Terraforming Mars

Players take on the roles of corporations competing to transform and colonize the Red Planet in Terraforming Mars! In this episode Al, Paul, and Todd try to science their way through this popular game. Give us a listen!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(upbeat music)

(00:02):
- Welcome to Replayable.
We'll be going to depthon our favorite tabletop

(00:24):
games that keep uscoming back again and again.
I'm the start player Todd, andtoday I'm joined by Al and Paul.
For our 27th episode,we will be adventuring
on the Red Planetwith Terraforming Mars.
It was designed by Jacob Fryxelius
and was originallyreleased by Fryxelius
Games in 2016 and laterby Stronghold Games,
with artwork by IsaacFryxelius and Daniel Fryxelius.

(00:47):
Are you two gentlemen readyto get yourselves to Mars?
- Absolutely.
- I got five kids to feed.
(laughing)
Then Terraforming Marsplayers take on the role
of corporations competing totransform Mars into a habitable planet.
Initiate huge projectsto raise the temperature,
the oxygen level and the ocean coverageuntil the environment is habitable.

(01:09):
Balancing production efficiency with ecologicalsustainability is the key to success.
The player who contributes the most tothe Terraforming effort emerges victorious.
Paul, you won our last game ofTerraforming Mars, so you get to go first.
What was your introduction to this game?
- Honestly, I think it was Al.
I believe he told me, "Hey, I got thisnew game about Mars, it's really cool.

(01:32):
" And so I wentover to his place
and we played my very firstgame of it, just one on one.
- I'm sure he kicked my butt.
- I have no recollection ofwhat happened other than I was
thoroughly confused and Ithink it took us over three hours.
- Yeah.
- There's just a lot tounpack the first time through.
- It was a great game.
- So Al, was that the firsttime you had played it as well
or A, do you played it alittle solo in preparation?

(01:54):
- No, that was actually thefirst time I actually played it.
I had fondled the pieces alittle bit to get ready for the game.
I was beyond excitedwhen Paul came over to play.
- All right, so what do youlike best about the game Al?
- I think I'm gonna go with the theme.
The theme is the thingthat drew me to the game.
The actual beauty of thegame has kept me coming back,

(02:14):
but I'm gonna say the theme is firstand foremost in my mind when I play it.
- And that theme resonates with you
because this is the first timethe audience has met you.
So tell us a little bit about yourself.
- Well, I'm a bit of a rocket geek.
I've been following rockets since I was, Ithink I was four when my parents took me
to see the Apollo 11launch near Cape Canaveral.

(02:35):
So ever since then I wasglued to the TV every time
anything space or spaceexploration has come up.
So I would say that's mybiggest draw is space exploration
is where humanity needs to go to makesure that we continue on as a species.
- Right.
- Paul, what do you likebest about the game?
- The same.
You know, I actuallywork in space right now.

(02:57):
I help build and test satellites and.
- Let's just clarify something.
You are not in space.
You work in the space industry.
- That's how we in the biz say it.
(laughs)- Okay.
- Paul in spaaaaace!
- Like people who help makemovies, they say they work in movies.
I work in space.

(03:18):
- All right.
- But yeah, it's the industry.
- The industry went unsaid there.
And one of my absolute favorite games,
I think because of myjob is called High Frontier.
And Terraforming Marsis just right along that alley.
The theme is what I like best about it.
- Yeah.
And I agree.
So my introduction to the gamewas at Board Game GeekCon.

(03:39):
And I guess this would have been in 2016.
I mean, it was a really new game.
And one of my friends had a copyand he didn't even have like the box.
I think he had left thebox up in his hotel room
and brought just thecomponents in his bag and.
- What?
- Played it.
Yeah.
- Were you horrified?
- Yeah, this was.
(laughs)

(04:01):
Yeah, personally I was.
The opportunity for damage to thegame was incredibly high, but it was great.
And same thing, the theme was just amazing.
None of us knew what we were doing.
And so I ended up winning.
I think it was the only timeI've ever won this game.
And so of course, I had a reallygood first impression about it.
(laughs)
Paul, you mentioned that working in space,

(04:23):
how legitimate does thescience feel to you in this game?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, the first time I played it, Ithought it was completely legitimate,
but I think partly because of the game,partly because of what NASA and SpaceX
have been doing recently,we've learned a lot about how
extremely difficult it's goingto be to terraform Mars.

(04:45):
Things like how Mars doesn't really havemagnetic protection to shield its atmosphere
from solar flares and similar, how in anykind of atmosphere we put on the planet,
it's just going to bestripped away pretty quickly.
There's a lot of very, very toughproblems we're going to have to solve
before we can put peopleon the surface of Mars.
But I think we can in the near term,put people underground on Mars

(05:09):
and establish coloniesvery similar to the game.
I mean, the very first fewgenerations of the game,
there are several cards that talkabout underground cities and habitats,
and they require that the oxygenlevel be quite low to play those cards.
I think it really fits withthe theme of terraforming.
So, you know, it might not beas affordable as the game makes

(05:31):
it out to be, but I think itis a dream to strive toward.
- Awesome, Elle.
I agree, I think it's very scientifically,I'm going to say accurate.
I think they really did their homeworkwhen it comes to terraforming Mars.
The thing I would point out is that this issupposed to be in the 2300, 24th century.

(05:52):
I think if anything, thetechnology that's depicted
in this game is more near term toour current era than I would say 2300.
There's nothing, I mean,the amount that the human
race has progressed injust the last 100 years,
even, you know, last 50years, is leaps and bounds,

(06:13):
and none of the tech in the game actuallyseems like it comes from the 23rd century.
It seems like, sorry, 24th century.
It seems like it comesfrom the near future.
So, if anything, I would say it'snot accurate from that standpoint.
However, if you lookat the map, the map is
amazing becausethey've got the 8% oxygen.

(06:33):
There you get like a kick in temperature,which kind of goes along with the whole
creating greenhouse effectsat zero degrees Celsius.
It starts looking like,you get like a free ocean
because that's when standingice would turn, start turning
into liquid water, which wouldcertainly make a lot of sense.
So, I think they've done a really great job

(06:55):
in researching thescience behind this game.
So, you know, huge kudos to them.
- Yeah, perhaps the most inaccurate partis the singular focus across generations
and how incapable we currentlyare as a race to do something like that.
So, what's our AI overlords take over?

(07:15):
I think it'll be possible.
- I personally welcome our AI overlords.
- And as you know, Iwork in the AI industry,
so I will make sure yourcontributions are noted.
- Okay, so this is a gamethat, or a game type that
we affectionately refer toas big deck energy, right?
These games that havelarge stacks of unique

(07:36):
cards and part of thechallenge is drawing
and deploying cards that synergizewell with each other to build your engine.
I've heard some peoplecall it an engine builder
and I chafe a little bit at that term,only in that it makes it sound like
this was the first instanceof an engine builder.
When of course, that term had long proceededthrough release of terraforming Mars.

(07:57):
But when we talk aboutthese big deck energy
games, what other onesare you reminded of?
I mean, this is obviously animportant one in that genre.
- Yeah, I think some of theones that come immediately
to mind are Arc Nova,Wingspan, and Maracaibo.
- Oh, interesting, okay.
So would you put Maracaiboahead of something

(08:17):
like Dune Imperium or do you not considerDune Imperium to be in the same class?
- That's a great question.
I guess because I think of Dune Imperium
as a deck builder whereyou're collecting cards
for your personal deck, Ididn't consider it to be as such.
But yeah, I think DuneImperium totally fits.
- Yeah, I would say thatWingspan is probably closer
because I personally consider it moreof a tableau builder than a deck builder.

(08:40):
For me, deck buildingtends to be a kind of a shuffle
through a deck sortof feeling where this is,
you're just putting stuff down maybe evenwith some shades of magic, the gathering
where you're buildinga tableau to create
your engine more thana deck builder itself.
- Okay, I think you'reboth right about the
difference betweendeck building and Paul.

(09:02):
I think that calling Dune Imperium more
of a deck builder thanthis kind of game is right.
There are also some duplicatesright in Dune Imperium.
So maybe it doesn't quiteget into the same class.
- Similarly in Maracaibo, butthey both have very big decks.
- Just they do.
- Okay, so while we are performing thisplanet and trying to make it habitable,

(09:23):
the three main things thatwe're trying to do, right?
We're trying to raise the heat, we'retrying to increase the oxygen level
and we're trying to createenough surface water.
Is there an optimal path to those goals?
They all need to be achieved inachieving them signals, the game and...
- Well, I'll jump in here real quick.
I think one of the thingsthat probably isn't taken

(09:43):
into account a lot of times whendiscussing this game is player count.
The reality of thesituation is a two player
game is so differentfrom a five player game.
A five player gamegenerationally-wise ends very quickly
where a two player game,you've got a lot of engine
building and you'rebuilding off this huge tableau

(10:05):
and there's no optimal wayonce you start building your engine
'cause you are creating ityour way and it depends on
your corporation and yourstarting card is quite a bit.
But a five player game is a knife fight.
Everybody's going afterTR as quickly as possible
because you don't have time tobuild an engine and make it work.
- That's a great point.

(10:25):
- Yeah, I agree.
I think the only time wherethere might be an optimal path
is solo when you'redoing the solo challenge.
- Oh, okay.
- Then, or efficiency reasons, it'soften best to get heat and maybe oceans
before you start working onthe O2 and planting forests
since you're not contestingthe forest with anybody else.

(10:46):
But in multiplayer game, I thinkthat flies out the window, like Al said.
- Interesting, yeah,in our last game, Paul,
it was just a two playerand I think Al hit it spot on
because we ended to whatgeneration nine or something
like that before the game finally endedand it was almost a battle at that point
as to whose engines were generatingmore points before one of us cried uncle.
- Yeah, I think we wentto 11 or 12, honestly.

(11:08):
It felt like it took a while.
- Right.
- Those last couple ofturns kind of grinds to
a halt because you got,okay, I'm gonna do this
and then I'm gonna do thisand then I'm gonna do this
and then I'm gonna do thisand it slows down quite a bit
those last couple ofturns 'cause you're trying
to bring out every point you canpossibly get out of your engine.
- Right, and you've alsopassed the levels of the benefits.

(11:29):
So while we're climbing the tracks and Al,
you mentioned the benefitsof if you get to zero degrees,
you get to place on an extraocean, those little one-off benefits,
do you find yourselfslowing down so you don't set
up the next player tocapitalize on one of them?
- I personally do, absolutely.
When you start getting tothose points, then you are looking
at who's first player and you'rekind of starting to drag along

(11:52):
your first one actionversus two action aspects.
It gets very tactical atthat point when you don't
wanna give away somethingthat you yourself want.
- Yeah, I agree.
The free terraforming bonusesespecially are just huge.
If you see that within strikingdistance and you don't have the cards,
just pay for the standardprojects twice to get to it.

(12:13):
It's that big a deal.
But for the free heat income at the bottomof the temperature track, I don't care.
You guys can have it.
- Depends on your corporation.
- Okay, so let's talk aboutthose standard projects.
I gotta say oftentimes there's something
that I forget about as I'm looking at mycards and trying to figure out which ones
I'm going to be able to affordor maybe I'm going to build

(12:34):
less this round so I canplay one of them in the next.
I forget that the standard projectsare always there and possible.
How important are those in the early game?
- I avoid them becausethey are a little overpriced.
On average, I think cards are going to be
a much more efficient way toget those terraforming steps.
So for me, I only use the standard projects

(12:56):
when I'm going to getone of those free bonuses
or at the end of thegame to max out a track
so that nobody else can gaina terraforming rating from them.
- Yeah, standard projectsis like paying for a retail.
You never want to pay retail.
You always want to getsome sort of discount.
And cards are that discount.
I find them to be the guideby which I measure cards.

(13:17):
When I get a card that gives me apower, I know 11 points gives me power.
So if something's nine and I haveto pay three points to get it, that's 12.
I know that card'sprobably not going to be as
advantageous as justdoing a standard project.
So I use that as a guide tomeasure all of the cards against.
If it's a huge discount, if it's a three

(13:39):
and I'm getting a power, then I'mall over it because that's half priced.
- Right, so let's digdown into more of that.
How do you evaluate if a card is over,if it's overpriced or if it's a bargain?
What's your method of looking at it
and understand thatsome of them are going
to be like events aregoing to be one shots.
Others are going tobe the blue cards, the

(13:59):
science cards andprovide ongoing benefits.
How do you evaluate the value of cards?
- I think this is a poll question.
- Well, to start with, the online communityhas reverse engineered the design.
Rosetta Stone, if you will, to comeup with certain costs in mega credits

(14:20):
for each thing, like a victory point onaverage is worth about five mega credits.
So is a mega credit income.
A terrifying rating is worth about 10on average, just looking at all the cards
and calculating how their cost wasput on the upper corner of the card.
- Okay.
- You can apply the same toother incomes too, like steel,

(14:40):
titanium, plants, or eightor 10 mega credits worth.
So knowing that whenyou look at the standard
projects, you're like,these are overpriced.
If I have cards, the bestthing to do is to use the cards
and your question about howto evaluate whether a card's
worth it really comes down towhat phase of the game you're in
and what cards you'vealready played in front of you.
- Okay.

(15:01):
- The ROI is a big factor too, 'cause ifyou're playing something a late game,
you're not going to getthem as much benefit
as you would if you'replaying an early game.
- Right.
- Exactly like mining rights, whichgives you a steel or titanium income.
That's worthless late game, but in thefirst three turns, it's wonderful, right?
- I agree.
- Plus you get to steal from an opponent.
That's always a good thing, right?

(15:22):
(laughing)
- There are severalattack cards in the game.
Yes, you wanna talk about those?
(laughing)
- Sure, you think it's a goodaddition or a bad addition to the game,
or is this one of those, you need tocurate the deck you wanna play with?
- Yeah, 'cause there's alot of cards in the game
that allow you to steal from otherplayers or destroy their plants.

(15:45):
Some people absolutely hatethat kind of thing in a board game.
- Well, sure.
- Personally, I love it.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- We're corporations, we're not friends.
- There's nothing like dropping an icedroid on an ice hole to take their plants.
(laughing)- Well played.
- Well, you know, that isreally one of the few ways

(16:07):
you can directly interactwith other players.
So if you have somebody pulling awayjust because they've gotten super lucky
with their card draw, theother players can kind of
gang up on them and reelthem back into the pack, right?
- Yeah, but you know, you'restill paying for the card, right?
You get a card, you're payingthe three bucks to hold on to it.
Then you pay the credits to play it.

(16:27):
It still has to make sense from, youknow, your own economy standpoint.
- I find that a lot of themare right at the edge.
So I find myself not really buyingthem, although if we're drafting,
I try not to pass themto Todd, but... (laughing)
- I'm not the one you have to stop.
- Yeah, that's a good point now.
Like the raiders and thehackers, they are a little

(16:48):
extra pricey becausethey're attacking other players.
But in my opinion, thebig events that destroy
other players' plants,you get that for free.
(laughing)
- It's a gift that keeps on getting.
(laughing)
- The one aspect I wanted to cover earlier
was the one action versustwo actions on your turn.
There is the desire to do oneaction to kind of keep everything

(17:11):
close to the chest so you cansee what other people are doing.
But I found that that delays thegame a bit and it takes too long.
So where it is a good thing to dofrom a, I want to win standpoint.
It's not necessarily agood thing to do with a,
I want to play this gamein an ideal time limit.

(17:32):
- That's a great point, I agree.
- You do?
I find that interesting'cause I feel like it is
something that I really want to avoidsimply because it's inefficient for me
to only take one actionduring my turn if I have to.
- You give a lot of yourideas and your direction away
when you do two actionsand then let everybody else
see what it is and theneveryone else plays one action
and then you do two actionsby that time, we know where

(17:54):
you're going and we canmitigate some of those actions.
- Hmm, right, and if youcan wait out everybody else
until they all pass, thenyou can take unlimited
actions in a row,which is really powerful.
- Very powerful.
- All right, I'm gonna do that more often.
- Well, and that's the challenge is you,
when playing one action onyour turn draws the game out.

(18:16):
- Welcome to the sixhour three player game.
- Right, and then the other aspect of that
is the end game, Idon't think we've talked
about the end game asmuch where if you think
that you're not winning,then you can kind of delay
terraforming, you know, we kind of mentionedwe controlled the, when the game's over,

(18:36):
but if you're delaying, soyou can get more points
versus somebody else is trying to push italong because they're ahead, you know,
that can draw the gameout a little bit longer.
- Yeah, that's definitely a tug of war.
- Yeah, that gets a little, you know, it'slike, okay, when is this game gonna end?
- Well, what about theother way of competing
with the other players and by that I mean,selecting the milestones and the awards?
Isn't that another way that you can try to?

(18:58):
- Yeah, a lot of people argue online
about whether this game isa race or an engine builder.
What is the predominant kindof game that it wants to be?
Is everybody contestingto complete the TR tracks
and get those milestonesand fund those awards first?
Or should everybodysit back and build an

(19:19):
engine to generate abunch of victory points?
- It's a hotly contested question.
I don't think it has an answer.
- I think the milestone is absolutely, Imean, I'm starting up the milestones.
The awards are absolutely a race.
You will always see people.
- That's a milestone.
- See, the milestones,unless you have, like, say a,
if you're going for a strategy,like, say a heat strategy,
you don't necessarily want tofund those milestones too early

(19:40):
because-- - Well, as the milestones are,like, first to cities-- - Oh, right, right.
Right, back up.
- Yeah, there's four rides.- Yeah, exactly.
- Right, first to 35 TR.
Yeah, that is absolutely a race.
And being able to get five points fora mere eight mega credits is a steal.
- It's huge, yeah. - Right?
- That's absolutely a race.
The awards were the thingyou do late in the game.

(20:03):
- Right, 'cause you don't know if you'regonna be a top dog for any of them.
- Again, unless you,like, have a heat strategy
and you know you'regonna have the heat engine
and you might as well getthat cheap award early on.
- That cheap award, that's a key decision
because they get moreexpensive as you go along, right?
- The first one's eight that's14 and then 20, I believe.

(20:23):
- So the first one isrelatively inexpensive
but then the next onesget progressively more so.
But if you have someone who's out therepursuing a heat strategy, you might say,
"Well, I'm gonna go aheadand make sure that one of the
others gets selected andnow that person has to decide
if they wanna try to squeezein more engine building
before they fund it orif they have to pause

(20:43):
and make sure thatthey secure that award.
" I think it's aninteresting point.
- I just don't know if thepoint values are enough
for it to make that much ofa difference on your strategy.
What do you guys think?
- Yeah, because multiple peopleare getting the points for the award.
- Correct.
And for the awards, youmay not be that person.
You may be paying money for somebody else
where I think Paul saidearlier five points for VP

(21:07):
is kind of what peoplehave agreed as the average
and you're here, you'repaying eight for five points
or 14 for five pointsor 20 for five points.
All of those sound like basedon the five mega credits per point
is to be a good deal, but it's still upin the air until the end of the game.
- Right.
- I think I remember Todd, one game.
I think you gained like 10banker points in like one round.

(21:30):
It was right at the end to pull the banker.
- Oh, the mega credit income, yeah.
- Yeah, I think he came out of nowhere.
- It was like, where did that come from?
- So I did something well once.
Okay, I'm glad you remember that.
You've done so much and things like that.
It's like last minute surprises.
- You know, especially when itcomes to awards, when you fund them,

(21:52):
that's generally the time I'm also thinkingabout where to build cities and cities,
especially if there'sforests already on the planet
can be a much more efficient way to getpoints than those second or third awards.
- Right.
So when do you like to build cities?
- I mean, my rule of thumb is if Isee a spot that has three forests,
I try to put a city thereas quickly as possible.

(22:15):
So nobody else can get it.
- Even two open ones is kind of a draw.
- Two is great and it should be considered.
I mean, the other thingyou have to consider
is the milestone forthe first of three cities.
- Oh, right, okay.
- If you're playing like a varsuscorporation, the one that gets bonuses for it.
- You can start with one, yeah.
- Yeah, the bonuses, youknow, that person's gonna

(22:36):
be just popping upcities all over the place.
So that's a very validstrategy as well, I believe.
- Right, do you like playingwith their corporate era cards?
- So they have like a lot ofonce-per-turned-actions that they include.
- Yeah.
- So they add a little somethingto the game, a little complication.
- They're not.
When you play withoutthe corporate era cards,
the game is almost singularlyfocused on terraforming.

(22:58):
So I think what the corporate era cards do
is they give a lot of options anddecision-spaced people who like engine building.
- Okay, that makes sense.
I do like playing with them, and especiallythe like the Jovian tags that you get
where if you have more projectsthat have those tags on them,
they're usually worth pointsat the end of the game.
It gives you a swim lane of sorts.

(23:19):
- Yeah, there's not a lot of Toviantags without the corporate era, I agree.
- Right.
- That's a really bigstrategy of the Jovian tags.
If you get, what is it, Saturnsystems, if you get that corporation,
I think there's two different cards thatgive you a victory point for each Jovian,
and you basically, if youhave both of those out,
then every Jovian tags givingyou two more victory points.

(23:41):
- Well, it's an income.
- It's a huge, yeah, aswell as a big income, yeah.
And you know, the ability tolike pop out oceans and stuff.
So I believe there's a huge strategythere with the Jovian corporation.
- All right, so one of theother things, and this might
come up in house rules,but let's talk about it now.
To draft or not to draft?
I honestly think that there isonly one way to play this game.

(24:04):
- I mean, it's in the rule book, right?
- Yes.
- As a variation.
- Correct.
- I'm strong with drafting.
I think drafting is the way to go.
It kind of mitigates.
I mean, we're probablygonna talk about the
randomness of thegame a little bit later.
- Mm-hmm.
- But I think it mitigatesa lot of that randomness.
There are times when you get ahandful of cards at the beginning

(24:24):
of the turn, and you'relike, I want all four of these.
But with drafting, you only get one,
and you cry, and hopefullyyou can pull the best one.
It's hard to figure out which one you want.
- Yeah, I enjoy the game a lot morewhen I draft those four cards per turn.
When I don't, sometimes I'm just cryingbecause somebody got lucky and I got unlucky.

(24:46):
- Right.
Well, and the other thing I like about it
is drafting the card is notan obligation to buy the card.
So it's another way toaffect the other players,
because I might know that you are lookingfor-- - 100%, the little microbes, right?
And if you're gonna beadding microbes to your
cards, if you're gonnago that route for a game.
And I can go ahead andsay, I'm going to take this card

(25:09):
and deny it to you, but I'mnot obligated to actually buy it.
I think it's a unique version of the draft
that I really like compared to somethinglike, it's a wonderful world where, yeah,
I don't necessarily have to buy it, butif I'm just taking it to deny it from you,
it has to at least havesome use to me, right?
Like, if I take it and I'mgoing to just trash it, I wanna

(25:30):
make sure in that game thatit's going to give me a resource
that's gonna help medevelop one of my other cards.
Otherwise, spite draftingdoesn't really make any sense,
but in terraforming Mars,it's like designed for it,
and I like that addition ofcompetition to the game.
- Me too.
- You found a way to tokenwithout actually tokening?
(laughing)
- You know, we've talkedabout space exploration

(25:50):
being one of ourfavorite themes in real life.
What other media do you enjoyaround space exploration specifically?
- Yeah, well, you know,especially when I play this game,
I just think about the movie, theMartian and the book, of course.
(laughing)
I mean, the fact that I played thisgame before that movie came out,

(26:12):
and then I got to watch themovie and then read the book,
and every time I did, Iwanted to play the game more.
It's like this feedback loop of the culture
about getting to Marsand putting people on Mars
and being able to realizethat while playing this game.
I love it, right?
- Yeah, I mean, the Martian isthe one that comes straight to mind.
I mean, we, Paulrecommended the book to me,

(26:32):
I don't know, 2010 orso, and I just devoured it.
It's easily one of my favorite books.
And then the moviecame out and the movie
quickly turned into oneof my favorite movies.
I thought they didsuch a great job with it.
And same with Paul, it'slike, when I play the game,
I want to see the movie, and when Isee the movie, I want to play the game.
It's a great feedback loop.

(26:52):
- Right?
So you're not thinking about total recall?
- No.
(laughing)
- Absolutely not.
- I think the very firstgame I played with
Elle, I made a lotof total recall quotes.
(laughing)
But yeah, not anymore.
- Right.
There have been so manybad movies about it though,
like "Mission to Mars"or something like that.
- Oh.

(27:12):
- It's been done not very well many times.
More times than it has been done well.
- I mean, you mentionedthe movie that is even
less scientificallyaccurate than total recall.
It's just ridiculous.
(laughing)
- The total recall is a collegelevel course with comparison to it.

(27:34):
- Yeah, "Mission to Mars" is akid drawing with a red crayon.
There you go.
(laughing)
And the worst was they buildit as scientifically accurate.
It was anything but, oh man.
(laughing)
All right, so then let'smove on to the prompts.
Weight and complexity.
On board game geeks scaleof one to five, which also aligns
with board game arena, whereit is called complexity there.

(27:57):
How would you rate the weightor complexity of terraforming Mars?
Al, why don't you get a start?
- Well, I think you canjust look at the game itself.
You would think of it as a weight of two.
But if you start lookingat knowing the iconization
and the amount ofreading that you have to do,
and then watching whatthe other players are doing,

(28:19):
basically you got a lot of ballsup in the air at the same time.
And I think that adds a level ofcomplexity beyond the actual gameplay.
So I'm gonna give it a three,'cause I think it's a medium.
So you said no decimal points,
but it's definitely right alittle bit above the three.
- Right?
- I believe.

(28:40):
- Paul, what did you have?
- I've played the gameso much I had to go back in
time to the first year Iplayed it to think about this.
And with thatperspective, I rated it a four.
It has so many rules, although admittedly,
most of those rules are offloaded ontothe cards, which makes it a little easier.
But it is easy to forget aboutseveral aspects of the game.

(29:00):
I feel like people frequentlyforget about the milestones
or the awards or some of theplacement rules, various other things.
- Right.
- Or discounts that they might have.
- Right.
(laughing)
- I know one of these days they're gonnamake a version called a retcon the game
where you're justgoing back and trying to
recover the variousthings you've forgotten.

(29:22):
- We play that all the time.
(laughing)
- Yeah, that's all of them, right?
(laughing)
- That's every game.
(laughing)
- What do you think, Todd?
- I had it down as a three as well.
I even cheated a little.
I said it's a strong three.
There's additional complexitywhile you're learning the cards.
And I thought about what Paul was saying,
like all of the different thingsyou have to keep in mind.

(29:43):
And it could be like a temporary four.
And I think if you play it enough thatyou're familiar with how the game works
and what cards and combinations arepossible, then it scales back to a three.
So I'm gonna leave it at a three.
- Yeah, I agree.
- So then strategy.
How much opportunities are forstrategy and long-term planning?
Same scale, one to five.
- Paul?
- I rate this as a three.

(30:04):
There is a bit of strategy.
Sometimes you do get tochoose early on between cards
that can help you builddifferent kinds of engines.
But mostly the game is aboutevaluating your best option
in the current generation andjust being as efficient as possible.
- Interesting.
And when you talk about your best option,are you looking at how do I play a big card

(30:26):
or a couple of little cards oris that part of the calculation?
- Yeah, so you're given, I mean,at the beginning of the game,
you're given eight cards and youhave to decide how much can I play in,
you have to set atime limit for yourself as
well because you don'twanna pay the extra money
for a whole bunch ofcards you're not gonna play.
But then each successive turn, you're givenfour new cards and you have to map out.

(30:47):
Which of these is worth keeping?
What's my timeline to play them?
And how efficient can I be?
You know, is it possible togo down to zero or one or two
mega credits and still gainsomething this generation?
- Right.
Okay, Al, how about you?
What do you have for strategy here?
- I also have it as a three.
I think Paul hit the nail on the head.

(31:07):
You know, you can seta direction in the game.
It's just basically instead of long-termplanning, it's long-term direction.
But at the end of the day,you have specific cards.
You can be focused on a specific direction.
However, you know, so many timesduring the game, you've got to pivot.
You've got to deal withwhat you have in your

(31:28):
hand and sometimesit's actually a good pivot.
And sometimes it's, you know,you're just along for the ride.
- Right, you're sticking with three.
Even after you mentioned acouple of different corporations
that give you a direction,does your answer change
if you are playing withthe corporate era cards?
- I maintain that that is a direction.

(31:48):
So if you get like the corporation likeHelian, which is a heat-based strategy,
and then you get a coupleof great initial heat cards
and then you don't see anotherheat card again to save your life.
Whether it's Todd, Hay Drafting, or...- Right.
- You know, just poor luck.

(32:09):
You started off in that direction,
but you can go with energyto try to go along with that heat.
Or, you know, suddenly you're trying to getpoodles on your card, on your pet cards.
- Yeah, like titanium, Ithink, is a great example
because titanium can onlybe used on space cards.
And as I recall, there's space cardsmake up less than a fifth of the deck.

(32:30):
So it's entirely possiblethat you'll never draw
another space cardand can't do a single
thing with the 20titanium you've stocked up.
- And most of those are even cards.
So that's a challenge.
- Right?
Well, I mean, it was a useless moon anyway.
(laughing)
- Demosteuf, demosteuf.
- You know, I had strategy as a fore,

(32:51):
especially if you wereplaying with the drafting variant,
but you guys may havetalked me down from that.
I do think that you hopefullyhave the opportunity
to follow the directionthat you've set,
but yeah, you're right, youmay not see those cards,
and in which case, if yourstrategy is to stubbornly stick
to it, you're going tostubbornly wind up in less place.
So then luck, how much do youthink luck plays a factor in the game?

(33:12):
I'll go ahead and say,I had this added two,
primarily becauseof the drafting variant.
I mean, there is still a card draw,
and even if you're doing adraft, you might get lucky,
and one of the four cards you start withmight be right in your wheelhouse, right?
Or your opponent might get that card,
so it's not keeping it awayfrom them, they already have it.
So for me, I had luck down as a two.
What did you guys have?

(33:33):
- I put it as a four.
I think the biggest irritation, honestly,
is how lucky or unlucky that youcan be on your draft, on your cards.
I so hardly agree that the draft isimportant, simply to mitigate the luck factor,
but in the base game, the luckis, you'd have to be pretty lucky,

(33:56):
and then the draft, yougotta see who's behind you,
that's gonna not giveyou the cards you want.
- Right, yeah, I rate it as a three.
I agree with Al that there's a lot of luck.
I think the mitigations of a shared map,the standard projects, and the attack cards
when you're playing withmore than two players,
plus the drafting, levelit out at three for me.

(34:19):
- Okay, I'm cool with that.
- Split the uprights.
Theme, how much do you think thetheme has been integrated with the game?
Same scale, one to five.
- For me, it's a five.
I think theme, as we talked about,is the biggest draw of the game.
I feel like every aspect of the gameis strongly connected to the theme.
- All right.
- I have to agree 100%.
Theme is his game, spread and butter.

(34:40):
There's 200 plus cards in the deck, andevery one of them is dripping with theme.
Take a moment to takeabout 200 cards that are
unique, and have eitherlore or theme on them.
I mean, this is a fine dining experience,it's flavors to be savored, it's amazing.
- Nice, I agree.

(35:02):
It is a five.
I would bump it to asix if it was on the scale.
If you also have 3D printed tiles to goalong with it, whether you did it yourself,
you got them from a thirdparty, or you later got the
official ones they releasedas part of the big box.
I think that just takesit to an 11 at that point.
I really love the way the theme has beenintegrated with every aspect of the game.

(35:24):
What's your favorite player count?
What is it best played at?
- What do you think, Todd?
- I had it down as three.
I think that's also because most of the timewe play this game, it's the three of us.
And so that might be a biased answer,but I think the enjoyment, the competition
and the playing time are perfectlybalanced at a three player game.

(35:45):
What did you have, Al?
- I also had three playersas my favorite player count.
I think I mentioned this earlier, thegame changes based on player counts.
I think four could bequite enjoyable as well.
I think two turns thegame into just basically
an engine building game andfive turns it into a knife fight.
So enjoy Billywise, three is agreat balance between both of those.

(36:07):
- Yeah, I totally agree.
Three players for me,more than three players
and it just feels like thegame's always gonna be a race
because it's only gonnalast eight generations or so.
And when you're at two players, oftentimes,
you know who's gonna winthe game by the fifth generation.
So you could just pack it up at that point.
- Okay, to be fair, our last game,
I didn't know I was gonnalose until far down in the game.

(36:30):
(laughing)
So what's your least favorite player count?
- For me, it's two players.
I think it's too difficult to overcomethe luck factor in a two player game.
There's no way to gang up on the leader.
I prefer the solo game to two player, yeah.
- Right, interesting.
Okay, Al, what did you have?

(36:52):
- I'm gonna go with five, youknow, while it's a fast game,
I find that in a five player game, I kindof lose interest in what others are doing
because it takes kind of awhile to get around to me.
And then you get some players that wantto play the one action versus two action.
I'm gonna do one actionand see what everybody else

(37:13):
is gonna do and that kind of catcheson and it becomes even a slower slog.
Even though it's a fastgame, you may be sitting at six
generations or sevengenerations when the game's over,
that still took you five,five and a half hours.
And at that point, I would turn itfrom a knife fight into a seppacou.
- So I think Al's referencingthe tabletop simulator game

(37:37):
we did during the pandemic that,yeah, lasted a hell of a long time.
Yeah, but some of that's just tabletopsimulator and manipulating it correctly.
- I think that's also true.
- Yeah, there'sdefinitely a lot of friction,
but hey, it was betterthan no game game.
- And retcon the variation.
- Right?
(laughing)

(37:57):
So I agree with you Al, that five playersis my least favorite for the same reason.
It takes too long.
Even if the game is quick in quotationsbecause of the number of generations
that will have elapsedbefore the end of the game,
in that case, they feel like actualgenerations and not just game ones.
So, bird.

(38:18):
So then actual playing time.
Boxes can lie.
- Boxes lie.
- And here the box says it takes, they can.
Here it says it takes 120 minutes,
which I think is interestingbecause normally there might be
a range from which you couldn't inferplayer account having a contribution.
This is just 120 minutes.
What are your thoughts about that?
- I can't remember a three playergame ever finishing that quickly.

(38:41):
- Right?
- I didn't realize it said 120 minutes.
I think it's about 45 minutes per player.
- Well, okay, well, I think it'smore of an hour per player.
I don't think a four hour game is notunheard of even in the three player game.
And that's one of the things that we'veprobably are gonna touch on with additions
is how variants orexpansions change that timing

(39:04):
where I think one of ourfavorite expansions is Prelude.
And mostly for the reasonthat it speeds the game along.
It takes that awkward first turnand makes it more enjoyable.
- It definitely clocks in longerthan 120 minutes, no doubt.
I would say it's closer to45 to 50 minutes per player
as opposed to somehow magicallygetting to 120 despite player account.

(39:25):
When we talk about that,in one of the things that we,
at least in our group, wethink Prelude is a must include.
I think it is a primeexample of an expansion
that you must include just because ithelps get the game off to a faster start.
How do you feel about theexpansions for the game?
- So Prelude, in myopinion, is a must have.
The first round of a vanillaterraforming Mars game

(39:47):
is kind of just getting to the pointwhere Prelude would get you to.
I think that easilyeliminates 15, 20 minutes
from the game byjust using Prelude in it.
It actually makes the asynchronousstart even that more interesting.
Other expansions, youknow, I've played 'em all.
I've owned them all, but most of theirtime, when I look at 'em, I just ask why.

(40:07):
I think Collies is a funexpansion, but it just adds time.
So is the fun it adds, is itenough to add another hour to it?
No, not really.
Venus Next, I've neverreally enjoyed that version.
Helles and Elysiums, it'snice to have different maps.
So those, I think, are asolid expansion and turmoil,

(40:28):
I think is just like the StarWars episode one where you
add Coruscant to the movieand now you have it on Mars.
And it's like, I can't think of anythingthat makes you want to go to sleep faster.
(laughing)
Let's talk about taxes.
(laughing)
Right, so it's not like Twilight Imperium

(40:50):
where the political aspects actually kindof a fun, you know, vote sort of thing.
But when you get to that, it lasts, youknow, four or five minutes, you know,
six minutes at the outside, ifsomeone's really trying to negotiate stuff,
but turmoil adds an entire hourto the game, it's just not worth it.
I guess the question about expansions is,

(41:13):
do we consider the AriesExpedition again expansion or not?
And I've got a very strong--It's a standalone, right?
It is a standalone.
It's a race for the Galaxyremake of Terraforming Mars.
I didn't realize it wasconsidered an expansion by folks.
I don't know, that was my question.
Is it an expansion?
It's called TerraformingMars Aries Expedition.

(41:34):
So my opinion on Aries Expedition is,
it doesn't have the flavorthat Terraforming Mars has.
And as a game, if I'm going to play agame, I'm going to play Race for the Galaxy
instead of Aries Expedition, which'cause Race is already a great game
that has amazing mechanicsand it's just a better game.
That was great.

(41:54):
So I will say about AriesExpedition, and I have a copy
of that one, and we'veplayed it a couple of times.
I like it, I don't know if itwas because we were new to
that version of the game, butit had a similar playing time.
Like, when you look at it, it's supposedto be Terraforming Mars in half the time,
but it was Terraforming Marsin the same amount of time,

(42:15):
at which point, playTerraforming Mars, right?
Right.
So that was the onestrike I had against it.
What do you think of quality as a Todd?
I liked it, I liked having other places tobe settled and that could be developed.
I thought it was aninteresting version of the game,
but it also gets you awayfrom the shared map space.
So it makes it more of a heads down game.

(42:38):
So if you like addingthat to Terraforming Mars
and colonies might be anexpansion worth pursuing.
Yeah, for me, Prelude is the bestexpansion ever made for any game.
(laughing)
So how do you really feel about it?
Nice.
I most of the time agreewith Dave about expansions,
just adding bloat oradditional paths, adding chaos,

(43:01):
diminishing the effect of thegameplay that's already there,
the decisions we make, reducingthe power of those decisions
and most of all extendingthe playtime of the game.
That's what most expansionsdo, but Prelude adds big decisions
to the beginning of thegame and makes the playtime
shorter without diminishingany part of the game.
It's a staggering achievement.
Preach it, brother, preach it.

(43:22):
(laughing)
So we skipped over whichedition of the game is the best.
I don't know if we actuallyneed to talk about it.
Do you guys have an opinion here?
Well, I thought we could talkabout the accessories here.
Let's do it.
Because I love theaccessories that capture your
income cubes and preventthem from sliding around.

(43:42):
I think they are a huge improvement.
Yes.
I think any version that PODowns is my favorite version.
(laughing)
So this was one of thosegames that I went out
and decided I was goingto invest in accessorizing it.
So yeah, I went on to Etsy andI found the acrylic player boards

(44:04):
where the thick paperplayer board went in it
and it provided the retainers for the variouscubes and I bought five of them, right?
So I could have a full set.
And then later I went and it was like someguy in Norway was doing 3D printed tiles.
And so I of coursedecided I needed to have 3D
printed tiles and they'reabsolutely gorgeous.
They are gorgeous.

(44:25):
And then like two years later, StrongholdGames came out with the big box
and gave you dual layer player boardsthat do the same thing the acrylics do.
And they also providedtheir version of 3D printed tiles
which may not be as pretty,but they're pretty darn good.
And it all comes in one box that hasroom and trays for all the things, so.
Which one of youradditions has the transparent

(44:48):
domes you can puton top of the cities?
Big box, the Stronghold big box.
Oh yeah, I really enjoy those.
Yeah, those are nice.
If I were to be buying TerraformingMars new today, if I knew I liked the game,
then I would go withthe big box, no hesitation.
But if I didn't, I wouldn'tspend that extra money.
And buy Prelude going with it.
And then buy Preludeto go along with it, yes.

(45:09):
You know, they did aKickstarter for Prelude 2,
so I'm interested to see whatthe contents of that turn out to be.
So now, most recognizable comparison.
What's the highest ranking game thatreminds you the most of Terraforming Mars?
I would say the highestone would be Wingspan.
I think Wingspanshows a lot of similarities

(45:29):
between, not only whatyou're doing with the birds,
but it's also, the mechanicsaren't different either.
I also have the obviousanswer of Race for the
Galaxy, but Wingspanis a higher rated game.
So my answer could be Wingspan.
- Okay, do you manageto catch your choice, Paul?
- No, no, we did an episode earlier

(45:50):
about Arc Nova where I calledout Terraforming Mars here.
And so I can't not mention Arc Nova,but I also want to mention Gaia Project
because I absolutely love theshared board on Terraforming Mars.
And Gaia Project does thatsame thing with a space theme.
Also, Gaia Projectthrows out all the cards.
So there's really no luck to Gaia Project.

(46:12):
And if you like the shared boardand the contest of players in space
without a bunch of cards adding luckto the game, check out Gaia Project.
- Right, well, that's a good pick.
Now that's, I mean,it's not just Terramystica
in space, but it is areimplementation of a lot
of the Terramysticamechanisms in a space theme.

(46:34):
- Extremely similar, that's correct.
- Yeah, very similar.
- Hey, two games that are initial TM.
(laughs)
- Oh, I know, and there are a few.
So sometimes youhave to take context into
consideration when youhear that abbreviation.
I went with an easy one here.
I went with Earth, though the gamethat was released in 2023, I believe,

(46:55):
which is another big deck energystyle game, bunch of unique cards.
But beyond that, and obviouslythe superficial connection
that it's named after a planet, you have avariety of fauna objectives and ecosystems
that you're trying toconstruct in that game.
So as opposed to the five awards and fivemilestones that are printed on the board,

(47:16):
you have a much greatervariety of game states
that you could be competing for inany one play, which I think is pretty cool.
And the playing time is a lot less.
So I love them both, but I think Earthreminds me of Terraphoming Mars,
but I also agree thatWingspan and Paul, Arknova,
I mean, all of those gamescome into the conversation

(47:37):
when we're talking aboutthese big deck energy games.
- I have Arknova down as well asone of the ones that are similar to it.
I mean, it's a big call.
- Okay, less recognizable comparison.
So what did you have as a gamethat may not be as well known
that still reminds youof Terraphoming Mars?
Paul, I'm gonna let you go first.
- Yeah, for me, the game is Outpost.

(48:00):
Outpost is an economicsnowball auction game
with the theme of buildingan outpost on another planet.
And like TerraphomingMars, it is 100% about
efficiency and who canbe the most efficient.
- But unlike Terraphoming Mars,the game is centered on an auction
that allows players todirectly fight over the most

(48:21):
efficient opportunities andmake them less efficient.
- Yes, this is all true.
Al, what did you have?
- Well, one of my loveson computers is 4X games.
And there's a game called Alien Artifacts.
I think it's ranked like2,400 and something.
But Alien Artifacts has, it's a 4X game,
basically you go out and try toexpand and exploit all the 4X fun.

(48:45):
But you're also exploring theplanets and kind of building them up.
There's some nice economics.
You're doing some resource building, soyou're getting an engine going there as well.
So for me, I thought was Alien Artifacts,which was a really good theme, just wider.
Just let's Terraform the universe.
- Right, okay, I like it.

(49:07):
So Paul, you might haveguessed from my response
that I also had Outpostdown, but I have a back story.
I was afraid I was going to take it.
No, no, it's all good.
- I did not have a backup.
- Okay, well, then it's agood thing you went first.
But you did mention it earlier inthe pod and that was High Frontier.
Like, I don't know whenelse we're going to talk about
High Frontier unless wedo an actual episode on it.

(49:28):
But if there's a gamethat really makes you feel
like you are doing spaceexploration, it's High Frontier.
- 100%.
- I love that game, it's fantastic.
- Kerbal Space on a board game.
- Yeah.
- But it's, that's true.
Then House Rules, howwould you improve this game?
Do you have any suggestions here?
I got nothing.

(49:48):
- Yeah, it's a hard one.
I enjoy the game as is.
If anything, I say you have to do drafting.
I don't know if that'sconsidered a, it's definitely a
mentioned variation, but Ithink drafting's a must, honestly.
- I agree.
- Yeah.
- I had play with Prelude, usedrafting variant and 3D cost.
(laughing)- Absolutely.
- Those are my house rules.
- I mean, if you look atthe forums and everything,

(50:11):
there's a lot of discussionabout a few of the companies
that are OP and they givepeople a little heads up.
So some House Rules peoplejust don't use a couple of those.
I don't know if it's that big of a deal.
Honestly, I'm not playing.
- You remember which one, Zell?
I know a lot of people hate on Ecoline,
but I think that's becausethey don't play properly.

(50:33):
(laughing)
- Well, I know that Sarsis isthe big one, which is the city.
- The free city, yeah.
- The free city.
- That's a huge numberof points, that's true.
- So that's the big one.
I think Helian is thesmaller aspect of that
and also Point Luna, Ithink is part of that as well.
So, and there's a coupleother cards that people forbid,

(50:54):
but I don't know, I probablydon't want to agree to this,
but I think the beauty of terraformingMars is in the playing, not in the winning.
It just brings happinessas you change the
planet from the redplanet to a blue planet.
- I'll say it.
- No, I agree with all of that.
- Yeah, so then if thisgame is being played at
game diet, what do youwant to play afterwards?
What's the double featuregame that goes along with it?

(51:15):
- Race, roll.
- I'll let you go first, Todd.
- Right?
Well, I mean, Al just saidwe're on the ones I had down,
which was roll for thegalaxy, so I actually prefer
roll over race, that's justme, so I would play roll.
- Dave doesn't always agree with the tiger.
(laughing)
- Right, what did you have, Paul?
- Martian rails.
(laughing)
- So we've come on, it's time torun railroads across it, you know?

(51:41):
It's a crayon rail game.
- It's an outside for trains.
- The game, for those who don't know,
the game is a crayon railgame based on Empire Builder.
It's set on Mars, it's thewhole map of Mars, so if you
go off one edge, your traincomes in on another edge,
and one of the things Ilike about Martian rails,
that's quite differentfrom terrifying Mars,
is Martian rails pays homage to thelast 100 years of sci-fi novels about Mars,

(52:06):
so there's a lot of crazyand kooky things in there.
- Is that a variation of Iron Dragon?
- Yes.
- Okay.
- Iron Dragon's an amazing game too, yeah.
- Very cool.
- I'm surprised you didn't say like 2038,
so that Todd can tokentharsis greater or something.
(laughing)
- I don't think we haveenough time by the way.
- That's why both of those games sit.

(52:27):
(laughing)
- No, 2038, the realchallenge with 2038
is that it's an 18XXgame that doesn't have
like a pre-printed mapthat goes along with it,
so because there is somuch free form placement
of the routes, the APjust goes through the roof.
- It's also an 18XX gamethat doesn't have an 18 in it.

(52:48):
- Also true.
So Al, did you have a doublefeature game that we didn't cover,
or did you just jump on toRoll for the Galaxy as well?
- Well, I mean, it's a race forthe Galaxy, a Roll for the Galaxy.
I think those kind of go hand in hand,but most any space game would be fun.
That's the direction I went.
- Okay, so what feature ofthe game still stands out to you?
What has aged the bestabout terraforming Mars?

(53:11):
- Every time I play, I am literally in awe
of the fact that there'sso many unique cards.
The amount of effortthey put into pictures and
theme, as well as theactual game mechanics,
and the fact that it's notthe cards aren't unbalanced.

(53:31):
Going through that level of detailof gameplay, I think is incredible.
That's what ages the best for me is,
is the awe every time Iplay of the unique cards.
- Right, I would agree with that.
Paul, what did you have?
- Yeah, I want to call out the shared map.
I think it's what differentiates itfrom other big Jack energy games,
and I love the contestfor position, especially

(53:53):
on the expansionmaps, Helis and Elysium.
- Okay, I have not played on Helis orElysium, so I will take your word for that.
Now we'll have to trythose out on the next game.
I really liked the three advancement tracksof oxygen temperature and then the oceans.
I think having those three with spiffsalong the way, if you reach a certain point,

(54:14):
and the way they are integratedwith the theme is just inspired.
And so I really like howthose three are managed,
and then obviously the completion ofall three triggers the end of the game.
So which feature of thegame now disappoints?
But it hasn't aged as well.
Do you have any?
- For me, it's the luck of the cards.
I really appreciate how Arc Nova has acard row of selections you can pick from,

(54:38):
as well as being able todraw off the top of the deck.
So it's more choice there.
- Are you thinking maybe there'sa house rule in there somewhere?
- Maybe, but it would require a lot ofnuanced changes, I think, I wouldn't go there.
(laughing)
Just craft, craft is fine.
- Right, interesting.
What if it was you're paying a megacredit for each spot you're skipping,

(55:02):
or two mega credits, whateverthe balance turns out to be?
So you could select deeply, butyou're gonna have to pay dearly for it.
Could it be that simple?
- I guess maybe something like insteadof everybody being handed four cards,
you put all the cardspeople are gonna get face up
and you figure out some wayto divvy them out from there.
So everybody knowsthat everybody's getting,
but maybe that's too muchinformation, I don't know.
- Obsession.

(55:23):
(laughing)
That was the last episode.
- Right.
Al, what did you have?
- I had components.
I think Paul mentioned itearlier, the components of
the player board specificallyreally disappointed.
Once you pimped yourcomponents out, it got even better.
I think that was the amazingpart, was just adding a
dual layer board, made thegame work so much better.

(55:46):
And my second item was the randomness.
The randomness is thesame thing in Paul said.
I think the draft helps it a little bit,but that's what's the worst for me.
- Okay, yeah, I had just the factthat there are so many unique cards.
Like, this isn't a game that I think anew player is going to be able to sit down
and have a thorough understandingof what they should be doing, right?

(56:07):
'Cause they just don'tknow the combinations
that are coming to be ableto make informed decisions.
You're gonna have to get a few plays
under your belt beforeyou have that familiarity.
So that's the thing I didn't like about it.
I also agree, back when it wasjust the pre-enhanced version
that didn't have the acrylicframes around the player boards.
Having your stuffaccidentally slide out of

(56:29):
place because your shirtsleeve dragged across it
or whatever, someone kickedthe table, that was terrible.
That's a good call.
So now, did this gamereplace a previous one for you?
- I think it replaced Teramistica.
- Yeah, I could see that.
- I too put Teramistica down.
Teramistica, I think had more flawsto it than we wanted to acknowledge.
- Interesting.
You know, I'm not just talking aboutwhich game gets the TM moniker, right?

(56:53):
- Oh, now you tell us.
- I had said that it effectivelykilled Roll for the Galaxy for us.
I mean, we stopped playing Roll
and I wouldn't mind goingback and revisiting that one.
- I thought that was justbecause Dave hated Roll.
- Yeah, that's right.
- You know, Roll takes less than an hour.
- That's true.
- Terraforming Mars, three hours.
So I never put those in the same bucket.
- Right, so Dave replacedRoll for the Galaxy, yeah.

(57:15):
Then no, I'm not sure that TerraformingMars displaced anything for me.
- I don't know if we get TM onthe table as often as we'd like to.
Or as I may, I should say,as often as I would like to.
- Right?
Well, that's the next prompt.
- Oh, sorry.
- It's coming.
And the next prompt would be,has this game since been replaced?
And if so, by what?
So I know what I have down here.
- I haven't solid no.

(57:36):
I don't think anything'staken its place per se.
Twilight Imperium's a different game,
I would say, more alongthe line of Dune Imperium.
But from a replacement standpoint, Istill think this is my go-to space game.
- Okay, nice spread there, Al.
- Yeah.
For me, there are two gamesthat Elvowed out Terraforming Mars.

(57:59):
And they're basically, Arc Nova andDune Imperium have walked Elvos
and kind of gotten infront of Terraforming Mars.
That's why I don't play it anymore.
- Yeah, I had those exact same two games.
So, moving on, soundtrack.
What music would you want tolisten to while playing the game?
Shall I take the easy one?
Go for it.
- Yeah, go ahead.
- I'm not gonna quibble over this one.

(58:20):
I'm going right down the middle,The Planets by Gustav Holst.
- The Planets.
- I appreciate it.
- That's exactly what I wrote.
- Yeah, exactly what I wrote too.
(laughing)
- We all wrote the same thing.
- Although I prefer Jupiter toMars, but just-- - I like Cleans.
- But, you know.
(laughing)
- So in rating on Board GameGeek scale of one to 10 now,
and still no decimals, howwould you rate Terraforming Mars?

(58:44):
Al?
- Well, I mean, TerraformingMars is one of my favorite
games, but you couldn'ttell that from my rating.
I've got rated as an eight.
The challenge with itis that the game's length
of three plus hours and the luckfactor kind of takes away from it.
Without those two issues, if it wasa two hour game, like the box says,
and the luck factor ismitigated well with the

(59:06):
drafting, it could be a10, but it's just too long.
It's too much to read, too muchto do to make it a quicker game.
- Right, how about you, Paul?
- I also rated an eight.
I really enjoy playing, it's justthere's other games that I enjoy more,
or that the crowd I usuallyplay with enjoys more.
- Right, wow, well, we areunanimous across the board then.

(59:27):
I also had it down as an eight.
I mean, we played it more oftenthan maybe it could be raised,
but each time we get it out, I feellike I'm enjoying it more as an activity
than I'm in honest competition forthe game, and I enjoy that activity.
It's great.
For me, it's going tostay an eight for a while.
- I agree.
- Is it replayable?
And how soon would youwant to revisit the game?

(59:50):
- Hey, what are you guys doing tonight?
(laughing)- Right.
- Hey, it's Friday, are you serious?
- You know, they'rethrowing marks on the table.
I think it's very replayable.
I mean, everything changes with the cards,
with the corporations,with the addition of Prelude.
I think that the game is almostdifferent every single time.

(01:00:10):
And then with the different maps, Hellesand Elysium, I think it's even more so.
So I think it's definitely replayable.
- Yeah, I agree.
But what did you have?
- Definitely, yes.
It has been replaced on mygaming card, but now that it's
on board game arena, Iexpect to be playing it a lot more.
- Oh, good point, right.
Now, the last time weplayed, we played on Steam.

(01:00:32):
What are your thoughts aboutSteam versus board game arena?
- Board game arena isideal for asynchronous
play, just taking oneor two turns a day.
Steam, I feel like, is setup for live play much more,
and the matchmakingis a lot more difficult.
So I prefer to use board game arena,
mostly because board gamearena works on my phone.

(01:00:54):
(laughing)
- When you're looking at board game arena,I think that with a five player game,
if you're eliminating all thedowntime of waiting for the
other players to go, I thinkthat is the perfect way of playing
a five player game thatI earlier said I dislike.
Honestly, on Steam or the iOSapp, I feel like we actually go too fast.

(01:01:18):
I lose connection with thegame 'cause when we're playing
at the board, we'relike, I'm going to do this,
which does this and we'rekind of announcing everything
to the table and you'regetting that reinforcement, but
on Steam, it's like, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
and I'm like, I don't really want to try togo back and figure out what I'm missing.
So I actually don't likeplaying on Steam at all.

(01:01:41):
- This was actually Paul's observation,but I agree with it that board game arena
makes it easier for you to understandthe game state of the other players,
whereas the Steam version, you'rehaving to click on the individual players
and you're having to clickon what their projects are
and it's harder to evaluatetheir-- - Steam is pretty

(01:02:02):
first, and board gamearena's functionality first.
- Right, so I would also now prefer to playon board game arena, knowing what I know.
And there's an undo function, so if youneed to reset your turn, you can do that.
- Also good. - Redcon, the game.
(laughing)
- Hey, we've come full circle.
All right, any otherparting comments you guys
have about the gamebefore we wrap this up?
- Let me ask you this question at the end.

(01:02:24):
Todd, what is your favorite card?
Do you have a favorite card?
What card, when you seeit, you start to salivate or
really want to make surethat you get it in your hand?
- So I'm not experiencing upwith the game to have a genuine
answer to that, so I madereference to it earlier on.
Dang Mustown is my favorite cardjust from the craziness that it embodies,
and that I'm gonna drop a moon on you, andsomehow that's not going to just destroy

(01:02:47):
all of our work tryingto terraform this planet.
How about yours?
- Paul, you have one?
- There's two different things.
I think a release of inert gasesmakes me snicker every time I see it.
(laughing)
The card that makes me salivate, and thecard I think is the best card in the game
if you see it in youropening hand is Arctic
algae, which says everytime an ocean is played,

(01:03:08):
you gain two plants,no matter who plays it.
- Oh wow, that's verysolid, that's very solid.
My favorite card actually is A.I. Central.
- You mean Al Central?
- Al Central, exactly.
- Yeah, Al Central.
- Okay, you caught that,but you get to do an action
every generation to drawtwo cards, two free cards.
It's so powerful, Isalivate the only downside

(01:03:30):
is you have to have likethree science tags to do it,
but if I see that, I'm grabbingit, and then I'm grabbing
all those science tagsto make sure I can play it.
- Right.
- So that's a huge one to me.
The one that cracks meup because of how bad I've
used it, there's a cardcalled Search for Life
where every turn you, youknow where I'm going with this,

(01:03:52):
and you basically turna card over and if it's a
pet or a microbe, I thinkyou get a VP or something.
- Right, three VP actually.
- I have never beensuccessful with that
card, even whengetting it on the first turn,
it's crazy how much I will try to getthat card and make it work and it doesn't.
- Right, it's the gold mine from Sam 1.

(01:04:13):
Awesome.
All right, and with that, we have raisedthe temperature of the final degree.
For our next episode, we're allgoing to try to avoid losing our sanity.
So hey, thanks for beingavailable today, guys.
That was a lot of fun.
And Al, thanks for participatingin your first pod with the group.
- Well, thank you forhaving me, I appreciate it.
- Yeah, it was awesome.

(01:04:33):
- Thank you forlistening to "Replayable.
" Support for our podcastcomes from listeners like you.
You can find usonline at replayable.
fm, on Twitter as"Replayable FM"
and on Instagramas "Replayable FM.
" You can also join our teamat patreon.com/replayable.
Thank you for your support.
We welcome your feedback, which is theonly way that we are going to get better.

(01:04:53):
You can get in touch with us viaemail at [e-mail].
And if you're interested in sponsoring us,
then please contact us [e-mail].
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)

(01:05:19):
(gentle music)