Microteach: Ticket to Ride

What follows assumes

• you know Ticket to Ride,
• what a microteach is,
• the game is already set up on the table,
• there’s a sample 3-card hand of tickets set off to the side (enhance), and
• there are no wilds on display (enhance).

Microteach

The object is to get the most points. You get points by completing tickets. (Show a 3-card sample hand.) That’s done by playing trains to routes on the board. (Discard a set of matching cards and fill in one with trains.) A ticket is fulfilled whenever you connect its two cities with any number of intervening routes. (Fill in several routes for a card revealed from your hand, tracing the route. Alter it to show another possible route.) Some routes (point to them), the grays, can accept a matching set of train cards of any color. (Offer a valid set and claim a short gray route.)

On your turn you can take 2 train cards (point to the draw piles, then take 2 and replace them), or fully claim a route (correlate card count with spots in the route) by turning in a set of like-colored cards (show a set of cards for the route and fill it in), or take a new ticket (draw one to your hand). As you can see (point to the number) each ticket is worth a certain number of points.

The game ends at the end of the round in which someone whittles their train pool down to 2 or less.

In accordance with Rule #1, it connects

• the means (taking and completing tickets by taking and playing train cards) and
• the ends (points earned from completed tickets).

Glaring omissions

• That routes are themselves worth points.
• That unfulfilled tickets are negative points.
• That wilds exist.
• That there’s a case where you only get to draw 1 train card.
• That you draw 3 tickets but are only obligated to keep 1.
• That there’s a 10-point bonus for the longest continuous path.
• That everyone, including the triggering player, goes once more when end game is triggered.

Commentary

While the wild trains can and were hidden from view the gray tracks can’t be. That’s why the gray tracks are mentioned and wild cards are not. An explanation works to tie up loose ends.

Of course, had the gray tracks been omitted from the overview it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Creatively editing an explanation is more art than science.