I don't know...in 2-, 3-, and 4-player it's been a solid win strategy. The other players can't get their routes built fast enough because you are controlling the deck. Maybe that says more about who I play against.

There's no limit to the number of cards you can hold. So you simply draw cards on every turn, until you hold all your routes. By that time, you will probably hold several of your opponents' routes also, and may have cornered the market on one or two colors.

I only have Ticket to Ride Europe, but this makes no sense to me as a strategy.

Are you saying you use all your initial turns to collect extra route cards, and then later turns to build on those routes? Or, in the original game, do you not have to decide between drawing color cards, drawing route cards, and building (as in the Europe version)?

Are you saying you use all your initial turns to collect extra route cards, and then later turns to build on those routes? Or, in the original game, do you not have to decide between drawing color cards, drawing route cards, and building (as in the Europe version)?

No, you only get one action per turn in the original game too. (I've found the primary incentive to card hoarding is to avoid telegraphing your intentions too soon. Taking tracks piecemeal lets your opponents try to block you, either deliberately or because they realise the routes they want are under threat from you. But if they start taking your routes anyway, you need to get in there fast. Doesn't matter how many cards are in your hand if you have 30 points in routes leaving L.A. and it's become completely blocked.)

ETA: I think the strategy actually makes more sense in TtR:E. You can place stations too, so you can leapfrog the odd blockade (for a modest fee). Plus, the tunnels encourage more card hoarding, as does the chance of claiming the Stockholm-St Petersburg line. (If you throw out your long route at the start of the game, then maybe you can afford to be more opportunistic in the tracks you claim too, though at the expense of route points.)

Not sure how it would work in practice, though. The extra incentives to hoarding cards may just ensure your opponents keep a sizeable hand too. In that case, you can't really starve them as easily.

We only have TtR:E, so that may be part of it.

On another note, I have a vague description of a half-remembered game from like 30 years ago. Anyone up for helping me figure out what it was?

It was a board game about time travel. The board was a series of concentric rings, and each player's goal was to get colored dots on the rings to line up, thereby making the history of the universe the way they wanted it.

Was the board background black with multicolored dots? I'm not sure if I ever played it or only saw the description in Games magazine.

It was a board game about time travel. The board was a series of concentric rings, and each player's goal was to get colored dots on the rings to line up, thereby making the history of the universe the way they wanted it.

Raq, is this it? [link]

There's no limit to the number of cards you can hold. So you simply draw cards on every turn, until you hold all your routes. By that time, you will probably hold several of your opponents' routes also, and may have cornered the market on one or two colors.

I'm still puzzling over this. And I think I misread it. DO you collect and hoard train color cards or route cards?

billytea, score! That is it, thank you!

Part of the reason I'm interested in looking at it again is that you have a team of people who are raw recruits, and you have to train them up before sending them into the "field" to screw with time. But because other players are doing the same, you have to balance the tradeoff between having them trained and keeping them out of the field, thus losing the time war.

Oh, and megan - you hoard color cards. Obviously the more wild cards you hold the better, but there's also the factor that there are more cards of some colors than others, so you can conceivably own a color.

OK, I thought you were talking about routes.

But you have to build eventually, so I still don't really see how this would work in practice. Others will still be able to build early, and once you start building they'll be able to draw colors, so how do you catch up?