Terraforming Mars Plays

Wow! It’s been so long since my last article. I can’t believe how much time has passed. There has been so much that has happened in my board gaming world and looking back at my previous posts, also so little. I still find myself gravitating back to some of the the same games and find them all still really fun.

Recently, I have been enjoying a game called Terraforming Mars. As of this writing this game is number three on the Board Game Geek page and has been in a very high spot for quite a while. Board Game Geek is a website that many people use to gain information about board games, rules clarifications and opinions of others in the hobby. The game plays one to five players and plays about 120 minutes. It is designed by Jacob Fryxelius and published by Stronghold Games.

In the game, players take the role of a corporation and try to score the most Terra Form Rating or TR. You do this by purchasing and playing cards, using abilities and spending Mega Credits or MC.

The game ends when the Planet of Mars gets terraformed. To do this, three conditions must be meet. The temperature is raised from negative 30 degrees Celsius to eight degrees Celsius. The oxygen is raised from zero percent to fourteen percent oxygen. The final condition is that nine ocean tiles be placed on the board. These conditions can be done in any order but all three need to happen to cause the end of the game.

Players first start by choosing a corporation each specializing in a different ability and starting MC. Players can gain resources during the course of the game to help gain a higher TR. Some of these resources are MC, steel, titanium, plants, energy and heat. These resources can then be used to help play cards, create forests and cities, or raise one of the three end game conditions of temperature, oxygen and oceans.

There are so many things that I really like about this game. One of the main things I really like the the options that a player can make. In my opinion there are so many things that you can do. What cards should I keep? What cards should I play? What order should I do things?

Another thing I really like about this game is that it is very much related to real life more so than say many other fantasy or science fiction games. While I really do enjoy those games, I feel like I am actually learning something each time I play this game.

This game also seems to scale really well. I have played it with all counts and it is really fun. I have played it solo and it does change a bit of the game, it is still really fun and can be really quick if you don’t spend to long deciding on what to do. I would say that I have enjoyed it at five players but this game can last up to three hours or longer if you include drafting of have someone in your group with analysis paralysis or someone who takes extra long to decide what to do.

I also really like the art. I think it is great and fits the game well.

The game can be a bit of a table hog but I think that is fine. One minor thing is that the player boards can get a bit fidley as cubes can get bumped but I like using dice and I have a bunch that I can use and this doesn’t really bother me. I am also fine with using the cubes but I just know that the player board can be bumped.

There are a few expansions for this game. I don’t think you need any of them but I would highly recommend one of them if you end of liking the base game. Hellas and Elysium are two new boards that you can use. I haven’t actually used any of these but I have them and am very excited to try them out. The maps are different and I heard that the Milestones are different as well which might change up how you play. Venus Next is an expansion that adds a new board, cards and corporations to use. I haven’t played with this expansion but I would like to try it out.

Colonies is another expansion that also adds a new board cards and corporations. I have tried this expansion once and it is interesting. I would like to try it again.

The expansion that I really recommend is Prelude. These add additional starting benefits in addition to your corporation that you choose along with some new cards and corporations. These additional starting benefits I think really differentiate you from other players and I really like more options. I think this expansion is a no brainier and I would highly recommend this if you enjoy Terraforming Mars.

There is also new expansion that is soon to be released or just released called Turmoil. I have read some things about this expansion and am not really sure about it. I think I would like to try it but it seems to start the perhaps change the game a little to much from what I can see. I am still on the fence about this expansion.

Overall, I really enjoy the game Terraforming Mars. I have about fifteen plays of the game right now and I can easily see fifteen more of this fantastic game.