Ticket to Ride, reviewed here, is one of our favorite games to break out with friends who haven’t played many of the German-style boardgames we like because a new player can learn how to play in a few minutes and the game is long enough for a new player to start to catch on to strategy before it’s through. The publisher, Days of Wonder, has operated a very successful online site for several of their games for several years, and their Ticket to Ride app for iOS (or for Android devices) is fully integrated with the online site, so you get a robust community of experienced players right out of the chute.

The app is close to perfect if you’re playing online. The graphics are exactly those of the physical game and are very easy to navigate on the iPad’s screen. Route cards go in the lower left; you can cycle through them by clicking once, and completed routes get a solid-colored outline and a punch mark on the left side, with a count of total routes and incomplete routes next to it.

Your train cards display in the bottom center, and when you have enough to complete a track between two cities, you click on the relevant cards and drag them to the track, waiting until the right track is highlighted (both city circles start to glow as well) before releasing. That’s a little trickier than it sounds, and my wife and I have each once incorrectly placed trains; a setting allowing players to insert a confirmation option would be helpful, but right now the only confirm/cancel option appears when you select new route cards.

Opposing player icons sit at the top with number of trains remaining, number of train cards in hand, number of route cards in hand, and number of points all clearly visible. You can see an online opponent’s ELO rating (at least, I assume that’s an ELO system) and “karma” by clicking on the player’s icon.

The app itself runs very quickly with only a few unnecessary animations that didn’t unduly hinder play. Online play may lag due to slow connections or slow players, of course, and you can turn some of the animations and the entirely harmless music off.

Online play is the game’s strength. Players can log in via GameCenter or via the Days of Wonder site, and can create games or join existing ones in the “restaurant” accessible two clicks from the main screen. Open games are identified by different icons that indicate whether you are eligible to join the game and which board and cards are in use – the 1910 expansion, the Europe board, and the Swiss board are all available as in-app purchases. Players also tend to describe games as fast games or no-blocking games where applicable, although that’s on the honor system. So far, I’ve only played on the US board with the 1910 expansion and have found online opponents tend to go hard after the long, cross-country routes (sensible) and are obsessed with getting the longest route (potentially counterproductive). Then again, I think I’m at two wins in five or six games, so perhaps my opinions on strategy hold as much water as a plastic sieve.

The app has two flaws that put it below the standard-bearer in the space, Carcassonne. One is the aforementioned potential for a misplay that would be solved by a confirmation dialog. The other is that the Ticket to Ride AI players are horrible – they play linearly and won’t present any kind of challenge to even a novice player. It’s also less than ideal for pass and play because you can see other players’ routes too easily unless you’re sitting rather far apart. I did have one unexplained crash that hasn’t recurred.

However, if you like playing online opponents, it’s very strong and I’ve found the half-dozen or so games I’ve played to move very quickly. And if you’ve never played any of the boardgames I’m always yammering about here, on Twitter, or in chats, this is one of the best places to dip your toe in the water of smarter, better games that also play well for socializing.

Wabash Cannonball ($1.99) is the app version of the boardgame more commonly sold as Chicago Express (which I’ve never tried), and it’s a very clean implementation of what seems to be a strong, smart game. Outside of the lack of networked play, the Wabash app is outstanding.

If Wabash Cannonball was a Hollywood script, I’d call it Acquire meets Ticket to Ride but directed by Reiner Knizia. It’s a luck-free train game with an economic component that also reminded me of Power Grid. Players buy shares in four railroad lines in an auction, then can use their turns to extend those railroads west across the country toward Chicago. The map is covered in various kinds of hexes, with different hex types providing different bonuses or recurring income amounts to railroads that cross them, with city hexes giving the biggest boost.

On each turn, a player can choose one of three options for his move: auction, build, or develop. In an auction move, the player picks one railroad and one share of that railroad goes up for auction; each railroad has a small, fixed number of shares, and it’s also possible for a player to choose the auction but then decline to auction off any shares (the ‘null’ play). The build move allows the player to choose one railroad and lay tracks on up to three tiles, as long as the railroad still has tracks remaining. Developing certain hexes raises their income or provides a one-time bonus to the railroad(s) occupying it. Because each player will hold shares in multiple railroads, and railroads will be owned by multiple players, choosing your action will depend not just on how much you’ll benefit from the move but on how to minimize the benefits to other players, or perhaps even block another railroad if that’s in your best interests.

When the first of the four initial railroads reaches Chicago, that railroad receives a sizable one-time dividend, and a fifth railroad, the Wabash (gray) line, opens up, with an immediate auction of the first of its two shares. The railroad’s home city is actually Fort Wayne, so within a few turns it can expand to Chicago (triggering another one-time dividend to its shareholders) and Detroit, the two most profitable cities on the board.

A round ends with a General Dividend, meaning payments to all shareholders, when two of the three turn options (auction, build, develop) are exhausted for that round; at each General Dividend, Detroit is developed automatically, increasing its income by $1. The game ends when one of four conditions is met, with nearly every game I’ve played ending because three of the railroads have no more shares available for auction. At game end, there’s a final General Dividend, after which the player with the most money is the winner.

The app’s design is very clean and plays well on the small iPod Touch screen. You can access several screens of information on the players, railroads, and progress toward game-end conditions in a popup window that you can minimize when you need to see more of the game board itself. The AI players are solid, playing intelligently and even using some strategic moves like the null play, with a particular strength in the auction. The AI’s weak spots are a lack of offensive play – they never block or otherwise sabotage other players – and a strange conservatism around the Chicago line, perhaps due to an incorrect valuation of its shares.

The game’s developers told me there are plans for networked play, but no release date for it yet. Beyond that, my criticisms of the app are minor – the “Chicago or bust!” popups are annoying, and it doesn’t save all the player settings from game to game – and I’ve had just one crash, the first time I used the app, which never recurred. For $1.99 it’s an excellent value with plenty of replayability.

Next up, I’ll do a ranking of my favorite boardgame apps. As for books, I bailed on Le Carre’s A Perfect Spy, but ripped through Ann Patchett’s underrated second novel, Taft.