Days of Wonder is launching a tournament program for Ticket to Ride, culminating in a World Championship in June, 2010 in Paris. Qualifying events will be held in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Benelux countries, and Poland. As prizes, qualifying tournament winners will receive gold-plated scoring markers and partial travel costs to National Championship events. National champions will receive sets of gold-plated trains and travel to the Paris event. And the ultimate winner gets a ride on the Orient Express from London to Venice.

But I’ve got to ask, what’s this thing with tournaments? Is it just a sign of a popular game? Is it a reward for the dedicated fans? Does it excite potential new customers? Or simple publicity? What do you think? Will a board game tournament program affect your purchasing decision?

Update from Mark Kaufmann, VP, Days of Wonder:

It is a thank you for the loyal fans, but in addition it’s a great way to get people who have been playing for a while excited about Ticket to Ride again. We’re firm believer in that the more people play the game, the more they will introduce others to it and word of mouth is by far the best way to market the game.

Also, Mark reports that the North American Championship will be held in April at Alan Moon’s invite-only convention, Gathering of Friends. So if you’ve been trying to figure out a way in to this exclusive event, here’s your opportunity.

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Michael of Tasty Minstrel Games wouldn’t tell me what’s coming up next year, but he foolishly added entries for three of his upcoming games to the BGG database. Bwa hahahah!

• Belfort: “Belfort is a Worker Placement game with Area Majority scoring in each district as well as for each type of worker. Buildings give you influence in the districts as well as income, but taxes increase based on your score so the winning players will have to pay more than those behind.”
• Cow Tipping: A ridiculously themed game where the cows tip the cars. “Collect gangs of cows by drawing cards from the draw pile or your neighbors’ discard piles. Use these gangs to tip over the 5 types of vehicle cards in 5 different colors. Your score will be based on the set of vehicle cards you tip. You score for collecting types of vehicles as well as for collecting colors, so you can go for a bunch of Tractors, or you could try to collect all the Blue vehicles.”
• Train of Thought: A Password-like word game where for each clue given, each player may make 1 guess. If none are correct, the clue-giver creates another clue, using one of the guesses and up to 2 other words.

While I’m on the topic, run over to BGG to get your entry in for the Tasty Minstrel giveaway contest, ending soon.

Last but not least, until Sept 29, Michael is selling a package of both of TM’s current games for $44.95 with free shipping inside the United States (limited to 1000).

Disclosure: Tasty Minstrel Games is a supporter of Purple Pawn.

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Infinite City: A tile-laying game of city building from Brent Keith. Pretty simple: place a tile and your token on it, then follow the instructions on the tile. Score at the end of the game for contiguous areas and certain bonuses. The rules are online.

Thunderstone: Building on the mechanics of Dominion, this is another draft-as-you-go game, with a lot more fantasy-themed elements and card-play. The game is by Michael Elliott. The rules are online.

Also see more Alderac board games, or search for Alderac or AEG on this site.

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