Thread: Terraforming Mars:: General:: What to expect?

by AC86

Hello everyone,

So since we got into board games around 3 years ago Terraforming Mars comes up again and again basically everywhere. It's like a staple "you must have played..." element of conversation around games banter. In a lot of reviews or other games its frequent to hear "so if you compare it to Terraforming Mars..."

So after many many games of Ticket To Ride Europe and Azul a friend got us Brass Birmingham and that was our gateway into "heavy" games, we enjoy it so we got things like Arnak, Mosaic, Pandemic Legacy 1 - more "complicated" games.

Anyway I am rambling, I just bagged a second hand copy of TM with the Prelude included and something called Hellas and Elysium which I think is just a double sided board for £46.

We hate Ark Nova and Wingspan because they are just multiplayer solitaire, what put me off buying TM sooner was thus and now I am concerned I have wasted my money. So why is this post here? I guess I would like to see some opinions and discussion around...

1) Does this game have much player interaction? I know there are cards with red border resource icons so you can reduce opponents on-hand or production but that seems rather nasty, is this the only player interaction? Does the tile placement really make it feel interactive with others?

2) Is it balanced? In Wingspan there are around 5 cards that if you get early they basically just win the game for you, Does that apply here? Or is the deck fairly balanced? (If there are overpowered cards please do not list the names as I dont want to get biased or have an advantage before our first play).

3) Should we use Prelude on our first game, as if it was always part of the main game, or add it on later playthroughs?

4) What are the easiest rules to get wrong by accident? We hate finding out we have played incorrectly so if anyone could point out the most common/easiest mistakes to make that would be great.

Cheers,
Andy