How good are the PRELUDE 2 cards? - Analyzing all NEW project cards in Terraforming Mars Prelude 2!
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- Опубліковано 17 лис 2024
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Now that I have played a few games of Prelude 2 I feel like I have a good grip on most new project cards. This is not a full tier list, but just my initial impression on all of the new project cards!
I played Soil Studies for 17 plants, then drew Astra Mechanica and played Soil Studies again for 19 plants. Wheeeeeee!
That's some craaazy value, wow!
Kaguya tech is the only way right now to have a city on an ocean spot.
Astra mecanica has also a fun combo with brided commity.
I've used Astra Mechanica with Bribed Committee twice now. Playing NRA or GIA twice remains just a dream . . . 😞
Yeah, I didn't even think about replacing Protected Valley or Mangrove yet - crazy!
And yes, getting rid of the -2 points from Bribed is a great way to use Astra Mechanica!
The first few times we played kaguya tech we didnt realise that you gain the placement bonus again, but we still thought it was pretty much always strong- the fact that you get the bonus again is insane!
Overall it's just busted :D
Played carbon nanosystems with valley trust. Couldn't find titanium prod, but the graphene enables you to play the big space events pretty cheap
Yes, I played a game with my girlfriend the other day and she used Carbon Nanosystems to great effect. Seems to be a pretty good card in an engine strat!
Very very good in a heavy science engine strat. Grants insane rebates.
Meh otherwise
Microgravity Nutrition reminds me a lot of Noctis Farming - a cheap(ish) plant tag that also offers a weird mix of points and MC prod. It's great to get NRA down, a bit more synergistic with green combos, but you can't use your steel on it.
I suspect the crucial reason it's worse than Noctis Farming, besides the steel, is that 2 plants for a conversion is frequently really useful in the sorts of games that you want to do plant combos.
The instant plants from Noctis Farming and the fact you can use steel on it are the difference between a C tier and D/F tier card for me. Instant plants always have usecases, a bit more MC prod does not.
I am really surprised that everyone I have seen rates teslaract so poorly. It is one of the only ways to get high plant prod early which can be insane for ground based/rush strategies. I don't even think the action is that bad- if you value energy prod at 7 and plant prod at 10 it's sort of like gaining 3mc each time you use it (including the turn you play it). If you have excess energy hanging around early-mid game I would definitely consider this. Imagine factorium getting this for 1ppt a turn- similar to the recyclon/extreme cold fungus combo except you don't need to play any building tags.
The problem is that it is quite costly, time consuming and requires you to draw into multiple efficient power prod cards. Also there's an opportunity cost to using the power prod to activate Teslaract instead of playing good power hungry cards like Electro Cat, Domed Crater or AI Central.
Of course it can be good in certain circumstances and playing Factorum is one of those.
@@marsexpert4276 Yeah it's definitely situational - It's not every game you will have so much energy lying around to make it worthwhile but I think it has it's place and time similar to an O2 bumper for example. Of course much worse in games with colonies or other uses for energy as-well.
what annoy me with Venus Orbital Survey is that you need to reveal all the card, not only the venus card you take into hand for free.
For Mars Nomads, it grants ocean bonuses yes, because ocean bonus is defined as a placement bonus in the rules
Yes, that's annoying about Venus Orbital Survey. They could have made it so that you only need to reveal the Venus cards that you want to keep for free. Would've been okay in my opinion.
That makes Mars Nomads (and Frontier Town) much stronger for sure!
@@marsexpert4276 No, frontier town is not stronger with this, frontier town specifies that you triple (gain 2 additional times), the PRINTED placement bonus so it doesn't include the ocean bonuses (but frontier town is still very strong)
Mars Nomad does indeed grants you ocean rebates.
Insane card imo
That's very good to know and makes the card much better!
Thank you for the video.
Microgravity Nutrition and Soil Studies are ideed one of the most underwhelming cards in the set. They should have prepere more interesting colony-related cards and maybe some strong venus plant cards that would justify this strategy (at least when more cards like this come out).
Floating Refinery has a niche use in removing floaters from cards that have been used to raise Venus when the track is maxed out.
Kaguya is even stronger than you think as it grants you placement bonus too.
As for Frontier Town and Nomads I think there's a clarification on BGG if the neighbouring ocean bonus counts for them but I can't find it. If someone knows this, please leave a comment.
Edit: It counts in case of the Nomads - Snake confirmed the rules say neighbouring ocean bonus is a placement bonus. However Frontier Town's text refers only to printed placement bonuses (so no neighbouring ocean bonus).
Looking forward for more insightful rankings but maybe from previous expansions/promos before Prelude 2.
I'm fine with the colonies cards being a bit underwhelming...colonies is strong enough as it is :D Also, L1 Trade Terminal is crazy.
Yes, you can use Floating Refinery for that, but that's a suuuuper niche usecase and probably only applies to the last gen or so.
OMG, I didn't know about the placement bonus thing with Kaguya tech, that's insane! What were they thinking with that one???
OK, the ocean rebate counting for Frontier Town and Mars Nomads makes these cards much much stronger!
to precise, my comment only Nomads count ocean bonuses, because Frontier Town specifies that you gain 2 additional times the PRINTED placement bonus so it doesn't include ocean bonuses for frontier town
@@snaksnak792 Wow! Interesting difference. I haven't noticed that. I'll edit again. 😅
I can confirm that if you have 6 Venus tags already on Gen 2 and play Venus shuttles it has so much value I ran away with the game
Depending on where those tags came from, you were likely in a good position anyway.
@@peterblack_ not necessarily - venus cards can be pretty underwhelming. But getting 6 of any tag out in 2 gens is impressive enough to assume it's a great start :D
Yeah I though so - still waiting to get it with a ridiculous MSI start :D
I knew Astra Mechanica was broken but I hadn't considered using Lawsuit because of the money Lawsuit made you lose....
It's an interesting interaction in my opinion :D
At 10:50, Venus Orbital Survey. The card says ”Venus cards”, not ”cards with a Venus tag”. Wouldn’t that indicate all cards from the Venus expansion, in other words, cards with the small blue Venus symbol on the bottom left on the card?
No, "any tag" card designate a card with this "any tag". It's frequently used in the game
"Space card" always means "card with a space tag." "Venus card" is consistently used in the same way. If they had meant it the way you're suggesting, I expect they would at least have said "Venus Next cards." Nice try, though. 🙂
As the others already said, it specifically means cards with Venus tags. The cards never reference the decks, they always reference tags or resource symbols. I regularly use "X cards" and "X tags" interchangeably myself.
Worked my way to about halfway point of the video and wanted to make some comments (before i forget them).
Venus Orbital Survey. I think you may want to think about this again. I think the most similar card to this is A.I. central and that card is somewhere around S tier (with an *). I do believe survey is in the same tier and one uncovered point is how willing are you to pass this card to your opponent. The answer is never. That alone should put it in A tier. Personally, i think it is worse than AI but not by much.
Soil studies. This card is not D tier. I think the most comparable card to this may be plantation (i think you rated plantation at B tier). Roughly the same cost and for me, its made somewhere between 6-16 plants with an average of 7-8 in most games. Your argument is something like its a rush card but why? Why cant we play it as part of an engine plan? Furthermore, would you want to pass this card to an opponent that is able to make 8-10plants from it? I think not.
Envoys. They are good. They arent A tier good. With the exception of colonial envoys, which i think is a maybe because ot the high ceiling and synergy with posiedon, space port C, and various new colonial rebate cards. I do not think they are A tier in general and it goes again back to how willing im wanting to pass this. If i see an A tier card in the draft and an envoy card and i can not play either effectively and must end up hatedrafting, im probably hatedrafting the other card. Envoys are nice but they just arent A tier nice. There is also some games that do devolve a little bit a mash of delegate battle. Particular in the end game or around a high impact influence based event. If 6delegates are already deployed, the envoys arent good. Just a small detail.
I have to say I disagree on Venus Orbital Survey. I played it the other day in my fifth game so far. I revealed one Venus tag after like 5-6 activations, meaning I got only one card for free which also makes sense in terms of probabilities. It's still good taking a look at so many cards and having the option to buy them (I mean Inventor's Guild is also a good card), but having to reveal the cards and having to buy them makes it much worse than AI Central.
Getting 8-10 plants out of Soild Studies before reaching -4 degrees Celsius is an insane task. Plant and Venus tags don't combo, so you'll almost never have that many together in the mid game. If this card didn't have a max requirement I'd place it higher.
You're right that the envoys are not the most impactful cards. If they're up against another A tier card like Big Asteroid, I'm almost always taking / cutting Big. But they are super cheap, often easy enough to play and can have a sizeable impact on the midgame.
Just played a 4p game i won by a pretty good margin with cards you rated pretty poorly vs a setup you would rate highly.
The scary opponent was playing septem merger into cheung shing and focus organization. Even played mars nomad and a g4 community service for 5mcp.
My setup was astrodrill (tankpicked over poseidon), nobel prize (drawing shuttles and wave power), and the dubious applied science. I used applied to power astrodrill for another 4 asteroids which is a delayed 12 titanium (some of it was used during unity. That generated 39-42titanium mc and left 2 more which eventually went to the asteroid card that bumps heat.
The 2 wild tags were important to play a g1 space hotel and extremophile and then powering luna metropolis and sulfur export midgame. Snagged both diversifier and trader milestone from this setup. Picked soil studies and played it gen 7 for 11 plants. Game felt tight but i won over the next guy by 10pts.