Ticket to Ride: Classic Edition

The description of this achievement should be clear enough. However I still had minor trouble meeting the requirements, as I kept starting the 23th turn with 2 cards that could announce the last round in my favour but were no match. This made me make an Excel Spreadsheet to see whether my approach was actually the best way of tackling this achievement. It turned out, it was not! :)

In the spoiler underneath I have a screenshot of the spreadsheet i created. The explanation of the spreadsheet, including some assumptions I have made is located underneath. If there is a demand to access this spreadsheet or use it as a calculation device, I might simply create a Google Doc out of it to see whether you are on track (pun intended).



To start the game, start with just 2 small destination tickets. A good one to have is Tblisi - Karachi. I started with Kathmandu - Calcutta, which needed one 2-mountain-piece and one grey 1-piece, which worked out perfectly in the 24th turn. It should not really matter which destination tickets you start the game with, as your focus will be on placing as many trains as possible anyways. Don't be afraid to pick a destination ticket just because it has a low score, as it will only decrease your deduction at the end!

During the game, make sure to place your trains on all 6 different 2-pieces with 2 mountainpieces. These make you spend the most amount of trains for the turns you are taking of placing your trains. Also, and this may seem a bit counterintuitive, make sure to grab tracks with mountain pieces with a larger amount of pieces if possible. For example: if you have 3 red traincards remaining and you have an option to claim a 2-piece track with 1 mountainpiece (keeping 1 traincard for your next red route) or you can place your trains on a 3-piece track with 1 mountainpiece, go for the last option. In the end this is helping you more in the process depleting your stack of trains as quick as possible.

When you are nearing the end, take note that there are '2 wildcards' present on the map. You want to save them for the end to make sure you end your 23th turn with 2 trains or less:

- Khabarovsk to Vladivostok (grey 2-piece track with 1 mountainpiece, costing 2 traincards and 3 trains)
- Mandalay - Rangoon (grey 1-mountainpiece track, costing 1 traincard and 2 trains).

In my achievement-winning game, my yellow railway network scored 73 points while only finishing 1 out of the 2 tiny destination tickets (while mysteriously also ending up with the Asian explorer bonus of 10 points!). My opponent, Jane Stanbot, also finished 1 out of the 2 destination tickets, which led to a much welcome deduction of 17 points resulting in a total of just 40 points. For anyone looking for a visual aid, this is my achievement-winning game:



From this point is all i can say, good luck! Do not bother too much about your destination tickets, just finish the game as soon as possible. This will most likely lead to your opponent(s) receiving more deduction from unfinished destination tickets than you will end up with!

* if for some reason the image is not present in this solution, just let me know, I can re-upload it! :)