Terraforming Mars by Stronghold Games, Strategy Board Game

Terraforming Mars (TM) is absolutely fantastic. I'd give it 6 stars if I could. It's that good. Definitely a gamer's game (ie. not intended for newcomers/nongamers), but worth every penny. With that said, TM has a bit of a learning curve. TM also has a wonderful solo variant, so if you're looking for a challenge, and you like to play solo (or at least have that option), look no further. That's actually the main reason I bought this game, and yet now I can't wait to try it multiplayer. And since it has the solo mode, I'll be able to teach it no problem and help move the game along as well. Another huge plus for me. At its core, TM is an engine builder, with cards and projects to help increase 6 main resources and production of said resources (MegaCredits=money, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy, and Heat). I won't go into great detail, but it's from these resources and a set amount of starting resources depending on which Corporation (think player) you play as that you start your engine building. There are 5 beginner corporations that are generic and all the same, and then there are an additional 12 that each have their own special ability(ies) and amount of starting credits, and possibly resources and/or resource production. I recommend starting with a beginner corporation, as knowing which cards to keep during setup also has a learning curve. Throughout the game, the player(s) are attempting to gain victory points (known as Terraform Rating, or TR) while simultaneously terraforming the planet. This terraforming includes 3 main elements: increasing temperature, oxygen levels, and water/ocean tiles. In the solo mode, you are attempting to complete all 3 of these before the end of your 14th turn. If you do so, you win. You can also keep track of your best scores, though TM isn't simply just a beat your own score solo mode. You actually have to WIN first (ie. complete the 3 elements to terraforming by end of turn 14), which is NOT easy. It's very clever, and very fun. Games typically take me 1-2 hours. In multi mode, you are trying to accrue the highest TR at the game end, signified by the completion of all 3 elements of terraforming. However, you score not only points from your base TR, cards, city tiles, and plant tiles (as in the solo mode), but also from any awards or milestones that you claimed. In that regard TM is somewhat of a point salad game...which I think is great. Again, looking forward to trying it multiplayer. While initially there is some luck of the draw, this is mitigated each turn during the refresh phase, as each player gets to look at 4 new cards from the deck and decide how many to keep, paying 3 credits per card. It is also and perhaps more so mitigated by the standard projects listed on the board, which every player has access to every turn regardless of which cards they may or may not have. These can be key in the solo mode if you don't get the best starting cards, which I assume would be true multiplayer. At a $41 price point, I can't recommend this game enough. It has numerous expansions (I think around 5 or 6), so even if you tire of the base game at some point (I haven't yet), there is much more you can add to TM. The Hellas & Elysium expansion is a double sided board with 2 new and different faces of Mars to terraform (ie different maps), so you have the option of 3 maps total. The Prelude expansion has additional cards and more importantly additional corporations, for even more variety. I have yet to get to either of these, but am looking forward to it when the time comes. There are also several others that I do not have yet. All this being said, the replayability is quite high on TM. And it's tons of fun if you like to think. There is a reason it's been in the top 20 on BGG the last 4 years since it's inception. EDIT: I forgot to mention that I highly suggest buying at least the 2 pack of wooden player boards from Smonex. They are great quality and completely take care of the problem of accidentally bumping/moving your production markers from the player boards that come with the game. Though not as vibrant or colorful, the wooden boards work so much better. Game on! EDIT 10/1/22: I have all the expansions except Turmoil, and I still love it. Favorite game of all time. Even better with the expansions; so much replayability.

Great strategic game. Not hard to learn. Watched plenty of YouTube videos on how to play before purchasing so I would know whether or not this is game is for me. Learned all the basics and beyond just from watching. Reading the instructions further reinforced my knowledge of how to play. There have been a lot of complaints about component quality and the pictures on the cards which to me are unfounded. I have no major complaints about the component quality. The player cubes are good enough for what they are intended. The cardboard cutout tiles are durable enough. As for the artwork or picture on the project cards, who cares? It is all about what the cards allow you to do. I don’t care if it is AI or stock footage or art work. I am not paying attention to the pictures, rather the outcome of playing the cards. I only wish the cards were a little bigger like the cards in Trekking the National Parks because there is a lot of information written on the card. It would make for easier reading. But no big deal. What about the player boards? A lot of complaints about the flimsiness, size and potential for jostling the pieces around. Well, you can spend 10 bucks apiece for 1 special player board cutout with indents or you can do what I did for a fraction of the cost. See picture. Photo copy the player board at 120x magnification and using clear packing tape, tape it to some cardboard. (Cover entire player board with the packing tape) The enlarged player board allows more space for cube placement on the resource area and production track. Thus allowing more room in case of accidental movement of cubes. Plus the non sticky side of the packing tape is not as slippery as the original glossy player board so the cubes are less prone to sliding around. Plus with the cardboard backing, the player board is instantly durable. What about cube storage? I used the cardboard storage trays from my old risk game which I no longer play and use it to store the 5 most used cubes. See photo. You can be creative and make your own storage trays. Overall, I can see why TM is rated high. A lot of thought and science and science fiction went into making this game. The game is fun and satisfying when you start to see the global parameters move up as you and your opponent work together to achieve the goal of terraforming mars. I like the fact this is not a cutthroat, obliterate your opponent game like Monopoly and Risk. It is long, but so is Risk and Monopoly. If you can spend 2 hours or more watching TV, Terraforming Mars is a better alternative. Good for cognitive function!

I really like this game, but it's not for everyone. There have been a few people that I've played the game with that did not care for it. The game is a competitive game where each player takes the role of a corporation and develops the planet mars. The mechanics are simple enough, although some cards may be interpreted differently by different players. The challenge of this game is developing a strategy that works for you and your corporation. Science fiction board game players will like this a lot as it gives an immersive realistic approach to colonizing and developing the planet. Games can run for a pretty long time, and rounds toward the end of the game get increasingly longer. Beautiful artwork and quality game pieces

I heard from a bunch of serious gamers that TM was one game I needed on my shelf. I saw the price drop, so I took their recommendation and bought it. Thematically, you are a corporation whose job is to Terraform Mars. On your turn will take 1 or 2 actions and this usually involves playing a card or activating an ability on one of your cards already in play. At first, your options will be pretty limited to just playing the cards from your hand, but as you buy more cards (consider them patents) you'll have more options. We probably played the first 4-5 rounds (called Generations) wrong. We took our 1 or 2 actions and then we acquired our resources. Once everyone has had a turn, you get another turn if you can take at least one action. And this process repeats until everyone passes/has no more actions they can take. Once everybody has passed, then you acquire your resources. Once we realized we were making this mistake, it sped up the gameplay, increased what we could do, and upped the enjoyment factor. To win at Terraforming Mars, you will count the points you accumulate during the game: playing certain cards, acquiring certain tags on cards, acquiring plants or animals on blue cards, having your cities touch green spaces, and your overall Terraforming Rating. I honestly did not know who was going to win the game until we counted our points at the end. While you are competing against the other players, your actions (and theirs) really don't hurt or help the other players. There was one card that allowed me to take a token from any card (we read that as anyone's card, not just mine and I we might have played that wrong). So, there are 'some' instances of your card/action directly affecting another player, but these are few and far between. There is no fighting and no one can be put out the game or go bankrupt like in Monopoly. Increase the playtime duration by 30 minutes to 1 hour on your first playthrough if everyone is new to it, but I think we got a firm grasp of the game by round 5 or 6. There are advanced rules and I would like to play those on my next playthrough. There are multiple expansions to this game, but I have not played any of them. Some people have complained about the quality of the game pieces (or lack thereof). The cubes are fine. The piece of card board to mark your resources is flimsy, and if you knock the table, your cubes (and you'll have at least 6 of them on your card at any given time) can get knocked off. I have seen a free app for iphone that is supposed to track this and you can buy some really nice wooden or plastic ones that will prevent this, but they are unnecessary in my opinion. Some people have mentioned that some of the cards look like their clip art: most of the art seems original and a minority of them seem like they came from a stock photo (there is one of a white dog I can remember that seemed out of place). To me, this did not hurt the game. There are a LOT of cards and each of them is original, no duplicates! Overall, I enjoyed the game and can see my group playing this one in the future.

Great game concept, so-so components. Pros: Real science. The concept behind the game is that each player represents a corporation vying to colonize and control a new colony on Mars. Melt glaciers to make lakes, dump algae in the lakes to promote biodiversity, crash an asteroid in the planet to help warm the surface. Every single card in the game is based on real or near-future science. CUBES! So many cubes. Each player gets little cubes to place on their playmat to track their production of steel, power, metal, and other resources. You also collect metallic cubes to represent money. Don't forgot the cubes to track the overall progress of Mars- you track how many generations (turns) you've been playing, temperature, humidity, and oxygen content in the atmosphere. SO MANY CUBES! There's a great sense of progression in the game. Everyone is always doing something, together or alone. You're mining steel, you're generating electricity, your electricity development creates heat, your heat melts ice, as ice melts you can do more biological projects. There are so many feedback systems, so many ways to progress. It can get easy to forget about the main board where you're supposed to track the progress of the planet, because you're so busy with your own playmat. Mars. I mean it's a game about Mars, with a large 4-piece board to represent the red planet, and a lot of real science about how humans would colonize Mars. The theme is ever-present, and some people are really going to dig that. Cons: Player mats are a real problem. The game would benefit hugely if you could use a free map to toss out all the cubes and track things electronically. The problem is that the playmats are cheap paper. This means it's easy for cubes to shift position due to a bowed sheet, or if you bump a sheet you lose a lot of information with no real way to put it back together. And that's the real core of the game- you do a lot of work on those cheap sheets with some little plastic cubes, making it hard to justify the cost of the package. Another idea would be if they could do a dual-layer cardboard player mat, so there would be individual wells for the dice to sit in and they can't be jostled out of place so easily. Overall: I feel like this game needs a Second Edition. Give me a cheaper map of Mars because you don't really interact with that, but better playmats since that's where you spend all your time. The end goals of the game are also a little weak. At the last minute you have to wager on whether you think you can win certain awards- such as generating the most of certain resources. By the end of the game you probably already know who's winning what, and wagering earlier in the game would mean you'll fall too far behind to keep up with other players. So the end of the game could use a little strengthening. The concept is there. Lots of players have a lot of fun participating in all these systems and pushing cubes around their mat. I also didn't have any problem with the art- a lot of cards have really bad stock photography, where most games coming out today have expensive custom art on every card. The rest of the cards have custom drawing and art which is only so-so. If there were a Second Edition, the game does need a more consistent art style, but that's a minor concern. If you like Mars, if you like science, if you like cubes- give it a try.

I remember when I used to think Catan had a steep learning curve. I was gravely mistaken. This game has by far the steepest learning curve of any board game I've played thus far. I'm by no means an expert, but I've played enough to know key mechanics, styles, etc. Terraforming Mars is on a whole new level. My first playthrough took about 6 hours, from reading the rules to game end. It took us about 2 hours to fully understand and comprehend all the pieces and rules associated. However, the investment was well worth it. We had a blast going from generation to generation working on the red planet, building our resources, messing with each other, enjoying the randomness of the cards... speaking of which, there's an insane amount of cards in the game that guide your gameplay/choices, and from what I can tell, there are no duplicates. It seems there are a couple hundred unique cards that all do something different. We found that to be refreshing and kept the interest in what we were doing alive. "You never know what's going to happen next." Our only gripe about it is the rush for milestones/awards. These are so critical to who wins at the end of the game that virtually all of your other work seems to not matter. It feels like, in many cases, that if someone wins the majority of the awards/milestones, they're going to win. Maybe there's some variability, but that's how it felt. Even still, we had a blast, and even though my girlfriend lost, she loved playing it and wants to play again. We both felt a sense of mutual accomplishment just from making it through to the end and seeing the surface of Mars terraformed.

This game was given to me on Father's day 2018.... it quickly became my favorite game to play. At this point, I have probably played Terraforming Mars close to a hundred times. The sad part is, I don't usually win, but I LOVE to play again and again. There is a great mix of LUCK (what random cards will I get) and SKILL (knowing what cards to play and how to utilize them to benefit you the most). There is such a randomness about this game that it feel FRESH everytime I play it. It will take 1 or 2 games to fully understand Terraforming Mars - this isn't Connect Four, it is a complex game with many components. As I said, every game is fresh and exciting... depending upon what Corporation you start out with and what bonuses you receive and then you get into what cards will I get in my hand. You have to learn to filter out cards that may be GREAT, but have a global requirement on them that may not be met for quite some time vs cards you can use now. Do you invest in the future buy purchasing this card, but not getting any benefit from it now... or do you conserve that "money" to invest in cards that can be used now and give you a much smaller push. The goal of the game is the have the HIGHEST Terraform Rating at the end of the game and as a group having met all 3 global requirements (Oxygen level, Temperature, and 9 Oceans). Many activities can help to raise that rating - some card raise it, moving up any of the 3 global requirements, and at the end of the game there is PUSH of Terraform Rating by tallying how many forests and cities you have placed - and by what achievements you purchased earlier in the game. I've played games that I SWORE I was about to win and then my wife or son would pull out an upset victory as we tallied up Terraforming Points from card bonuses, and achievements that I apparently didn't calculate into my "master plan to win". The game is really fun and to top it off... they have made numerous expansions for it. Each expansion adds new elements to the complexity of the game and a variety of new things to do to help you win (or in my case LOOSE ;) ) How long does it take to play this game? Well we have played 3 and 4 player games and most seem to last for 4 - 5 hours. Time FLIES as you play though. I would recommend sleaving the cards to help preserve them. I have also noticed that some of the money cubes are loosing their paint - in particular the copper colored ones. And as you add more and more expansions, the box gets pretty full (but that really isn't a bad problem to have). The player mats were my biggest complaint... you track your resources here, but stuff moves way to easily on these boards. The most recent expansion "Turmoil" fixes this problem by giving you new mats that have plastic grid that help to hold your counters - very nice.

Excelente juego

Game is great! Quality of the delivery was very poor: boardgame box completely dented

Its a long game with complex rules, but quite fun, can be played solo but with friends can be much more fun and entertaining :)

Quickly became our group’s favourite board game .. competitive, requires a lot of planning and re-planning, strategic, creative and fun!

Voici un jeu de société de difficulté moyenne pour joueurs avertis. C'est un jeu de gestion de ressources où les points de victoire sont accumulés en faisant progresser l'habitabilité de la planète Mars. En jouant des cartes qu'ils achètent à chaque tour et en combinant leurs effets, les joueurs déploient des stratégies très différentes. La mécanique de jeu rappelle celle de Magic : The gathering avec conditions pour jouer les cartes et combos. C'est pour moi le meilleur jeu que j'ai acheté en 2018 !

To start of, it's a really good game with very bad production (for the new copies) Box was a little damaged when it arrived. Off-set Printing Quality and Missing Tokens.