Armchair Dragoons Forums

Wargaming => Sci-fi & Fantasy Warfare => Topic started by: judgedredd on January 13, 2020, 09:16:19 AM

Title: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: judgedredd on January 13, 2020, 09:16:19 AM
If so - what are your opinions on it? I have read some good things and I'll be watching some videos tonight.

I'd kinda like something a bit different.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 13, 2020, 09:22:45 AM
I own it and have played it. It's a lot of fun and is soloable.

Why is it fun? It's an interesting premise (space) and there's a lot of paths to obtaining victory. You gain resources and abilities through card play, which admittedly can get to be a little much in the late game (you might have seen pictures of this game with tons upon tons of cards played by each player). When you obtain a card of some kind, you can play it to your play area, and it'll give you some kind of function or bonus; some cards trump others and still others can cause a cascading effect. (It's at heart an engine-building game, so that's a given.) There's a LOT of cards so you'll need a decent play area to deploy them, especially if you're going with multiple players.

There's a lot of expansions for it too, which I do not own. I've been told that the Prelude expansion, though, is imperative if you like the base game. Prelude is, as the name suggests, a 'prequel' to your game to allow for a faster start.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: judgedredd on January 13, 2020, 09:32:25 AM
Thanks BC. It might well find it's way into my collection.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 13, 2020, 09:36:09 AM
If you're interested in something space-based, I'd wholeheartedly recommend SpaceCorp by GMT. I like Terraforming Mars quite well, but I absolutely love SpaceCorp.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: judgedredd on January 13, 2020, 11:26:05 AM
I also read great stuff about Spacecrops.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 13, 2020, 11:36:07 AM
We just happen to have a long AAR on this very game (https://www.armchairdragoons.com/articles/aars/spacecorp-2025-2300-ad-the-aar-index/) on the front page.  O:-)
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: mirth on January 13, 2020, 11:38:34 AM
I also read great stuff about Spacecrops.

AKA: Interstellar Wheat Orgy
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: Silent Disapproval Robot on January 13, 2020, 12:03:38 PM
Terraforming is great!  They’re going overboard with the expansions though.  Some are decent but some are crap and they’re getting to the point where they’re becoming unwieldy.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 13, 2020, 12:36:00 PM
Which are the decent ones and which are the crap, in your opinion?
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: Silent Disapproval Robot on January 13, 2020, 01:37:08 PM
Prelude and Venus are crap.  Venus does improve once you tie it in with Colonies but it’s still not great.  Also, they cheaped out on the 1st printing so the cards didn’t match the base game and it was easy to tell which cards were which when looking at back on them in the draw deck.

The extra maps and Colonies are good.  I ordered Turmoil but haven’t tried it yet.  My copy should be here tomorrow (although with all the snow, I suspect not).
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 13, 2020, 01:53:07 PM
Interesting. First negative comment I've found on Prelude, but then I've not really dug that far (I'm not interested in any of them mainly because there's SO many of them).
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: Silent Disapproval Robot on January 13, 2020, 02:05:01 PM
Prelude just gives everyone a big boost and shortens the game for the short attention span types who can’t stand to play  anything longer than an hour.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: Adam on January 14, 2020, 02:38:53 PM
For the most part, I like it.  My biggest problem is that as players expand and specialize, it's hard to keep track of what other people are doing / might want to be doing in the future due to the fact that it's hard to read the text on other players' cards from far away.
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: judgedredd on January 14, 2020, 05:54:39 PM
I'm a solitaire player. No group therapy for me  :hehe:
Title: Re: Has anyone got Terraforming Mars?
Post by: BanzaiCat on January 15, 2020, 07:21:48 AM
For the most part, I like it.  My biggest problem is that as players expand and specialize, it's hard to keep track of what other people are doing / might want to be doing in the future due to the fact that it's hard to read the text on other players' cards from far away.

That's a good point. I've only (strangely enough) played it 2-player, not solo, but I can imagine larger groups means it's much harder to track what the heck's going on.