Terraforming Mars Solo Play

[@randomfleming]

Eric, I've never watched your channel before but I learned a lot from watching. Thanks for making this solo-play video.

[@Fighterfan69]

Thanks for the solo run-through. I'm actually liking that randomness of the deck. One thing I find lacking in many solo games is the possibility of losing. Many games offer variants of 'Beat your high score'. I find it more engaging if I'm playing to actually win while trying to beat your own score. That make this game more interesting to me. Though I don't have this game, It's definitely on my wish-list.

[@nerdevideos3721]

+Fighterfan69 it is indeed hard to win and of course I love it or I wouldn't have played it so many times.

[@gamerhoagy5998]

Just to let you know that people still watch this, including me. UNMI is probably one of the hardest Corps to win with, and the cards you got weren't brilliant. Saying that, there are a few things I would have done differently. I wouldn't have dumped those 'later game cards so readily, especially Lake Marineris, Permafrost Extraction etc., saving on having to pay so much for Standard Projects. Also, when you got GHG Producing Bacteria on turn 13 I would have kept it. With the Extreme-Cold Fungus that you already had out you could have used that to get two heat bumps for just 11 Megacredits. You would have probably still lost (maybe) but would be a lot closer to winning than you were in this game. Very entertaining to watch. Thank you.

[@grandecunha2045]

Hello, this a great video with great pacing. Thanks

[@FryxNummer14]

Don't forget that you actually choose corporation at the same time as the 10 cards. This is important, as it allows you to create a better synergy between your corporation and your starting cards.

[@EricWEdens]

Yes I wanted to try a corporation I hadn't tried before and when I drew my corporations at the beginning the other one was one I used in my last play. So I just went ahead and picked the other. But thank you for the correction.

[@dark_dar]

Nice videos, I enjoyed them, even though small errors made me cringe several times) I've watched 3 of your videos so far and this is a shared comment for all of them: I hope you've already learned this, but maybe those tips will help less experienced TM gamers watching your videos: a) your final plant production after round 14 can't help you with oxygen levels any more. You must max out all 3 parameters before the end of round 14, so that this last plant production is for extra points only. b) Seeing how much you were forgetting to produce something, here's a tip: always start with the same resource production and follow the same order. For example, move energy to heat, then produce money-> steel-> titan-> plants-> energy-> heat. You get really excited to start your turn faster after seeing new cards or coming up with a plan so often, that you miss a lot of production. Which you (mostly) correct afterwards, but still - it makes it harder to follow for less experienced TM players. c) when increasing one of the global parameters increase your TM rating right after. You've lost some credits because of this several times. d) don't be too eager to drop cards for 1 credit if you don't need this credit right now. Cards in your hand don't cost you anything to keep them)

[@jasonty2307]

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[@scottvincent4117]

@Jason Ty Instablaster :)

[@jasonty2307]

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[@jasonty2307]

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[@scottvincent4117]

@Jason Ty No problem :D

[@ariodb]

I think the solo play is nearly impossibile. A chance is to use a sort of "draft mode". In the normal play draft is considered just a variant, but for me and millions of people draft is essential! Cards are essential and a better choise of cards is the difference between win and lose. So I played the solo mode with the draft. Just draw 8 cards every research phase (like the 2 players game) and chose at most between 4 of those. That way solo play is more effordable.

[@dddmmm21]

One way to accomplish that would be to draw more than 4 cards per round, perhaps 6, 8 or even more... But limit of course the number of you can buy to 4.

[@Zastrozzi0]

You cheat on the second turn by placing mining area not adjacent to your tile...

[@sentinelmoonfang]

Fun video. I had actually just played a solo game myself and thought it might be fun to watch a solo video and see if the player beat my score. I do disagree with a number of plays. I think dropping Strip Mine was a big mistake. You had a bunch of steel and oxygen is one of the most expensive resources in solo... Placing greenery is much more worth the price in a solo game where it's effectively 2VP, but in solo, 23 space-bucks is a hard pill to swallow. I also feel like the city cards are almost never worth it in a solo game. I'd rather spend the money raising global parameters to bump my income that way... plus you generally lose out on energy, and by extension, heat (Which is nearly a 2:1 versus credits for raising temperature.) Also I can see why you thought it might be clever to maximize your corporation's ability by waiting a turn to raise the heat, but because the next step up gave a heat production, it was essentially leaving a free heat on the table. I also disagree with dropping Algae and a few others. I generally like to place oceans early, as Aquifer is a cheap action, especially when you have a card to refund 3 off the price. Moreover, you'll get tons of greenery across the water hexes and cash back for placing adjacent to the oceans.

[@christianwendt7852]

Why are you able to place the Mining Area not adjacent to another of your tiles, even though it says it has to be placed in such a way?

[@nerdevideos3721]

+Christian Wendt that would be because I cheated of course. Sorry about that.

[@christianwendt7852]

:D Thanks for the quick response! I'm using your solos to figure out whether to buy it. Looks very promising so far!

[@timiddrake]

"I'm gonna place it... probably way down here." :D

[@JB-ym4up]

NerdEVideos lol, great reply, just own it.

[@BrianD0313]

I think what they should have done was designate cards specific for Solo Runs (Which would omit many of those useless cards) thus giving you a better card pool. I don't get why you start at 14 TP. In a 3 player game, I think we managed to finish around Generation 10 and that was with an additional 6 money for yourself plus two others helping out. I wonder how many times they play tested the solo run.

[@MickRissling]

You should have been taking 2 MC when placing next to ocean tiles.

[@lexgotham]

That's all I needed to make my mind up about the solo aspect of this game, thanks! Two questions though: 1) Won't the cities be more or less valuable in a solo play according to the chosen corporation or are they definitely useless? 2) You say there are too many cards and some are useless, can't you get rid of certain cards that aren't valuable for the solo game to have a more balanced amount of cards in your deck?

[@nerdevideos3721]

+lexgotham 1) they may be worth victory points but they will never help to bump the three global parameters which are how you win the solo game 2)in the spirit of the game you can either play with or without the corporate era cards but to remove cards altogether from the game would not be playing by the rules in the book.

[@nagycsapat931]

It doesnt have to be adejtent to anything I have... Bruh. O think you thought about the same card that doesnt have that requirement cost 5 more

[@danielmdubois]

First turn you make a Development Center, which you can't use the turn it is played, because your energy production doesn't actually provide any until next turn. There's no reason to play a blue card on a turn where it gets no benefit. You could have either (A) played Corporate Stronghold that turn, eating the energy production you made to boost your Mcredit production by 3, or (B) sat on your money in case your Research phase gave you something even better to do with that 11 Mcredits.

[@benabaxter]

Isn't discarding a card (selling patents) a standard action? If so, don't you get extra cash every time from your Standard Technology card?

[@nerdevideos3721]

+The Ubiquitous I believe it states on the card that the selling patents is excluded from the bonus.

[@benabaxter]

Ah, I see that now. Thanks!

[@forensicsman320]

Why are your starting resources all at 0? The book says they start on 1

[@EricWEdens]

In the solo variant with corporate era cards you do not begin with the starting resources. It makes it a much more strategic start.

[@dennox1]

I thought you started on 1 on resources on solo🤷‍♂️ and I thought you start on 14 and move the generation marker down. Plus TR starts on 14.

[@anomiclife242]

You need to remove all the extra corporate cards from the draw deck for solo variant.

[@karldoughty7996]

For solo play you include all the Corporate Era cards in the deck

[@mattparker7932]

At 28:11, you used a gold cube to pay 4 credits and only gave yourself 4 back as change. Ironically, what distracted you, aside from filming and narrating a video, was talking about streamlining your math. Ha.

[@nicholasiannone6719]

Is there a reason you're not keeping cards like capital which can net a lot of money when you sell them as patents? It only costs you 3 and then you can sell them for a net profit. Am I missing something? I see nothing in the solo rules about not selling patents.

[@nicholasiannone6719]

Jeez I just looked at the rules and man you're right you can only get a dollar for each card, dang we've been playing it hella wrong.