I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

So I've been battling with Terraforming Mars again, prompted by Anne Reardon talking about Food On Mars (including how difficult it would be to grow). After an entire afternoon and evening of losing over and over again -- clearly I'd forgotten what methods were needed to win the solo game -- I tried again a few days later, and managed to get through after a couple of fails. And then again, this evening, more play, and managed to succeed.

So what's the trick? Well... no trick, really. You do need a certain amount of luck, or one is doomed to failure. (Or, as I kept on muttering to myself, "We're all gonna die.")

( Read more... )

I am increasingly frustrated with the Solo version of Terraforming Mars.

For those of you not familiar with it, Terraforming Mars is a game where, as it says on the box, you are terraforming Mars, simplified down to a game that one can play. It is a pretty cool game. The goal is to get three criteria (oxygen, heat, and oceans) up to minimum liveable conditions for humans, which is nine oceans (from none), 14% oxygen (from none), and 8 degrees centigrade (from -30C). Oh, and to get fame and glory (victory points) while doing so. One increases those criteria by undertaking projects such as planting greenery, melting icecaps, and throwing asteroids at the planet. Yeah. And one also needs to build infrastructure to aid you in doing those things. Infrastructure enables you to produce resources, such as steel, titanium, plants, electricity, and heat. And stuff costs money.

The normal game is played with 2-5 players, but there is also a solitaire (Solo) version. Obviously since one isn't competing against other players in the Solo game, one has to compete against something else, so what they've done is give you a turn (Generation) limit. You have to complete terraforming Mars by the end of the 14th Generation or you lose.

And that's fair enough - or would be fair enough if they had not also required a rule variant which makes it practically impossible to win.

The variant is known as "Corporate Rules". The Corporate Rules variant can be played in a multi-player game, but for a Solo game it isn't optional; one is required to play Corporate Rules. This variant adds in a whole bunch more cards, but also requires that one starts off unable to produce any resources. Whereas in a standard game, players start off with the ability to produce one of every resource per Generation.

Because of this, one spends the first five or so generations just building infrastructure without getting any actual terraforming done. That doesn't give one enough time to complete terraforming before the 14th generation. So you ALWAYS lose. That's not very happy-making game-play.

So I thought I'd try the Solo game without the Corporate Rules, and lo and behold, I was able to terraform Mars by the 14th Generation. But maybe that is making things too easy? Dunno. Maybe I'll try doing it where you initially produce only three types of resources instead of all five.

( reporting in later... )

( reporting in even later... )

Thursday when I was out, I bought a couple of games. One of them was "Terraforming Mars", which I hadn't heard of, but which looked interesting. From reading the back of the box, the idea is that the different players are different corporations, contributing to the terraforming of Mars (for money and power and fame, of course, not altruism). The game ends when Mars is deemed to be terraformed. The player with the most victory points wins.

Yesterday I unpacked it and read the rules and discovered at the back of the rule book that one of the given variations is a solo game. So I set it up for that, and played one game, to help me get a feel for the rules and the play. I lost, of course. The way the solo game goes, rather than counting your victory points, you have to complete the terraforming within 14 rounds (called "generations" because terraforming has to be done over multiple lifetimes). Of course I kept going after the 14th generation, and managed to complete the terraforming four generations later, so it wasn't too bad. ( Read more... )

In conclusion, I would say that I definitely want to try this out with my gaming friends and family - though I expect Certain People will have unholy glee in playing the nasty cards...