Questions about watching games

[Archisian]

I really don't know what other strategies are there other than "Whoever has the Vancouver West-East/LA West-East routes wins" in vanilla Ticket to Ride. I don't think I have ever played a game of Ticket to Ride where a player with tickets beats a Vancouver W-E/LA W-E players unless it's the 1910 version that has more routes and gives bonuses to route completions.

If you are talking about 2p TTR, it's pretty much the opposite: vanilla TTR gives you chances to overcome the disadvantage in tickets, while the more objectives you add to the pool, the more having luck with tix is rewarded. If you are talking about 4-5p instead, I'm no expert, but generally whoever gets to play in a "free" area while the other players are competing for the same tracks gets an huge advantage, and this is why I don't enjoy multi as much as 2p. That, anyways, is not a matter of tix "stand alone strength", just of tix distribution and can apply to most if not all maps and setups of multiplayer TTR.

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=775733147
This is a game I played 2 days ago in which the player with Vancouver-Montreal (definitely the best of the "long tix") lost.
It's just the last I played and it came to my mind, but probably not the best example, since the game is pretty messy, iirc I played this from the phone while in bed and almost fucked up. Still it falls within what you were looking for. There are plenty of these examples anyways, I can even recall one game during 20th anniversary tournament in which someone won against his opponent who was holding "the golden 42" (Vancouver-Montreal 20 + Seattle-New York 22) which is the best pair of tix you can possibly have. Tickets are important, noone sane would ever deny that, but vanilla TTR is definitely one of the maps where the weight of luck is mitigated the most.

I should definitely try it 2 player then. I usually played it 3+ and have just never liked it.

[ExaltedAngel]

I should definitely try it 2 player then. I usually played it 3+ and have just never liked it.

3p is particularly bad since having 3 players competing for the same routes without the option of using the double ones can make the board too congestioned and favour or totally kill one of the players at random. For 3p there are specific maps such as Switzerland and Nordic Countries which are pretty fun imo.