When comparing Arkham Horror vs Ticket to Ride, the Slant community recommends Ticket to Ride for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” Ticket to Ride is ranked 4th while Arkham Horror is ranked 21st. The most important reason people chose Ticket to Ride is:
The core mechanics of the game are pretty simple to learn in under 15 minutes. Each player is given a destination ticket with the route they are tasked to build. Each turn they simply decide whether to draw a train card that represents the train cars, claim a section of a route using one of their train cards, or get another destination ticket to begin a new route. Whoever builds the longest route wins.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Lots of expansion boards available
Currently there are 8 licensed expansions on the manufacturer's site. There are also many fan made expansions available online as well thanks to the games large and friendly community. Both the manufacturer's and community expansions add plenty of new content to the game including cards, investigators, board addons, Heralds (mini-bosses), Ancient Ones, spells, and items.
Pro Scales well from solo to large groups
The game supports up to 8 players, which is something of a feat for a game of its size and components. Makes for a great party game due to the size of players it allows. However, at the lower end it can also be enjoyed with one or two players, making it great for intimate gaming session. No matter how few players you have available, you'll be able to enjoy the game.
Pro Great challenge for those that enjoy difficult games
The win conditions of the game are quite slim and require one to know the rules ins and outs, so while not a game for casual players it is a game for the hardcore who enjoy a challenge.
Pro Well-crafted
Big map, lots of items and heroes with their own graphics, player figures on plastic stands; lots of tokens and monster cards made of firm cardboard.
Pro Lots of choices
Each location offers you different opportunities to trade for and to explore. The imaginary hero class (like tank, mage, support, stealth) is up to you and usually not well-tied to hero abilities.
Even when apocalypse comes, you still (might) have a chance to defeat the planetary evil.
Pro Great atmosphere of Lovecraft tales
Your weak heroes have to dive into parallel realities, use magic, defeat unknown guests and apply unique artifacts. Each game's location has its own secrets and 'contacts' with various outcomes — good and bad.
Pro Role-oriented
You either choose by yourself or get a random hero, and play with them the whole party (if you were not killed, of course). You and your hero have skills, items, unique qualities and effects, and their story.
The game itself encourages role-playing elements to dive into the Lovecraftian environment.
Pro Highly cooperative
Though the rules do highlight "best players of the game" via basic calculations, the game itself is aimed towards collaboration. To win, everyone must commit to the victory, and you often forget about the existence of a "best player".
The game allows players to exchange items or help other players via skills, special abilities and magic. In practice, players often compete their tasks in pairs and more, e.g. they close gates in pairs, where one has to clean the entrance from monsters, and the other seals the gates.
Pro Each game is unique
The game starts by choosing a random boss and/or heroes. Each turn begins with the myth phase, whose effects apply from a random card in the deck. These effects include monster movement, game-wide buffs and de-buffs, quests, monster gate breaches, etc. You will never know if you will be able to win the game.
Items and skills are usually taken randomly too.
Pro Easy to learn
The core mechanics of the game are pretty simple to learn in under 15 minutes.
Each player is given a destination ticket with the route they are tasked to build. Each turn they simply decide whether to draw a train card that represents the train cars, claim a section of a route using one of their train cards, or get another destination ticket to begin a new route. Whoever builds the longest route wins.
Pro No direct conflict
Most players will be solely focused on building their own train routes, and as such, there is no direct conflict against opponents. This makes it a good game not only for beginners, but also players who do not like the cutthroat tactics of games like Monopoly. It also makes for a good game for couples to play as there will be no arguments or moves that may slight another player.
Pro Great presentation
The board, train pieces, and cards all come together to create a pleasing and functional experience. The game board is a colorful, thick cardboard map of North America. It's large enough so the game board never feels crowded with game pieces. There are also 225 custom-molded train car game pieces of various solid colors. The game cards themselves are nicely illustrated and feature pictures of trains that take front and center - they contain no text overlay.
Pro A great gateway game
Thanks to its intuitive nature and easy to grasp rules, Ticket to Ride is great for newcomers to the game or those unfamiliar with board games in general, or even kids. It is widely considered to be an excellent gateway game.
Pro Satisfying to build routes, regardless of winning
Even if you don't win the game, it's often satisfying to watch your train routes slowly get bigger as you connect cities. There are also bonus points you can achieve for connecting especially long or tricky routes, which you gives you additional goals to work towards aside from the main victory.
Pro Tense gameplay each turn
Each turn, you will have to decide whether you want to draw another train card or connect more routes on the board. Since you can only choose one of these options, this is a highly important decision that may have you on the edge of your seat. By drawing more cards, you'll have more trains to place later, but you may be leaving an empty route open up for your opponent to steal.
Pro High detail design
Both the game board and playing cards have a very distinct style. The game board has an almost faded background of the landscape featuring mountains, rivers, and forests with the routes intertwining around the map in colorful patterns. This strong contrast really gives the board an intricate appearance. The game cards come in a variety of colors and all feature hand drawn artwork of all sorts of train parts - engines, locomotives, coal carts, storage carts, and more.
Pro Great expansions
Ticket to Ride offers numerous expansion packs that build on the base game in fun new ways. For starters, there's all new maps for places such as Europe, Asia, India, Africa, and more. This means you can play the game you enjoy on an a fresh board with new routes to learn. Each expansion also adds its fair share of new gameplay elements (such as tunnels, boats, and train stations) and has new train cards.
Cons
Con Very unaproachable
Arkham Horror has a lot of moving parts, its rules are difficult to follow, and the gameplay itself is pretty difficult. This all adds up to a game that is very unapproachable and will take the most dedicated of players to really understand the whole concept put forth.
Con Huge rules
24+ pages of rules. Though they are well-written, highly illustrated, enriched with small data tables, it is easy to forget small details, especially when some critical rule is applied, e.g., for just one type of bosses.
Con Long
The game is very long (several hours).
Con Playing alone or in small team (2-3) is usually easy and boring
Arkham is best enjoyed when played by teams of 4 and more.
Con Long preparation time
Laying out all the things may eat up to 30 minutes (without extensions).
Con Hard to find
It was actually released in 2005 and currently out of stock at official page.
Con Very basic
The "North American" Ticket to Ride (original game) is fun but has very low complexity. Regular players will tire quickly from this lack of depth. The variants like Europe or India bring some new maps and more gameplay elements, which is sorely needed after the first few games.
Con Very luck-based
The original destination ticket and the cards you draw during game play are random. This can make some routes easier or harder to connect, and it boils down to literally just being the luck of the draw.
Con Sometimes blocking routes for opponents hurts you instead
When preventing an opponent from completing their train route, you have to use your own trains to block them. This means less trains to complete your own route. It seems like this design is self-defeating at times.
Con Expensive
The game generally retails for $50, which is quite high for a cardboard board game.