Martians: A Story of Civilization (Playthrough)

[@carbondragon]

I'm rewatching in prep for putting it on the table again. I'm reminded of a game I played recently when I had a very positive view of a game (Subterra II) until I realized that I had gotten the rules badly wrong. When I tried it according to the rules I liked it a lot less. Even so, I'm going to give this one another try this week. Thanks again, years later, for the good video.

[@danroyer3949]

Thank you for this video! Just got the game and now I am even more excited to play!

[@blurryface123]

I concur.

[@wesleyjones4695]

You're getting better and better with your videos. making them concise and easy to learn just by watching. Great work, as usual. This one is a little too heavy for me though.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Thank you Wesley!! Tottaly get it being a bit heavy, and it reminds me a lot of Robinson Crusoe, so you may not need both!

[@carbondragon]

Since I hate Robinson Crusoe (the game not the book) with the white hot heat of an exploding sun ;) I hope I don't feel like that way when I play it. I'm already formulating house rules to take the edge off. Even that was useless in Robinson Crusoe. That game is just too brutal and relentless.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

HAHAHAHA! That is a lot of hate there for a game, can I ask why you dislike Robinson so much? Is it just the brutality and relentlessness? If so, I do worry this one wil be similar. I personally love that one! For your sake I hope they are different enough!! The theme may help?

[@carbondragon]

Yeah, just too hard. Though it may be that I grew up with Robinson crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson as books and movies and it's so antithetical to what the books were that I find it really annoying. If the island had been like it is in the game, Robinson would have been dead in a week and so would the Swiss Family Robinson. Both had tough problems to solve and much hardship but both books were about the cool little domains they created, not the life threatening emergencies. The game is about nothing else but bare survival.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Makes complete sense thanks for letting me know! Hope you feel differently about this one!

[@wesleyjones4695]

Also, I think you are correct on the excavation ruling (6:38) as the Errata and FAQ, #20 seems to bear out.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Awesome I felt MOSTLY comfortable with this one, but you never know, it felt weird I was able to move the rover horizontal. . . Still can't get over the other rule though. . . that makes this game BRUTAL! I would even say more brutal than Robinson Crusoe. The one thing this video does not capture is the amount of time puzzling out how to eliminate all the tokens in the quarters. . . . I think this playthrough took me over 3 hours because of that, and all the camera movements.

[@davidko9289]

I'm amazed the playthrough is only about twice as long as the set up one. I agree on the rover movement rules.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Well I cut out all the time I took ouzzling out what to do so that the video wasn't too long. Glad you agreed on the rules!! Thanks for watching!

[@XHuntinatorX]

Colin... do you know if this game is still in print? Cant find it anywhere.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I am sorry I do not know! My guess is no though since I have not heard about it in over 2 years haha! Thanks for asking!

[@sylvaindelage5742]

I'm with you with the understanding of the excavation rule. This game seems good. I ill look into it. Thanks for the playthrough.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

I love it, the recreation action makes it quite unique

[@realjplay]

I had this in my hands several times in my FLGS, never got it though... maybe I should reconsider! Thanks for doing this!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Thank you for watching Markus! The game is amazing but can be brutally difficult. Also the non kickstarter comes with less scenarios so less replayability. Still I suggest this one for sure!!

[@realjplay]

But in this case the building miniatures really don't do anything, right?! :)

[@OneStopCoopShop]

You are correct the mini's don't do anything, however that is not the only KS exclusive. The KS version of this game comes with 14 scenario's more assistants and experts, and a mini-expansion all that are not included in the base game. Don't get me wrong the base game without all of this will still be good, just know that the replayability is substantially less in the retail version. Hope that makes sense!

[@carbondragon]

Speaking of Minis, I think the martian footprint mini is designed to be placed on the event card stack which keeps track of what cycle you are on. I could be wrong there but I think that is what it is for. I'm attracted to the 3d minis but unpainted I'm not sure they add anything, and even painted I'm not sure that they add that much. Of course there's no way to get them right now anyway!

[@OneStopCoopShop]

You are right about the footprint mini, I just think it is silly to take up space with 4 piles of event cards, so I just placed them in 1 pile and used it as a tracker for points! :) I agree, not sure if the mini's were worth it not painted, but I got 'em so might as well use 'em!

[@christopheebro295]

Hi, a small mistake at the second turn of Blue player: it is not allowed to put a 2nd action marker on a structure where you already are. So Blue cannot excavate for the 2nd time.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Hi Christophe - really?! How did I miss this rule! Are you able to point me in the right direction of where this is in the rulebook? This game is difficult enough without more restrictions ha! Pretty sure I did this more than once as well on other structures Education is the other main one I think). Thank you!

[@wesleyjones4695]

Colin, I think this rule is on page 13 under "It is Forbidden to-" , 2nd bullet.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Blast! I hate when I miss a rule like this. . . Seems a bit crazy as this game is hard enough but I will check the rules tonight and make an annotation. Thank you Wesley and Christophe!

[@nachofernandez9256]

That's right. You can never have two action markers in the same structure

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Got it, I will be making notes on this soon, apologies for the errors!!

[@SugarSeanL]

Huh interesting. And if I understand correctly there's different scenarios with different objectives? Thanks for the editing and camera work! Really cut's down on the downtime and streamlines the gameplay watching :]

[@OneStopCoopShop]

You are exactly right! The kickstarter version has 14 scenarios which can change the gameplay significantly. I did one that had minimal impact on the game so you could learn the regular rules. No prob on the camera work! Some games it is not feasible, but ones like these I can do it!

[@carbondragon]

A couple of things, but bear in mind I'm just trying to learn this game so not an expert. 1. The FAQ seems to indicate that you cannot discard experts. I guess maybe there's no place for them to go? 2. The FAQ appears to indicate that when you use the builder, it's not just the money, you have to spend time and resources (Energy, Regolith, Supplies) to do the deed. The only thing you save is the deploying of an astronaut. I hope this interpretation is incorrect because if it is correct, I'm not sure what the point is. I suspect to make this game fun for me, I'll have to adopt a few house rules. GREAT video and thanks for making it.

[@OneStopCoopShop]

David, thank you for this!! Discarding experts: This seems so silly to me if you only can have 2 of each, I believe I will house-rule this one. . . Builder: OK I guess that kind of makes sense, but that certainly is not clear considering all other experts etc. it is simply the money. . . Bummer Thanks so much for rule checking! Now I just need to figure out how to make notes now that annotations have gone away. . . Thanks for watching along!

[@JonaBullets]

This is weird that you cannot discard the exports, because from what I've read, when you play solo you only use one corporation board, despite having 6 figures to use. So that would make it even harder to use experts. I like the idea of house ruling it. But maybe by this point there has been an update. (I'll look into it, as I've had this setup on my table to play solo for days now)

[@TheJamesMReid]

Very nice! Great job!

[@GShock112]

Bad that on BGG the forums seem to indicate this game is basically dead. The 3d structures are awesome... what version is this? Any ideas?

[@TheJamesMReid]

I wonder why this one hasn't gotten as much love as the other Mars games that have come out. This one might not be the best game out there but it does look interesting

[@OneStopCoopShop]

Rulebook is the reason, it was horrendous! That has been fixed now so hopefully it will come back? Hard part is there are so many good mars games out there. . .

[@LucasGentry]

This is totally not connected to the Martians boardgame, but on the sidebar here, Tiny Epic Galaxies is showing up for me. I seem to recall someone saying that Tiny Epic Galaxies having a Co-Operative mode. Is there any chance you might have that game and have any desire to bring it to the table on video?

[@OneStopCoopShop]

REALLY? I know it has a solo mode, if you could tell me where the info is on solo I will do it! I was planning on doing a solo play, but co-op would be better :) :)

[@V081WLBlue]

You talk about having 3 'actions'. You don't have 3 'actions' you have 3 'time units'. 2:51 To do the examination board action you need to spend 1 time unit.