BoardGameGeek. Click here to download. In addition, BoardGameGeek and Silverpenny have provided a full set of destination cards here.

Note, this variant is currently the only way to play this map of Italy for which no custom destination tickets had been developed. Thanks to Jean PAYET for pointing this out.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Canadian Louis-David Péloquin has developed an extension to Ticket to Ride destination ticket cards. These triple-destination tickets require players to connect three pre-determined tickets to score victory points. Several less used cities are now becoming a valuable target for players (e.g. Washington and Raleigh). Other tickets connect highly frequented routes, such as Seattle and Vancouver.

The files are available via the BoardGameGeek:

• Triple destination tickets, Part 1
  
• Triple destination tickets, Part 2

Posted by Naturelich at 7:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

It's another good week for the unofficial expansion maps to Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug). Today, I found out about Ticket to Ride: Holland Express a fan-produced map of The Netherlands. The map is produced by Sybarite and looks marvelous. Unfortunately the source files are not available for download but be sure to check out the site, here.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Inofficial map for Ticket to Ride: Italy

General overview
A second unofficial Italian board for Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug) has been released by Stagno13. The map design is very nice: On a relief-like view of Italy, each city is indicated by a little flag of the country it is located in.
The game works with 3-4 players but players use only 40 instead of the usual 45 waggons. It has been designed in a way that highly frequented cities (like Rome, Florence and Naples) are not used very often in the destination tickets. Therefore it is very probable that you have to go past through these cities but it's not very likely that players will score a huge amount of points directly from that.

Rules
Stagno13 recommends to draw 4 destination tickets instead of the usual three with an obligation to keep at least two of them. The map also includes more advanced rules of Ticket to Ride-Europe: two tunnels connecting Italy to several cities in France. The map shows several cities in adjacent countries, however there are no destination tickets like in the map of Switzerland, available in the official Ticket to Ride PC game. For advanced players, Stagno13 provides a replacement piece of the map which adds ferries to the game. Thereby you can play the map in two different settings and decide which one works best for you.

Download
The map is available for here.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

One card from Ticket To Ride: UK Cynical Edition by Jay, Alex & Ubbie for David Millard's UK expansion map. Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

After re-visiting Ticket to Ride's unofficial UK map website by David Millard, I found a new expansion. It is an unofficial expansion to David's unofficial map. I am not sure whether this makes it any more official, but the extension "[...] celebrates the slightly more cynical British view with added government legislation and duff contractors." Created by Jay, Alex and Ubbie, this first unofficial expansion to an unoffical map is officially designed to be fun. The JAU-team felt a little lack of modern Britishness in the unofficial UK map. To quote them:

The Ticket To Ride games exemplify an idealised 19th century railway system, not the crud we have today. In the UK news a week can barely pass without some train problem or transport minister making an arse of himself. So we decided to put our not so serious heads on and invent an expansion to Dave’s unofficial map to bring back those elements we miss from our modern railway system.

Warning, if you have no sense of humour and have no idea of the calamities we have on our railway network you may just not get it!.

So what's really in this expansion? Let's look at a few examples (spoilers ahead):

• Incompetent Contractors: Tunnel built where not needed. Treat route as having 1 tunnel (can be used to counter "Competenc Contractors" instead)
• Pending General Election: Suddenly money can be found to counter any problem. Cancel any other card played on you.
• Government Meddling: Remove a route placed by an opponent and replace route with your own (you must have the cards to build the route)

And there's more, and it is simply hilarious. At first, I thought, this is some weird sense of British humour which I probably wouldn't get anyway (the Germans are not funny, remember?). But the Public Outrage card killed me. ATOMROFL.

Thanks to Jay, Alex & Ubbie for this great set of cards. Now, don't hesitate and print both the UK map, download the rules and the extra cards you'll need from this link and play this game over the holidays.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I received news from Kokliko who has asked me to forward some news on the Bretagne map:

Hi,
I've promised you for the beginning of the week, here are some news about the Bretagne TtR extension map. The board is not yet finalized, and I don't want to do that before getting your impressions and criticisms (I still have to put markpoints around the map, rework the see, and recreate objective cards)

You will find the information here (not yet bilingual, only french for the moment): http://bettasplendens.free.fr/ladr/bretagne.htm.
I just explain that we use "USA" rules, same deck, same number of wagoons, nothing more.

I wish you a merry christmas and happy new year.

Best regards,

Kokliko

Posted by Naturelich at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

France - A fan-produced map to Ticket to Ride by Cédric Hottinger, Élise Mingler and Yann Manigler Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder

Cédric Hottinger, Élise Mingler and Yann Manigler have created an unofficial map for Ticket to Ride: France. The game rules are very similar to the original Ticket to Ride (USA). Two main exceptions:
1. The French capital, Paris, is handled a little bit different: The capital consists of four different nodes which are interconnected with each other by double roues. Irrespective of the number of players, these double routes may always be used.
2. The TGV is introduced! The TGV routes require locomotives (jokers) to be played. A minimum of three locomotives is required. A TGV route of length 3 scores 14 points, one which is 4 tiles in length scores 16 points and the longest TGV route (5) scores 18 points in total. This makes these routes very attractive.

The authors have pointed out, that the map of France is best played with 3 or 4 players.While it has not been tested for 5 players, the two player variant seems to be less interesting.

Personally, I like the TGV novelty, this really shows some special creativity and brings new tactical options to the game. The design of both the map and the tickets is wonderful and very original. This one certainly looks like a lot of fun and since christmas is around the corner, this one sounds like a good one to try over the holidays...

To download the map, click here, to visit their site.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

The (unofficial) expansion map of Bretagne (in France) for Ticket to Ride is now finished (first test version).

Here is a picture of the map which allows you to see a bit more of what the final game will be.

(Click on image to enlarge)

For more information, you can read this previous entry:
Bretagne - Playtesters wanted

Change in rules :
Despite the first idea, there will be no stations, no tunnels, no ferries (maybe later, but I don't think so).
No special card for the moment (not for the test version)

I continue working on the "paper" version of the board and cards.

How to get the Test version
Please send me (=Kokliko) your mail for testing this version.
I soon release the zip package for the "Free LAN version" (see LAN version) of TtR.

This test version will be ONLY send by e-mail to people that contact me (kokliko35--AT--yahoo.fr). The aim is to have the final version available freely for the most people (and not have many versions "circulating")

Posted by Kokliko at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (4)

Despite Alfred and Mikko getting bored and particularly ekted disliking Ticket to Ride - the game continues to inspire a lot of fans to create more unofficial maps. Due to the newly added maps (whether official or unofficial) the game still remains fresh and fascinating for me. In fact, I will give Egypt and Cuba a try before year's end and this will keep the fire burning.

Zug um Zug remains to be very popular in Germany. One can wonder about people's creativity, but many fans continue to focus their attention on their home continent or home country. This has probably something to do with (local) patriotism, I guess. At the time of this writing, there are four (and now five) different takes by fans on creating a map for Germany. Each map is a unique design and has it's own challenges.
In addition, rumor of late has it that Alan R. Moon is about to finish work on the official German map. In this case, we will again be able to compare the designer's ideas with what fans have produced...

The unofficial map of Germany (by Sascha Görtz)

This fifth installment of a fan-produced map of Germany has been created by Sascha Görtz. This map is the first German map to contain ferry routes (the four earlier versions were published before TtR Europe was released). In addition, since the author originates from the very northern part of the country, there's more interconnections between northern cities. Düsseldorf is also on the map - which is Naturelich an important criterion for someone (like me) living there.

The map looks great, the design is really well done. My kudos! The map is now available via Sascha's updated forum post.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Kokliko has recently published some news about a self-produced map to Ticket to Ride featuring the Bretagne, France. Kokliko sent me an email requesting help for playtesting this map. I happily forward this request and encourage you to contact him via email. Please try to get in contact with him!

Here are the news as given in his email/the forum post:
Current Design Progress

• 1st version of the map will be finished soon (on paper, I'm waiting a bit before finalizing the electronic version that you can print and test)


• the towns are defined, I don't think any change will come for that before the "finale" version (or the one I gave you for testings)


• destination tickets are somewhat defined, I think they will be sharpened with test campaign.

Rules

• probably a mix between US / Europe / Mistery train


• no station (i don't like this principle, and the board will be minded in this way)


• ferries and tunnels will be present, or maybe another rule that give a supplemental constraint to the game


• I have to create cards which will give points for achieving other objectives then standard dsetinatiion tickets (maybe routes across all islands,...), on the same principle that Mistery Train (I think)

Test version
Please send me (=kokliko) your mail for testing this version.
Maybe I try to create the zipped map for "LAN" version for you can test it.

This test version will be ONLY send by e-mail to people that contact me (kokliko35--AT--yahoo.fr). The aim is to have the final version available freely for the most people (and not have many versions "circulating")

Posted by Naturelich at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Excerpt from inofficial European map for Zug um Zug (c) by Klaus de Groote and Dominik de Groote. Zug um Zug is designed by Alan R. Moon and copyrighted by Days of Wonder

The European coninent seems to be a hot topic in the fan-community of Ticket to Ride. Klaus de Groote and Dominik de Groote from Altdorf in Bavaria have produced a new map extension to Spiel des Jahres 2004 winner Zug um Zug. It is the fourth fan-produced expansion map focussing on Europe.

Continue reading "Riding Europe on a fan-produced map" »

Posted by Naturelich at 7:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

White Christmas - One of thirty event cards included in Ticket to Ride: WIld Wild West

Juanjo Roig and José Carlos de Diego have now published an English translation of their magnficient expansion to Ticket to Ride, called Wild Wild West. This expansion basically adds 30 event cards to the game which bring new life to Ticket to Ride (well, it was not dead but I have played it soooo often, it's always great to be able to add something new to the game).

If you are interested in further information about Wild Wild West, I suggest to read my original post about Wild Wild West, or the original translation as posted on this site.

Far and foremost, you should get the English version of the game. It is available on: http://ludere.ual.es/bsk/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=1210.

Posted by Naturelich at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Desertor event from WIld Wild West

Finally I got around to translating Wild Wild West. Wild Wild West, designed and copyrighted by Juanjo Roig and José Carlos de Diego, is currently available in Spanish only. This is my attempt at making this inofficial Ticket to Ride-extension available to a greater audience. It has been a lot of work, so if you like it, please leave a comment. Even better if you have suggestions for improvement. If this is accepted well, I might consider doing a German translation as well. But enough, let's move on to the rules...

Continue reading "Wild Wild West (English translation)" »

Posted by Naturelich at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)

Egypt . A fan-produced map for Ticket to Ride. (c) by Thomas Cerncic. Ticket to Ride is copyright by Days of Wonder and designed by Alan R. Moon

Thomas Cerncic has completed work on a new unofficial map to Ticket to Ride. His extension map is called Reise durch Ägypten (Journey through Egypt) to commemorate his holidays in Egypt. Now you can ride like an Egyptian. As you can see from the picture above, the design looks fabulous. The extension not only includes the map but also several additional Mystery Train-like cards.

Continue reading "A ticket to ride like an Egyptian" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Egypt - The Preview. An unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. (c) by Thomas Cernic. Ticket to Ride is copyright by Days of Wonder and designed by Alan R. Moon

Ever wanted to go by train from Cairo to Suez? Or to Assuan maybe? Here is your chance...
A new unofficial map is in the progress of being released. As announced earlier today in Days of Wonder German speaking forum to Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug) the map is called Reise durch Ägypten (Journey through Egypt). The map has been designed by Thomas Cernic. A larger work-in-progress preview version is available on his site, here. The design looks fabulous. Let's hope the tickets will be great, too!

Posted by Naturelich at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Austria - Fan-produced, unofficial extension to Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug).
(c) by Lukas & Daniel Köchler.
Ticket to Ride is copyright by Days of Wonder and designed by Alan R. Moon.

Austria Rail Tour is here! Ever wanted to travel to Vienna, Salzburg, Linz or Graz in Ticket to Ride? Lukas & Daniel Köchler has designed an unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. The full game includes 20 tickets plus an adjusted version of the Mystery Train cards. The map design is completely self-produced and does not reuse any of the previous styles introduced by fan-produced maps. As the authors pointed out: they have found Austria to be too small to fit an entire map of Ticket to Ride into it. Therefore, they decided to use the countries role in central Europe to connect to their neighbouring countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia. The Austrian mystery train cards are relatively similar to the original expansion set. However, some adjustments were necessary to make the cards work: The Station Agent (Bahnhofsvorsteher) gives 10 points to the player who visited the most Austrian cities, while the Tycoon (Industriemagnat) scores 10 points for creating a connection between North and South (instead of East and West coast as in the original TtR).

Download
The map can be downloaded here on the author's site.

[Note, February 2007: The link is broken. Please see comments below]

Posted by Naturelich at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

It has been quite a while since I was able to report about a new fan-produced extension to Ticket to Ride. It took some digging in the internet but I finally found a brand new map: Cuba - Region Occidental. And it's finally not a map from within Europe!

Unofficial map-extension to Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug) by Juan Palacio

Continue reading "Cuba - Region Occidental" »

Posted by Naturelich at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (2)

Today is a wonderful day. A new map for Ticket to Ride is available. It is ...

Italy

The map was published by matmo on Boardgamegeek and is available for download here. Thanks matmo, for making this available!

The map looks great. It is very close to the original Ticket to Ride style. The cities are marked by red circles which increase in size the larger the cities get. From what I can see so far the map contains plenty of long and double routes. My initial guess is that the map plays best with four players. That's the good news.

But there is bad news: currently I was not able to find destination ticket cards. I would love to see them and then try re-building the map in one of our great TtR map-tinkering sessions...

Posted by Naturelich at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3)

A Japanese translation of Ticket to Fly (by jeuxparje.free.fr) has been published on play:game. Click here to view the corresponding entry.

Ticket to Fly is an inofficial expansion to the original Ticket to Ride game. More information on fan-produced expansions can be found on my index page here.

Posted by Naturelich at 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fan-produced UK expansion-set for Ticket to Ride Europe

A new UK-extension is available for Ticket to Ride. Actually, this is the first extension based on the Ticket to Ride Europe ruleset. The fan-produced UK map has been designed by Wiebke Lüdemann (Illustration) and Stefan Grunhold (Strategy). The board which is 70 x 80 cm in size, connects United Kingdom with the rest of Europe (e.g. Amsterdam in The Netherlands as well as Bergen and Stavanger in Norway, Helgoland in Germany, etc.).

Download the map by clicking here.

What's so special about this extension?
1. In addition to the original Ticket to Ride Europe this map contains routes which are 7 waggons in length - scoring 18 points.

2. The design and illustration is truly unique and awesome. The ferry routes are multi-colored (instead of having the original's grey color / locomotive symbol on it). Due to the integration of some "overseas"-destinations, a lot of ferries are available. The same is true for tunnels, which are indicated by rounded boxes. Here, I was missing the clearer tunnel borders from the original, but it is not a big disadvantage. The tickets look wonderful - long and short routes are clearly distinguishable. A lot of love, energy and enthusiam has been put into the illustration. Congratulations.

3. The scoring track is a great novelty as it uses railroad tracks in the background which looks really nice.

4. A first-glance board analysis reveals: the long routes are only available in the periphery, while the central UK cities are connected by short routes (the maximum is 3, I believe). Part of the periphery can only be reached on a single track, which obviously requires plenty of stations to be used. There are many tickets connecting the central UK - be prepared for a crowded board in the middle. The long routes connect destinations in a star-shaped fashion (from left to right, from top-left to bottom-right and from top-right to bottom-left) while some partially intersect. I am exciting about how this will play out in a real game. Certainly the destination tickets and board layout is as well designed as the illustrations are.

I am afraid I have to get some new glossy photo paper along with some cardboard to tinker this one... It's just to great to have a fan-made TtR Europe extension. Great work!

[Key words in German: UK Erweiterung Zug um Zug Europa]

Posted by Naturelich at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Keith Corbino has created a new map for Ticket to Ride. The map uses pretty much the same geographic area as the original Ticket to Ride Europe but the routes and cities are different. Also, the map does not contain the advanced Ticket to Ride rules (i.e. no tunnels, no ferries, no stations, etc.) but is played with original rules. The map looks really fun to play and visually very professional and appealing to me. I would like to hear from you if you have played with the map - how did you like it?

The map is available from Board Game Geek here.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Wild Wild West is a new fan-produced Ticket to Ride expansion. This expansion is currently only available in Spanish language but an English translation is on the way. This add-on to the original Ticket to Ride has been made available by ludere.ual.es/bsk. The PDF file has also been posted on Board Game Geek - click here to visit the Ticket to Ride section and look for one of the attached files (heading: Ticket2Ride-WildWildWestExpansion.pdf)...

Although my Spanish is not really existing, here are a few cards from this expansion:

Let's hope the English translation is ready soon. I hope to keep you posted...

Posted by Naturelich at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (4)

An unofficial UK extension to Ticket to Ride has been published by David Millard on his homepage. Personally, I have been waiting a long time to play Ticket to Ride on a UK board. I really have to admit, David has done an excellent job in putting this set together. It looks beautiful and spends a lot of attention to detail and is fresh and creative:

First of all, the board contains specific rules on a triple route which leads from Birmingham to greater London. Second of all, his solution to the famous London-problem is remarkable: since London is so much bigger than other UK cities, he has created the circle line and split London into the four stations Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Waterloo and Paddington. Another excellent game element is the corresponding circle line destination ticket which scores 6 points for a connection between three of those four stations.

In addition to the map and destination tickets, David also provides a wonderful support webpage with notes on tactics and an FAQ section. The game looks really promising and maybe this one is the next to be tinkered... I'll keep you posted ;)

Posted by Naturelich at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (4)

I have to apologize to the English speaking audience of my blog. This is another posting in German language to translate the rules of Ticket to Fly, a fan produced expansion of Ticket to Ride, a game by Days of Wonder. An English version of the rules can be found here.

Zug um Zug: Der Flug
Die Auszeichnung Spiel des Jahres 2004 hat dem Spiel Zug um Zug von Alan R. Moon nicht nur in Deutschland zu großer Popularität verholfen. Auch in Frankreich, Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA hat sich eine große Fangemeinde gebildet, die aktiv inoffizielle Neuerungen zur Verfügung stellt. So sind beispielsweise eine Vielzahl neuer Landkarten veröffentlicht worden. Mit Ticket to Fly liegt nun die erste inoffizielle Erweiterung zu Zug um Zug vor. Dieses Set mit 10 neue Karten, steht bei jeuxparje.free.fr zum Download bereit und setzt sich wie folgt zusammen:

8 Flugtickets:

2 neue Charaktere (ähnlich wie Mystery Train)

Dieser Blog-Eintrag enthält die deutsche Übersetzung der Regeln

Spielvorbereitung
Jeder Spieler enthält vier kleine Würfel in der Farbe seiner Waggons. Diese werden benötigt um die Nutzung von Flugstrecken zu markieren.

Die folgenden sieben langen Streckenkarten werden dem Zielkartenstapel entnommen.

Diese langen Streckenkarten werden gemischt und an die Spieler verteilt. Dabei erhält jeder Spieler genau eine lange Streckenkarte. Die übriggebliebenen langen Streckenkarten kommen aus dem Spiel.
Jeder Spieler erhält zusätzlich drei kurze Zielkarten. Die Zug um Zug: Der Flug Karten werden unter die hiernach verbleibenden Zielkarten gemischt.

Von den vier Zielkarten muss jeder Spieler mindestens zwei behalten. Diejenigen Karten, die der Spieler nicht behalten möchte werden verdeckt unter den Zielkartenstapel zurückgelegt.

Der Spielablauf
Das Spiel wird nach den gleichen Regeln des Grundspiels gespielt. Diese sind aber noch um folgende Regeln zu ergänzen:

Um eine Flugstrecke nutzen zu können, muss der Spieler ein Set von vier Wagenkarten derselben Farbe ausspielen, wobei es erlaubt ist Zugkarten als Joker zu verwenden. Auf Start- und Endpunkt der Flugstrecke wird je ein kleiner Würfel gesetzt, so dass hierbei keine Waggons der Farbe des Spielers verwendet werden. Die Farbe der kleinen Würfel sollte der Farbe der Waggons des Spielers entsprechen. Die Flugstreckenkarte selbst wird vor dem Spieler abgelegt und verbleibt dort als Gedächtnisstütze bis zum Ende des Spiels.

Dieses Bild zeigt wie die Würfel benutzt werden können um den Start- und den Endpunkt der Flugstrecke zu markieren.

Die beiden Städte sind nun durch das Flugticket miteinander verbunden. Auch Flugstrecken werden wie Zugstrecken direkt gewertet, indem der Spieler seinen Zählstein auf der Zählleiste um die Anzahl der auf dem Flugticket aufgedruckten Punkte vorwärts zieht.

Beispiel (s. Foto oben):
Der Spieler mit den blauen Waggons hat mit dem Flugticket Nashville - Miami die Städte Nashville und Miami miteinander verbunden.

Dies hat einen tollen Effekt für Blau: Alle Waggons die Miami und Nashville verlassen gelten als miteinander verbunden.

Aber: naturelich haben Flugtickets auch ihre Nachteile:
- Alle Flugtickets die ein Spieler vor dem Ende des Spiels nicht ausgespielt hat, bringen ihm 7 Punkte Abzug.
-Jeder Spieler kann höchstens 2 Flugtickets spielen.
- Mit einem Flugticket verbundene Strecken zählen nicht bei der Berechnung der längsten durchgehenden Strecke (für die man ja auch noch 10 Punkte bekäme), d.h. es zählen hierfür nur tatsächlich ausgespielte Waggons.

Geschäftsmann
Er erhält 10 Punkte, wenn er am Ende des Spiels alle Städte seiner Zielkarten in einem einzigen zusammenhängenden Streckennetz verbunden hat.

Bastelabend
Nach der Empfehlung der Autoren sollte man sich die Erweiterung herunterladen, die Karten ausdrucken und dann laminieren um sie dauerhaft vor schädlichen EInflüssen zu schützen.

Hinweis: www.naturelich.com ist nicht verantwortlich für die inoffizielle Erweiterung Ticket to Fly. Bei diesem Artikel handelt es sich lediglich um eine Rezension und eine Übersetzung dessen, was JeuxparJe im Internet veröffentlicht haben. Dies geschieht mit ausdrücklicher Genehmigung von JeuxparJe. Zug um Zug ist ein Spiel von Days of Wonder und Alan R. Moon.

Weitere Informationen über sämtliche bisher veröffentlichte inoffiziellen Erweiterungen zu Zug um Zug finden sich hier (naturelich in Englisch).

Posted by Naturelich at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

As the third inofficial map we decided to create the inoffical map of Switzerland. It is smaller in size than the German map we handicrafted earlier last months.

Why did we choose Zug um Zug Schweiz?
Well, not only does this map look good, it also seems to have a well-balanced game concept. Our compliments to P. Riedo. In addition, we both have quite a close connection to Switzerland and have travelled there often. Naturelich even travels Switzerland by train a lot. Therefore, some of the cities are very familiar and it seemed the natural choice for us.

How did we do it?
We used our old technique. Print the map on glossy photo paper(Switzerland comes on eight DIN A4 pages) and glue it on card board. The card board is then plastified. This worked extremely well and it took us only about two hours.

In addition we had to print the tickets. They come on two DIN A4 pages. Since they do not match the original Ticket to Ride game design they do not have a rear picture. The ticket design itself does not match the original game but this is absolutely no problem and does not diminish the fun we had playing the first game...

Posted by Naturelich at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Zur deutschen Übersetzung der Regeln

Ticket to Ride (aka Zug um Zug, aka Les Aventuriers du Rail) is also very popular in France and Belgium. Not only were they the first to publish inofficial maps but they also created Ticket to Fly, the first inofficial expansion. This set of 10 cards, which can be dowloaded from jeuxparje.free.fr consists of:

8 Tickets to Fly:

2 special cards (similar to Mystery Train)

Here are the detailed rules (translated to English)

Preparations
The seven following standard (long) destination tickets are taken from the game.

They are shuffled before the regular tickets are distributed. Each players gets one card. The remaining tickets are discarded to outside of the game. Each player receives three tickets from the remaining short destination routes (of the basic game). Each player has to keep a minimum of 2 cards from these four.

The ones which have been returned are put back into the stack together with all ten Ticket to Fly cards.

The game
The game is being played normally, with the exception of the 10 Ticket to Fly cards:

The authors suggest to use cubes to be put at the start and the end of the destinations.

A Ticket to Fly automatically connects these two destinations, immediately scoring the points printed on the ticket. For example the Nashville - Miami flight ticket connects Nashville with Miami. This has a cool effect: Each waggon leaving from Miami and Nashville counts as being connected to each other.
But these cards also have their drawbacks:
- All Tickets to Fly which have not been played before the ending of the game score 7 minus points.
- Each player can only play 2 tickets to fly
- The distance connected by a Ticket to Fly does not count toward the longest route, i.e. only waggons really count

Business Man
At the end of the game, score 10 additional points if all your tickets are completed successfully and all your waggons are connected to one another.

Creating the game
The authors recommend to download the tickets, print them and then plastify them for increased durability.

Note: www.naturelich.com/games/ is not responsible for the Ticket to Fly extension. This is only a review and translation of what has been published by JeuxparJe on the internet. It is not supposed to violate any rights of JeuxparJe. Ticket to Ride is copyright by Days of Wonder. All rights reserved.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (2)

Today I have found another inofficial Ticket to Ride map of Germany on the internet. You can find it here. The map contains several smaller destinations on the Northern coastline like Norddeich, Puttgarden, Seebad Heringsdorf, etc. This helps improve your geographic knowledge about Germany. It seems to me, these cities have been chosen to create a well-balanced net of long routes. And this is one of the things which struck me at first: the destination tickets seem to focus on connecting Northern and Southern parts of the country. I have to see how this plays out...

Needless to say, I am personally happy to see Düsseldorf has made it onto the map, while Cologne has not. But let's put these little puns aside: I think the map is well-designed, looks really good and maybe, eventually, perhaps I will soon be able to write another entry on how we played our first games on the map...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

The list of fan-made expansions to Zug um Zug aka Ticket to Ride continues to grow. The next release is Hamburg. The map shows the city rail net of Hamburg - an idea quite similar to the inofficial Lyon expansion published earlier last year.

The map looks not too crowded and contains many longer routes. With this design the author Johannes Göbel has chosen to keep more consistent with the original Ticket to Ride game - as opposed to the upcoming release of the official European expansion: Ticket to Ride Europe.

Since I have not yet found the time to re-create this map myself, I am happy to read your experiences. If you like you can simply leave a comment...

Posted by Naturelich at 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

My Kleki-Petra and I worked hard when creating one of the inofficial German expansion maps for Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug). We chose the map containing Osnabrück where most of our origins are. We printed the entire materials on photo paper and started cutting...

Continue reading "Creating the inofficial German expansion to Ticket to Ride" »

Posted by Naturelich at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (4)

Since Zug um Zug won Germany's game of the year award Spiel des Jahres 2004 the game seems to grow in popularity. The third inofficial German expansion to Ticket to Ride is available here. This one has Düsseldorf on it, but not Osnabrück. So we are still waiting for one expansion which connects these two Naturelich cities....

Posted by Naturelich at 9:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Another inofficial map to Ticket to Ride has been released. It is the second map of Germany that can be found on the internet inofficially. The map was created by Sebastian Huth. I like this map much better than the one released earlier (by a different fan), although the scoring scale is not printed around the map (as in the original version and all the other fan-made expansions so far), but on a different sheet. I strongly presume this map will be the next one we shall build and try.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

Inofficial Swiss map for Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride is a game designed by Alan R. Moon, published by Days of Wonder.

And yet another inoffical expansion to Ticket to Ride! Great news! This time we get a map of Switzerland. My favorite route is the one from Basel to Solothurn and from Solothurn via Olten to Zurich. I have taken this route several times myself during the past few years. One can score as many as 30 points with just one ticket. I am looking forward for your gaming reports...

Posted by Naturelich at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

Another fan-made, inofficial European map for Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride is a game designed by Alan R. Moon, published by Days of Wonder.

Another inoffical fan-made European map has appeared on the internet. The game consists 36 tickets, 36 cities and 231 route pieces.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Fan produced, inofficial European map for Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride is a game designed by Alan R. Moon, published by Days of Wonder.

On Dangrila.com a fan produced European map has been published. The map includes such important touristic spots as Loch Ness in Scotland, Santiago de Compostela in Spain or Mont St. Michel in France. To me, it seems to have been designed with a lot of love and passion for the game. Since massive spoilers for the official European expansion for Ticket to Ride [Zug um Zug] have been announced, it is pretty save to assume that this fan produced version will not have much similarity to it. Anyway, this map definitely introduces new game tactics and strategies and some freshness until the official release is ready. I have not started to create my own version of this expansion, but if you have tried this map, please leave your comments here.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Zug um Zug Expansion for Germany

Tilman Brühne has published an inofficial expansion to Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug). This makes the third inofficial expansion to Ticket to Ride. I hope Days of Wonder thinks about more than just one expansion set. A set for Europe has already been announced by the company.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I have finally printed and played the (inofficial) Belgian expansion of Ticket to Ride (more details here)! The fan-made non-official expansion was created by Nicolas Maréchal / Les Jeux de Nim.

We bought new high quality photo paper, a very large and strong sheet of cardboard plus new color ink for the inkjet printer. And 2 hours later - with much anticipation and excitement - we held our own copy of the Belgian expansion in our hands. It was certainly not long before we started playing.

The expansion is designed for 2-3 players and one can immediately see why: the routes between cities are much much shorter, mostly only 2-3 fields long. To balance the game the author has put several double routes onto the board, which may be used when playing with 3 players. But sometimes even this is not enough, as it becomes really crowded. Especially Bruxelles (Brussels) and Liège are among the more popular destinations in Belgium (who would have guessed). The destination tickets are adjusted to the Belgian route network.

Design
For a fan-made extension the design is extraordinary. By investing about EUR 15 into ink and paper you get a durable, well designed addition to the excellent original game. The designers have obviously a lot of time and energy into making the board look similar to the original.

Gameplay
The gameplay is identical to the basic version. Naturelich, the new board requires you to revise your strategies. I have noticed that drawing a lot of destination tickets pays well off. Additionally, it was felt that getting your trains onto the board early on some key routes was important to achieve victory. Since the board contains only two routes of length 6 - scoring superproportional 15 points - these are even more valuable than in the original game. All these new elements make up for a new set of strategies and tactics. Something which shortens the time-period until the official first extension to this great game is released.

Key words:
- inoffizielle Erweiterung Belgien Zug um Zug
- Les Aventuriers du Rail en Belgique

Posted by Naturelich at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

A high quality, fan-made expansion is available for Ticket to Ride/Zug um Zug: The Belgian Expansion aka Les Aventuriers du Rail en Belgique. The expansion is created by Nicolas Maréchal. It comes with a lot of materials and a how-to guide.

Please note: Naturelich is just pointing out that this fan-made expansion exists. I am neither promoting nor endorsing the practice of fan-made expansions. I have not created a fan-made expansion or a copy of it.

Posted by Naturelich at 1:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

A high quality, fan-made expansion is available for Ticket to Ride/Zug um Zug: The Lyon Expansion aka Les Aventuriers du Rail a Lyon. The expansion is created by François Haffner. It comes with a lot of materials and a how-to guide.

Please note: Naturelich is just pointing out that this fan-made expansion exists. I am neither promoting nor endorsing the practice of fan-made expansions. I have not created a fan-made expansion or a copy of it.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)