Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries

by Days of Wonder

Product Features

• Standalone board game
• Easy to learn
• Part of the popular Ticket to Ride series of games
• Limited edition North American release
• Nordic countries theme

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 11.8 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001E9641K
• Item model number: DOW7208
• Manufacturer recommended age: 10 - 14 years
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,516 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Ticket to Ride Nordic countries takes you on a Nordic adventure through Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as you travel to the great northern cities of Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and Stockholm. Visit Norway's beautiful fjords and the magnificent mountain scenery on the trauma railway. Breathe in the salt air of the busy Swedish ports on the Baltic Sea. Ride through the Danish countryside where Vikings once walked. Hop-on the Finnish railway and travel across the Arctic Circle to the land of the midnight sun. Players collect cards of various types of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes and pass through tunnels and onto ferries, as they connect cities throughout the Nordic countries. as with previous versions, the game remains elegant, can be learned in 5 minutes and provides hours of fun for families and experienced gamers alike. Ticket to ride Nordic countries is a complete board game designed specifically for 2 or 3 players. The box contains: a full-size board map of Nordic countries, 135 colored train cars, 110 train car cards, 46 destination tickets, 1 globetrotter bonus card, 3 wooden scoring markers, 1 rules booklet, and 1 days of wonder online access number.

Product Description

Please Note: This special edition version of Nordic Countries is available for only a limited time and in limited quantities. It is already sold out at Days of Wonder. There are no current plans for a second printing. World-wide fan demand prompts release of English, French and German language editions of TtR: Nordic Countries. This 2-3 player version in the award winning Ticket to Ride board game series was previously available only in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish languages. Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries takes you on a Nordic adventure through Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as you travel to the great northern cities of Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and Stockholm. Visit Norway's beautiful fjords and the magnificent mountain scenery on the Rauma Railway. Breathe in the salt air of the busy Swedish ports on the Baltic Sea. Ride through the Danish countryside where Vikings once walked. Hop-on the Finnish railway and travel across the Arctic Circle to the land of the Midnight Sun. Players collect cards of various types of train cars that enable them to claim railway routes and pass through tunnels and onto ferries, as they connect cities throughout the Nordic Countries. As with previous versions, the game remains elegant, can be learned in 5 minutes and provides hours of fun for families and experienced gamers alike. Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries is a complete board game designed specifically for 2 or 3 players.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Challenging New Edition for Ticket To Ride Fans (but has problems with tickets), August 6, 2010

By 

Baron Von Cool - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries (Toy)

Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries is the same fun boardgame as the others in this series (don't bother with the dice or card version, however). What makes Nordic Countries different is that it combines and revises some of the more advanced rules from both Ticket to Ride Europe and Ticket to Ride Switzerland Map Expansion. You get ferry and tunnel routes like Europe and the locomotives are only usable on them like Switzerland. Ferry routes all require one or two locomotives to build. Unlike Europe or Switzerland, you can "crush cards" when building ferries by "crushing" 3 of any single color card into a locomotive and some of the ferries require you to use cards of a specific color. Tunnels operate the same as Europe; when you try to build one, flip the top 3 cards from the draw pile over; if any of them are the same color as the route you are trying to build or are locomotives, then you need that many extra cards of that same color and/or locomotives in order to build the tunnel. You also get a new vertical game board and ticket cards, of course, depicting Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland (plus a bit of Russia), as well as a bonus 10 point Globetrotter ticket awarded to the player with the most tickets completed at the end of the game. There is no longest route bonus as in the original game or Europe. The new map has a lot of short routes in the south and long routes in the north (including a 9 train route that is incredibly tough to build since locomotives do not act as wild cards on normal routes in this version). There are several diabolical choke-points up north where you can screw over the other players by cutting them off while other areas in the south (the big cities) have a ton of ways into them. You can expect a real challenge from this map and its new rule tweaks.

Like the out-of-print Switzerland, Nordic Countries is only playable by 2-3 players; if you are playing with 3 people then you can use the double routes just as in 4-5 player versions of the other games in this series. Once again, Days of Wonder delivers a deceptively simple, fun but challenging game sure to provide years of entertainment. Production values are durable, beautiful and excellent as usual except well over half of the tickets are confusing. Many of the vertical destination tickets have names of the cities listed in order of south to north or right to left, which is the reverse of how one would expect to read them, and this takes quite a bit of getting used to (note that the Marklin edition of Ticket to Ride, which also uses a vertical map, does not seem to have this problem with its destination tickets). I suppose the logic behind the decision is that the south is the heavily populated region with more available routes but it comes across to me as an incredibly bad design choice. Usually, big cities are listed first on a ticket so maybe that is part of the logic but it took actively staring at the cards and comparing them to the map to finally see some method to the madness. And it is madness, because every single player I've gamed with was totally confused by the tickets that had the aforementioned issues in game after game. Okay, so maybe Days of Wonder can say it's not a screw-up but a design choice, except the rule is not even applied consistently. A few tickets do not follow it. Another problem, which cannot be played off as a design choice, is that all seven of the tickets leading to Finland's capital of Helsinki erroneously point inland to Lahti, the city directly above it. I'm not happy with the destination tickets; they cause unnecessary confusion and time-wasting in what is otherwise an excellent game. It does does get a little bit easier once you play enough games and familiarize yourself with the foreign names and locations of the cities. Days of Wonder customer service didn't seem to care or even consider the tickets an issue when I contacted them.

Nordic Countries is especially handy for when I can't get 4-5 people to play (so we can use the double routes), but I am taking off one star from my review for the ridiculous ticket confusion. Regardless of the problem, after playing several games of it, I still prefer Ticket to Ride Europe (with the Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride 1912 Expansion) because the locomotives are true wild cards and it adds three stations per player you can place to avoid being cut-off by your opponents. However, there is nothing to stop you from adding the station rules to Nordic Countries or any other edition. In fact, I recommend it if you like your games a bit less cut-throat, although the station colors may not match up depending on which edition you are trying to integrate them into; different editions of the game use different colors for their trains (Nordic uses black, purple and white, for example). I also like the variety of Days of Wonder Ticket To Ride - Marklin which adds passengers for an extra layer of crazy bonus point scoring strategy, although this edition can be a bit fiddly due to the extra rules and probably shouldn't be your introduction to the Ticket To Ride series. The original Ticket to Ride is the simplest version but also the most frustratingly cut-throat unless you also get the Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride 1910 Expansion which gives you a lot more choices on tickets and customizing the rules to suit your group's play style (but it's still probably the most cut-throat edition even with the expansion).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More of the Incredible Same, January 3, 2011

By 

Smokey DeBear "JC" (Ohio) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ticket To Ride: Nordic Countries (Toy)

Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries is another great addition to the Ticket to Ride series of games. The best part of this edition is that it is only for 2-3 players, which can make for a more available game since it can be difficult to find up to 5 players for the other editions of Ticket to Ride. This makes it much easier for my wife and I to enjoy a great board game without having to organize a "game night." Quality, as always with Days of Wonder games, is top notch. The cards are similar to standard playing cards, and as such could wear over time, but it will take years and years. Everything else is made of a hearty cardboard or plastic.

Without delving too deep into the game play, there are several things worth mentioning.

1. Locomotives (wild cards) may only be used on ferry or tunnel sections, and are treated like normal cards when drawing cards.

2. Finding the routes from the tickets can be a bit difficult. I haven't had much of an issue with this, but several people that I play with often voice confusion due to the cities being difficult to find.

3. The 9 train car route is possibly unfair when scoring. I have played 10-15 times within the past couple of weeks since I received the game, and the person completing the long route has won each game. It makes for a race to see who can complete this section the fastest. If you are unlucky enough to get a route that includes this 9 train section, you'd better hope you win the race, or you'll be forced to find another way around. I don't know yet if this will continue to be the case, but it may warrant a "house rule" by changing the point total for the section from 27 to 18, or treating it like a 6 train car section. I haven't made up my mind what to do about this, but it may possibly need to change at some point.

Other than a couple of differences, this edition is basically Ticket to Ride: Europe with a different map and for less players. Another great addition to this incredible game franchise, I still haven't met anyone that does not enjoy playing. You'll find yourself immersed in no time!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars worth every penny!, August 4, 2009

By 

Silvia Irahola (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

wOOt! I love this game! I played it 3 times the first time a learned it, and I think it's awesome. It's a beautiful board with very nicely printed cards-- the manufacturers didn't just throw this together. It's perfect for people who can't come up with 3-5 other people who want to play a board game on a work night. All you need is one other player! It's limited edition, but I have no problem breaking it in.

The only problem I have with it is that all of Denmark isn't on the board--just the north. Oh well.