Ranking the Terraforming mars corporations (Tier list)

A reminder that only our reviews are 3 and bit minutes long.
To support us on Patreon please head over here www.patreon.com/user?u=9257332
And, if you just want to buy us a coffee for a good job, pop over here ko-fi.com/B0B27OIZ
BGG link: www.boardgamegeek.com/boardga...
Sound effects from www.zapsplat.com
"Shiny tech" "Shiny tech 2" "special spotlight" "werq" "(incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
"Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act
1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

[@3MBG]

Oh my goodness, there are some folks out there who post essays about why my ranking is incorrect "factually". It's kinda amazing how much effort people put in to try to prove they are right about someone opinion on a faction within a game. Like, bro, no one is going to read your 1000 word essay on why Credicor is bad and Phoblog good. (mostly because no one can see it). I do not have time to treat this video as some form of academic defence piece, where challengers turn up like badly shaped gladiators screaming "debate me". You can't mathematically prove an opinion wrong, please go touch some grass.

[@nigelgraves174]

Great vid! It may be worth noting for anyone who doesn't know that Arcadian Communities, Splice Tactical Genomics, and Recyclon are all fan-designed corps from the BGG User-Created Corporation Pack. So they are 'official' but anyone who has just picked up all of the regular expansions etc may not have heard of these.

[@3MBG]

Ah, good point. My friend Fraser got me the promo pack a while back for my birthday, so i totally forgot that

[@quarthinos]

For people who want a bit of randomness in the starting board, without just cycling through them, the three colors of cards are also the same as the colors of the board. So as part of the setup, grab a card of each color, pick one at random, and you just picked which board to play!

[@ObsessiveGamer]

Almost agree with you about taking Credicor in a tournament, or any 'I must win' situation. I would take Credicor only if Tharsis Republic wasn't available. I agree that Tharsis can lead you right into a brick wall, but it is so much better at winning than Credicor when playing 0, 1 or at most 2 cards. At that point the only real variables, or luck, is based on what your opponents are doing.

[@jwfcp]

Tharsis has a dampening effect it inflicts on other players, no one wants to build a standard action city against them, because it helps you as much as them, for free, so there are a lot more opportunities to sidle up to stray forests.

[@fortunastreet]

Something that I find is cruelty missing in the game is Preludes who terraform Venus, so Venus cards and corps have a better shot to be played. For this reason, we often play without the venus expansion.

[@3MBG]

That makes perfect sense

[@3MBG]

Thinking about this a little more and it really is a gap. Even 4 of them in the prelude deck could make a real difference. I'm gonna have a think about this

[@fortunastreet]

I get why they didn't print such cards in prelude or any other expansions, but those would be fine as promos.

[@lukehanson_]

I've thought the same thing. Each expansion has to be compatible with only the base game. It would be nice to have a small pack of cards that include interactions between expansions. Prelude cards that terraform Venus, place colonies ect. And project cards that cross expansions.

[@Petfal]

Prelude 1 was meant to be a completely standalone expansion, and couldn't touch Venus. I noticed how much less we touched Venus when Prelude came, and I missed it a lot. Not we usually do at least some Venus regardless, but a good surprise is that there will be a few Venus related preludes in Prelude 2

[@pascal30161]

Looks like one of the best tier lists for TFM i've seen. What changes to make really does depend on which combination of expansions you prefer. I think for all-expansions, the board centric A-tier corps probably only deserve B-tier, because engine building is a lot more important (Arcadian, Philares). But if you play fewer expansions and closer to basegame, they get powered up. B-Tier is probably what I disagree with most, with Tharsis deserving A-Tier in low expansion games and Cheung Shing probably deserving A-Tier regardless, while Thorgate, Utopia, Recyclon and Celestic all feel worse than the rest of that tier. Lastly hellion to d tier and potentailly move up Mining Guild, though its much stronger on the base board because of strong oceans+volcanics and builder milestone.

[@AhJong0]

What a cracking video, love this sort of content. Your meta is very different from mine. We typically play 2 player, but even with 4 board presence is rarely a big issue till the last few turns. Fascinating to hear your breakdown of Corps and how differently we play the game (though in our meta, Viktor is also the best corp).

[@3MBG]

We played a 3player game last night, planet fully terraformed gen 7 and around 30 tiles on the board. That was on the app too so only using prelude and core. We just drive those bars and get on the board quick. I won with 91, which is a pretty good score for 7 turns.

[@chriss1620]

I think you misread Factorum. The corp allows you to raise 1 electricity production once you have NO energy RESOURCES (I think you read it as NO energy PRODUCTION), meaning you can spend all resources on colonies for example and once they're spent you increase your power production by 1 during that round. So it definitely does not belong in the D tier, probably high C or low B.

[@3MBG]

Yeah, Fryx himself told me i got that one wrong as well. Will give it some more plays

[@CrimzinEclipse2010]

A strategy I’ve used to win as Credicor many times: If you can put down Standard Technology and Rover Construction, you can spam cities AND greeneries on the map as Standard Projects for effectively 16 MC each. I’ve racked up dozens of VPs just from my ground game alone through Credicor, while also being able to take advantage of still playing expensive cards in other ways.

[@3MBG]

Standard Technology and credicor is a top tier combo :)

[@Petfal]

It sounds like you have misunderstood Factorum. They do not need to have no elec producc, they only need to have no elec resources. They are easily S tier how I see it

[@3MBG]

Yep, got that one wrong. Played a few games with it wrong too, lol

[@davidlayman901]

Thanks for the tier list! I play with a group of 3 total regularly, base set only, and our games tend to last from 10-11 rounds pretty reliably. Your tiers for the basic corporations in my opinion stand up really well in general. For us, tharasis is probably s tier, and inventrix I would put probably b tier, due to slower terraforming as you noted. Otherwise I think you nailed it.

[@pepagacy]

Interesting list, and it gives me something to ponder about Terraforming Mars. It is already my favorite game, and I am interested in seeing how other approach the game. This makes me take a second look at some of your better corps as I have not thought that highly of then (Arcadian, Pristar, and Philares), and also consider others I have thought strong (Robinson and Helion). But your choice of Vitor as the strongest corp resonates with me as I value end-game VPs highly. And funding an award makes for an ultimate goal for your plans.

[@3MBG]

It's also worth keeping mind our meta, heavy board control, fast terraforming. We played a 4 player game that was 2 steps from a fully terraformed mars on Gen 6 last week and terraformed after the first player action on Gen 7. So what works well on our table, not so much on others. Corps like Robinson barely get a return on their special action in 7 turns for example.

[@Imperaldra]

Can you do a Tier List for Terra Mystica/Gaia Project and Aeons End Mages? :D

[@3MBG]

Not in the near future, my play counts on those games are far lower than Terraforming Mars and Spirit Island, which are the games i've done this for.

[@Imperaldra]

I waited so long for this.

[@SolviKaaber]

Wow you’ve got twice as many corps as I have. I’ve only got the 12 base, 5 from Prelude and 3 BGG promos. I really want some time to print out the ~10 corps I’m missing which don’t have Colonies/Venus/Turmoil specific stuff on them. Our playstyles/setup are nearly identical, (except for not having the 3 bigger expansions, which makes us slightly slower). We’ve not played enough to confidently rank them all, I think I’ve seen all 20 corps, played most of them, some more than others. You are ranking all the corps and so many of these A and B Tier corps we’ve never seen, so our lists are different We value Phobolog, Inventrix, UNMI, Cheung Shing Mars, Mining Guild, Tharsis Republic a bit more (1 or 2 tiers up) We value Vitor, Arcadian Communities, Recyclon, Interplanetary Cinematics, Point Luna a bit less (1 or 2 tiers down). It’s probably due to our slightly slower games, less experience, fewer corps available, more hate drafting of specific tags etc. I think that corps just really depend on what preludes / starting cards you get and most are situational. There have been too many times where we’ve been burned on getting 2 corps that just don’t fit the preludes / starting cards, or a player has played these 2 corps too many times. So I usually allow people to mulligan the 2 corps if they want, and draw 2 new ones. I might in the future skip doing that and just let everyone draw 3 corps for that flexibility.

[@lukehanson_]

I think in 2 player Tharsus is far and away the best corporation. If you are very selective with card buying and do no terraforming you can place a city a generation. The other player won't be able to terraform fast enough by themselves to stop you from snowballing. You will be able to make your opponent have to place many greenery tiles by you, which discourages them terraforming and allows you to snowball even more. I think the only way t can be stopped would be if your opponent is lucky and gets cards like immigration shuttles, immigrant City, zeppelins, and pets that will allow them to also benefit off your cities. Even then if they don't get them early enough it won't be enough.

[@3MBG]

That is an interesting strategy. with 20 starting money a solo player can terraform in 12 gens, but thats still at least 13 cities down. Fascinating.

[@lukehanson_]

@@3MBG And the other player will probably not focus solely on terraforming, at least at first.

[@stevegeorge7773]

I have to disagree with your observation with Ecoline. They are powerful with the two staring plant production. It isn't 7 turns it starts at 4. You can quickly get them up, which is what I do with standard projects. While this is expensive the added production of 1 or even 2 is very significant. Remember putting a plant down also increases your production engine too. Further you can plan a strategy around getting the added 5 points for the additional bonuses. Phoblog is really strong in a drafting game.

[@3MBG]

Yeah, but i can put a city beside your plants and steal a chunk of your VPs. That's why ecoline is a bit flat for me. Greenery points can be borrowed by other players very easily.

[@stevegeorge7773]

Most do not get a city down as quickly. Or you wait until a player lands a city and do the plants. Normally I put plants down in my first turn to avoid being stung by all the impact cards that effect one's holdings. I do kinda agree it is a bit one dimensional with the plants but they are points and income to do other things. However it really does depend on if your playing the the drafting variant which allows for planning ones plants going down onto the planet. If there is no variant I agree with your observations.

[@3MBG]

Fair enough, all i can see is that's how it shakes out on our table. If Ecoline is going hard on plants, people save their money to jump on their plant base, if they themselves can't lock it down. Anyone who puts down 2 adjacent plants normally gets a city placed by them. Afterall, someone has just done a chunk of the work for you and free points are free points. Our board is normally 80% full at games end. heck, last game we played there were no valid city placements left. Different metas shape different experiences as i mentioned in the video. Plant heavy players just get their points base siphoned off a fair bit. But our table does play the board heavy, as mentioned.

[@michaelgoshorn476]

I have found in the base game with no expansions, this is one of the most powerful corporations. Every greenery is two victory points, one TR if the oxygen isn’t maxed yet, and one end point. So even if cities steal some of the points, assuming they placed close enough to be able to do that in the first place - ok just realized for years we’ve playing that rule wrong. We played it all tiles unless stated followed the greenery rule of must be next to your own tiles. Just realize now that rule only applies to greenery next to greenery. No wonder we nerfed ourselves when trying to combat Ecoline!, it’s still quite powerful, most people concentrate on a plant generation strategy and are pointing down 2 a turn by Gen 6ish. In our group Ecoline if dealt wins about 80% of the time. I need to get some expansions still playing base game only. And as you say number of players and Meta play of the game greatly effect this

[@Osstap]

Nice and useful ranking. TM is my favorite game, but i've played only base game and venus exp (prelude and h&e just arrived to me). So a lot of corps are unfamiliar to me. I agree that credicor is one of the strongest corp, but imho tharses is somewhere near to it. Also i think helion is strong, i've seen such a good plays with it. Phoblog also can be very strong but only with fitting starting hand, as you mentioned.

[@bitforbit8573]

Me and my wife usually play this by ourselves and we both like high points, meaning we take our time with the games. This being our meta the Robinson Industries is one of my personal favourites! I have played so many games where this corp takes care of so much of my engine building. Last night we played a game and I got the Terralabs, holy crap I saved SOO much money buying cards with that one. Yes, the first turn sucks but the rest of the game it is wonderful

[@faelanae]

The one time I played Splice, I've managed to absolutely cream my opponents. But it's VERY situational - I managed to get the right Preludes out and a great starting hand which allowed me to constantly generate microbes from round one.

[@alltaken21]

I need to try colonies to understand ecoline and tharsis placements. Those are amazing corps!! Also septum (space senators) is super amazing Corp. Always gives benefits from the politics, close to 14 gold per turn (the first turns not that much)

[@3MBG]

I think Tharsis and Ecoline are both much better in longer and slower games.

[@alltaken21]

@@3MBG I've played a gazillion games, and they can un focus on temp and oceans and go full ham cities + forrests and that is just super strong. Normal helps with achievements and milestones too

[@robertcrist124]

Big difference in perspective of a 4-5 player game from the 2-3 player games I do. You say 9 generations, I think we typically get to 12-14. Different plays styles too because I haven’t seen enough value in Venus to make it a regular and Colonies could be but hasn’t been used, so just base, advanced cards and prelude for me.

[@3MBG]

A 14 generation game with more than 1 player seems almost impossible to me. It's like everyone is not wanting to terraform at all, lol

[@robertcrist124]

@@3MBG When you just want to play, building an engine is fun. Not every game is that long, it was just a random guess. I don’t track plays or anything so I don’t have a real idea. I do know we don’t always purely focus on the parameters, they happen when they do. Just playing not really competing.

[@3MBG]

Ah, our meta is full of rock chucking and standard projects. Those TR scores rocket up

[@faelanae]

BTW, we play Turmoil (and not Venus) and Septum Tribus is one of the strongest corps we've played. It's a crazy money engine that supports every other engine by giving you 10 extra money per round.

[@3MBG]

I hear this, my friend Paul says at his table they have a long unbroken win streak

[@faelanae]

@@3MBG FYI, your friend Paul is also our friend Paul. It's a small world. Tell him Mike and P said "hi!" ;)

[@3MBG]

Ha! I actually shared this tier list and video with Paul before even my patrons. I respect his opinion on the game that much, even though hes never beaten me :)

[@vanderveckensmith]

@@3MBG there's someone in Paul's gaming circles he's never beaten? I'm shocked and amazed.

[@faelanae]

@@3MBG awesome! As soon as we started watching your vid, we contacted Paul to see what he thought :P Anyway, small world. I learned a lot from your video. I always sort of shrugged at Credicor, as it's usually just two of us and we delight in card engines. Some games, we barely terraform the planet. But I'll take a deeper look at that strategy from now on.

[@fredrikjohansson6984]

Great video, byt u have missunderstod Factorum ability, Action: Increase your energy production 1 step IF YOU HAVE NO ENERGY RESOURCES, not production. Thx

[@3MBG]

Yeah, makes them a lot better. Classic overlooking on a faction i'd only played the once

[@jollyroger455]

Thanks for this, especially since I plan doing my tier list for a long time now, although I will start with Base only and Tharsis map, so obviously reliant on that setup. I played this game probably over 1500 times with different setups and when I started almost 3 years ago, I can't stop xD also I have to mention that I don't play 5p often, I find it too random, especially with more expansions because turn order alone can be very punishing, 5th player automatically has like 5% to win the game if all players are good, unless he is Poseidon, which leads me to the first amendment to your list :) Poseidon even in 4p is completely bannable, it's almost an auto-win. In 5p I can't imagine how it looks like, because I presume that with everyone trying to get at least one colony that they like and then secondary for off-position trade, you will likely get 12+ colonies gen 2, which is enough money to do whatever in the game, almost impossible to lose even if you only standard project. You mentioned many of these stuff and you regard it as top 3, I just feel it's absolutely broken and number 1 in your specific setup. I do mostly agree with tiers and overall strength of the corps, but there are also a few more question marks for me, for example Arcadian. You placed it so high up that I feel you might not play it properly tbh :) because I view that corp as border-line unplayable in high player counts, and definitely bottom 5 corp. So, you can place only one marker per turn, and you need to go next to your marker, or a tile. Which means that in 5p games you will likely put only 6 markers on the board. And sure, it can be annoying to block some juicy spots from your opponents, but in 5p there is so much clutter and hate tiles all over the place that it just gets a bit more chaotic, and the value you get from the tiles is not much. Compare it to Poseidon or Credicor who only standard greeneries, or Vitor, even if you place all the tiles, which is not easy to do efficiently. If you had an ability to jump all over the board and take strategic best spots, than it would be better, but even in that case I would view it slightly below you, because it is enough that someone put a city in your line and you will either just hate that one city whole game or give him points for the rest of the game with greeneries. Very easy to counter. Another anomaly for me is Polyphemos which is also borderline unplayable in 4p. You are not that rich that you can afford playing without cards, and if you have card draw, for example AI, that's cool, but that just means any corp would do well. In 5p it's probably playable because the game can be 6 rounds long, but still very average. There are some other minor disagreements, but these three I mentioned are the biggest one for me. Thanks for making this video once again! :)

[@3MBG]

Excellent comment Janko. I've found, on occasion, i can win with only a small number of cards plays. I think my record at 4 player was about 9-11 cards. One way to think of it is every small card has a 3 cost premium on top of it already, so a card that costs 4, costs 7 in reality. And for Poly that's 9. But when you get into the bigger cards, 30 for example, the difference between 33 and 35 is negligible. I also think, in general, at our table if you are keeping 3 or 4 cards a turn anyway, you are losing. As for poseiden, if they are in, people don't drop that many colonies early in our games. Everyone going for 2 straight off just plays way too hard in their favour. Same reason people dont all drop 2 cities when Tharsis is in play or bury Jovians in draft when Saturn is out. As for Arcadian, it is almost impossible to totally lock them down, unless people are really focusing on it. Which normally requires them to make bad plays to do it. Sure, you can throw down a lot of standard projects to block them. Then they put down a tiles elsewhere and start again. Only in the late game is that an option, and by that point, Arcadian has gotten its bonus money for the most part.

[@jollyroger455]

@@3MBG Thanks for replying! I agree that you don't need cards to win the game, especially 5P. If you are credicor and you push milestones and awards efficiently, go on board, you can win comfortably by playing only 4-5 cards, if they are right cards for the setup. But the thing with Poseidon is that it is not quite comparable with Saturn, especially not Tharsis. Early cities are not good for anyone, except maybe Mining Guild, but Mining Guild is bad for short games anyway. Jovians are also quite bad for short games. And even if they are played, the buff is smaller, I will explain why. With Poseidon, you want to go colonies. Because there is no room for everyone, and the buff they give are huge. So lets say you have Luna Colony in 4p game. With or without poseidon, the only thing which is correct for player one to do is to standard Colony for 17. Why? Because there is no way that colony won't get filled then, with only two spots with three players left. It's even worse in 5p, everyone should just standard colonies they want to push, because they are more efficient than almost any engine building card in the deck. You pay 17 MC for 4 MC production, because it gets traded every generation. In 4p games, you will have an access to two trades almost 100%, and even 3 if you are lucky and the game is average 10 gen length. So, let's say it's a short game, so it ends in gen 8. You get 7x4 MC + 2x10 MC if you don't have more amplifiers for trading. For 17 MC investment you will get 48 cash. In gen 8 game :) It just snowballs more if the game is longer. So, if you don't like building colonies because Poseidon is in-game, well, you actually hurt yourself more than you are hurting Poseidon. Because literally there is no other card or action in the game which is this efficient. If we talk about 3p the mechanic is different obviously, but in 4p and 5p the struggle for colonies is that intense that it always pays off. The first in the playing group who figures that out will get an unstoppable advantage. Only one guy needs to do it, and everyone else will follow, because they will be put into prisoner's dilemma. It just works like that, like musical chairs. As far as Arcadian concerned, I just mentioned it can be blocked, I wouldn't do it, because it is quite weak. So, if we talk about gen 7, we can even gen 8 games, that's 8 cubes. Even if you will all, and you probably won't, its 24 cash back. It's nice, but the problem with that its 24 cash back later in the game. If you are Ecoline with Ice Asteroid and other ocean asteroids in hand, you can just drop them, and convert for 4-6 MC rebates every time. You get the cashback right away, instead of getting it last gen. The value of Arcadian in 5p is probably more blocking others than having juicy spots and cash yourself. Because, again, you must place the cube next to your previous cube. You can't teleport. You can place a tile, and then go with a cube next to it on some other spot, but then you miss the rebate on that tile. It is simply slow and inefficient. In 5p games its probably better because of blocking purposes, but something must be wrong with playing that corp in your group, because, even if I disagree to some extent, your reasoning is completely correct and you know what you are talking about, so this corp is a complete anomaly in this rating to be honest :)

[@3MBG]

Excellent points. This is the reason i like doing this videos, seeing feedback and concepts from other experienced players that give me insights i can take forward into my own game. You are right about colonies, they are good. But there's also that knowledge that Poseiden will become a hulk if you go hard at them. It seems to put the breaks on them a little in our games, they are still S tier for me, even with us not going hard on colonies when they are in One last thing on Arcadia, they do start with 60 resources, which is on par with Terractor, a little more awkward because 20 is in steel, but Terractor rarely get 8 earth tags in 8 turns. I find it much easier to realize that resources from Arcadia. How do you rate Terractor? I put them on the same tier.

[@jollyroger455]

@@3MBG I like to discuss as well :) I rate Teractor as B to A tier in your setup for 3p, which I play the most. They are probably there as well with 4p and 5p. So, another thing about Arcadian is also this - even if we take them as the best case scenario with all rebates used, you are probably poor man's Credicor. Which is not bad by any means, it's powerful. But, that also means that in the game which heavily nudges people to go board, your opponents have similar or better options to go board as well. So in a head to head battle against Credicor, Ecoline, Tharsis, Interplanetary Cinematics, I don't see much chances to win with Arcadian, except for that block/hate tactic which kinda doesn't benefit you too much, you just mess up with others, and as I previously mentioned, your rebates are delayed, compared to instant rebates other corporations are getting, and the more the game progresses, they are relatively smaller, because you have an inflation in the game. Which also works against this corporation. I don't know, since I lack 5p games I might underate it a bit in that specific setup, but I played quite a lot of games of 4P with colonies, and with or without turmoil to rate it somewhere around Celestic to be honest, which is not very good :)

[@keithedwards649]

My normal group plays 4 player games, never 5 and most of them focus on engine building until the last round or two. That said I agree with your top 5. After that not as much. Your preludes, starting 10 cards and what colonies are present can make crappy corps a lot better, so being flexible and seeing combinations really makes a huge difference.

[@3MBG]

Absolutely, but in my experience i've found the corps below, in general, work better over multiple plays. Player experience and seeing patterns counts for a lot more than the Corp though.

[@keithedwards649]

Didn't actually see how good Vitor was until recently when I started with them and Earth Catapult played through the Prelude card that gives 25 discount to any one card. That meant effectively 5 discount on most cards right from the start. A real kickass way to begin.

[@3MBG]

I've had that combo before as well. Its incredibly strong. I even mentioned it in another comment when someone asked me what the strongest opening card for any corp was :)

[@MorderElg]

If you play with preludes, Terralabs and Donation or loan (maybe eccentric sponsor if you have a good would be a good combo, no?

[@saucyasian]

Great video! The two corps I would change are VITOR to A tier and UNMI to B tier when I think about corps that do best in 4-5 player games that end in 7-8 gens. VITOR in my opinion is the best corp for accumulating huge hands and unloading at the end of the game. The impact of their ability grows exponentially as the game move on so they would favor 2P games that go 10-12 gens. Point cards are less efficient for engine building in gen 1-5. For UNMI, the impact of their ability is just the opposite, it's highest at the start of the game and diminishes exponentially, making them stronger in games that last 7-8 gens. Yes, the ability steers the corp towards strategies that are less engine-building, but if the game ends with 70-80 pts for the winner, that ability to gain 7-8 points for 21-24 credits should put them in the top 2 or 3 of a 4-5 player game consistently. Let me know what you think!

[@3MBG]

Very good points. I definitely agree with Vitor becoming a power house the longer the game goes, especially if you get some discount cards in there. UNMI though, even in a short game, its 1 TR a turn IF you terraform, which if you force yourself to do when its not optimal can still hurt overall.

[@bradjohnston8825]

I love this video. I totally agree with you on UNMI it's shite. I love playing credicor and Tharsis, especially with standard tech. What do you think is the most insane synergy in the game? (Corporation/opening hand)

[@3MBG]

That's a hard call. The obvious one is Creditor and standard projects. Another really obvious one with Tharis is immigrant city on turn one in a big game. But i think the one I have played that really got me crazy power was Earth Catapult with Vitor. Essentially a 5 point discount on all scoring cards straight up.

[@bradjohnston8825]

@@3MBG I never thought of that, I guess I have always underestimated Vitor.

[@SneakyStallion09]

@@3MBG Totally agree since I have experienced and played all three mentioned. Only other one off the top of my head that I have played before and played against in 1v1 was Ecoline with Protected Habitats/Artic Algae Gen1 followed by Aquifer Pumping Gen2 (one time it was Gen1 with Donation prelude). Ocean walk the middle for 4 plants an ocean and rush Gardener on base map.

[@3MBG]

Protected Habitats is an MVP card at our table. As everyone loves burning down peoples crops

[@OverlordZephyros]

uh , now it makes sense why I been winning with those in high tier

[@iantaylor2331]

I like your tier list. One house rule I play with to make Venus feasible in the full expansion version of the game is to increase Venus two steps every generation and to decrease the Venus standard project cost to 14 credits. This results in more Venus play. Otherwise Venus is not worth it

[@3MBG]

I could see that working. Although i almost feel like just 1 space a gen is enough. The SP cost reduction is good too.

[@iantaylor2331]

Hey. That’s possibly a better idea. I found one increase a generation still insufficient to make Venus worth it. However, I strongly think the publisher should consider incorporating some version of my house rule into the future prints. Also; should remove world variant in full expansion suite

[@yuga7397]

I think the term "ranking" was officially replaced by "tier listing" :v

[@naplockblubba5369]

Yeah, it made finding this video pretty hard lol

[@3MBG]

Can you explain this Naplock?

[@naplockblubba5369]

@@3MBG I saw someone watching this and I looked up "Terraforming Mars Tier List" which gave me a bunch of results for a different channel, then I searched "3 minute Board Games tier list", which also didn't show this video, and then I just searched up "3 minute board games terraforming mars" and it finally appeared.

[@3MBG]

Cheers, ill fix the search tags and title.

[@lordbebech]

Haha, my buddy fanatic of TfM said a few days back that UNMI is OP....well, played with it and loosed totally xD I got hard into science tag and earth tags but game finished too quickly with 5 players and I left with my big dreams and big cards on hand ;)

[@3MBG]

I occasionally come across UNMI is op folk, and all i can think is they play the game very differently to us

[@stevegeorge7773]

I suddenly realised you forgot one corporation. That being the basic one which provides all your beginning cards for free. With drafting it is super super powerful. You don't have to pay the resources to keep one's starting hand.

[@3MBG]

No one should be playing with it after their first game though as its broken :)

[@stevegeorge7773]

@@3MBG Broken? I think it does say in the rules you can mix it into the expansion corporations.

[@3MBG]

Yeah, its a super strong corporation, on purpose so new players have an edge. You might want to keep it in, but we definitely keep it out.

[@3MBG]

Its probably not as bad with prelude, when i think about it. But without prelude, it is super duper powerful

[@stevegeorge7773]

@@3MBG The start is all it has. It has no tags. It also gets with the advanced rules NO added 1 income bump. Basically what you set up in the first turn is what you get. Sure it is very powerful but it does have disadvantages. Peeps always forget the tags on corporations as a benefit. I have only now played with Prelude and yet to play with colonist and won't be getting the turmoil expansion as I know people with it and they think it is very 'meh' as an expansion. The only reason they got it was because of the binged boards which you can get on the BGG store now.

[@matthewparker6456]

I think you misunderstand Factorum. They don't need to have zero energy production to use their ability and raise their energy production, they need zero energy resources. So, as long as they are using all of their energy, no matter how much they produce, they can use that ability. So anything that uses energy resources (like trading, martian rails, etc.) is really nice for Factorum. Particularly nice are the couple cards that allow you to us X amount of energy to get X amount of whatever. These cards allow you to always have zero energy resources left and use your energy production ability every generation.

[@3MBG]

Correct, Fryx pointed this out to me just after the vid came out.

[@MRBVQFTU]

No way Tharsis is not above Thorgate. Thorgate IMO is a low tier corp with a weak ability (even when playing with colonies). Getting to 3 energy production is not that difficult. And it is unusual to play more than 10 cards with energy tag in one game. Also disagree with Arklight and recyclon as well. Very niche and inflexibile corps.

[@3MBG]

For arklight, i recommend following my suggestion with them and giving them a second look. You can essentially play them like Cheung but use the animals as gravy for bonus points. Tharsis benefits a lot from early city play, early city play in not really an efficient play for your opponents, and its not really that great for Tharsis either. Thorgate can ALWAYS get its trade fleets going on turn 2 cheaply, and to me, that is important, Colonies are massive.

[@webkilla]

No Turmoil? oh come on

[@3MBG]

Turmoil is bloat man. utter bloat.

[@3MBG]

I don't think ill ever play with it again. Just adds a mini game that becomes far too important, and 40 minutes play time. To me, its a bad expansion.

[@webkilla]

@@3MBG oh but I love it - especially for 1v1 games (I play those a lot with my fiance)

[@3MBG]

Ah, we only play TM 3-5 player, normally 4 or 5

[@lingyeung1007]

Turmoil is easily my 2nd fav behind prelude. I’d say the cards themselves area bit underwhelming but the ruling bonus and chairman role creates a bit of intrigue within games and i personally think the policy tile adds a lot of in game depth that Colonies couldnt quite match after a while. I liken Colonies to being a buffet but turmoil is kind of like enjoying a delicacy.

[@jud6ment]

46:00 on average, each prelude is worth about 21 money, because if you tier list prelude cards the one that gives you straight up 21 money is a B tier. Some are better than getting 21 money and some are worse. I think you are greatly under valuing Valley Trust and it is probably because you and your buddies don't seem to play science if you are playing fast. It would be C tier if you had no plans to use science much.

[@mingluo1513]

Credico should never be in S tier.

[@3MBG]

You're kidding right? Credicor won both the polls i ran, on twitter and you tube, by a mile. I don't think I've ever encountered someone who doesn't think they are one of the stronger corporations

[@mingluo1513]

@@3MBG Do you mean basic game or adding all expansions except turmoil?

[@3MBG]

I think in any iteration, core game, any mix of expansions, solo or multiplayer, Credicor would be S or A tier at worst

[@mingluo1513]

@@3MBG Those who think Credicor is S level may only play basic game. By adding Venus, colony and Promo expansions, there are so many cards to draw cards, especially Pluto and Miranda. Then the quality of cards promoted a lot. Then the focus of game is much bias to playing cards instead of placing tiles with standard projects. So Credicor is weakened. There are at least 8 other companies more powerful than it: Manutech, Point Luna, Vitor, Poseidon, Aridor, Astrodrill, Viron, Valley Trust.

[@mingluo1513]

@@3MBG It’s at most A if all expansions except Turmoil added.

[@3MBG]

Wow, when i get talking on a game i've played a lot its hard for me to shut up. Anyway, what corps did i rate too highly, which ones did I under rate. And if you want to try the ranking engine i used, its here tiermaker.com/create/terraforming-mars-corporations-249481

[@3MBG]

If you want to buy the games, go here: www.miniaturemarket.com/searchresults?q=terraforming+mars

[@macdam11]

Nice video! Will you do Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition as well?

[@3MBG]

@@macdam11 I'll be doing a 3 minute recap of that one not long after it arrives here finally in NZ. tier list? Only if i play it like 50 times :)

[@macdam11]

@@3MBG Ah sorry mate, I had my copy for 1,5 months or so, I didnt consider that delivery to New Zealand takes significantly longer; Really looking foward to your review of it :)

[@pascal30161]

@@3MBG don't think it's deep enough for you to want that many plays or need them to evaluate the corps correctly. It's just TFM + Race for the Galaxy, but simpler. Good game, but not very deep.