There’s more Ticket To Ride Map Collections now that you can shake a ticket at! Volume 7 – Japan and Italy is one of the latest and greatest expansion map packs from Days of Wonder. It builds on the winning, popular formula of Alan R. Moon’s classic gateway game, Ticket To Ride. You need to use smart hand management with set collection in mind. You’ll spend cards to build routes and train networks. Of course, these two country’s maps have their own fun twists! It comes with a double-sided board, with one map on each side.
Japan’s map features the mainland as well as south-western island of Kyushu. Also present is a separate mini-map of Tokyo’s subway network! Tickets list subway links as well as city-to-city links. Another thing to consider are the Bullet Train routes between certain cities. These are grey, and to play here you hand in as many same-colour cards as the length of that route. You don’t place your own trains on them. You place a single Bullet Train miniature on it. This route is now public for any player to use to complete a Ticket throughout Japan!
Bullet Trains don’t earn you points when you complete them. Instead, you move your marker along the Bullet Train Track (the length of the route you built.) At the end of the game, the player who contributed the most towards Bullet Trains gets a large points bonus. The player who contributed the least gets a points penalty!
On the reverse side of the board, you can play in Italy. There’s many coloured regions on this map. Players score ever-increasing bonus points if they build networks that connect multiple regions. There’s also plenty of ferry routes available (grey routes). All ferry routes have spaces that comprise of 1-4 ‘wave’ symbols. To complete a ferry route, you need to pay in Locomotive (wild) card for every wave symbol. Or, you can pay a ferry card, which you can draft separate to regular train cards.
Please note that this is an expansion pack for Ticket To Ride. You’ll need a copy of the base game itself, or Ticket To Ride: Europe to play Map Collection – Japan and Italy.
Player Count: 2-5 Players
Time: 30-60 minutes
Age: 8
