My partner recently had a birthday. Her parents agreed to let 3 of the kids spend the night, and so my partner and I just had the baby with us one night this past weekend, sort of in observance of her birthday.
For her birthday, she said she wanted to play games with me. She was jealous that the weekend before I found time to play Crokinole with the kids.
So I asked if she wanted me to teach her Crokinole. She was reluctant, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend the mental energy to learn a new game. I insisted that it was very easy to learn, and we played a quick best-score-after-3-games series. I won, but she grasped the game pretty quick. I hope to get it out again soon and see how she feels about it after having had a bit of experience – I think she might have been concerned that she would not be able to beat me at a dexterity game; she totally could, given the right motivation and confidence.
Afterwards, we got Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries back on our table. This is the first Ticket to Ride game we played and it’s the one that introduced my partner to one of her favorite games(eries).
While I looked down at the empty board, I realized part of why Ticket to Ride isn’t one of my favorite games: the game is more exciting when it starts than at any other moment. Looking down at the empty map is full of possibility – but as soon as the game begins, your opponent can, with very little effort/planning needed, just claim any route they have the cards for.
At first I was thinking to myself, “how is this so much different than 18xx then?” After thinking about it, I realized 18xx games offer a slower and more restrictive pace to blocking out routes and cities – there is the occasional “tragic track” where you can sabotage the final upgrade for a specific tile in a way that ruins your opponent’s plans, but often, it may not be worth doing, either because it limits your own options or there’s simply a better play elsewhere. In our game, I could have just grabbed a 4-length route that my partner very obviously needed-- I had the cards in my hand and didn’t need them for the tickets I was working to solve… but I didn’t.
I still won, but I could have won by more.
The reason we have so many Ticket to Ride games is because my partner loves them, and I need the variety to keep it fresh. Nordic Countries is very good as a 2-player game, though.
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