Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam

To set up Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam, each player selects a set of colored carts and places their scoring marker on the start space of the board's scoring track. Place the merchandise bonus cards in a deck next to the board. Shuffle the transportation cards and deal two cards to each player, placing the remaining deck nearby and turning the top five face up; if three or more are wild cards, discard and replace all five. Shuffle the contract cards and deal two to each player, who must keep at least one while placing any discarded cards at the bottom of the deck. Players keep their contract cards secret until the end of the game.

The primary objective of Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam is to score the most points by the end of the game. Players earn points through three main methods: claiming routes on the map, successfully completing secret contract cards that connect specific locations, and collecting valuable merchandise bonus cards throughout the game.

On your turn, you must perform exactly one of three available actions: First, draw two transportation cards by taking them from the face-up row or the top of the deck (taking a face-up wild card limits you to drawing only that one card). Second, claim a route by discarding a set of transportation cards matching the route's color and length, placing your colored carts on it, and drawing a merchandise bonus card if the route contains cart symbols. Third, draw two new contract cards from the deck, keeping at least one of them.

Points are scored incrementally throughout the game when claiming routes and at the end of the game through final scoring. At the end, players reveal their contract cards, adding points for successfully completed routes and subtracting points for failed ones. Additionally, players score merchandise bonus points based on the number of merchandise bonus cards they collected, with points awarded according to a sliding scale depending on player count.

The game end is triggered when any player has two or fewer plastic carts left in their supply. Once this threshold is reached, every player, including the triggering player, takes one final turn. Following this last turn, the game concludes and final scoring takes place to determine the winner.