Trains. Is there more? Part 2.

Sequel to Part 1 - Extensions. This section will probably be more interesting for those who are already familiar with one of the base games, and are looking - what else is interesting?

Note - All expansions described in this section require a base game (Europe or USA) from which the wagons, playing cards, walking dice, etc. are taken!

Map Collection 1: Team Asia and Legendary Asia

Asia.

It's hard to write something new about a bike when nothing new has been invented, but the existing one is just "refreshed". This game, like some other maps, has ferry routes but no tunnels. As in Europe, there is one long and 3 short missions at the beginning.

The different thing here is the landslides (spaces marked with an X) - on them, when building a road, you have to spend 2 wagons, placing one on the square, the other in a special landslide field. 2 points are counted for each landslide at the end of a wagon in the field. This balances the ratio of short and long paths very well and there is less advantage for long paths.

At the end of the game, a bonus of 10 points for the most connected cities in one road.

My rating - 10 wagons out of 10.

One of my favorite cards. Very simple, but at the same time gives you the opportunity to play different strategies and change them during the game - depending on the need and events on the field, put emphasis on garage roads, missions, landslides (a good opportunity to finish the game first and prevent others from completing missions). I recommend. :)

Asia in teams.

Here the concept is completely different. The basic principle is like any other Ticket to Ride - take cards, build roads, etc., but here 4 or 6 players split into two or three teams of two. In total, one team has 54 dice, each member has 27. Each player has their own private missions that are not shown, and common ones that are also visible to a teammate. The task is to fulfill both common and individual missions. Additional missions can be made public and a team member can be given a hint in which direction to go in order to fulfill common missions as well as private ones, or try to guess how to help a partner. When building roads, you can use your partner's cards, but everyone must use their own wagons.

There are also small nuances, such as, for example, the numbers on the tunnels - 4, 5, 6. In Europe, when building a tunnel, you have to reveal 3 cards, but here - as many as the corresponding number.

Fans of bridge and team games might like it, but not so much for those who like to control everything by themselves, because in the case of mistakes, if you make a mistake individually, it's your fault, but in a team, you also drag your partner down.

I won't rate this variant, I've played a couple of games, but it's too little to rate.

Map collection 2: India and Switzerland

India.

Let's start with the fact that India's playing field is vertical compared to others due to the shape of the Indian map. It does not affect the course of the game in any way, everything is still very easy to understand. Specifics of the map - there are almost no long roads, but there are a lot of small, short paths. This game will be hard to win with the long route strategy that succeeds on some other maps. Here too, there is a 10-point bonus for the longest continuous path, but in terms of points, the mandalas are more profitable (and this is the specialty and the trick of this map). A mandala counts if the mission (connect 2 cities) is completed twice - by connecting the cities via two different paths. The more mandalas, the bigger the bonus points.

My rating is 8 wagons out of 10.

Fairly well balanced, there are opportunities to express yourself, but perfection is missing something. How exactly - I don't know.

The confusing part, although played many times, are the mission cards. Mission cards usually show a miniature map, the names of the cities to be connected, and the points on the map where those cities are located. Usually, city names are from right to left, top to bottom when looking at the map. In this case, it is completely the other way around - as in Arabic writing - the endpoints are indicated in the opposite order. Sometimes it makes for fun moments spotting the cities you need :)

Switzerland.

In 2007, the Swiss map was released as a separate game, moreover, in relatively small circulation for those times. But it proved to be so popular that it was re-released in 2011 as part of the India expansion, and I think the re-release is the best compliment a game can get.

This game has a lot in common with the Nordic countries - the maximum number of players is also three, 40 wagons are used, jokers are taken as normal cards, but they can only be used in tunnels.

But the main attraction of this game is that not only cities, but also countries appear in the missions here - for example, creating many different variations, such as city-city, city-state, country-state, and also giving a choice. For example, as in the picture - connecting France with Germany (which is close) - 5 points, but connecting France with Austria (which is far and across the whole square), you can already get as many as 14 points. The same with cities and neighboring countries.

My rating - 10 wagons out of 10.

The best 3 player version of this game in my opinion.

If Switzerland could be played by more than 3 people, I would give 11 wagons :)

This game takes the best of Europe and adds countries, so there are tons of play options and a good ratio of long and short paths. The only people who might be "so..." with this map are fans of aggressive tactics - players who base their victory on limiting other players (and that's not meant in a bad way, because there are maps where this tactic fits and works very well , moreover, when playing in a tournament where not only victory is important, but also other things, for example, with what advantage the victory was won, this is not an insignificant factor).

Map collection 3: Heart of Africa

Africa.

If you, dear reader, have reached this description as well, then after everything written in the device, it might seem that all extensions are great. And here I will have to disappoint - no, unfortunately there are also those who have not been very successful, and Africa is one of them. Well, at least it seems so from my experience. Something is broken in the board here.

So - this game was supposed to be, hmm, I don't even know how to translate it - "terrain cards". "Terrain cards" - it seems something like that. (in our circle of friends they are called "terines" :) )

Terrain cards refer to the color of the roads, symbolizing the area you are traveling through. Red/yellow/orange represents desert and savanna, green/blue/purple represents jungle and forest, and black/white/grey represents mountains and highlands. Sounds pretty cool.

So - the idea is that each player is dealt 2 such terrain cards at the start of the game and can be taken as normal train cards. If you add a terrain card to your train cards while building a road, you get double the points for the section of road built. One such card is required for roads of 1, 2 and 3 stages length, two cards are required for roads of 4, 5 and 6 stages. But there is one big BUT! To play a terrain card, it needs to be not only for the one building the road, but also for another opponent. And this is where the problem arises - in practice, when the game starts, everyone quickly plays the cards that were dealt at the beginning, but does not take new ones, because after that the others no longer have them and can no longer play them. Consequently, in practice, after the first few rounds, Africa turns into a US map. In general, it would seem to be nothing special (because, as we remember, I wrote quite appreciative words about the USA), but there is another problem. In the original map of the US, the colors of the roads are well distributed. In Africa (following the desert and jungle terrain penter described), most of the yellow/red/orange roads go on the left side of the map, the green/blue/purple ones on the right. If you are lucky, and the missions are distributed to each in different places or across the map, then everything is fine. But it happens that 2 players have missions on one side, the third on the other.

And then it happens that 2 hoard and fight for their yellows and oranges, because they don't fit/need the other colors, while the third collects the blues and greens they need without competition and thus wins quickly, and by a significant margin.

Perhaps the situation could be improved by allowing you to play terrain cards simply when you have them in your hand, regardless of whether other partners have them or not. Then there would be motivation to take these cards.

My rating is 5 wagons out of 10.

Maybe if you play with "adjusted" rules, it might even be interesting. However, there are downsides - the color distribution already listed, and the fact that unlike previous expansions that had cards on both sides of the field, this one only has one card, and it's not the greatest.

It is comforting that the price for this extension is also one of the lowest.

Martin