This is a pretty simple card design, so someone's probably shared this or something similar before; but I'm pretty happy with how the card art for this one turned out, so I wanted to share it even so.
And of course, feel free to use this if you like it!
We'll double the science! Today's card is Research (#090):
Automated card (Green) | Corporate Era
Cost: 11 | Requirements: None | Tags: 2 Science
Draw 2 cards. 1 VP
I know a good site to play online with friends, but what is the best way to play with strangers, just queing up against random opponents? Steam, android app, perhaps bg arena, or a different web app? Thanks for the help in advance.
Today's card is Crash Site Cleanup (#X17):
Event card (Red) | Big Box promo pack
Cost: 4 | Requirements: See below | Tags: Event
Requires that a player removed another player's plant(s) this generation. Gain 1 titanium or 2 steel. 1 VP
Side topic: Name a weird thematic case of a card that could satisfy the requirement of this card. I'll start with metal-producing virus
Played Venus Next for the first time today with my son. Had a great time.
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
Today's card is a card I learned to like less - Development Center (#014):
Active card (Blue) | Corporate Era
Cost: 11 | Requirements: None | Tags: Science, Building
Action: Spend 1 energy to draw 1 card.
Hey guys I wanted to ask you about your experiences with the 4 base game cards that give you points after each Jovian tag played. In our experiences (3 players, all expansions except turmoil) it seems to slightly imbalance our games.
For example in a lot of cases the cards land in the same person's hand and in most cases these cards can give the player 8-10 ponts, with more than one it is a huge point booster late game. Granted, for higher points you would need to adjust your stategy, play more tags, draw more cards etc. It is a base game mechanic but lately I am more tempted to remove them entirely or just nerf them.
With the expansions like Venus adding more Jovian tags, it seemed to have gotten stronger, what are your thoughts? Thanks!
Today's card is Venusian Insects (#260):
Active card (Blue) | Venus Next expansion
Cost: 5 | Requirements: 12% Venus | Tags: Venus, Microbe
Action: Add 1 microbe to this card.
1 VP per 2 microbes on this card.
Today's card is Nitrogen-rich Asteroid (#037):
Event card (Red) | Base game
Cost: 31 | Requirements: None | Tags: Space, Event
Raise your TR 2 steps and temperature 1 step. Increase your plant production 1 step, or 4 steps if you have 3 or more plant tags.
Lately I've been creating custom Terraforming mars cards. I've posted the first 3 here already, but they've been updated. The latter 3 are new.
It'd be great to hear peoples thoughts on these cards, their design and their balance. Please discuss!
Edit: two player
I'm better at cinematics, than credicor, but I'm not sure this is a good cinematic hand.
At the same time, I could use artificial and Underground, to get some quick steel prod. Maybe speculate on anti-grav and Commercial. Grab research and self-sufficient to boost my income, work toward anti-grav, and have a good start on builder.
Part of me wants to grab local heat trapping, but I don't have any heat production, so carrying cost. Same with farming. Grass might be okay, but huge asteroid isn't the best, though it's better with credicor, since I can absorb that -5 easier.
What do ya'll think?
I’ve been trying to get a few friends into Terraforming Mars, but I keep running into the same problem: by the time I finish explaining the game, we’ve basically used up all the time/energy we had to actually play.
Does anyone have a favorite intro video, teach method, or “just explain these parts first” approach for complete newbies?
4 player game on Tharsis
My starting hand vs what I picked
I ended up in 2nd with 80 points, 28 coming from animals/microbes. I feel like I got lucky with draws at the end.
We are all pretty beginner (100-140 elo) and I always struggle with quickly picking out my first few moves out of the starting hand. Any advice on what you would have gone with?
Corporation Made by me - "Io Iron Imports"
Please, let me know what you think!
The Corporation was first inspired by some corps that are out there that let you spend energy on space cards, so I thought about the idea of spending heat on steel cards. However that didn't go in the direction I wanted it to, since energy is worth around 2MC while heat is only worth around 1, and I thought that I'd basically just be making a worse Helion.
I decided to pivot to a heat rebate when paying with steel instead. I thought it'd be fun to theme a corp around molten or hot metal being transported to mars, and using the left over heat to help terraform the heat track. However, I thought this effect alone was a bit weak, and I wanted a bit more to it, so I also made it kinda like phobolog, but actually good since it has initial steel production too.
I was thinking about theming it either around Mercury or Io, collecting metal from either the hot side of Mercury with Mercury Metals, or the volcanic landscape of Io with Io Iron. I decided to go with the Io theme, as I liked it more, since Io is the heat colony, and Mercury isn't really mentioned much in terraforming mars, its more about infrastructure in the asteroid belt and gas giants. And so, I thought it'd be unique to have a steel corp based out of Io, since most of Io's stuff is based around titanium. That also helped with the "steel worth +1" theme I think too, since its not just raw iron, it's iron alloyed with stuff like titanium, making the iron stronger and worth more.
I've also done some calculations to price the worth of the corp too if you want to check it out:
Tags:
- Building = 0.5 MC
[This tag is here because the whole corp is themed around building out of molten steel]
- Jovian = 2 MC
[I could have themed the card differently, and not included the Jovian tag. However, I enjoyed theming it around the moon Io, and so thought it'd be weird for it to not have a Jovian tag. It can definitely be useful later in the game though even if you don't start with a titanium economy, since you can build one up if you wish with your initial building tag cards]
Effects:
- Steel worth +1 MC = 8 MC.
[Rego Plastics = 10 MC to play, 3 MC to buy, and contains 1VP which is worth 5MC. So, Play cost (10) + buy cost (3) - VP (-5) = 8MC]
- 2 Heat rebate on building cards = 12 MC
[Suppose 10-12 building cards played in a game, heat is worth 1-1.2 MC, so, ~22MC worth of heat generated throughout the game instead of all at once. Based off similar rebate cards like viral enhancers, and Olympus conference, I've priced the effect around 10-14MC, so set it as 12 MC].
Production:
- 1 Steel production = 8.5
[Steel production is valued around 7-8 MC, titanium production valued around 10. Due to the +1 effect, I just gave it 8.5 to also balance out the building tag 0.5 for easy maths.]
That's a total of 31 corp value before starting money.
Based on some other posts, I'm valuing corporations around 67 MC, so 67-31 = 36 MC.
That's a lowish, but definitely not unreasonable or unheard of amount of starting capital. (The corp does are start with the equivalent of +3 money production too, so its not that worrying).
Lets also start the corp off with some lump sum starting steel, so players are incentivised to spend it on building tags while also helping with the theme. lets say... 4 steel, which is 12 MC worth of steel.
That leaves the corp with 24 starting flat cash MC, which I've bumped up by 1 to 25 starting MC.
Today's card is Incest (#148):
Automated card (Green) | Base game
Cost: 9 | Requirements: 6% oxygen | Tags: Microbe
Increase your plant production 1 step per plant tag you have.
If you reserve an area with your corp ability, place a greenery, then replace it with a city, do you get the 3MC twice or just once?
Today's card is the only card with 4 tags - Ecology Research (#C09):
Automated card (Green) | Colonies expansion
Cost: 21 | Requirements: None | Tags: Science, Animal, Microbe, Plant
Increase your plant production 1 step per colony you have. Add 1 animal TO ANOTHER CARD and 2 microbes TO ANOTHER CARD. 1 VP
Sorry for the delay, I couldn't post SHOTW on mobile
##Useful Links
For information on how SHOTW works, please refer to the SHOTW Helper
##Pre-game information
Expansions: Prelude
| Players | Order |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1st |
| 2 | 2nd |
| 3 | 3rd |
| 4 | 1st |
| 5 | 4th |
##Board details
Board: Hellas
Milestones: Diversifier (8 different tags), Tactician (5 cards played with requirements), Polar Explorer (3 tiles placed on bottom 2 rows), Energizer (6 energy production), Rim Settler (3 Jovian tags)
Awards: Cultivator (Greenery tiles), Magnate (Green cards played), Space Baron (Space tags), Excentric (Resources on cards), Contractor (Building tags)
##Starting hand
##Extra project cards
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Card draws for specific tags:
Gen 2 drafting hand: >!Artificial Photosynthesis, Ironworks, Heat Trappers, Development Center!<
Today's card is Hackers (#125):
Automated card (Green) | Corporate Era
Cost: 3 | Requirements: None | Tags: None
Decrease your energy production 1 step and any MC production 2 steps. Increase your MC production 2 steps. -1 VP