Board game · 2021

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Players: 1 to 4
Duration: 45 min
Age: 14 and up
Complexity: Family

Nick Little (I) · Sydney Engelstein · Jacob Fryxelius · FryxGames

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End Game Bonuses Follow Hand Management Income Market Multi-Use Cards Set Collection Simultaneous Action Selection Solo / Solitaire Game Tags Tech Trees / Tech Tracks Track Movement Variable Phase Order Variable Player Powers Variable Set-up Card Game Science Fiction Space Exploration

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The Track 20 steps

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01 Intro 00:00 02 Mise en place 00:23 03 Distribution des cartes projet 01:02 04 Carte corporation 01:17 05 Ajustement de son plateau 01:35 06 Monnaie 01:46 07 Conditions de fin 01:58 08 Etape de planification 02:15 09 Résoudre les phases d’action 02:40 10 Phase de développement 02:58 11 Phase de construction 03:40 12 Construire une carte 04:00 13 Réductions de coût 04:16 14 Phase d’action 04:35 15 Actions Standards 04:48 16 Augmenter un des paramètres 05:30 17 Phase de production 06:27 18 Phase de recherche 06:49 19 Fin de tour 07:09 20 Fin de partie 07:32

In brief

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.

This summary is only available in English for now.

Summary from BoardGameGeek · View on BoardGameGeek