Since 2007, the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award-winning board game Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder, has been supported with new maps, beginning with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. That new map would be collected in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 2 – India & Switzerland, the second entry in the Map Collection series begun in Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 – Team Asia & Legendary Asia. Both of these have proved to be worthy additions to the Ticket to Ride line, whereas Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa and Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland have proved to add more challenging game play, but at a cost in terms of engaging game play. Further given that they included just the one map in the third and fourth volumes rather than the two in each of the first two, neither felt as if they provided as much value either. Fortunately, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania came with two maps and explored elements more commonly found in traditional train games—stocks and shares in railroad companies and the advance of railway technology. This was followed by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6: France + Old West, which provided two maps exploring a common theme—telegraphing each player’s intended placement of their trains; then by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, which focused on borders and connecting them; and lastly, by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy which examines two ways in which long routes affect game play. Thematically, the next entry in the series is connected by peninsulas.
Of course, Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea requires the base game for its train pieces and scoring tokens, and both of its maps are designed to be played by between two and five players. The Iberia map includes one-hundred-and-ten Train Car Cards, fifty-four Festival Cards, a Ticket Draft Card, and fifty Destination Ticket Cards. The map itself depicts the Iberian Peninsula, primarily Spain and Portugal, but routes over the Pyrenees into southwestern France and ferry routes across the western Mediterranean to Palma, capital of the Spanish island of Mallorca. There is nothing radical or different about the map. Rather, the game play is different. This begins with the set-up. After the standard number of Train Car Cards are dealt to the players, the fifty-four Festival Cards are shuffled into the deck of Train Car Cards and the Ticket Draft Card is inserted into the combined deck. The players are dealt a total of Destination Ticket Cards. Instead of deciding to keep several of them and discard the rest, each player drafts on passes the remaining Destination Ticket Cards to the player on his left. This is done until each player has six Destination Ticket Cards, at which point, he can chose to discard two. This will mean that a player will get to see most of the Destination Ticket Cards that the other players have rejected and have some idea as what they have kept. There is the luck of the draw in drawing Destination Ticket Cards in any version of Ticket to Ride, but this draft mechanic randomises the draw even further, and it makes it difficult for a player to tailor his Destination Ticket Cards so that they fall along similar routes. Yet, Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea adds an extra twist to this.
When the Ticket Draft Card is drawn from the deck of Train Car Cards, a second draft takes exactly like the first, but going in the opposite direction. This has a player draft six new Destination Ticket Cards and keep four. It forces a player to consider eight new destinations that he has to connect and again they may not fall along similar routes. It also forces a player to marshal his train pieces since he knows will need some in the latter half of the game to complete the new Destination Ticket Cards. This also has another effect, which is to prevent a player from claiming as many routes as he can to speed up the end of the game. Up until this point, the players have not been allowed to draw new Destination Ticket Cards, but the other effect of the Ticket Draft Card is that now they can. However, with eight Destination Ticket Cards in hand, there is going to be less diving for new Destination Ticket Cards in the hope of scoring big.
The other means of scoring that Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea adds is Festival Cards. When drawn from the Train Car Card deck, a Festival Card is placed on the edge of the board nearest to the Festival City mentioned on the Festival Card. Many of the cities have multiple associated Festival Cards and when drawn these placed in a stack. When player claims a Route that connects to a Festival City, he can take all of the available Festival Cards for that city. At the end of the game, a player scores points for each set of Festival Cards he has for each city. This is a set collection mechanic similar to the railroad shares for the Pennsylvania map from Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania.
Of the two new mechanics in Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea, for the Iberia map, the draft mechanic and the Ticket Draft Card are better than the Festival Cards mechanic. The draft mechanic alters some of the fundamentals of play and forces a player to think in the long term, husbanding his train pieces as important resources not knowing how many he will need towards the end of the game, and knowing that at some point the scoring opportunities are going to get more complicated. The Festival Cards does offer extra scoring opportunities that are easier because a player can claim routes even if they are not on any of his Destination Ticket Cards, but is just a bit busy and adds clutter around the edges of what is a large board.
The South Korea map is noticeably different and has a direct effect on play. This is because instead of the route colours being distributed across the map, they are clumped together in zones. There are a few grey routes as you would expect, but otherwise, all of the red routes are together in a zone, all of the blue routes are together in a zone, and so on. This has an immediate effect upon drawing Train Car Cards, because no matter what colour Train Car Cards a player draws, he is signalling which zone he wants to claim a route in.
The South Korea map is noticeably different and has a direct effect on play. This is because instead of the route colours being distributed across the map, they are clumped together in zones. There are a few grey routes as you would expect, but otherwise, all of the red routes are together in a zone, all of the blue routes are together in a zone, and so on. This has an immediate effect upon drawing Train Car Cards, because no matter what colour Train Car Cards a player draws, he is signalling which zone he wants to claim a route in.
In addition to the new map, the South Korea expansion includes fifteen Express Train Cards, forty-four Destination Ticket Cars, a Province Mat, and a province Scoring Card. The first rule that the South Korea expansion adds is the same draft mechanic in the Iberia map, but not the Ticket Draft Card. The second is for the Express Train Cards. Each player is given three of these, marked ‘+1’, ‘+2’, and ‘+3’. Each can be used once per game to either increase the number of Destination Ticket Cards a player can draw or the number of Train Car Cards a player can draw. This will give a player a one-time boost when each is played.
A player has another action that he can do after claiming a route. This is to place an extra train car on the Province Board. The Province Board is marked with several lines matching the colours of the Train Car Card and numbered from one to eight. The Train Car must be placed on both the line corresponding to the colour of the route just claimed and on the number equal to the length of the route just claimed. A player can also expend extra Train Car Cards to claim a higher number. If that number has already been claimed, the Train Car is placed on next free number of a lower value instead. An Express Train Card can also be expended to claim a higher number. At the end of the game, each player totals the combined value for the numbers claimed on each line and is awarded points according to their rank.
The South Korea map is a simpler, more direct map than Iberia. It rewards faster, more efficient play because the competition to claim routes is more open. Players telegraph to each other the zones where they want to claim routes when they draw Train Car Cards of a particular colour and so the race to claim routes within a zone can become tighter. Similarly, there is a race to claim routes because having done so, a player can claim numbers on the Province Mat that will contribute towards their final score. The Express Train Cards do give players a one-off advantage each time they are used, so should not be wasted. Overall, the South Korea map is much more competitive in comparison to many other Ticket to Ride Maps.
In addition, both maps offer something to the wider Ticket to Ride family. The drafting mechanics from the Iberia map could be used with other maps as could the Province Mat from the South Korea map. The drafting mechanic would have a greater effect upon play since it counters common game play elements such as collecting Destination Ticket Cards with roughly the same routes, playing Train Cars in order to speed up the end of the game, and drawing Destination Ticket Cards late in the game to score extra points along already claimed routes. Certainly, it would be interesting to see these rules implemented elsewhere and their effects examined, perhaps in a book dedicated to new rules for Ticket to Ride?
Physically, as you would expect, the production values for Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea are excellent. Everything is of a high quality and both looks good and feels good in the hand. The only item that could have been a better quality is the Province Mat, which is on card and not mounted. It is a pity that there is not room on the South Korea map for it either.
Given that Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea changes the way in which Ticket to Ride is played—the Iberia map in particular with the far reaching, even structural effects of the drafting rules—this is not an expansion for the casual player of Ticket to Ride. Rather it is for the fan of the game who wants to be challenged in new ways and the board game player who wants to be challenged more than the standard play of Ticket to Ride offers. Of the two maps, the Iberia map is the better, but the South Korea map is still good. Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia + South Korea continues to offer new ways to play a tried and tested, even venerable format.
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