Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition | Rahdo's Prototype Thoughts

[@ratatat-tat6160]

Love that you raised funds for indigenous women who are affected by violence. Their voices are so very silent in public discourse, and you're shedding light on it which is so important. Thank you. This is the true definition of being "woke".

[@ZombieBraintrust]

Sounds like for a 2 player game they could add a solar phase dice/deck. You would role the dice every few rounds based on the player count. It would raise one of the tracks. Maybe also include an action card representing another player.

[@demuxer]

maybe would work by rolling a D4

[@JamesD2957]

"Art is not quite there" that's a really nice way of saying "it uses Getty images...come on" lol

[@artemlarionov7084]

And this is VERY thematic in TM because people use a lot of stock images in presentations of projects. New artist's pictures in this game are less thematic even if it's more beautiful.

[@borreholic]

Terraforming Mars: Jaws of the He-Lion

[@Rod2608ful]

Race for Mars: Jobs we rely on

[@DarkAgent80]

Thank you for this final thoughts. It’s spot on. We played two player and a normal game took over 2 hours. We’re gonna try the 2 player co-op version. We didn’t enjoy the game length of a normal 2 player game.

[@MrVurtan]

Using the Solo deck in a 2-Player game sounds like a good solution. (Wrote this at 09:15: "In some way it reminds me for the 2-player solution in RftG where you roll an extra die to determine an additional phase which is activated", right before you mentioned it :-) ) Great runthrough as always Rahdo! Will definetly check it out.

[@Olvenskol]

I suspect you're right about having a dummy third player adding a nice feel and trimming the overall time.

[@rahdo]

i asked the one of the designers after i filmed and they said it should work totally fine (just like the neutral die in roll for the galaxy)

[@RuNacken]

I agree, it would take care of a bunch of issues like slow turns, etc.

[@Nain1982]

@@rahdo after finally playing it, i def would agree that at 2p adding that dummy player would speed up more the game. It still felt too long at 2.

[@chrismcpherson666]

I've never understood people saying the original TM was a conflict heavy game. There was so few of those cards and they barely hurt you at all. My wife and I are also very care beary gamers but we never felt TM was mean. I also want to mention how much we enjoy Cartographers which you also wrote off due to the Monster cards that come out. It is so minor and just becomes an obstacle to overcome rather than some crushing event that can ruin someones game. Also, if you want to play it safe, you can just activate the Monster cards using the solo rules so as not to feel like you chose how and where to attack. I vote you give it a try. It is my first game that I'm going to hit 200 plays, hehe. I still love all your content, even if you don't like two of my top five!

[@DrNo007]

THIS. There are 3 cards. 3(!) that annoyed me because they made an early attack too easy. I just took them out of my copy.

[@sventheultimate]

Yeah I also think Rahdo had a bad first impression of the game with a few cards, and then refused to really try ever again. You can easily not use the negative effects, and those cards still stay strong to use.

[@Therisktaker3]

For cartographers for the monsters we just place them in the location of our choice instead of another player choosing. It is the one part of the game that felt off since the rest of the game was essentially solitaire and nothing irritates me more in a game then when my master plan is ruined by one move especially one that I didn’t make.

[@andersm1977]

Love the (starts 3:21) "That's a nice little colony you built there. Would be a shame if anything happened to it. Here is an asteroid. Boom!" :-))

[@seth2925]

Just picked this up and played a solo game and - WOW!! TM and RftG are two of my favorite games, and I agree that the blend of the two works SO well. Was also wondering if you and Jen have had the chance to try the "third dummy player" in a 2p game yet.

[@rahdo]

nope, i had to send my prototype on after i filmed the runthrough. would def like to give it a go someday

[@galadan88]

Looks interesting and certainly does address a lot of the issues I have with the original game, but with shipping and exchange rate (to Canada) it looks like a pass for me. I’ll look at the retail release though.

[@twinkle04evr]

I got it around CA $36 + tax

[@johnpanagos5835]

I would love this art in the original game

[@thecuriousboardgamer]

This looks fantastic. My only concern is it'll make Terraforming Mars almost obsolete as this is so much more accessible that it'll be a lot easier to get to the table with my group!

[@VDstn]

I don't really think that it's longer with fewer players. Think of it this way: you need to develop corporations with cards worth of value/capabilities in heat/plants/etc so you can complete all the goals. The longer you play, the better your corporation gets, the cheaper it is to achieve goals, build new cards, etc... So if you have 4 players with weaker corporations in comparison to 2 players with strong corporations, I think that 2 players would go faster time-wise. However, each player needs to actually "play" the game more within a single session cause you only wait for one other player instead of three other players, before you can go again. But if you like the game a lot, isn't that what you're looking for then? Roughly, in my experience, plays went like this: 2p: ~90 mins, which is ~45 mins per player, you end with an amazingly rich and powerful corporation towards the end 4p: ~120 mins, which is ~30 mins per player, you end with a decent corporation that you want to develop just a bit more before the game is over but it just ends What actually bothers me about TM is a luck of the draw. That doesn't happen often but sometimes the cards you get either don't work with your corporation or you don't get enough of the money-generating cards. And if someone else is lucky to get good cards at a right time, you just can't win, they have it all. Again, this doesn't happen that often but that's a reason why I cool down on TM quite a bit. However, we don't do a draft in this game because of the?... reasons? :P Anyway, thanks a lot for the run-through! Take care :-)

[@sventheultimate]

I also thought it was a silly remark, that a 2 player game would be 2 times as long as a 4 player game. True you have to terraform mars completely, but you also have much better income in the later stages of the game. And you don't wait for the 3rd and 4th player. However we never had a game shorter than 3-4 hours at 2p, even though we raise the tracks as quick as possible. We might be a bit AP heavy at the later stages.

[@Koutentogiwrghs]

If you would track points in secret or do not care about what your opponent does I could see that happening. But in my 2P games the endgame of TM is characterized by two mega-corporations stalling out on the actual terraforming in order to gather more vp than their opponent, resulting to at least half an hour endgame, where each of the players could finish the game in a single generation if he/she wanted to but don't. The game is faster if one of the players has completely messed up, so he/she had lost from midgame (TM is a game that we allow to end by the opponent conceding) or a player has not managed to build a terraform-free vp engine. I guess this an effect of the zero-sum character of a 2P game and it is not the case for a 3-4P.

[@VDstn]

Yeah, I guess all people who played TM with 2p enough times, have been there when you have everything to end the game but you don't. We did that a few times too, terraforming the heck out of that planet. One would even say that "Running out of the cubes of your own color is TIGHT!" :D We found that it's just not worth doing really. Usually, you can't change the relative score of the players in the end THAT drastically because 1. both can afford anything they want; 2. you still are never sure how many points the other player has on cards and in form of microbes/animals/etc to actually end the game at the right time to win. Unless you actually count those points in yours and opponents' cards after each generation. But again, if you do so, the other player who's winning a.t.m. can end it easily and not giving you a chance to drag. That prolonged ending was basically just for fun for us. Lately we opt for a good 1.5 hour game rather than 2h with questionably epic ending :P

[@Koutentogiwrghs]

@@VDstn I agree to an extent that in you can intentionally ignore the best strategy of hoarding all the blue cards. But speaking about myself, I feel bad when I intentionally play moves that I can see not being optimal just for the sake of letting the game progress. Feeling bad is the opposite of the goal of playing games. Maybe, one could collect and play-test the myriad of 2P variants on BGG, to find out which balances the game for a 2P game while it make it last no longer than 1.5 hours? However, that seems to be a huge effort.

[@Noonycurt]

The original Terraforming Mars is my favorite game of all time. I exclusively play with my wife and we just ignore all the effects that remove something from the other player.

[@dafnemesis]

That is great, the changed three things i didnt like: art, take that element, and time.

[@BoardGameGran]

Glad you liked it. It looks great. Waiting on the retail edition here in Oz. Love that it's less mean! Thanks Richard!

[@fayVR]

Hello! We just finished our first game (2p) and although we loved it, we were hoping for a shorter game, easier to get on the table. As a fan of Roll for the Galaxy, I really liked your idea of a third "dummy" deck! Can you explain us how exactly to use this deck? Thanks in advance and congrats for another great video !

[@rahdo]

well it's what i demonstrated in the video. there's another deck of actions cards which is shuffled up and an action card is drawn from it every round to emulate another player picking actions :)

[@fayVR]

@@rahdo Thank you for the quick answer and I have another one: when I draw a new card from the dummy deck should I shuffle the last card I drew, back to the deck as players do? Or I keep drawing until the deck finishes and then I shuffle ? Thanks again ☺️

[@rahdo]

@@fayVR all of the rules are in the rulebook for it, pg 19: tesera.ru/images/items/1839136/TM_AE_Rules_Beta.pdf :)

[@yoonkl8101]

Love your commentary. I'd argue that BBG ranking isn't on the best game, but the most popular & well received.

[@rahdo]

i agree 100% and i'll admit i was being a bit hyperbolic for fun with my goat proclamation :)

[@JJ_TheGreat]

BBG? What’s that? I know what BGG is, but have never heard of BBG.

[@paperythinideas]

This has really got me wanting to play TM again 😊

[@diceborngames]

I appreciate your T-shirt. Another great review!

[@Nain1982]

that art is such a great improvement!

[@G0F15H]

While I agree that it's an improvement it still isn't great IMO. The layout is the main thing that has changed. They're still using random media (although less obvious between drawings and photos), but if you look close each unquie image blends into a fixed background layer to give the illusion of full-card art. That's lazy artwork for an IP of this caliber. Maaaaybe things will change come fulfillment, but these days KS is basically a pre-order system; the final game is pretty much complete and very little differs from the KS preview / demo copies

[@atonaltensor]

Race for the Galaxy or this one? If you could play either one once a week for a whole year, which one would you pick?

[@rahdo]

_probably_ this one, _if_ my 2p variant i suggested works (and i suspect it will)

[@atonaltensor]

@@rahdo high praise! I’m hoping this one has multiple paths to victory that each FEEL distinct (like RftG). I’ve become tired of engine building games that are just a soup of escalating numbers that feel the same each time you play.

[@stephenfarrell8587]

3.36 "...all gone", magic words!.

[@Southfloridelphia]

Rahdo did you ever read the rules for Empires of the Void 2? This review made me think of that game and how you might actually like it. You do have combat with other players but you don't even lose your troops in combat. I believe it is something like the winner gets a point and the loser has to move their forces to an adjacent space. I think it might also have something to do with influence on a planet but I can't remember. At any rate, given how much you like Ryan Lauket games it might be worth checking out.

[@marksmallpage9149]

I agree, Rahdo, I think Empires of the Void 2 would be a good game for you and Jen - and it scales down with the Regency owning certain planets.

[@rahdo]

i guess i should take a look!

[@tompaulussen7798]

@Richard: why did Stronghold games remove your video on their Kickstarter campaign page?

[@TeunHam]

Not sure what you are talking about...I can still see the link to Rahdo's playthrough on the Kickstarter page...

[@tompaulussen7798]

@@TeunHam ok strange, it was gone for a while. Some other people also noticed in the comment section.

[@rahdo]

they were just changing the link from the individual videos to the playlist of videos, so was gone for a sec :)

[@connorhalo]

Thanks for your shirt. It's greatly appreciated.

[@rb4551]

I like the art i like the gameplay i see but im starting to despise Stronghold enough to want to stop supporting them completely. They are jacking their prices to insane levels, using fomo against their fans and seem to have no shame. From the ludicrous shipping rates to stuff like $25 for 20 promo cards to selling etsy like addons at same or higher price than etsy despite mass production savings...it does not sit well with me. Its basically the CMON approach except Cmon gives tons of stuff for the price you pay while stronghold is clearly aiming to give as little as possible for as much as possible. Good news is they are cutting out scalpers by pretty much doing that for them lol

[@kendobc]

Isn't CMON having cash flow issues? Maybe Stronghold is actually trying to be a viable company and not live by using the next big kickstarters money to pay for the previous kickstarters? I have given up on CMON with the way it uses kickstarter and the extra, extra, extra, extra add-ons as the campaign goes on. And shipping costs? CMON is insane for those not in the US.

[@rb4551]

@@kendobc The shipping costs of Stronghold are pretty bad too especially considering how much smaller and lighter their games are. No way in hell they arent jacking up shipping for extra profit which is pretty unethical.

[@kendobc]

The shipping costs to Japan are pretty reasonable for this kickstarter...I was surprised. No problem with it at all.

[@demuxer]

Î totally agree with Kendobc, CMON is using Kickstarter in the wrong way

[@Oaklestat]

Thanks for making me buy another game 😀 Roll for the galaxy, in a 2 player game,, adds that "third player" dice to open another phase and it works great.

[@nigelgraves174]

Thanks for sharing! Just out of interest, how long (roughly) did you find a 2P game takes?

[@rahdo]

our first game was close to 2 hours, our 2nd was maybe 75 min?

[@Koutentogiwrghs]

@@rahdo Oh that's still 3-4 times the playtime of a single round of Race for the galaxy. Are the 75 minutes with or without the dummy player?

[@rahdo]

@@Koutentogiwrghs that's without. bear in mind, a game of RftG for us will probably be 40-50 minutes, if that gives you a better sense of our play speed (which is SLOW!) :)

[@Therisktaker3]

Oh wow that is crazy my wife and I play normal TM in a little over an hour, Roll for the galaxy in about 15, and race faster than that. The box itself says 30-45 minutes. Depending on how slow it progressed for us I would either or both add the dummy action like roll allow for double actions like race and or advance the track every so often like the TM variant or set a turn limit like the solo rules. Thanks.

[@isaacthimbleby8926]

Surprised you didn’t mention the cooperative mode mentioned on the Kickstarter! Not that we know much about it yet.

[@rahdo]

i wanted to give it a go, but i had to send the prototype on to the next reviewer. i think one-stop co-op shop is doing a co-op video though. it's mostly the exact same game, but we're working together to hit a gropu points threshhold, and we have the option to trade cards back and forth in addition to the normal functionality.

[@isaacthimbleby8926]

Oh! Glad I asked! - that sounds good. I was expecting it to just be the solo mode as a group. But that sounds like they’ve done more work than just relabelling solo mode.

[@davidhogarth2161]

Just got my KS pledge, roll on the weekend. Re the 2 player and longer game - I haven’t heard this mentioned and haven’t tried, since I always play TM at x3 - how about simply advancing temp and O2 by 2 points for each step? Keep oceans the same. Could be worth a try?

[@rahdo]

wow, that's a really interesting idea!

[@davidhogarth2161]

@@rahdo I’d be interested to hear thoughts if you try it. Cheers

[@normstewart546]

The original TM really doesn't have may take-that cards, and they are relatively minor. You could skip the Corporate Era cards, and there'd be very few.

[@hendrikrasmus]

I find that TM escalates so hard that less players adds only a few generations, but I haven't gone below 3 personally and have been in games where it drags on due to no one bothering to advance some track.

[@Therisktaker3]

I only played TM with 2 players and there were 2 things that were done to speed the game along. 1. Get the prelude expansion 2. The start player advances one of the tracks. This seemed to both force the game to move along and also gave an additional bit of strategy since that card you were waiting to play based on track advancement could be borked if you waited too long.

[@Astomps]

the dice idea is genius

[@Kaikaku]

Maybe it's because I'm a big fan of Terraforming Mars (and Roll for the Galaxy), but I have to disagree on this one. I can't see how the guessing of other players' card choices fits into the game. For this highly strategic game this is far too much of a random component (We didn't terraform mars, 'cause we chose the same card...). I also don't see enough playtime reduction to chose this one over the original. Reducing some of the fun production part, while adding a card resource for a change, keeping all the necessary material... Why? (Btw. one of the expansions added the better player fields to the original.) Sorry, but this looks to me like they're trying to squeeze more money out of an ingenious game. Nevertheless, thank you for this video, it helped me making my decisson. Oh, about those asteriod cards in the original. Just take them out of the deck, for a none-card game, Terraforming Mars has quite a lot of them ;)

[@rahdo]

the original designer has stated on boardgamegeek that leaving those take-that cards in is important for the balance of the game, so i just said "oh, okay" and moved on to the next game. but now i'm back! :)

[@Therisktaker3]

I am no designer, but in my experience he is wrong. The game plays perfectly well without them. For instance you may never play those cards even if they were in the original game so would that mean I am playing an imbalanced game. I have won and lost the game without them and I never felt I needed a catch up mechanic to do so. To me the biggest issue with TM was the length of time. The variant of advancing the track, to me, made the game much more enjoyable. Thanks again.

[@Kaikaku]

@@Therisktaker3 Well, while I've no problem with taking out those cards, I've to admit that the designer's remark is still valid. Those cards missing, change the game balance and make it easier to terrafrom mars. So...

[@dall1786]

TM only goes on for a long time if you choose to make the game drag on. I can see that for newer players but once you understand the game it's not a long game at all.

[@JJ_TheGreat]

That’s what I have heard. And I imagine that deciding to draft all the cards out is what REALLY makes it so much longer! (That is what happened the one time I had played it...)

[@heavysighs]

I love your shirt!

[@twinkle04evr]

If I never try Terraforming Mars, should I get this or the original? I don't really care for Roll for the Galaxy though.

[@rahdo]

i woul say the main way to choose between TM and TM:AE is whether you want shorter or longer gameplay (AE is less than half the length)

[@twinkle04evr]

I ordered it last week, thanks!

[@MerrillWhiteKalEl]

Why did they pull your video off the Kickstarter page?

[@rahdo]

oh, i have no idea. i have to admit i tend not to follow once i've got my video up and signed off :)

[@MightyWolve]

@@rahdo maybe you werent positive enough?

[@rahdo]

turns out they were simply changing the way they were linked (rather than having the two individual videos, they took it down and readded a link to the playlist of the two videos)

[@JJ_TheGreat]

8:19 So why not let the game begin at a higher temperature & oxygen level, in order to simulate that you do not have as far to go in the game?

[@rahdo]

because some cards can only be played when youre at lower temp/oxy levels...

[@peterdavids1206]

@@rahdo You can indeed just take d5 die and roll it to select a third phase. Same way Roll for the Galaxy does it at 2 players

[@tomlikeabomb6706]

roll for the galaxy or this? roll for the galaxy + expansions or this?

[@rahdo]

for us roll, but it's in my top20 of all time, so tough to beat

[@tomlikeabomb6706]

@@rahdo okay, thanks rahdo!

[@marcusjurado7226]

THAT SHIRT...WHERE DID YOU GET IT?!! I MUST FIND ONE FOR MYSELF.

[@rahdo]

smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GMGTPD6 :)

[@marcusjurado7226]

@@rahdo thank you so much...just ordered!!!!

[@peterkarlsson1825]

TM Ares Expedition not TM Ares Expansion

[@charleshill5931]

Yeah, here’s an asteroid, BOOM! 😂😂

[@StevenStJohn-kj9eb]

You sometimes have a great idea. The solo deck in a 2p game sounds like an example.

[@jmbootz]

Hey, you've gotten a copy of Walnut Grove again!

[@rahdo]

yes, a fan of the show found a copy locally and picked it up and sent it to me, and it made me very happy indeed! :)

[@JJ_TheGreat]

@@rahdo Wait... again? I thought you had Walnut Grove the entire time!?

[@IDKman555]

Terraforming Mars is #4, huh. I can see why people like it but 4?

[@techguyml]

I don’t get it. Cheap components, terrible art, flimsy board. There are better euros and engine building games.

[@veerchasm1]

I’m a card game playing a card game acting like a card game…

[@amayer349]

The slooooowwwww start Is the one thing I can’t stand as well.

[@davidmedina3063]

I'll miss being mean :|

[@foyoGames]

No take that cards? Just extract all the fun outta the game, why don't ya.

[@rahdo]

yup, like i mentioned in the final thoughts, not everyone's going to be happy with the loss of crashing meteors on each other. but i would bet we can expect expansion content for the game that will add it back in the future :)

[@foyoGames]

@@rahdo oh yeah, there ya go ...gotta save something to fill up those expansion boxes.

[@hatchimmmmm]

I don't think TM it's better than ON MARS, TM is overrated. But i respect that, I don't buy and play games because of the rate 😏

[@yoonkl8101]

You're comparing two completely different games.. I'm not a huge fan of TM but I consider Lacerda one of the most overrated designers out there.. but each to their own.

[@hatchimmmmm]

@@yoonkl8101 Lacerda overrated? now thats a overrated comment :D

[@Vypper7]

@@hatchimmmmm lacerda being overrated is actually an underrated comment :) I like his games but a lot of times his games have fiddly-ness for its own sake. I think the great Ian O’toole art and EGG productions value drive up a lot of the ratings . Great games are elegant and have a sense of escalation / empowerment, with his games a lot of times I feel like I’m having too many boring turns trying to set up a good turn.

[@ServiceDogPuppyRaiser]

We LOVE the original game...but we hate being mean, so we totally ignore any mean actions as well as negative points on cards. Love it so much better that way!!! And it does feel like a totally different game at 2 players than at 3. We LOVE 2 player TM best 😊

[@m0nokel]

That feels .... wrong. But hey, if it works for you ;)

[@TheNathanlockhart]

This card game looks an awful lot like a board game. If I wanted to drag out that much stuff, I'd just play the original game.

[@rahdo]

the nearly full TM experience in half the playtime time, plus significantly more interaction (in a positive way instead of negative) makes this the big winner for us :)

[@TheNathanlockhart]

@@rahdo All fair enough. I personally don't mind the negative interaction in the original because it is what makes some of the TM corps balanced (tharsis for example only works because players can work against them). But I suppose I just look for a card game to have less setup and bits than this version has, and I'm comparing it to what I consider "card games" rather than comparing it to the original. Just different perspectives I suppose.