It’s unbelievable just how much worse this game is without 1912/BigEurope

[Bracht]

I’ve known and owned TTR Europe for years now, but had only played very casually until last season, when I tried Arena Mode on BGA and got absolutely hooked.

Since the new arena season with the changed rules (removing the 1912 expansion and the Big Europe setup rule), I’ve been quite surprised with how much less I enjoy the base game.

With last season’s rules, every game was tense until the bitter end (it’s always bitter for someone). People usually had 4 routes to complete, sometimes 6, and they almost always picked more along the way. There was blocking for sure, but people were usually more concerned with making their tight routes. Said blocking could (and often did) occur anywhere: the 2-black that leads from the center of the map to the south. The 4-white that leads to the east border. One of the two locomotive small routes that lead to London on the northwest. Blocking happened because it needed to happen.

This season we’re back to base game only, and it’s so much worse: despite games starting with 2 or 3 tickets, somehow it’s very rare for it to be worth it to stop for more. Very few people do it, and when it happens, it often leads to a loss. Because the name of the game on base TTR Europe is much simpler: claim more longer routes than your opponent, end the game as soon as possible. If you do it, and you don’t completely fumble your tickets in the process, you’re golden.

This makes it so blocking is a lot more prominent, which is not a bad thing per se, but it always happens in the same spots: the longer routes, and the routes leading/connecting to them.

Where before it would be a competition to see who could complete more tickets without overextending, now no one can even think of overextending anymore because people will claim a long route or two and immediately rush the rest of their trains, often with only 2 or 3 tickets.

The game becomes simpler, more “braindead”, and simultaneously much harder and more luck based (if you don’t draw cards efficiently in order to end the game ASAP and the other player does, you’re toast).

And the stations! God, I miss the stations! They used to be a tool, very often. “I can pick this new ticket for 10 points. All of its routes are already mine, except for this one, which is my opponent’s. I can complete it in one turn with a station. The route will be worth 6 in the end, which is a net positive.” Now, they’re only ever a feel-bad moment, something you begrudgingly place only because you were blocked and losing 4 points is less bad than losing more than 4 points. My point is: people don’t stop to pick more tickets because they’re rushing the endgame, and it sucks.

Anyway.

I’ll keep playing, for sure (at least for now I think I will), but whereas last season I basically only played TTR Europe whenever I loaded BGA, this season I’m branching out to other games occasionally.

[Ceaseless]

The stats don't seem to be showing that yet. At the moment, despite having plenty of games behind it, Ticket to Ride Europe is still behind the original in terms of ratings. There are only 3 700 level players in the Europe version, while the original has over 20. 500s will get you into the top 100 in Europe, while you need to be over 600 to do the same in the original.

[NightCrawler98]

I fully disagree with your opinion. The game might feel thrilling with a million tickets, but that doesn't mean it's harder. What skill does it take to draw tickets and hope you get some you've already done and your opponent not?

More tickets introduce more randomness and therefore a much bigger potential for luck. The base game is imo a hundred times better, because it's balanced really well - you can take 2 small tickets or 2-3 relatively bigger ones, the Longest Path is a 20 points swing which is huge, the 8 and 6 routes are really important due to the points and the chance to finish faster, the stations' points might actually be crucial, taking new tickets is super risky, but might pay off, overall you kinda count every point and the games can be incredibly intense!

All of that is gone when someone can just take 30 points of tickets from a single lucky draw in the end of the game... Casual TTR is "Take some 3-4-5 tickets and see if you can finish them". Competitive TTR should be about winning at all costs and tickets are just one of the many tools ingame to achieve that goal.

[Cournot]

The stats don't seem to be showing that yet. At the moment, despite having plenty of games behind it, Ticket to Ride Europe is still behind the original in terms of ratings. There are only 3 =>5 right now 700 level players in the Europe version, while the original has over 20. 500s will get you into the top 100 in Europe, while you need to be over 600 to do the same in the original.

I am not sure what does the number of players with 700+ have to do with this topic tho.
Maybe, what I think, is that a lot of players are playing the 1912 versions (Mega, Extended and BC), which are more random than the original, thus lowering the std of ELO. If, let's say, a top player has the same proficiency at both games - USA and Europe - and achieves +4.0 std, he will reach a much lower ELO.

That being said, after playing a couple games on both versions, it is much easier to reach the top of the ranking on Europe than USA, because I find that Europe map (normal version) is a bit less random (apart from the tunnels and ferries) than USA map, because each player has a 20+ ticket at the beginning of the map AND that you can cannot rely on a lucky ticket draw to ''steal'' the game at the end.

But OP (bracht) fully understand the mechanics of Europe : ''despite games starting with 2 or 3 tickets, somehow it’s very rare for it to be worth it to stop for more. Very few people do it, and when it happens, it often leads to a loss. Because the name of the game on base TTR Europe is much simpler: claim more longer routes than your opponent, end the game as soon as possible. If you do it, and you don’t completely fumble your tickets in the process, you’re golden.'' With these keys, he can improve a lot, since the basics seem to be in place, his ELO in the 300s attesting that.

[Ceaseless]

The stats don't seem to be showing that yet. At the moment, despite having plenty of games behind it, Ticket to Ride Europe is still behind the original in terms of ratings. There are only 3 =>5 right now 700 level players in the Europe version, while the original has over 20. 500s will get you into the top 100 in Europe, while you need to be over 600 to do the same in the original.

I am not sure what does the number of players with 700+ have to do with this topic tho.
Maybe, what I think, is that a lot of players are playing the 1912 versions (Mega, Extended and BC), which are more random than the original, thus lowering the std of ELO. If, let's say, a top player has the same proficiency at both games - USA and Europe - and achieves +4.0 std, he will reach a much lower ELO.

That being said, after playing a couple games on both versions, it is much easier to reach the top of the ranking on Europe than USA, because I find that Europe map (normal version) is a bit less random (apart from the tunnels and ferries) than USA map, because each player has a 20+ ticket at the beginning of the map AND that you can cannot rely on a lucky ticket draw to ''steal'' the game at the end.

But OP (bracht) fully understand the mechanics of Europe : ''despite games starting with 2 or 3 tickets, somehow it’s very rare for it to be worth it to stop for more. Very few people do it, and when it happens, it often leads to a loss. Because the name of the game on base TTR Europe is much simpler: claim more longer routes than your opponent, end the game as soon as possible. If you do it, and you don’t completely fumble your tickets in the process, you’re golden.'' With these keys, he can improve a lot, since the basics seem to be in place, his ELO in the 300s attesting that.

Actually, I think this is my fault for misreading the prompt. I have Europe pegged as an extension in my mind and the base game as the U.S. version, but I believe they're comparing European variants. So my previous comment has something else in mind. I can't speak for the differences in European variations. I didn't even realize the difference in 1910 vs 1912, so used to the 1900s expansion reference.

Regarding the Europe vs USA part you picked up on, what I was referencing was the idea that if both games are using the same rating system (BGA's) and are relatively active, the more skillful game will have the higher top player ratings, since that means more players could pull out of the pack by larger margins with less of a snapback from variance pulling them back to the pack.

[Cournot]

The stats don't seem to be showing that yet. At the moment, despite having plenty of games behind it, Ticket to Ride Europe is still behind the original in terms of ratings. There are only 3 =>5 right now 700 level players in the Europe version, while the original has over 20. 500s will get you into the top 100 in Europe, while you need to be over 600 to do the same in the original.

I am not sure what does the number of players with 700+ have to do with this topic tho.
Maybe, what I think, is that a lot of players are playing the 1912 versions (Mega, Extended and BC), which are more random than the original, thus lowering the std of ELO. If, let's say, a top player has the same proficiency at both games - USA and Europe - and achieves +4.0 std, he will reach a much lower ELO.

That being said, after playing a couple games on both versions, it is much easier to reach the top of the ranking on Europe than USA, because I find that Europe map (normal version) is a bit less random (apart from the tunnels and ferries) than USA map, because each player has a 20+ ticket at the beginning of the map AND that you can cannot rely on a lucky ticket draw to ''steal'' the game at the end.

But OP (bracht) fully understand the mechanics of Europe : ''despite games starting with 2 or 3 tickets, somehow it’s very rare for it to be worth it to stop for more. Very few people do it, and when it happens, it often leads to a loss. Because the name of the game on base TTR Europe is much simpler: claim more longer routes than your opponent, end the game as soon as possible. If you do it, and you don’t completely fumble your tickets in the process, you’re golden.'' With these keys, he can improve a lot, since the basics seem to be in place, his ELO in the 300s attesting that.

Actually, I think this is my fault for misreading the prompt. I have Europe pegged as an extension in my mind and the base game as the U.S. version, but I believe they're comparing European variants. So my previous comment has something else in mind. I can't speak for the differences in European variations. I didn't even realize the difference in 1910 vs 1912, so used to the 1900s expansion reference.

Regarding the Europe vs USA part you picked up on, what I was referencing was the idea that if both games are using the same rating system (BGA's) and are relatively active, the more skillful game will have the higher top player ratings, since that means more players could pull out of the pack by larger margins with less of a snapback from variance pulling them back to the pack.

The more skillful game will have not the higher top player rating, but the top players will have an higher std; BGA system might mess it up since players cannot go below 100, which creates distorsion. Another factor, the ELO difference is not capped like in chess, meaning the difference in ELO should be, let's say, 400 maximum (around 92% chance of winning). The ELO formula is designed to compare players around the same level, which means that I, for that matter, should not play players below 350ish in ELO (USA map), but that only works if the pool of players is as big as needed. So it would be impossible to ''farm'' low ranked players to have an artificially inflated ELO. In chess, players almost never play against players outside of their level.
I hope my thoughts are somewhat digestible.

[ExaltedAngel]

Regarding the Europe vs USA part you picked up on, what I was referencing was the idea that if both games are using the same rating system (BGA's) and are relatively active, the more skillful game will have the higher top player ratings, since that means more players could pull out of the pack by larger margins with less of a snapback from variance pulling them back to the pack.

What you're saying makes sense in theory, but you're overlooking a few important points:

First, Europe has around 2 million games played, while USA has about 13 million. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I’m quite certain that when the U.S. version had only 2 million games played, the top 100 started much lower—probably somewhere around the 500s. Elo systems take time to stabilize, especially when there’s no proper matchmaking to pair players with similar ratings. Imbalanced matches slow down rating accuracy and progression.

Second, Europe has only had a few Arena seasons since its release—maybe five? And two of them featured Mega Europe, which is more random and was mostly avoided by stronger players for that reason. So it’s normal that the top ratings are still relatively low. But already by the end of this season, you’ll probably see more players crossing the 600 Elo mark.

Third, from what I’ve observed in my games, the general skill level in base TTR on BGA is noticeably higher. There are many players who, while not reaching the very top (600–700+ Elo), clearly understand how to win. They tend to settle around the 500 Elo range, where they consistently beat players who don’t really know what they’re doing and this creates a solid mid-tier pool that fuels the top ranks by providing meaningful challenges and, when won decent Elo gains. In contrast, my experience with Europe shows that this mid-tier is much smaller. Out of 20 games, I might encounter one strong player, one decent one, and then mostly people who are building Switzerland tunnels for 8-point tickets. That makes it significantly harder to climb to higher ratings since as we know, in TTR luck is an unavoidable part of the game — sometimes even the strongest players can lose to a random opponent who draws six tickets and somehow wins. This tends to happen less in Europe, actually I think that in an equal conditions scenario, Europe could have higher Elo ceiling than USA, but I might be wrong on this one*. Anyways, when you win 1 or less and lose 19-20 it's still hard to climb.


*Edit: In fact, the existence of an almost 800 Elo player (Cournot) — matching the top-rated player in base TTR — in a scenario that's still so underdeveloped by comparison, is a strong clue that makes me think I might be right