Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
BGG Rank: 186
Players: 1 - 4, Recommended: 4+, Best: 4+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Weight (Complexity): 2.92 / 5
Mechanisms: End Game Bonuses, Follow, Hand Management, Income, Market, Multi-Use Cards, Set Collection, Simultaneous Action Selection, Solo / Solitaire Game, Tags, Tech Trees / Tech Tracks, Tile Placement, Track Movement, Variable Phase Order, Variable Player Powers, Variable Set-up
Family: Category: Dized Tutorial, Crowdfunding: Kickstarter, Game: Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition, Mechanism: Tableau Building, Misc: Watch It Played How To Videos, Series: Terraforming Mars, Setting: Future Timeline (Fryxgames), Space: Mars, Theme: Science, Versions & Editions: Card Versions of Non-Card Games
Category: Engine-Builder
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is an engine-building game in which players control interplanetary corporations with the goal of making Mars habitable (and profitable). You will do this by investing mega credits (MC) into project cards that will directly or indirectly contribute to the terraforming process. In order to win, you will want to accumulate a high terraform rating (TR) and as many victory points (VP) as you can. Players raise their TR by increasing global parameters: oceans, oxygen, and temperature. TR also determines each corporation's basic income, and, at the end of the game TR counts as VP. Additional VP and production capabilities are awarded for building project cards and other actions taken during the game.
The game is played in rounds, and each round the players will choose one of five phases, which determines which activities will take place during that round. This means every round is different, but can consist of building new project cards, taking general and project-specific actions, producing income and resources (plants and heat), or researching to draw more project cards. Every player will take all the phases selected for the round, and will receive a special bonus during the phase that they selected. To speed up the game, within each phase, players can act simultaneously without waiting for each other!
The game board has tracks for oxygen, temperature, and terraform rating, as well as a place for all of the ocean tiles that will be flipped over the course of the game. The game ends when there is enough oxygen to breath (14%), oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather (9), and the temperature is well above freezing (+8°C). It will then be possible, if not comfortable, to live on the surface of Mars!
The winner is the player with the most VP at the end of the game.
Average Playing Time | 1-2 hours |
---|---|
Best Player Count | 3 Best |
Collection | Kevin |
Difficulty | Standard |
Played | Unplayed |
Recommended Player Count | Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players |
Special Mechanisms | Variable Player Powers |
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Players: 1 - 6, Recommended: 6, Best: 5
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Weight (Complexity): 2.83 / 5
In, Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition: Crisis, players will play as corporations, just as in the original Ares Expedition. You choose phases and play project cards as normal. The difference is players are working together to keep Mars habitable after a natural disaster has landed the planet in crisis. Every round, a new Crisis card will be drawn that will require the players to achieve a certain goal to remove that crisis from play. Each turn that a Crisis card is not completely dealt with, it will lower one or more of the terraforming metrics that keep Mars habitable.
Handle all the crises as they arise. Eventually, a Crisis card will be drawn that allows the players to win the game once they have completed re-terraforming Mars.
Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition: Discovery adds four new mechanics to base Ares Expedition: awards, milestones, upgraded phase cards, and wild tags.
Awards are end of game scoring that are granted to the player with the most of something. Three awards are drawn at the beginning of the game so that players know what they will be rewarded for at the end of the game. The player with the most of that item earns 5VP, second place earns 2VP.
Milestones are VP that are awarded during the game. They are granted to the player to first achieve the milestone. Milestones are worth 3 VP at the end of the game.
Some new project and corporation cards allow players to upgrade their phase cards. Each phase card has two different version that players choose from when they upgrade them. The upgrade gives the player a better bonus when they choose that phase.
Some new project cards have a wild tag. Whenever a player reveals this card either from the deck (due to an effect) or from their hand because they are going to play it, that player chooses what tag they want it to be. Tokens are used to keep track of what tag was chosen for the rest of the game.
Ares Expedition: Foundations contains additional player boards, cubes, and phase cards so that Ares Expedition can be played with up to six players. This expansion also includes two additional game boards. One is a larger score track. The other adds a fourth terraforming metric: infrastructure.
Additionally, there are new project cards that involve the new terraforming metric and a new phase card.
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Players: 1 - 4, Recommended: 4+, Best: 4
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Weight (Complexity): 2.67 / 5
In Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition: Crisis, players will play as corporations, just as in the original Ares Expedition. You choose phases and play project cards as normal. The difference is players are working together to keep Mars habitable after a natural disaster has landed the planet in crisis. Every round, a new Crisis card will be drawn that will require the players to achieve a certain goal to remove that crisis from play. Each turn that a Crisis card is not completely dealt with, it will lower one or more of the terraforming metrics that keep Mars habitable.
Handle all the crises as they arise. Eventually, a Crisis card will be drawn that allows the players to win the game once they have completed re-terraforming Mars.
/pic6741924.png)
Players: 1 - 4, Recommended: 4+, Best: 4
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Weight (Complexity): 2.67 / 5
Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition: Discovery adds four new mechanics to base Ares Expedition: awards, milestones, upgraded phase cards, and wild tags.
Awards are end-of-game scoring that are granted to the player with the most of something. Three awards are drawn at the beginning of the game so that players know what they will be rewarded for at the end of the game. The player with the most of that item earns 5VP, second place earns 2VP.
Milestones are VP that are awarded during the game. They are granted to the player to first achieve the milestone. Milestones are worth 3 VP at the end of the game.
Some new project and corporation cards allow players to upgrade their phase cards. Each phase card has two different version that players choose from when they upgrade them. The upgrade gives the player a better bonus when they choose that phase.
Some new project cards have a wild tag. Whenever a player reveals this card either from the deck (due to an effect) or from their hand because they are going to play it, that player chooses what tag they want it to be. Tokens are used to keep track of what tag was chosen for the rest of the game.
/pic6741925.png)
Players: 1 - 6, Recommended: 6, Best: 6
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Weight (Complexity): 2.50 / 5
Ares Expedition: Foundations contains additional player boards, cubes, and phase cards so that Ares Expedition can be played with up to six players. This expansion also includes two additional game boards. One is a larger score track. The other adds a fourth terraforming metric: infrastructure.
Additionally, there are new project cards that involve the new terraforming metric and a new phase card.
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Players: 1 - 4, Recommended: 4+, Best: 4
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Weight (Complexity): 2.00 / 5
A set of 17 new cards that were revealed as daily milestones during "Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – Discovery · Foundations · Crisis" Kickstarter campaign.
Corporation Cards:
Nebu Labs
Modpro
The Next Steps Initiative
Romirra
Austellar
Project Cards:
Orbital Outpost
Genetically Modified Vegetables
Zoos
Gas Cooled Reactors
Innovative Technologies Award
Community Afforestation
Martian Studies Scholarship
City Council
Glacial Evaporation
Research Grant
Bacterial Aggregates
Tourism
mikekthx rated: N/A/10
1-4
Petitje81 rated: N/A/10
Crowdfinder
BastardCafe rated: N/A/10
3 25.1
ntaly rated: N/A/10
Feb 16 ks
EnjoyRC rated: N/A/10
Kickstarter
cougarjet1 rated: N/A/10
Kickstarter
Dijus rated: N/A/10
Best: 3
vitruvianmeeple rated: N/A/10
Only played solo
bradeliss rated: N/A/10
Backed Kickstarter
Bizmat rated: N/A/10
KS version with playmats
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