Was this game session deliberate sabotage?

[James Plays Games]

Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but I just finished a 4-player game of Ticket to Ride. My three opponents were all from Poland and playing on mobile, which I didn't really think much about.

But as the game went on, it seemed like there was an organized intent to block me - specifically me - from connecting my routes, at the expense of them completing any of their own. In particular, you can see the red player was not at all interested in destinations, but there seemed to be some attempted coordination with the yellow player as well. I can't say for sure if the green player was actively trying to block me or not. But in the final results, you can see that I had absolutely no chance of getting anything but last place.

I've played over 150 games of Ticket to Right on here so far, and this was a first for me. Am I reading too much into an actual viable strategy, or was it, in fact, organized harassment? Can someone please review this for me?

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=323621013

Thank you.

PS - I absolutely understand that blocking is part of the game and a strategy to be used. It's just HOW this was being done in this specific session and my perception that I was being targeted is what made me want to bring this up. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I just wanted a second opinion before I moved on.

[euklid314]

I think that in this game the blocking was very hard but fair. Red was blocked himself by the green player and then your taking the orange track blocked him completely from fulfilling his long east-west ticket. In such a case he (=red) should take lots of long routes (anywhere on the board) and finish the game as fast as possible. And of course he should block other obvious long routes. He did not do a very good job on ending the game early but his moves are at least understandable if he is a low-ranked or even a medium-ranked player.

The long 6-tracks were taken very fast in the game. Thus it was difficult for everybody to fulfill long routes in this game. What killed you was the fact that you concentrated a lot on the west and only in the very end you tried to connect to New York when a lot of those tracks were taken. You were very vulnerable then. Probably it would have been better to fully concentrate either on the north route (my choice) or the south route and only after finishing the first ticket look if the second ticket was still possible to fulfill or otherwise just finish the game very fast with long tracks and hopefully with longest route.

If it had been better for you to take one long route and one short route right from the beginning I am not sure.

Just my opinion, better players might see it otherwise.
Have fun, euklid (22 games, mostly 4-player Arena, 15 wins, played some real life tournaments in TTR)

Edit: Furthermore, when you placed 2 orange on New York-Washington it would probably have been better to place 2 white on New York Pittsburgh in order to connect via Chicago or Raleigh. Even better: Still collect train cards unless you know which route you will take before placing a track near New York. Before you claim tracks at New York it is not completely obvious that you need to go to New York (although experienced opponents will expect it). And right at the end you could have almost surely connected if you had placed Washington-Raleigh before Nashville-Raleigh...

[DrakeStorm]

I didn't notice anything unusual. Expert Player here. The blocking at the very end to NY was Red trying to come in 3rd rather than 4th. It seems Yellow had a few pairs to play and joined the block. Not sure why they went from NY to Boston. You should not have played NY-Was - it served no purpose except to show that you needed to get to NY, and if the other players wanted to block you later in the game they would have needed 2 orange or black for the block rather than just any pair. Overall it wasn't great play by anyone.

From the very beginning you set yourself up for a difficult game. Just taking the 2 tickets you did is problematic. With only 45 trains getting both Sea-NY and LA-Mia is not easy (Often Mia is difficult to get to in a 4P game). Even without the late game blocks, I don't think you had enough trains to complete both (once you played the 6 Orange). You would have been in much better shape with Sea-NY and SSM-Okl. Some of the face up train cards you took also seemed to hurt you - it let the other players get into the routes you really needed. Or you just didn't play them fast enough - like Denver-Helena. I would have been taking Yellows and not waste going to Calgary then back to Sea. You also wasted your valuable wilds, first 2 on the 6 Orange (Yes 6ers give good points, but you had 2 huge tickets you needed to complete!). Then you had a chance to take Kansas City - St Louis with 2 blue, but waited too long and had to use 2 more wilds.

I could go on, but I think that is enough to get the point.

[lucy williams]

Maybe I'm being paranoid here, but I just finished a 4-player game of Ticket to Ride. My three opponents were all from Poland and playing on mobile, which I didn't really think much about.

It is always best to look at the games history logs before forming and deep and dark suspicions...

Of the 3 players that you were playing against, the green player who won the game had never played with the other 3 players before. Although anything is possible, I would be very reluctant myself to make any accusations of collusion against players who have only played with each other once only, so I have to suggest that this player should be off the hook.

The red player and yellow player have played with each other 25 times across multiple games, so clearly know each other. This is allowed of course, and very common, and it would be very sad if the site stopped friends and family from playing with each other even in games with external players. These 2 very often get beaten by the external opponents.

The red player has only played 56 games in total on the site, and judging by the ratings would appear to be a novice player who is being introduced to board gaming by the more experienced yellow player (a child possibly??).

I didn't actually review the game so I can't comment on this particular case, but of course you will sometimes get some mild favouritism / help to the novice player in these situations. Best just to red flag if you feel you have to, and move on...

[James Plays Games]

I appreciate you all giving it a look and offering up some thoughts on the game. Some very fair points that have helped put my mind at ease, and I'm totally accepting that it was just a particularly bad game for me instead of bad actors.

[Mousebeard]

Hello, this is completely unrelated, so I'd like to first apologize for wasting anyone's time for reading this. I just HAD to comment on this thread though. I see the 'aggressive' title, and this is the first thread that I have even looked at on this site (didn't even realize there were forums, being so intent on playing games),and I was expecting fireworks. Some inappropriate Polish jokes, train jokes, ticket jokes, etc. I am very impressed with the insight and thoughtful replies to the OP's query.

You guys have to get out more. The internet is not this nice. Of course everyone is cheating, or else you would win every game, easy as pie. The other people playing are idiots that are playing while in the bathroom, eating a meal, or both at the same time. Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.

Okay, I had to insert that paragraph to bring balance to the internet.

[Villanelle]

Hello, this is completely unrelated, so I'd like to first apologize for wasting anyone's time for reading this. I just HAD to comment on this thread though. I see the 'aggressive' title, and this is the first thread that I have even looked at on this site (didn't even realize there were forums, being so intent on playing games),and I was expecting fireworks. Some inappropriate Polish jokes, train jokes, ticket jokes, etc. I am very impressed with the insight and thoughtful replies to the OP's query.

You guys have to get out more. The internet is not this nice. Of course everyone is cheating, or else you would win every game, easy as pie. The other people playing are idiots that are playing while in the bathroom, eating a meal, or both at the same time. Your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries.

Okay, I had to insert that paragraph to bring balance to the internet.

Love this comment. But yes, I follow this. The reactions are so appropriate and helpful. Wish the internet was like this all the time! Feel the love! I'm happy the one who posted this was able to get more insights and put this at ease. Loved to read this!

[Photios]

You haven't known this nice and lively community when Days of Wonder was still alive.
DrakeStorm answering here is the last World Champion of 2nd TTR World Tournament. He had lost to a Dutch guy, but it turned out that he was cheating (probably had locos in his sleeve; and this is not a matter of speech!). This was found out by a number of players watching the game either live (Angel) or through streaming (Knockando and others), discussed in the forum and then communicated in Days of Wonder, who realized that indeed the person had cheated (had played 2 more turns and ended up with 5 locos in hand; only way to do this was by adding locos from his sleeve).
This is a peak instance of how this community of TTR showed solidarity to each other, but also the high level of ingenuity of these players. So all newcomers in BGA have a lot to learn from such analysis as done here by DrakeStorm.
Also all these players block ferociously, so you should learn to appreciate the potential that the act of blocking is adding to this game. Just play with such people and learn from their skill.