Terraforming Mars

What the game actually counts

Your goal is to make Mars liveable. Progress is measured by three global parameters - oxygen, temperature and oceans. Every step you raise one of them, your terraform rating (TR) goes up by 1. TR is worth 1 VP at the end and it is also the M€ income you collect every generation, so a point earned early is worth more than the same point earned late.

• TR starts at 20 (14 in the solo game).
• Your score is TR plus milestones, awards, tiles on the board and VPs printed on your cards.
• On your turn you take 1 or 2 actions and nothing else. The board grows through many short turns.

Components

Setup

1. 1Put the board in the middle. Stack the 9 ocean tiles on their reserved space, put the oxygen and temperature markers on 0% and -30 ˚C, and the generation marker on 1 on the TR track.
2. 2Put the resource cubes and the remaining tiles where everyone can reach them.
3. 3Remove every Corporate Era card (the red and white icon on the lower left edge) from the project deck and from the corporation cards. Shuffle the deck, put it next to the board and leave room for a discard pile.
4. 4Whoever won the last game of Terraforming Mars takes the first player marker. Each player picks a color, takes a player board and puts markers on 1 on all six production tracks (standard game only) plus one marker on 20 on the TR track.
5. 5Players new to the game take a Beginner Corporation card instead - it gives 42 M€ and 10 project cards straight into hand (no buying). Everyone else shuffles the 10 standard corporations and deals 2 each.
6. 6Deal 10 project cards to each remaining player. These are only candidates to buy.
7. 7Everyone picks a corporation and which project cards to keep. In player order, reveal your corporation, take its starting resources and production, and pay 3 M€ for each project card you keep. Discarded cards always go face down.
8. 8Generation 1 skips the player order and research phases (you just did them in setup). The first player starts the action phase straight away.

A generation has four phases

The seven actions

On your turn you take 1 or 2 of the following, and you may take the same action twice. Taking only one is a real option - it lets you see what your opponents do before committing.

Cards - cost, requirements, tags

To play a card you must meet its requirement and be able to perform its effects. Requirements vary: oxygen 9% or lower, temperature -6 ˚C or higher, 2 science tags, having plant production, and so on. The cost is printed in the upper left corner, less any discount a card in play gives you.

Global parameters and bonus steps

The six resources - production is not the same as stock

Your player board has a production track above and a resource box below for each resource. A resource icon inside a brown box raises your production; the same icon without the brown box just hands you cubes. Mixing the two up wrecks every engine calculation you make.

Placing tiles - the map is the rule

• Placing a tile gives you the placement bonus printed on that area (resources or a card draw).
• On top of that you get 2 M€ for each adjacent ocean tile - including when the tile you place is itself an ocean.
• Greenery, city and special tiles take one of your player markers to show ownership. Ocean tiles do not.
• Three areas are reserved for specific cities and take no other tile.
• If placing a greenery cannot raise the oxygen, you get no TR either - the tile is still placed.

Milestones and awards

Both are worth 5 VPs and both are limited to 3 each per game. A milestone is claimed by a player who meets its criteria; an award is funded by anyone and won at the end by whoever leads that category. Funding it does not make it yours.

When the game ends

When oxygen 14%, temperature +8 ˚C and all 9 ocean tiles are done, the game ends at the end of that generation. It does not stop immediately - you still play out that generation's production phase.

Final scoring

1. 1TR is your base score. Start from your marker on the TR track and move it up as you add everything below.
2. 2Awards - 5 VPs to the leader of each funded award, 2 VPs to the runner-up (no runner-up in a 2-player game).
3. 3Milestones - 5 VPs for each one you claimed.
4. 4The board - 1 VP per greenery tile you own, and 1 VP per adjacent greenery for each city tile you own. Count these in player order to avoid confusion.
5. 5Cards - first count the VPs on cards that collect resources, then gather every other card you have played and count them, including the face-down events.

Strategy that falls straight out of the rules

• 1 TR is 1 VP plus 1 M€ for every remaining generation. A TR gained in generation 3 is worth far more than the same TR in the last one - early parameter raises pay twice.
• A city is worth 0 by itself. Put it where greeneries can reach it or it is a blank space on the scorepad. Conversely, building next to an opponent's greenery is entirely legal.
• Converting 8 plants gives you 1 VP tile + 1 oxygen step + 1 TR + a placement bonus + VPs for adjacent cities in a single action. Nothing else in the game packs that much in.
• Steel and titanium only pay for their own tags. Production you cannot spend is dead weight - raise it to match the cards you actually hold.
• Energy is never wasted, it becomes heat. Power plants built early quietly turn into temperature steps. If you plan to spend energy on a card, though, spend it before the production phase.
• Requirements with an upper limit close for good - play cards needing oxygen 9% or lower before someone pushes the oxygen up.
• Only 3 milestones are ever claimed. If you are close, 8 M€ is cheap, and once someone else takes it those 5 VPs are gone forever.
• Banking plants for the last generation is effectively extra points, thanks to the conversions allowed after the final production phase - 16 plants is two greeneries.

Variants and expansions

Expansions are separate products. Everything in this guide is the base game; expansions add things like a Venus parameter, colonies and political factions.

• Hellas & Elysium - two alternative maps
• Venus Next - Venus as a fourth global parameter
• Prelude and Prelude 2 - much stronger starting positions
• Colonies and Turmoil - colonies and political factions
• Amazonis & Vastitas, Utopia & Cimmeria, Milestones and Awards - the recent wave
• There is also an Automa expansion for solo play
• Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is not an expansion but a separate card game with its own rules

Rules people get wrong

History and editions

Jacob Fryxelius of Sweden designed the game and FryxGames released it in 2016, with graphic design by his brother Isaac and an English edition co-published by Stronghold Games. The designer took his doctorate in chemistry at Stockholm University and was working as a science teacher at the time.

• The map is the Tharsis region of Mars, including Valles Marineris and three of the four great volcanos - only the area around Olympus Mons is missing.
• The three players in the rulebook examples are named Kim, Stanley and Robinson; the credits thank Kim Stanley Robinson for the inspiration of his Red Mars trilogy.
• It won the Deutscher Spiele Preis in 2017 and was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres the same year.
• It climbed as high as 3rd in the overall BoardGameGeek ranking in 2019 and 2020.
• Expansion timeline (cross-checked against Wikipedia): Hellas & Elysium and Venus Next (2017), Prelude and Colonies (2018), Turmoil (2019), then Prelude 2, Milestones and Awards, Automa, Amazonis & Vastitas and Utopia & Cimmeria (2024).
• A Korean edition was published by Korea Boardgames; it sold out on release and reprints went quickly too (cross-checked against Namuwiki).