Great award winning board game now on your computer! (Revised)

This is my first time playing Ticket to Ride and it is a great game. I downloaded the rules, played thru the game tutorial, and went online to find out more about the (30) ticket destinations. I have only played the solo three person game (2 to 5 total players in solo mode) about 100 times. Each player gets 45 trains of a unique color (blue, green, red, yellow or black) and are dealt (3) destination tickets, and you must keep al least two, or all three. You can later ask for more tickets, then you keep one to three tickets. It is best to keep routes that are close to each other, or can connect together for the 10 point longest train bonus. You can put down train lengths that match the connecting cities on the U.S.A. board if you have the matching train color cards, grey routes are open to any color. You receive points as follows 1=1 pt; 2=2 pts; 3=4 pts; 4=7 pts; 5=10 pts; 6=15 pts. If you connect the two cities on your destination ticket you receive those points at the end of the game, if you couldn’t you get minus points instead. Their point value is about equal to the number of tracks needed to make the connection. Each player also gets four train cards to start. There are (12) each in eight colors (pink, white, blue, yellow, orange, black, green and red) and (14) of the colorful wild card locomotives.

On your turn you may do only one of three actions.
(1) Draw exactly two train cards from one or both of the five face up cards or the face down draw pile. If you decide to take one of the face up wild card locomotives then you may not take another card. When a card is taken it is immediately replaced from the draw pile. If three locomotives are face up, then all five cards are replaced until the situation is resolved. Drawing a locomotive from the face down draw pile still allows you to get two cards.
(2) Claim a route by turning in train cards/wild cards matching the color of the desired route. Grey routes are open to any color. Don’t mix up the lighter grey with the black routes.
(3) Draw three destination tickets, you must keep at least one, returing any undesired cards to the bottom of the deck. You make keep all three. Sometimes your choice can be three routes you cannot connect, so keep the one with the lowest point bonus because this will be a negative count against your score. Negative destination cards seem to happen to all players. But sometimes you can get one or two routes that you have already completed or only need one or two short connections, so it is worth the gamble.

The game keeps track of which tickets you have completed and which still need some work. It shows how many trains everyone has left, and how many ticket destination cards that each opponent holds and number of train cards with 8+ when more than eight. When one player places a route that leaves them with two or less trains, than everyone gets one more turn including that player. Remeber you must have enough trains remaining to place a route. It will let you know why you cannot place a route. Then it counts up the scores and awards the 10-pt. longest train bonus. If it is a tie, then each of these players gets 10 pts. The game keeps track of your top (50) winning games scores. The computer opponets scores isn’t recorded. I have won with as little as 66 points and with as many as 178 points. The lower scores usually happen when their is competition for routes and players get more negative incomplete route counts.

Chicago Karl about Ticket to Ride