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Free Ride

42.00€

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Meeple on Board Rating

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Board Game Geek Reviews


  1. 10 out of 10

    Version revisitée des aventuriers du rails. Et c’est clairement mieux et plus stratégique ! Bravo Friedmann !!!

  2. 8.5 out of 10

    [microbadge=5] Great route-building game with some hard twists on player-interaction. The interaction comes from the lack of interaction for the first part of the game, the constant game of chicken to avoid nationalizing the wrong tracks. Friese keeps hitting it out of the park.

  3. 7 out of 10

    On your turn you place two rails, move your train 2 or 3 stops depending on the stage of the game, or replenish your rail supply. Locations are repeated in three decks of cards and are randomly drawn and put in the market as triplets. Card are drafted in pairs (two out of three) with a starting city and a destination. You have to be in or have passed through a starting city to be able to draft. Most points come from completing routes (earlier completions are worth more than later) and saved coins, which can be acquired from some cities and spent to replenish rails without taking a turn or you can pay another player to make one of their connections neutral so you can use it. I agree with the comparisons to Ticket to Ride, although this is more challenging. You have three things to balance - the location of your train, the building of rails, and the availability of cards to draft. It is a very tactical game of taking advantage as opportunities arise. It could drag if you have players mathing out all options every turn, but if turns can move quickly this is a fun ride.

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Around the end of the 19th century, a growing network of railway lines was built in Europe, allowing people to travel to the major cities to visit beautiful structures influenced by Art Nouveau and Historicism.

In Free Ride, you are one of several people in charge of building railway lines, connecting the cities in Europe, and carrying passengers to those cities. The game board shows 45 cities connected by a network of potential routes, and all railway lines built will be one of three types: lines owned by you, lines owned by fellow players, and state-owned lines. When you travel along railway lines, you pay nothing to travel on your lines and state-owned lines. To travel on a fellow player’s line, however, you must pay them 1 coin, which converts their line to state-owned. From then on, traveling on that line is free for all players. As coins are limited, you should carefully balance the building of your lines with the conversion of fellow players’ lines to state-owned lines.

Where do you want to build? At the start of play, each player drafts part of a travel route. Multiple travel routes are available for choosing, and each travel route consists of three cards. When you choose a route, you take either the first and second cards or the second and third cards as your starting and ending point (in that order). Return the unchosen card of that route to the box.

Once the third deck is empty, you can either withdraw from the game with uncompleted routes (returning those cards to the box) or keep taking turns until you finish all your routes, at which point you immediately gain 1 coin and withdraw. In either situation, you earn 1 coin (and do nothing else) on each subsequent turn. Once all players have withdrawn, you tally your score, earning 3 points for each coin, 5 points for the first card you have of a city, and 2 points for each other card you have of a city. (Each of the 45 cities appears once in each of the three decks.) Whoever has the most points wins.

Free Ride also offers a difficult solo challenge!

Ages

10+
Players

Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players, 5 Players
Play Time

50m – 90m
Designer

Friedemann Friese
Mechanics

Connections, Contracts, Movement Points, Network and Route Building, Solo / Solitaire Game, Victory Points as a Resource, Pick-up and Deliver
Theme

Trains, Transportation, Travel
Publisher

2F-Spiele, Rio Grande Games
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