Terraforming Mars
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Terraforming Mars
Description
Description
In the 2400s, mankind begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things.
The players acquire unique project cards (from over two hundred different ones) by buying them to their hand. The projects (cards) can represent anything from introducing plant life or animals, hurling asteroids at the surface, building cities, to mining the moons of Jupiter and establishing greenhouse gas industries to heat up the atmosphere. The cards can give you immediate bonuses, as well as increasing your production of different resources. Many cards also have requirements and they become playable when the temperature, oxygen, or ocean coverage increases enough. Buying cards is costly, so there is a balance between buying cards (3 megacredits per card) and actually playing them (which can cost anything between 0 to 41 megacredits, depending on the project). Standard Projects are always available to complement your cards.
Your basic income, as well as your basic score, is based on your Terraform Rating (starting at 20), which increases every time you raise one of the three global parameters. However, your income is complemented with your production, and you also get VPs from many other sources.
Each player keeps track of their production and resources on their player boards, and the game uses six types of resources: MegaCredits, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy, and Heat. On the game board, you compete for the best places for your city tiles, ocean tiles, and greenery tiles. You also compete for different Milestones and Awards worth many VPs. Each round is called a generation (guess why) and consists of the following phases:
1) Player order shifts clockwise.
2) Research phase: All players buy cards from four privately drawn.
3) Action phase: Players take turns doing 1-2 actions from these options: Playing a card, claiming a Milestone, funding an Award, using a Standard project, converting plant into greenery tiles (and raising oxygen), converting heat into a temperature raise, and using the action of a card in play. The turn continues around the table until all players pass.
4) Production phase: Players get resources according to their terraform rating and production parameters.
When the three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean) have all reached their goal, the terraforming is complete, and the game ends after that generation. Count your Terraform Rating and other VPs to determine the winning corporation!
Customer Reviews
A friend of mine introduced me to this game and I liked it so much I bought it, along with a couple expansions. Everything arrived in good condition. I do recommend you buy player card holders that have the cube holders built in, as the cubes do slide out of place very easily. Without them, you and other players may have issues keeping track of how much you are earning, and you may mix up your money/resource cubes with tracker cubes. If one person bumps the table, everyone's could slide out of place. They were not in stock when I ordered my games, so I am having to purchase elsewhere.
We love Terraforming Mars! It is an excellent game to play. Just make sure you have 2+ hours to devote to it as it can take a long time to play all the way through if you have more than two players playing it.
The only knock is that there is a small gouge in the lid of the box that probably happened during the packaging of the box or the shipping of the box. Which isn't great. So I docked a start from this rating for the damaged board game box.
Terraforming Mars is an awesome game. It has great replayability and five expansions that add to the game. I ordered the base game as well as the expansions from Boardgame Bliss. The game arrived very quickly and nothing was damaged. They took care to package the product properly to ensure minimal damage occurred to the game during transit. Will definitely be buying from them again.
IDK what to say great game for the more advanced gamers out there
A great game with tons of replayability, hand management is cleverly weaved into the game. Only reason this isnt a 5 star is the quality of the components.
