What's new

This sheet summarizes the game play changes introduced with the Swiss map of Ticket to Ride. The Swiss map was designed by Alan R. Moon specifically for the computer release of Ticket to Ride. More info on the printed version of this expansion.

This summary sheet assumes that you are familiar with the rules of the original American map (ie the game's basics, first introduced in the original Ticket to Ride) and the features of the European map (ie the Tunnels mechanics, first introduced in Ticket to Ride Europe). If necessary, please refer to the corresponding tutorials to familiarize yourself with those first.

Game Overview

2-3 Players only: The Swiss map was designed specifically for 2 and 3 player games.

In 3 Player games, players can use both tracks of the double-routes. In 2 Player games, once one of the tracks of a double-route is taken, the other one is no longer available.

Smaller set of trains: Each player starts with a reserve of 40 trains, instead of the usual 45.

No Locomotives: The 14 traditional Locomotive "wild" cards are gone, replaced by 14 new Tunnel cards, represented by a locomotive drawn inside a Tunnel.

New Routes

On the board, some of the routes no longer link cities to cities, but cities to Switzerland's neighboring countries instead.

There are 3 routes leading from Switzerland to Austria, 4 to France, 5 to Italy and 5 to Germany.

Destination Tickets

There are 46 Destination Tickets in the deck; 34 are standard city-to-city Tickets, played as usual; 4 are city-to-country Tickets, linking a city to all of Switzerland's neighboring Countries; and 8 are country-to-country (2 from each country to all of Switzerland's other neighboring countries). The country-to-country tickets are the only ones to exist in duplicates. All other tickets are unique.

The city-to-country and country-to-country tickets work as regular tickets, except as follows: The points gained at game's end are those of the highest connection completed, from among the list of possible country destinations marked on the ticket. If none of the possible connections was made, the only points lost are those corresponding to the lowest value on the ticket.

4 tickets link a city to all of Switzerland's neighboring countries. There is a score for each of these country. At the end of the game, each player scores as many points as the highest value among the successfully completed destinations. On the other hand, if the player didn't manage to reach any country, the lowest score on the Destination Ticket card is deducted from his score.

At the start of the game, each player is dealt 5 Destination Tickets of which he must keep at least 2.

During the game, if a player wishes to draw additional Destination Tickets, he is dealt 3 new Tickets, of which he will have to keep at least 1.

Destination Tickets rejected, at game's start or following a draw of new Destination Tickets in mid-game, are not discarded as usual; instead, they are immediately removed from the draw pile for the rest of the game. As such, in this map, it is possible to run out of Destination Tickets entirely!

The Tunnel cards

Unlike the standard Locomotive cards of previous games, Tunnel cards picked always count for a single card, even if selected from among the five face-up cards available for drawing. If 3 of the 5 face up cards available for drawing ever turn up to be Tunnel cards, all 5 face-up cards are immediately discarded and new cards drawn in place.

The Tunnel cards act like Locomotive cards, but for the sole purpose of being played on Tunnel routes: Tunnel cards can be used to complement or replace the colored cards required to claim a Tunnel route, but they can never be used to help claim a regular (non-Tunnel) route!

Rules to claim a Tunnel route are the same as for the European map, except that:

when the 3 cards from the top of the deck are revealed during the attempt to claim a Tunnel route, any Tunnel card drawn is considered a match, thus requiring the play an additional card (either a colored card of the proper color, or another Tunnel card).

if a player exclusively plays Tunnel cards to claim a tunnel route, only additional Tunnel cards drawn from the deck will be considered a match. This means that if you play Tunnel cards only to claim a Tunnel route, you will not have to worry about a colored card of the Tunnel's color triggering a match! If Tunnel cards appear in the 3 cards drawn for the Tunnel, triggering a match, it can only be fulfilled by playing additional Tunnel cards from your hand, at this stage.