Can you really be any good in this without memorizing all the routes?

[Barberserk]

Sadly yet another game pushes me away because I hit the "memorization wall". I can see every top-ranked opponent I face immediately recognized the routes I have and moves on to block my path, predictably. No use trying to mask them, it's like they are peeking at your hand directly, looking what routes you've drawn. I don't feel inclined to follow their example just to climb up the ranks, but that means losing game after game, with large margins... Is there really no other way? Either you learn all the routes by heart or you must content yourself playing outside of the Arena?

[Jellby]

You don't need to memorize them, you can write them down and look them up when you need to.

But in general, in every game, sport or activity, it takes some work and effort to be among the best... Whether or not that's worth it, it's up to each individual.

[Ceaseless]

You're overhyping this memorization wall stuff. From personal experience in playing this game, I jumped in blind, not knowing the tickets and having a general idea of principles from experience in regular Ticket to Ride, easily made 300s without really knowing what I was doing. Could probably go higher, but it wasn't really my game.

Not sure why you're bringing up Arena, it's just a forcing paired setting using a "reset in X" factor. You can't decline your opponent even if they're rated too low for you. I like using rating filters to help weed that out, but it's harder in Arena since players are less reliably rated due to the rating resets, meaning you'll constantly have players still rebuilding their ratings, making it harder to line up the right players. Their highest "rated category" settings aren't really that great at filtering players, even low rated players can reach these high categories. So, filters outside of Arena are likely better, a 700s category is going to say more than the purple icon on Arena will, filters are sharper and due to no resets don't have quite the same variance factors. Though Arena's force pairing does at least prevent players from intentionally avoiding even matches. The force pairing doesn't really make much of a difference to me though, since I tend to just auto accept my opponent without looking assuming they passed whatever filters I set to get a reasonably quick pairing at as close to a passable rating as I'd be willing to accept.

[Cournot]

Sadly yet another game pushes me away because I hit the "memorization wall". I can see every top-ranked opponent I face immediately recognized the routes I have and moves on to block my path, predictably. No use trying to mask them, it's like they are peeking at your hand directly, looking what routes you've drawn. I don't feel inclined to follow their example just to climb up the ranks, but that means losing game after game, with large margins... Is there really no other way? Either you learn all the routes by heart or you must content yourself playing outside of the Arena?

I've been close to 800 and no1 several times on Europe and I don't know all the tickets... So yeah, idk where you're coming from with that.
Knowing all the routes will not affect a lot your ELO by much. There's bigger details to focus on tbh.
Learn to chose the right tickets, get a lot of trains points and try to get the longuest (and avoid using stations).
Not that complicated. (I'm just joking on the last part I don't want to get flamed for that)

[NightCrawler98]

You pretty much need to know the 6 big tickets and have a general idea of the 2-3 "good" ways to connect them(mainly 4 and 3 paths, avoiding tunnels and ferries). Learning the other tickets by heart comes naturally when you play a lot, but there are very rarely situations where blocking a small ticket is beneficial. Furthermore what you consider blocking is most likely just the other player connecting their own tickets using a contested path. You should generally try to build those first.

For example if you start building from Lisbon, then I know you're going to Danzig, which means I can take the Paris-Frankfurt-Berlin line and you will have to go around in a suboptimal way, but if you start from Paris-Frankurt and Berlin-Frankfurt, then you could be building any of the big tickets and even if I want to block you, I wouldn't know where.

Also remember that intentional blocking in Europe might be annoying, but it's not THAT strong due to the stations. Most good players will only block you when it's too obvious what you are doing, like having a 15 and a 20 long routes with a 4 path between them, or you started from Cadiz, went to Copenhagen and wanted to connect the last 3 to Stockholm. In cases like this it's more a poor play by you, not that the opponent has some secret knowledge advantage(apart from the 6 big tickets, which you should definitely learn).

[Barberserk]

There are only 6 major tickets? I did not remember, hehe. Anyway, I think a nice workaround is to start building from the middle of a route.

[Ceaseless]

There are only 6 major tickets? I did not remember, hehe. Anyway, I think a nice workaround is to start building from the middle of a route.

Take all the Destination Tickets with the Europe logo and separate the 6 Long Tickets from the 40 Regular ones

https://cdn.1j1ju.com/medias/c0/4f/7d-t ... lebook.pdf Page 3

[Cournot]

There are only 6 major tickets? I did not remember, hehe. Anyway, I think a nice workaround is to start building from the middle of a route.

Try to build the T8/T6/F6 first and then connect them with 4s until you complete your ticket(s). So not exactly the middle (if let say you have Cad Stock, which you should avoid anyway...).

[DrakeStorm]

I only know the 6 big tickets in original Europe, but that usually doesn't change my play too much. I think if I knew them it would help a little bit, but for some reason I can't remember them even though I've played thousands of games.

On the original USA map, I have them memorized and I think it is a bit more important. Probably because there are no stations and it is easier to have a ticket on your route than in Europe.

[Ceaseless]

A lot of playing a game isn't about advanced techniques, massive memorization, etc. but simply operating under a game's common sense. Players frequently make simple mistakes due to not working with the basics. You move up in a game progressing on those basics and building good habits. With these you can confront new positions and try out ideas. Some players give far too much credit to a vague idea that advanced concepts are somehow hindering them from progressing further, when in reality it's usually more about simple mistakes.