Bare-Knuckle Terraforming Mars Variant
what if you played Terraforming Mars without any cards at all? It feels like it could turn into something closer to an abstract strategy game, which sounds interesting.
The number of generations would probably become very high, but since there are fewer actions overall and no card drafting, I don’t think the playtime would actually be that long.
I did a quick simulation, and it seems like the bonuses from increasing global parameters become important, so the tension around racing for those milestones sounds fun.
Awards could also create interesting conflicts. For example, Miner can only really be contested through placement bonuses on the board, so map control becomes much more important. And competing for heat production to win Thermalist creates another strong point of interaction.
Has anyone ever tried something like this before?
[Rules]
• All players use Beginner Corporation and immediately sell all starting patents (gain 54 MC)
• Whenever you would gain a card, it is immediately converted into 1 MC instead