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Terraforming Mars

Board Gamehigh1–5 playersOfficial rules ↗

Objective

Accumulate the most Victory Points (VPs) by contributing to the terraforming of Mars and to human civilization. VPs come from your Terraform Rating (TR), played project cards, placed tiles, claimed Milestones, and funded Awards.

The Basics

You control a corporation racing to terraform Mars alongside competitors. Three global parameters must be maxed to end the game: Temperature (from −30°C to +8°C), Oxygen (0% to 14%), and Ocean (0 to 9 tiles placed). Each step of a global parameter raises your TR by 1. TR also serves as your basic income each generation. The game ends at the end of the generation in which all three parameters are maxed.

Setup

Place the Mars board in the center. Each player chooses a Corporation card (or receives the Beginner Corporation for their first game), takes the starting resources printed on it, and receives 10 Project cards to buy (3 M€ each) or discard. Each player places markers at starting positions on their production tracks (Wood, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy, Heat — all start at 1 in the standard game). Set the Temperature, Oxygen, and TR track markers at their starting positions.

With Preludes (expansion)

Deal each player 4 Prelude cards; each player keeps 2 and plays them immediately after corporations are revealed. Preludes jumpstart production tracks and resources, shortening the early game considerably. Prelude also adds 5 new Corporations and 7 Project cards to the decks — shuffle them in before dealing.

With Venus Next (expansion)

Add the Venus side-board. A fourth global parameter — Venus (0% to 30%) — is now tracked. Venus is not an end-game condition: you still need Temperature, Oxygen, and Ocean maxed to trigger game end. Each generation during the Solar Phase (after player actions, before income), the first player acts as the World Government: they raise one non-maxed global parameter one step (including Venus), gaining no TR for doing so.

Generation Structure

Each generation follows these phases:

  1. Player Order — Pass the first-player marker one step clockwise.
  2. Research Phase — Draw 4 cards; buy any number for 3 M€ each; discard the rest.
  3. Action Phase — Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player takes 1 or 2 actions (or passes). Actions can be: play a Project card, use a blue card's activated ability, use a Standard Project, claim a Milestone, or fund an Award. Play continues until all players have passed consecutively.
  4. Production Phase — Collect income: M€ income = TR + M€ production. Convert Energy to Heat. Gain Plants, Steel, Titanium, and Heat according to your production tracks.

(With Venus Next, a Solar Phase occurs between steps 3 and 4 — see above.)

Actions in Detail

Play a Project card — Pay the card's cost in M€ (Steel and Titanium can substitute for building and space tags respectively, at 2 M€ each). Resolve its effect and place it in your display. Green cards activate immediately and remain face-up. Blue cards have ongoing effects or reusable actions. Red cards fire once and are discarded.

Use a blue card action — Each blue card with an action can be used once per generation; rotate it sideways after use.

Standard Projects — Always available on the board: Sell Patents (discard a card for 1 M€), Power Plant (buy Energy production for 11 M€), Asteroid (raise Temperature for 14 M€), Aquifer (place an Ocean tile for 18 M€), Greenery (place a Greenery tile and raise Oxygen for 23 M€), City (place a City tile for 25 M€).

Milestones — Five milestones are available (six with Venus Next). Pay 8 M€ to claim one if you meet its condition; each is worth 5 VPs and can only be claimed by one player. Only 3 of the 5 (or 6) can be claimed per game.

Awards — Five awards are available. Pay 8/14/20 M€ to fund the first/second/third award. At game end, the player leading each funded award earns 5 VPs; second place earns 2 VPs. Awards are evaluated regardless of who funded them.

Tiles

Final Scoring

After the final generation's Production Phase, all players score:

The player with the highest VP total wins. Ties broken by M€.

Key Rules

At the Table

Balance TR (raises income now and scores VPs later) against buying powerful cards. Don't neglect production — a strong engine in mid-game will outpace raw card power.