5 Strategies to Win Terraforming Mars - For Real

[@Boiling_Seas]

I'm very much an engine-builder, and a rather successful one in my gaming group, winning 80-90% of the time. You talk primarily about ground game and terraform rating, but don't touch on victory points, which is where I typically get at least 40% of my score. My first tip is to pick your corporation, preludes and opening hand carefully. You want synergy where possible, and each corporation plays differently. UNMI is very different from Vitor, and if you play them both the same way, you're going to make a mess of yourself. Secondly, estimate how long the game will go early on. A two player game will take more generations than a five player, giving you more time to build up your engine. Fewer players also allows you to control the tempo of the game more easily. This also lets you determine how long you should be working on your engine rather than pumping victory points. Shorter games are more dominated by TR, while longer games are won in the VP column. Thirdly, aim for those milestones ASAP. Eight megacredits for five points is as cheap as you're going to get, and taking those points for yourself denies them to your opponents, making it a ten point swing for each milestone. Awards are more risky, but take the first two where possible, typically late in the game. Fourthly, do more things. Often in the second and third generations, your engine is not well-built and you basically have the choice of a few small cards or one big one. The many small cards can add more parts to your engine, snowballing over the course of the game. Extra actions from the blue cards help keep you going after everyone else has passed. The number of times I've won simply by laying down more cards than my opponents is massive. A proper engine should involve you getting more cards and being able to play those cards. Fifth, timing is critical to make full use of your cards. Wait until you have an animal card out before playing Large Convoy. Save your Cartel until it's the last Earth tag in your hand. Build up the discounts before playing Io Mining Industries. Sixth, megacredits can be converted into other resources a whole lot easier than the other way around. Spend your metals wherever possible, unless you're making a play for the Miner or Industrialist Awards. Quite often, using the extra metal you have on hand means being able to play another card this generation, thus another cog in your engine has been put in place.

[@swdinesh]

Thank you for your comment. I realize that in TFM we tend to specialize in a sector and we build experience in it. I’m trying to challenge myself in different ones, and I will experiment more through your suggestions. I tend to disregard engines , but your points are interesting.

[@martinholt7229]

Yeah I got demolished playing a terraforming heavy game against two engine builders. I was ahead until the last few of generations and then they just took off.

[@christinejohnson6321]

Yeah I tend to often shock people by the hidden points in my cards

[@bentodd9403]

My dad started watching strategy videos, and he kept winning, so I thought I'd study up a bit. Great video!

[@user-od2sn5ur5g]

1)hoods before greens - my girlfriend - the only person i played a full game (and then many many more games) with (thank you corona...) is great at regional and spatial vision and planning - i usually lose in the map points. one very important lesson i leanred is to put your cities before you put your greenary tiles - this is especially true in the short term - if in this generation youre gonna put tiles from both types - put first the cities. after you have your city, you can surround it with greens, but if you prepare yourself a great place for a city - it will very likely be taken from you. ideally you will place two "opposing" cities with two spaces between them so that later you can put two greens there and get 4 points just from the cities. another quite important note about placements: use your special tiles strategically - there are certain tiles that dont give you vic points, but that doesnt mean they cant take winning points from your opp - many times its good not to be tempted by the resources you will get from nuc' zone or the ecological or experiments (sorry dont remember right now the accurate names) and such, but instead to put them next to your opp's cities or even greens if you know they're gonna place a city there soon and you cant put a city soon. 2) dont use too rigid strategies - i think one of the more important points that you talked about here or on another video - is how important it is to adopt to game youre playing right now. there are certain things woth doing (getting discount cards early, getting production bonuses early and such), but if you take any of them to the extreme or automatically - without regard to how that specific game is going - you will probably not play very effectively. examples would be: *going for discount cards that wont really suit your combo of corp+cards, or going for cards that you already have a discount for, although they dont really help you a lot; *trying to play (too) many blue collecting cards in the beginning and forgetting to develop your engine so in the first few generations you almost have no actions that you can do; *concentrating too much on a specific thing even such as putting greens (though i agree thats a very good thing to do in general) - you should always be versatile and adopting. there are things i really like to do, not so much strategies, just very good moves: #combine a commet card (preferably a major one) with livestock/fish/birds/bears - this can sometimes be a winning move - you can get something like 8 points in two actions from this combo. its especially strong if you have a corp or card that helps you with the global requirements which are always high in these cards. and here i have some objection to something you said in one of the videos about not keeping a card that is more than a few steps ahead in terms of requirements - i think in special cases like that - its worth the wait #go for discounts - they can be really important and save you a lot of money if you play them early on, i really love them (and possibly give them too much importance). #go for blue collector / effects cards as early as possible.

[@nihilusJ90]

What I love about this game is that every game is different. Sure there are general tips to be mindful of, but the point is to play the best game of the cards that you have. I can't go chasing forests if my cards don't allow for it. Similarly, terraforming can be more expensive in the short run than shooting for some of the milestones / awards. If an opponent is already way ahead of me in terraforming, and my cards don't open me up for an opportunity to catch up, there's no point in forcing it. Instead, look at every card as a tree branch, leading to potential fruit. Some branches are full of fruit, others are barren, it's often a gamble, but if you're already behind your opponents, you can either play stupid by trying to beat them at their game, or be smart and play your own game to the best of your abilities. If I were to make a video like this, I wouldn't even know where to begin, there's so many combinations and everything is so situational, that even a single card that's not even a playable card (your corporation) can be the difference between winning and losing. Just last night I was playing with 2 more people and was last in terraforming, around 15 points behind the first guy. BUT, I had reaped the benefits of 2 milestones and 2 awards. That was so massive, it propelled me to win with more than 5 points of difference. The card points were also my saving grace, and so was the general engine I'd built. Sometimes I get a total of 4-5 event cards for the whole game, other times I get 15+ of them. And each card is what it IS, meaning it denies you of being something else. For each event card I got, I was denied a potential building or something that would suit my engine better. So even if I have a bunch of iron, and a bunch of discounts for shaving the price off a building card, if I have 3 event cards in my hand, there's no way I'm actually going to build anything that turn. Play what you have, at the right time, for the right purpose, and know that your opponents can't deny you of everything. They deny you the terraforming milestone, you deny them somewhere else. Fill the opportunity gap, every opponent is as weak as they are strong, it's just that it might not be obvious.

[@magdalenalewkowicz9283]

Thanks for your help 😊I’d love to see a video with your gameplay of Terraforming Mars, describing your strategies and how they’re being brought into play. It’s a great game, I’m still learning how to play it 😉

[@MrMartinnoren]

Thank you for the video! My strongest strategy is the "no terraforming strategy". You talk about ending the game quick. This can be devastating against engine builders, but, the opposite is also true. If I myself totally refuse to touch global parameters, it will be very hard for the other players to end the game quick. So the players that try to push the game toward the ending will pay big money to do so, while i will sequence my plays to get as cheap points as possible via discounts and multipliers. Very often this is effective in a 3 player game, and sometimes in a 4 player game. It depends of course on the balance of the game - if the other 2 players terraform like there is no tomorrow I might not have time enough. So it is absolutely key to not terraform until my engine is peaking. If I play just a few oceans, or bump the heat, I will help ending the game (this means more than you would think) prematurely. This strategy relies on discipline and good judgement of what cards to buy, so that the synergies get to work their magic.

[@GreyWizardInsights]

Do you play with the solar phase rules where each player must choose a rating that goes up for no reward?

[@stevenseufert2520]

I play like Martin does. I've won every game of Terraforming Mars I've played except my first one. Other people tend to want to terraform Mars. This grants them smaller short term gains and gives them the illusion that they're getting ahead. It does grant them more money every turn, but that's the only major benefit. I work on discounts, larger resource production, and end game victory points because end game victory points, whether from achievements, large cards or lots of counters, grant more points in this game than actually terraforming Mars does.

[@jeffreyculbert728]

Hi Martin!

[@alpha1beta1gamma]

Steven Seufert bruh calm down

[@user-od2sn5ur5g]

@@stevenseufert2520 i think so too - for it's name, i think the game gives a little too few points, for actually terraforming mars (but maybe thats an intentional swedish commentary on capitalism and the efficiency of achieving global goals via commercial corporations).

[@cschmelzer83]

protip: Watch this video at 1.25 speed lol

[@Qxoi90]

ultra pro tip: watch it in 1.5 speed :D

[@Silverback947]

Strategy Nr. 4 Slow down...

[@84Supervisor]

Felt like a normal speech rate at 1.25. You are a golden god, xian.

[@Monkey_D_Buhlahkay]

@@Qxoi90 I did 1.5 also lol

[@m0gul666]

2x speed

[@krikukiks]

We play with same people all the time so our strategies might not be that evolved yet 3-4 players 1. If you are only one trying to end the game the engine will win. Other players will all block heat (or plant/ocean) cards so one track will take 10+ turns to finish. (Even with favorable companies)(But might be the only shot to win and just have to hope that the weaker engine will start helping you) 2.a. Building cities is good counter to the first terraformers strategy. Can block him off and he will get only 3 points per forest and also give some to you. 2.b. Good point. When you are first player next turn, as your last action raise temperature/O2 by one step. Then next turn as your first two action raise it twice again to get 3 TR. (If you don't have cards that can raise 2+ steps at a time) 4. Feels like it makes the game slower, we do 1 action if it is important to be last or need more time to think. (we even do irrelevant actions during others turns, like adding a token to a card) 5. I think Helios is best for this as. When they gather lot of heat it won't be that out of an ordinary and then they can end the game 2 or even 3 turns earlier than anyone else expects. My tip is to estimate the length of the game based on others companies and first 1-2 turn actions. (and base all your purchases/actions on that) When starting the game we pick 2 cards out of 10 and pass the rest to next player (and repeat for 8/6/4 cards). Seems to make more even and interesting games.

[@brianpotter2812]

My strategy is maximize my turns while minimizing my opponents' turns. What I mean is, if I can gain a benefit while denying my opponent - that is the MOST Efficient way to play the game. At the game's end, you will only have X # of actions. The player that scores the most points per action/resource spent will be the winner. Taking advantage of your chosen corp's ability + starting cards plays HUGE into this as well. I also try to use the standard projects more often than I used to as I am now realizing their importance. I've started doing some advanced thinking on why each corp's ability is good, and it turns out I was wrong about a couple of corps being weak. Saturn Systems in essence starts with +4 value in generating resources (+1 MC production from its own Jovian tag, and +3 Credits from the titanium it produces.) They have the best starting value production over any others. They also secretly deny opponents from playing the big cards that have Jovian tags for fear of boosting your MC production. It's also a nice surprise to see someone who chose IO research outpost or Galilean mining as a prelude and triggers your ability also :) Now I'm not saying they're THAT good, but definitely better than I originally thought. I also learned I was playing Credicor wrong a long time ago (need to do more standard projects with cities and forests like your video suggested). Also, Thorgate has the hidden benefit of being able to play city cards Generation 1 without having to first invest 11 megacredits to do power plant (or 8 in their case). Robinson industries also has a hidden benefit of only having to pay 4 credits to get ANY production to 1 so they can lose it to play a card from hand.

[@GeneralKetchup57]

Liked & sub'd! I usually don't watch strategy videos, but your 3 on TM are fantastic and I forwarded them to my gaming group. I just started playing TM and am the teacher to my "couples" group. I actually made a cheat sheet to help new players pick a starting corporation (your mistake #1) last night. We really enjoyed TM and expect it to be played a lot in the future. Your videos will help a lot of us, especially the pseudo-gamer wives, more enjoy the gaming experience. Thanks!

[@theguy1563]

Nice tips and love the shirt! Turtle Power!👍🏻

[@Sylgerr]

Thank you for the vidéo! Strategy best points can really change depending on how many players. Also depending on corporation choice. Did you talk about goals and rewards? 26points... not that much... but if you get the points, the opp won't get them. Cya

[@ahve6197]

OMG, look at that boxes!!

[@grantfraser5430]

Agree with everything but I need to learn to slow down. Although a lot of flexibility is needed, I try to avoid buying cards that I won't be able to play in the next couple of generations. That's money saved to play cards you already have. Of course you don't want to find yourself running too low either. It's a balancing act. You need to have something planned but for sooner rather than just after the game ended.

[@MrN0b0dy85]

love this game and am digging that shirt my man!

[@rjflippo]

protip#2 - watch at .5 speed, 🤣 @ 4 min mark when he starts talking about judo.

[@swdinesh]

Thank you for this interesting video. I get your point of ending the game asap , because this will cut out all the points of engines. I’m at the opinion that this is not always possible but it’s a solid strategy for sure. I appreciate you try to give strategies people can use in general. One thing I want to add, which someone else also pointed out, is that I love TFM because allows you to keep tuning or changing your strategy, adapting to your opponent(s). Not as much as Pulsar 2849, but it’s quite good for a variable strategy approach. Thanks again.

[@user-od2sn5ur5g]

i disagree about the terraforming and game-end-time-deciding strategy - especially because i don see how you can really do that systematically: what do you need to terraform? 1. heat production - you yourself explained several times about how problematic it is (especially when not playing with thermalist award) 2. plant production - i agree you should invest in this pretty much everything that you can, but more for ground control and less for t"r control 3. ocean priduction?? - i mean i dont see a way to systematically enable yourself to place many oceans - you can horde ocean placing events but its a matter of luck to receive them, the same goes for aquifier cards. the only other way is st. projects and that takes a lot of money, and that requires engine building... - so what does that strategy actually mean?

[@RainbowSkyM]

Sometimes people are farming animal tags, microbes tags, cloud tags, etc. which will award them more VP the longer the game goes. In those cases, (if you are not farming the tags) you should finish TF Mars ASAP to reduce their VP.

[@maigematthews5620]

Any tips playing the solo version of the game? I find it way harder!

[@barbarabarna8442]

Hey guys! I lost it a bit. How does forest give me money in every generation?

[@Jimmy020889]

That last point is absolutely correct... I played a game a couple of nights ago where I was Phobolog; friend was Credicor and I ended up winning with a 39 point lead! He's very much an engine building type of player, but didn't adjust his strategy and for some bizarre reason was competing with me on space tags and blue cards.

[@alpha1beta1gamma]

nice!

[@mingluo1513]

If you are playing with all the expansions, don't plant trees.