Hi all,

I am considering buying this game after watching the fabulous "Overview" video on You Tube and glancing through the uploaded rules PDF but there is one thing I don't understand. If anyone can answer the following I would be very grateful.

An investigator can perform only 2 actions each turn, and they must be different actions. One action is to Travel to an adjacent space. Another is to Prepare to Travel, which gives you a ship or train ticket (max of two) which can be used to extend a Travel action by one space per ticket.

I can't see how the Prepare to Travel action would be of any value. If I spent 2 turns at a city Preparing to Travel, then did a Travel action on my third turn, I would move 3 spaces, which is no quicker than if I spent 3 turns doing Travel actions moving just 1 space each turn.

Can anyone explain to me the benefit of doing Prepare to Travel actions?

Well, for starters, prepare to travel actions are useful when you can't do other actions. You can't Rest or Acquire Assets on a space with a monster, but you can still acquire tickets which are useful for later moves when you may want to Rest and then Travel, say.

Also Prepare to Travel effectively doubles your movement for the turn when combined with a travel action.

Lastly where you stop can be a very important aspect of the game; you want to stop on major cities and have encounters, not in generic locales. Preparing to Travel rather than straight Traveling means you can skip intermediate spaces leaving you more likely to have beneficial encounters on named spaces and less likely to have malevolent encounters in generic spaces.

The last few turns of every game are usually hectic and require the ivestigators to solve a mystery (usually the third one) in two turns.

To solve a mystery in two turns the investigators have to either be spread to collect clues/close gates or be together to fight an epic monster. These "manouvers" require tickets to travel distances faster so that every inestigator can be at the right place at the right time.

BTW buy this game without hesitation. I think it will become the new FFG go to game like AH and BSG...

Just finished first game with 3 friends, after some solo learning, good fun - literally down to wire Doom 1 for the win, after 1 death along way, having dodged Bermuda Triangle delay risk on last mythos draw (it was like an evil GM saying 'oh you need win next round, let's see if any of you have a chance of finishing the mystery'), good fun. A blessed Charlie Kane in Fine Clothes constantly acquiring his payola and distributing it to us for votes in the next election was big part of win (we were very lucky in blessing conditions surviving reckonings).

For travel, agreed above, accumulating train and steamer tickets allows you to later make the best tactical moves, get to the place you want to be while having the type of encounters you want at this time. It is one of the "strategic choices" in game that I like as it's part of actually planning and not just "rolling dice".

In addition to the comments above, you can also Trade tickets with other investigators.

Aye, so for instance you could take a turn to rest and prepare for travel, and your fellow investigator on the same spece could prepare for travel and trade, giving you an extra movement while they sit on their space.

Accumulating for later is good but you can also Prepare for Travel and then move on the same turn.

Example;

Turn 1

Prepare for Travel

Travel (spend ticket)

Turn 2

Prepare for Travel

Travel (spend ticket)

You've now moved 4 space. Without Prepare for Travel you would have only been able to move 2 spaces.

Another example;

Prepare for Travel

(Anything but travel)

Prepare for Travel

Travel (spend two tickets)

That let's you potentially stay in a place you want to have an encounter in and skip over places, monsters, etc that you don't want to have encounters in. Once you start playing with it Prepare for Travel can be really interesting.

Aye, so for instance you could take a turn to rest and prepare for travel, and your fellow investigator on the same spece could prepare for travel and trade, giving you an extra movement while they sit on their space.

True. Or one investigator could prepare for travel and trade the ticket to another investigator in the same space. The second investigator could then also prepare for travel and then travel and move three spaces by spending both tickets. It could be worth it if you really have to get the second investigator to a location three spaces away in one turn.

Aye, so for instance you could take a turn to rest and prepare for travel, and your fellow investigator on the same spece could prepare for travel and trade, giving you an extra movement while they sit on their space.

True. Or one investigator could prepare for travel and trade the ticket to another investigator in the same space. The second investigator could then also prepare for travel and then travel and move three spaces by spending both tickets. It could be worth it if you really have to get the second investigator to a location three spaces away in one turn.

Indeed. This is extremely helpful when you have to tackle down soonish some Epic Monster or a rumor or a really short of time for the Third Mystery. Generally speaking, I often get tickets very early in the game, to be prepared, and often I do this with low Influence characters, so that others can exploit the Debt+Gain Assets / Removing the Debt condition combo before activation

I'd also note you can't repeat actions, so if you want to get two spaces away this turn, then you need to buy a ticket, then use it straight away.

Generally speaking my group tends to also grab a ticket when they have no other action they could take in a location they want to be in. For example, if they are at a clue location, and they failed to get the clue last turn, then it makes sense to take two actions that still leave them in the same place. If they're not in a city, that usually means rest and prepare to travel, barring any useful miscellaneous actions. We also tend to use tickets quickly rather than saving them up, as you can only hold two tickets anyway, and there's often times when you've got that spare action to buy a ticket.