Terraforming Mars (NL)

Terraforming Mars (NL)

This is the Dutch-language edition. In the 2400s, humanity begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations start huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars you play one of those corporations and you work together on the terraforming of the planet Mars. But! Of course you are also competing for victory points.

Scoring victory points

You do not only earn them for terraforming the planet. You also get them when you reach various milestones. For example by improving the infrastructure on the planet. Take on the competition with different 'corporations' to turn Mars into a habitable planet. Use your income, resources and innovative technologies to create a liveable atmosphere and oceans. As you terraform the planet further, more and more people will leave Earth to settle on your Red Planet.

Terraforming Mars - highly thematic

Every round players buy unique project cards from the more than 200 (!) different project cards. The projects can be all sorts of things: a reserve for animals, crashing an asteroid into the planet, introducing a new bacterium or building a city. The cards can give immediate bonuses and raise your production of various resources. Many cards also have requirements before you can play them. Animals, for instance, can only live on the planet once there is enough oxygen.

Buying new cards is expensive, so watch the balance between what you want to buy and what you can play. Buying a card costs 3 megacredits per card and actually playing it can cost between 0 and 41 megacredits. Standard projects such as building a city, raising your energy production and planting a forest are always available.

Basic income and playing a turn

Your basic income, just like your basic score, is based on your Terraform Rating (starting at 20), which goes up every time you raise one of the three global parameters. Your income is topped up by your production, though, and you also gain VPs from many other sources.

Each player tracks their production and resources on their player board, and the game uses six kinds of resources:

• MegaCredits
• Steel
• Titanium
• Plants
• Energy
• Heat.

Playing a round (or surviving a generation)

On the game board you compete for the best spots for your city tiles, ocean tiles and greenery tiles. You also compete for various milestones and awards that are worth a lot of VPs. Each round is called a generation (guess why) and consists of the following phases:

• Player order This shifts clockwise.
• Research phase: All players buy cards from four personally drawn cards.
• Action phase: Players take turns doing 1-2 actions from these options: play a card, claim a milestone, fund an Award, use a standard project, turn plants into greenery tiles (and raise oxygen), turn heat into a temperature increase and use the action of a card in play. Play continues around the table (sometimes for several rounds) until all players have passed.
• Production phase: Players receive resources based on their terraform rating and production parameters.

When the three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean) have all reached their goal, the terraforming is complete and the game ends after that generation. Add up your Terraform Rating and other VPs to determine the winning corporation!