I bought the game last week only played 6 times. My biggest take away is organising the cards and trying to keep my eye on everything. Blue effect cards I tuck in the top of my player board which reminds me when I'm spending mega euros, steel and titanium. Action cards I keep to the right of my board and my green cards I stack to the left. If my company has a effect of production I place that card on the actual production. Great video, food for thought.
I know this video is 5 years old, but man is he undervaluing Credicor. WIth greenery tiles you're already getting a decent ratio of 11.5 credits per point (assuming oxygen has not been maxed), you get a 4 credit discount back so now it's 9.5 per point, and one of those points is a TR rating that helps you get back even MORE value. Use their ability to drop a city tile (if you don't have a card to do it cheaper), and then surround it with your greenery. You're welcome :) Also, you're forgetting that Saturn Systems starts with a Titanium production, and even just by itself generating +1 MC production you're essentially at +4 MC production at the start of the game. Even IF no one plays Jovian tags or denies you them, they're taking a card to play defense rather than going on offense. All you need is to eventually get a good space card and it's paid off.
Great video, guys, really enjoying this. One thing I did instead of getting overlays is to buy a bunch of colored d10s (red, green, purple, yellow, brown and black) and use those instead of sliding arond the cubes. It might not be as shake-proof as some of the overlays, but ten or fifteen bucks will get you enough dice for two boxes.
You guys talk with so much enthusiasm for games :). I have loved discovering your handful of videos and really hope you make a lot more. So great to see board games from perspectives all around the world.
Nick Christie thanks for very encouraging feedback . We are planning to get back on the horse and do a lot of videos on a regular basis. Our work schedules couldn't align well enough to do it over the last few months. However, an upcoming change of living accommodation will allow us to churn out a lot more videos! I won't say any more, surprises are a-comin'!
Thanks for making a video on one of my favourite games! Loved your enthusiasm! Sadly, you lost me when you claimed Tharsis (and Ecoline) to be overpowered and Credicor weak..
Right?!?!?!? Credicor's strategy is NOT to go for the research projects (cards) to play....they benefit from doing the standard projects for landgrab with a city and then placing greenery tiles. They also are a corp that doesn't need much help to pick them as you can build just about any strategy around them.
@@brianpotter2812 I somewhat agree with you that standard projects become much more appealing with Credicor and it's a much more flexible corporation. But there's no reason not to go for the project cards. The key is to stick to the cards that cost ≥20, which would trigger Credicor's rebate. The bigger cost cards are already great value; the discount just makes those cards even better.
I hope you stay with the "Advanced tips" format -- there are plenty of intro/review videos out there, and lots of live play videos. But not as many videos about games that are (1) intended for experienced or new fans of a game; and (2) less than 30 minutes with just getting right to the good stuff. This enables gamers to enhance their enjoyment of a game, to continue to think about it between plays, but not have to sit through reviews again and again.
IO Mining Industries is my favorite card and should be bought from the starting 10 if you get it, then play it on turn 1. It will net you 24 titanium, 24 megacredits, and at least 1 VP.
In the expansion hellas, the tactician milestone always comes early with inventrix. I dont have statistics yet but i'd say its a tier below tharsis and mining guild.
Yup! If you happen to end up with a lot of very strong red cards, Credicor can be an amazing choice! Otherwise, it does nothing for cards that cost less than 20.
I won a 4 player game yesterday with credicor. It's good you have a lot of money at the start and it helped me a lot since I usually go for a lot of expensive cards.
I think the problem is that every time you play a card that's worth 18-19, you're setting yourself back cuz you get no bonus and are poor when the big cards show up.
cool vid! thanx a lot. at 23:25 you say that there is no corporation which increases your titanium production, but actually there is, saturn systems at 4:26
This got me thinking about the board gaming scene in Dubai, looks healthy but then I thought, does anyone play Warhammer in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. Looking around the answer is yup they do. Got a game of Terraforming this afternoon, aint played in 5-6 months due to lockdown, had a few practice runs on the PC game and ready for the boardgme this afternoon, ready to be a winner and have fun !
Do you have any advanced strategies? Any funny stories? Any victories pulled from the reddish-hued jaws of defeat (Because Mars, not Blood)? Share them below!
There is one issue though with this game while playing it with two players. Like other player would never raise the temperature bar if he/she is going for the landlord strategy. Like owning tiles as much as possible on the board. It would be your responsibility to raise the temperature bar to finish the game. Otherwise you can’t beat the landlord strategy.
As I understood players are passing cards that they did not choose to the next player (in Research Phase)? In instruction there is no word about it, actually, not chosen cards are discarded face down. Am I missing something?
When you draft you are selecting your 4 card "hand" and then you choose what to buy and keep. So if you want to deny someone a card, draft it yourself but then don't buy it and discard it.
@@mikeschmitz8355 But why you should buy it? In Research Phase, card you don't like OR want to deny you can just throw them on discard pile? Isn't that blocking enough? You have to pay 3M in order to sell it for 1M, and effect is the same, card is in 'graveyard' until next shuffle of deck ofc.
@@Bobicous you don't buy it. That's the point. In a draft you pick one card and then pass the rest to the next player. If you want to deny them a card, you just draft it yourself, but then when the draft is done you discard it without paying for it.
@@mikeschmitz8355 Hmm so maybe i am missing point of the whole draft idea :D Recently i was playing with friends, and each player draw 4 cards each turn, and was choosing a cards from those 4 (either to buy or discard). There was no 'passing to next player' thing, and i cannot find in instructions that passing rule.
Ecoline is strong, but in advanced competitive play, its strength with plants can make it a priority target for plant-destroying card play by all opponents. For that reason, in the 2017 World Boardgaming Championships, players in the Semi-Final and Final avoided Ecoline in favor of less vulnerable Corporations. In the earlier rounds, Ecoline was successful vs players less likely to attack it, due to inexperience. boardgamers.org/yearbook17/tfm.html
@@ivanl5264 the problem with it is that people tend to build cities later, and getting money production later is useless. You want money production early but who is going to draft and play city titles early against a player using TR? You may get 8 cities in game but how many of those came late where you got nearly no value out of it? 1 extra money production when you are making 50 credits a turn, who cares?
United Nations *crushes* many players, when they focus their early game entirely on the most enginey engine, and forget how good of an engine early TR itself is. Just remember to save your early money: only buy early cards that let you terraform, and don't do it more than once per generation, leaving yourself too poor in the next. (Later, you can violate this rule, of course.)
Terraforming Mars is a fun, but also a stupid game. I played enouh games, where one player had the luck to draft cards, which allow him/her to draw more cards, which ended in getting more cards to draw more cards. This stacks eventually until a point, where somebody draws 100-150% more cards in a turn than other players. Thats disgustingly op! And it didnt happen, because that player made the right decisions in the earlygame and the others didnt, it is just pure luck. I learned, that if youre trying to win a game, Terraforming Mars is the wrong game. If you wanna have fun, building a new Civ on Mars, its the right game.
Good analysis and good vid. My only criticism is about the comment that the person who does greenery wins most of the time. I think you are doing group think. I have seen games with around 10-15 counters on the board and others with almost every space full. I've seen games that drove up heat or oxygen quickly or slowly. Few oceans or all of them quickly. I've seen winning strategies with mostly events or mostly microbes/animals or mostly cards (26VP from cards in the last game). I think there are so many ways to win. And some of this is based on others' strategies. Vary your group a bit. :)
Yakhi Play! Not really if you spend the early game building your titanium production engine. It makes you wealthy enough to complete quite a few Space projects
Ecoline sucks. It feels like every other card played is an asteroid, and guess who gets hit with them every single time. They guy with Ecoline. There is a hard counter for it.
Ok, the guy on the left needs to not be eating during videos. Advanced Strategies implies that you're going to be describing some whole game ideas. 75% of the video just talks about individual cards you like.
it kind of makes sense - advanced strats are sometimes just important micro decisions, just as often as they are unintuitive concepts. intermediate strategies is probably more what you're thinking.
Yup, but in their (partial) defense, the modern board game online community hardly has any strategy commentary on any game, *unless* it's about a card-driven game and focused on telling you what the good and bad cards are. When you look at extremely deep games like (2p) Azul or Patchwork, there are approximately more "how to play" videos than particles in the observable universe, while the little strategy content that exists is on the level of a chess teacher telling you that a queen is usually more valuable than a knight.
![[Terraforming Mars] Strategy #1 - Ground Game](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vBq-sUXR-Nc/mqdefault.jpg)
The dude on the right is so nice. Love this game. Nice tips!
I bought the game last week only played 6 times. My biggest take away is organising the cards and trying to keep my eye on everything. Blue effect cards I tuck in the top of my player board which reminds me when I'm spending mega euros, steel and titanium. Action cards I keep to the right of my board and my green cards I stack to the left. If my company has a effect of production I place that card on the actual production. Great video, food for thought.
I know this video is 5 years old, but man is he undervaluing Credicor. WIth greenery tiles you're already getting a decent ratio of 11.5 credits per point (assuming oxygen has not been maxed), you get a 4 credit discount back so now it's 9.5 per point, and one of those points is a TR rating that helps you get back even MORE value.
Use their ability to drop a city tile (if you don't have a card to do it cheaper), and then surround it with your greenery. You're welcome :)
Also, you're forgetting that Saturn Systems starts with a Titanium production, and even just by itself generating +1 MC production you're essentially at +4 MC production at the start of the game. Even IF no one plays Jovian tags or denies you them, they're taking a card to play defense rather than going on offense. All you need is to eventually get a good space card and it's paid off.
Got my game 4 days ago, played a few times and this is gonna help me a lot in figuring this game out completely. Thanks guys!
Great video, guys, really enjoying this.
One thing I did instead of getting overlays is to buy a bunch of colored d10s (red, green, purple, yellow, brown and black) and use those instead of sliding arond the cubes. It might not be as shake-proof as some of the overlays, but ten or fifteen bucks will get you enough dice for two boxes.
oh! This is such a great idea!
You guys talk with so much enthusiasm for games :). I have loved discovering your handful of videos and really hope you make a lot more. So great to see board games from perspectives all around the world.
Nick Christie thanks for very encouraging feedback . We are planning to get back on the horse and do a lot of videos on a regular basis.
Our work schedules couldn't align well enough to do it over the last few months. However, an upcoming change of living accommodation will allow us to churn out a lot more videos! I won't say any more, surprises are a-comin'!
Yakhi Play! Surprises are coming? So exciting. Great news :).
What's up with the picture that pops up covering cards around 19:19?
We though our video editor was trolling us, turns out he just messed up
omg thats so funny
Thanks for making a video on one of my favourite games! Loved your enthusiasm! Sadly, you lost me when you claimed Tharsis (and Ecoline) to be overpowered and Credicor weak..
Right?!?!?!? Credicor's strategy is NOT to go for the research projects (cards) to play....they benefit from doing the standard projects for landgrab with a city and then placing greenery tiles. They also are a corp that doesn't need much help to pick them as you can build just about any strategy around them.
@@brianpotter2812 I somewhat agree with you that standard projects become much more appealing with Credicor and it's a much more flexible corporation. But there's no reason not to go for the project cards. The key is to stick to the cards that cost ≥20, which would trigger Credicor's rebate. The bigger cost cards are already great value; the discount just makes those cards even better.
Loved the video, and great observations. MOAR.
Thanks for the kind words. Life is busy for the two of us. Hopefully we can get some more stuff out soon!
I hope you stay with the "Advanced tips" format -- there are plenty of intro/review videos out there, and lots of live play videos. But not as many videos about games that are (1) intended for experienced or new fans of a game; and (2) less than 30 minutes with just getting right to the good stuff. This enables gamers to enhance their enjoyment of a game, to continue to think about it between plays, but not have to sit through reviews again and again.
Very glad seeing you doing this Jad Keep it up and we are supporting this all the way from all aspects.
IO Mining Industries is my favorite card and should be bought from the starting 10 if you get it, then play it on turn 1. It will net you 24 titanium, 24 megacredits, and at least 1 VP.
Inventrix was heavily underestimated. It's possible to get kelp farming out without any oceans if you have both +2/-2 cards and inventrix.
J Z fair point, but we've had very limited success with this corp. how did you fare in those games when you picked Inventrix?
In the expansion hellas, the tactician milestone always comes early with inventrix. I dont have statistics yet but i'd say its a tier below tharsis and mining guild.
Great video guys.... Can't wait to see more!
I think you underestimated credicor! It's incredibly strong at ground game and terraforming via the expensive space cards.
Yup! If you happen to end up with a lot of very strong red cards, Credicor can be an amazing choice! Otherwise, it does nothing for cards that cost less than 20.
Credicor gives a discount on standard projects cities and greeneries too. Combined with the starting income it can often be a good pick
I won a 4 player game yesterday with credicor. It's good you have a lot of money at the start and it helped me a lot since I usually go for a lot of expensive cards.
I think the problem is that every time you play a card that's worth 18-19, you're setting yourself back cuz you get no bonus and are poor when the big cards show up.
And standard projects!
what about optimal placement of forests/oceans and cities?
Wow, great video. My viewpoint of Dubai certainly changed :) Keep this up guys!
cool vid! thanx a lot.
at 23:25 you say that there is no corporation which increases your titanium production, but actually there is, saturn systems at 4:26
Doesn't the red arrow mean you can only sell patents once per generation? As many as you want but only once?
This got me thinking about the board gaming scene in Dubai, looks healthy but then I thought, does anyone play Warhammer in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. Looking around the answer is yup they do. Got a game of Terraforming this afternoon, aint played in 5-6 months due to lockdown, had a few practice runs on the PC game and ready for the boardgme this afternoon, ready to be a winner and have fun !
Great job guys! Love this channel. Hoping for more videos sooon!
Do you have any advanced strategies? Any funny stories? Any victories pulled from the reddish-hued jaws of defeat (Because Mars, not Blood)? Share them below!
There is one issue though with this game while playing it with two players. Like other player would never raise the temperature bar if he/she is going for the landlord strategy. Like owning tiles as much as possible on the board. It would be your responsibility to raise the temperature bar to finish the game. Otherwise you can’t beat the landlord strategy.
talking about Venus Next, and Prelude new expansion!
Thanks guys for the strategy tips.
Great vid.
very good video. I used it for my tm games.
Thanks for the video! I didn't know Gilbert Gottfried's older brother played Terraforming Mars!
As I understood players are passing cards that they did not choose to the next player (in Research Phase)? In instruction there is no word about it, actually, not chosen cards are discarded face down. Am I missing something?
When you draft you are selecting your 4 card "hand" and then you choose what to buy and keep. So if you want to deny someone a card, draft it yourself but then don't buy it and discard it.
Thanks :) @@mikeschmitz8355
@@mikeschmitz8355 But why you should buy it? In Research Phase, card you don't like OR want to deny you can just throw them on discard pile? Isn't that blocking enough? You have to pay 3M in order to sell it for 1M, and effect is the same, card is in 'graveyard' until next shuffle of deck ofc.
@@Bobicous you don't buy it. That's the point. In a draft you pick one card and then pass the rest to the next player. If you want to deny them a card, you just draft it yourself, but then when the draft is done you discard it without paying for it.
@@mikeschmitz8355 Hmm so maybe i am missing point of the whole draft idea :D Recently i was playing with friends, and each player draw 4 cards each turn, and was choosing a cards from those 4 (either to buy or discard). There was no 'passing to next player' thing, and i cannot find in instructions that passing rule.
Ecoline is strong, but in advanced competitive play, its strength with plants can make it a priority target for plant-destroying card play by all opponents. For that reason, in the 2017 World Boardgaming Championships, players in the Semi-Final and Final avoided Ecoline in favor of less vulnerable Corporations. In the earlier rounds, Ecoline was successful vs players less likely to attack it, due to inexperience. boardgamers.org/yearbook17/tfm.html
You've overestimated Tharsis Republic way too much! It's a good corporation but only if you play 4-5-players game...
You will always have at least between 8-10 cities, even with just 2 players so Tharsis is always interesting in my opinion
@@ivanl5264 the problem with it is that people tend to build cities later, and getting money production later is useless. You want money production early but who is going to draft and play city titles early against a player using TR?
You may get 8 cities in game but how many of those came late where you got nearly no value out of it?
1 extra money production when you are making 50 credits a turn, who cares?
United Nations *crushes* many players, when they focus their early game entirely on the most enginey engine, and forget how good of an engine early TR itself is. Just remember to save your early money: only buy early cards that let you terraform, and don't do it more than once per generation, leaving yourself too poor in the next. (Later, you can violate this rule, of course.)
Terraforming Mars is a fun, but also a stupid game. I played enouh games, where one player had the luck to draft cards, which allow him/her to draw more cards, which ended in getting more cards to draw more cards. This stacks eventually until a point, where somebody draws 100-150% more cards in a turn than other players. Thats disgustingly op! And it didnt happen, because that player made the right decisions in the earlygame and the others didnt, it is just pure luck.
I learned, that if youre trying to win a game, Terraforming Mars is the wrong game. If you wanna have fun, building a new Civ on Mars, its the right game.
Man its gaunter o dimm! Don't trust his advice on terraforming Mars, there is a catch!
James Abrahams Your comment truly confuses me! Who is Gaunter (Oh, oh, is he the bad guy from Die Hard?)?
Please check your closed caption text. It has done a comical job of understanding your accent.
Good analysis and good vid. My only criticism is about the comment that the person who does greenery wins most of the time. I think you are doing group think. I have seen games with around 10-15 counters on the board and others with almost every space full. I've seen games that drove up heat or oxygen quickly or slowly. Few oceans or all of them quickly. I've seen winning strategies with mostly events or mostly microbes/animals or mostly cards (26VP from cards in the last game). I think there are so many ways to win. And some of this is based on others' strategies. Vary your group a bit. :)
Good job!
Phobolab makes space card/titanium production viable. I won with that
blueseqperl it does indeed, but its a though startegy to pull off no?
Yakhi Play! Not really if you spend the early game building your titanium production engine. It makes you wealthy enough to complete quite a few Space projects
Ecoline sucks. It feels like every other card played is an asteroid, and guess who gets hit with them every single time. They guy with Ecoline. There is a hard counter for it.
couldn't watch this due to that background music ...
2:42 It's Steel, but hey, you're the expert lol
I kid, I kid...good vid
Adam Christensen Hahahha. Thanks buddy!
Ok, the guy on the left needs to not be eating during videos. Advanced Strategies implies that you're going to be describing some whole game ideas. 75% of the video just talks about individual cards you like.
it kind of makes sense - advanced strats are sometimes just important micro decisions, just as often as they are unintuitive concepts. intermediate strategies is probably more what you're thinking.
Yup, but in their (partial) defense, the modern board game online community hardly has any strategy commentary on any game, *unless* it's about a card-driven game and focused on telling you what the good and bad cards are. When you look at extremely deep games like (2p) Azul or Patchwork, there are approximately more "how to play" videos than particles in the observable universe, while the little strategy content that exists is on the level of a chess teacher telling you that a queen is usually more valuable than a knight.
paying some credits to mil the graveyard for a card and take it into your hand would be cool. like 9 credits would seem fair
I would like this video so much more if there was no background music. I couldnt watch the entire video because of this
I find the music so annoying that I can't get through the video.