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Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/199985/comprehensive-faq-and-card-clarification-reference
Any place where this FAQ differs from its source document, trust the source document, unless specifically noted.
Thank you Jeffrey for this amazing resource, which I have taken to reading a little more every week. It hasn't made me better at the game yet, though.
This version of the FAQ was hand-transferred to Markdown after extracting it to an HTML format. The majority of work was only to restore formatting, and to correct a few grammatical errors here and there, though I will probably put some effort to make formatting and access easier. (e.g. link to Simon's card database, split this single document into many pages.)
See the bottom of this document to see how to contribute.
This FAQ is a labour of love that stems from my passion for Terraforming Mars. I recently reached my 500th play of this game, and it continues to excite and thrill me! Every game is so different, and a new adventure that is waiting to be explored.
This document is meant to serve as a reference, to resolve any tabletop disagreements, or answer questions you may have about a particular aspect of the game (project cards, corporations, preludes, etc..)
Whenever possible, I have included links to the official Board Game Geek forum posts by one of the Fryxelius brothers for official rulings on certain issues. In some cases, the link directs you to a post by another user; in these instances, Jacob Fryxelius (BGG username “Fryxen”) will “thumbs up” the post (as shown below.) Clicking on the number beside the “thumbs up” symbol will show who has noted their approval (and that is sometimes the way that an “official” ruling is identified.
In these ways, I have tried to make this “unofficial” FAQ as official as I can! Keep in mind that this is simply a compilation, and many others (in particular Jacob Fryxelius and his brothers) have poured lots of time and effort into answering these questions. In light of the fact that I have gleaned this information from numerous posts and forum discussions, take this guide with a grain of salt – I stand by its accuracy, but being human I am not perfect and may occasionally make slight errors. I try and make this a living document and update it periodically to add in current information and make any corrections that are pointed out to me.
Without further ado, please enjoy. Happy Terraforming!
- Page 10 in the 1st print run rulebook states that you do not need to place a tile stated on a card to play it; this is wrong. A tile placed by a card must be placed, or else the card cannot be played (except for ocean tiles if there are none left.) See “ What card/action effects or requirements are mandatory and which are not?” for further details.
- The “Search for Life” [1] card in the 1st print run should read “Reveal and discard…”
- The 1st print run of the promo card “Small Asteroid” should have a ‘-‘ in front of the plant icons on the card, indicating that you remove them.
- Initial versions of the “Jovian Tax Rights” Global Event (from the Jovian Colony Boom PROMO
card) should read: “Increase MC production 1 step for each colony (max 5). Gain 1 titanium for each influence.”
- The original text did not include the “(max 5)”, when in fact you can count only maximum 5 colonies for the event resolution.
- The Excentric Award (on the rule sheet for Hellas/Elysium) should read “Most resources on cards in play”.
If playing with 3 players or less, you can avoid using red and green player cubes. If playing with 4-5 players, then colour-blind players can use resource markers (copper/silver/gold) to mark tiles and regular markers to indicate production or used action cards.
Standard game – does not use Corporate Era (CE) project cards or corporations and starts with 1 production of all standard resources (MC, steel, titanium, plants, energy, and heat.) Production granted by corporation or Prelude cards is added to this after these cards are played. This variant can be played with any and all expansions. Corporate era – uses all Standard game cards in addition to Corporate Era (CE) project cards and corporations. Players start with 0 production of all standard resources, plus whatever their chosen corporation and Prelude cards provide.
Draft – the draft variant may be used with any other game variant. You draft the 4 cards received during the Research phase at the beginning of every generation, but NOT the starting 10 cards you get.
(Standard) Solo – this variant always uses the Corporate Era cards from the base game and starts with 0 resource production (plus whatever is granted by your chosen corporation.) All global parameters (oxygen/temperature/ocean tiles) must be maxed out by the end of generation 14 to win.
(Venus) Solo – this variant uses Venus Next and Corporate Era cards. You must max out all 4 global parameters, including Venus; you have the help of the World Government Terraforming during the Solar Phase.
TR Solo – this solo variant (also known as the TR63 variant) may be used with any expansion. Instead of your goal being to complete the global parameters, it is to reach a Terraform Rating of 63 in 14 generations (or 12 generations if played with Prelude cards.) See Prelude expansion rules for details.
World Government Terraforming – this variant is used with the Venus Next expansion (with or without other expansions as well.) It can be used with most other variants (other than the Standard Solo variant, which is played without Venus Next.) The starting player raises one non-maxed global parameter 1 step (oceans, temperature, oxygen, or Venus); all bonuses and Terraform Rating from this step go to the “World Government” (and not to any active player.) Note that the bonuses on the temperature and oxygen track (e.g., 1 ocean tile granted by reaching 0 degrees temperature) will still occur and be carried out, but any resulting placement bonuses/production/TR once again go to the “World Government”. One can think of the “World Government” as a neutral player that the start player makes decisions for. See Venus Next/Colonies expansion rules for details.
Note that when playing with Venus Next, NOT playing with the World Government phase is a valid variant if a longer game is desired.
Colonies Solo – use all solo rules for the solo variant you are playing, but in addition reduce your MC production by 2 steps, and then draw 4 colony tiles and choose 3 of these to put into play. When can I decide to use a Beginner corporation? Instead of choosing one of the unique corporations, you can choose to play with a Beginner corporation (starts with 42 MC, and can keep all 10 cards.) The decision to use a Beginner corporation must be made, however, BEFORE seeing your starting project cards, two corporation choices, or Prelude cards. It is typically used for players new to the game, as it can arguably start with a slight advantage. Note that the Beginner corporations are designed to be used by true beginners not used to gameplay; if you are not teaching someone the game, then these should not be used.
Below is an outline of the setup order, with various expansion steps delineated. Each step is numbered to coincide with the setup steps in the rulebook.
Board setup
- Place the game board centrally on the table.
- The Hellas or Elysium board can be used instead of the Standard board.
- Place the 9 ocean tiles on the designated space at the top right of the board.
- Place white markers at the starting positions on the temperature track (-30°C) and the oxygen track.
- Place a white marker at the ‘1’ position on the TR track (generation marker.)
- Place the resource cubes and other tiles by the board so they can be easily accessed by all players.
- (V) Place the Venus board next to the game board, and position a white marker on the 0% at the start of the scale.
- (V) Place the “Hoverlord” Milestone tile and “Venuphile” Award tile over corresponding Milestones and Awards headlines on the board, covering them.
- (C) Place the trade fleets next to the game board.
- (C) Place the Trade Fleets Tile next to the game board.
- (C) Shuffle the Colony tiles and randomly draw the number of players plus two tiles and place them next to the board, face up (the exception is 2-player, where 5 tiles are drawn instead of 4.)
- (C) Place the white colony markers on the highlighted second step of each Colony tile track. * The Titan, Enceladus and Miranda tiles start with their colony markers on the picture of the moon itself. As soon as any card is put into play that holds floaters, microbes, or animals (either a Project card or Corporation card), the marker is moved to the highlighted second step of the Colony track of the appropriate Colony tile on Titan, Enceladus, or Miranda, respectively.
- (T) Place the Terraforming Committee board and the Global Event board next to the main game board.
- If playing with the Standard game board, replace the Terraformer milestone with 26 TR tile.
Deck Preparation
- Shuffle the project card deck, adding Corporate Era, Prelude, Venus Next, Colonies, Turmoil and Promo cards to the Standard deck based on what expansions are being used in the game.
- Place the deck next to the board, facedown. Leave space next to it for a discard pile.
Player setup
- Select a starting player using any method you desire and give that player the starting player marker (the base rules suggest having the player who most recently won Terraforming Mars be the starting player.)
- Each player chooses a colour and takes the corresponding player markers.
- Each player takes a player board.
- Each player places a coloured player marker at the starting position (20) of the TR track.
- (Standard) In the Standard (non-Corporate Era) game, each player starts with 1 production of each resource. Every player places a player marker on the ‘1’ position on each of the six resource tracks on their player boards.
- (Corporate Era) If playing the Corporate Era game (with or without any expansions), each player starts with 0 production of every resource. Every player places a player marker on the ‘0’ position on each of the six resource tracks on their player boards.
- (Colonies) Take 1 trade fleet per player and put it on the Trade Fleets Tile, placing each player’s coloured cube in the trade fleet.
- (Turmoil) Each player takes their 7 delegate markers and places 1 in one of slots in the Lobby of the Terraforming Committee board and the remaining 6 in the Delegate Reserve.
- (Turmoil) Place 1 neutral grey delegate in the Chairman position, and the remaining neutral grey delegates in the Neutral Reserve.
- Shuffle the Global Events deck and place it facedown in the reserved spot (“Distant Global Event”.)
- (Turmoil) Draw an event card from the Global Event deck and place it in the “Coming Global Event” spot of the Global Event Board. Place 1 neutral delegate as the Party Leader in the party indicated in the top left of the card. Place the white Dominance Marker in the delegate area for that party.
- (Turmoil) Turn the top event card from Global Event deck face up, making it the “Distant Global Event”. Place 1 neutral delegate as the Party Leader in the party indicated at the top left of the card. If it is the same party as the first neutral delegate placed (from step 4k above) then place it in the delegates area of that party. The “Current Global Event” spot should be empty.
- (Turmoil) Place all six Party Policy tiles in the appropriate marked area on the Terraforming Committee Board with the GREENS tile on top.
Dealing Starting Cards
- Shuffle the corporations deck, adding in Corporate Era, Prelude, Venus Next, Colonies, Turmoil and Promo corporations based on what expansions are being used in the game.
- Deal each player 2 corporations.
- If any player(s) are new to Terraforming Mars, they can be dealt a Beginner corporation instead of 2 normal corporations from the deck.
- If playing with the optional Prelude, Venus Next, or Colonies corporation variants, deal 1 corporation from the appropriate expansion, and 1 other corporation to each player.
- Deal each player 10 project cards from the deck.
- (Prelude) Shuffle the Prelude deck.
- (Prelude) Deal each player 4 Preludes from the Prelude deck.
Choosing Starting Cards
6 Players select 1 of the 2 corporations dealt to them and 0-10 project cards to keep in their starting hand (each project card costs 3 MC to keep.)
- (Prelude) Along with their corporation and starting project cards, if playing the Prelude expansion each player selects 2 out of their 4 Preludes to play.
- Note that everyone must make decisions on what corporation and Preludes they are playing, and what project cards they are keeping BEFORE corporations and Preludes are revealed by all players.
Starting Conditions
- In turn order, starting with the first player, each player first reveals and plays their corporation card, triggers any immediate corporation effects and gains all associated resources and/or production, pays for their starting cards (3 MC per card, 5 MC for Polyphemos and 1 MC for Terralabs), discards unselected project cards facedown in the discard pile, and returns unselected corporations to the box before the remaining players do the same one by one.
- Note that this process occurs BEFORE the Prelude phase if playing with that expansion; therefore, you must pay for your starting cards before that phase and cannot use money from your Preludes to help pay for cards.
- Any corporation action/effect that states “As your first action…” is not performed during this step, but only later in the Action phase.
- Playing your corporation may trigger other players’ corporation effects, and other corporations may trigger yours during this phase.
- Players using the Beginner corporation get to keep all 10 cards for free.
- (Prelude) In turn order, starting with the first player, each player plays their two Prelude cards in any order they choose, revealing and completely resolving the effects of the first card before revealing and resolving the second. They then discarding unselected Prelude cards (into the game box.)
- Playing your Preludes may trigger corporation effects, either yours or those of other players.
- The order that Preludes are played can matter in many cases (e.g., money obtained from the first one can be used for the second, or cards obtained from the first Prelude can be played using the second.)
- If you try to play a prelude card and it turns out to be unplayable for any reason, you must prove this to your opponents, discard it back to the box, and gain 15 MC. [NEW]
- The game begins with the Action phase of the Starting player.
NOTES: It is possible that early revealed corporation tags may not trigger later revealed corporation effects based on turn order (e.g., a player revealing Viron with a microbe tag as their chosen corporation prior to another player revealing Splice, which grants 2 MC to a player that plays a microbe tag.) Conversely, an earlier revealed corporation could be triggered by one revealed later (e.g., in the previous example, if Splice were revealed earlier in turn order, its ability would be triggered by a player revealing Viron or Recyclon)
Tags revealed on Prelude cards will also trigger corporation effects. Note that the setup phase (Corporation and Prelude phase) is considered part of Generation 1 of the game.
Simultaneously. You get to see all 16 cards (10 Project Cards, 4 Prelude Cards, 2 Corporations) to decide which of each to keep, then you discard all unchosen Project Cards (0-10), Prelude Cards (2) and Corporations (1) facedown BEFORE revealing corporations and playing Prelude cards in turn order. Note that the Prelude instructions state that you discard the unchosen Prelude cards later, but there is no reason you cannot discard them with everything else (project cards and corporations.) Note that if playing with Colonies, the appropriate number of colonies is selected and revealed during game setup, BEFORE selecting cards/Preludes/Corporations.
No. For Arcadian Communities, Celestic, Inventrix, Morning Star Inc., Poseidon, Splice, Tharsis Republic, Valley Trust, Philares, Aridor and Vitor, if you perform your mandatory first action, you get 1 additional action that turn (if you so choose) but no more. The mandatory action counts as one of the 2 actions you get that turn.
Yes. This applies to Arcadian Communities, Celestic, Inventrix, Morning Star Inc., Poseidon, Splice, Tharsis Republic, Valley Trust and Vitor. In this case, they would proceed with the research phase after the 1st generation, then as their first action of generation 2, they would perform their mandatory action.
With the introduction of the Merger prelude, it's possible to have two corporations with a first action. (With Merger and Double Down, it's possible to have three first actions.) Your first action resolves both corporations' first action effects, after which you may take a second action.
The generation marker is typically most useful in the solo game (indicates end game) and for the draft variant (indicates which direction to pass cards during the research phase – clockwise on even generations, counter-clockwise on odd generations.)
For other variants of the game, the generation marker serves mostly a thematic purpose, showing how many generations are required to terraform Mars! With experience and an idea of how long games tend to last with their game groups, players can also use it to roughly gauge how much time they have left in the game (i.e., how many generations they can expect to benefit from a certain card.)
All information in the game is open information, apart from (1) the identity of cards in players hands that have not yet been played, (2) cards in the research phase that are being considered before being purchased or discarded or (3) cards that remain in the deck and have not yet been drawn. Examples of open information (that should be provided if a player asks) include but are not limited to:
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The number of events that a player has played, as well as what events specifically they have played.
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The number of cards in a player’s hand.
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The number of tags of a specific type a player has.
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The number of cards a player has of a specific type (green cards, greater than 20 MC in value, etc.)
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The number of resource cubes on a specific card (or cards) that a player has.
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The number of resource cubes a player has on their player board.
When a Prelude (Acquired Space Agency), corporation (e.g., Celestic) or project card (“Search for Life” [1]) specifies “draw and reveal” or simply “reveal” cards meeting certain criteria, all cards drawn for this process should be visible to all players, including the cards that are eventually taken into hand.
This will typically happen in lower player count games (i.e., 2-player.) If this happens, you can use a non-player colour to mark blue card actions to free up more cubes of your colour; if you still run out, you can start marking tiles on the board with this colour as well, such that your tiles are indicated by both colours of cubes for end-game scoring.
Terraform Rating (TR) is earned from global parameters (oceans, oxygen, temperature, Venus), from the Buffer Gas standard project in the TR Prelude Solo Variant, and from various project cards that grant TR specifically. Victory points refer to points on project cards/corporations, as well as points earned from Milestones and Awards, those obtained from scoring the map (cities and greeneries) and those earned by holding Party Leader and Chairman positions at the end of the game. TR is tracked by your cube on the Terraforming Track, and your final TR in a game is your position on this track with 1 TR = 1 VP for end game scoring, before any other scoring (project cards, map points, Awards, Milestones, Chairman/Party Leader) is added to that total.
Yes. Every expansion can be incorporated into the game individually and is not dependent on any other expansion. You can play with all expansions simultaneously, or just choose some (in any combination)!
Some cards have a requirement box next to the cost, which indicates what conditions must be met for the card to be played. These may indicate global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean tiles or Venus), tags, terraform rating, production, colonies, floaters, party requirements or tile ownership. Each card has text at the bottom that outlines specifically what is required to play the card. If a global parameter states “max X”, then the card CANNOT be played AFTER the parameter has been raised beyond that point (e.g., “Extreme-Cold Fungus” [2], max -10°C.) If the global parameter shows just a value (e.g., -14°C), then the card can be played at any point AFTER the global parameter reaches that value (in this case, -14°C or higher – it is essentially a requirement of minimum -14°C.)
If a card’s requirements do not explicitly say “max”, it is automatically a minimum requirement. These types of card requirements are never exact requirements, simply minimum requirements. For example, “Water Splitting Plant” (Requires 2 ocean tiles) means 2 ocean tiles or more.
Once a card is played, the requirements no longer matter – they only specify when the card can be put into play. For example, the action on “Rotator Impacts” [3] (the card has a requirement of max 14% Venus) can still be used after Venus is raised to 16% and higher, as long as the card was played before 14%.
If tags are required, then the player must have the appropriate tags visible on blue cards, green cards, corporation cards and/or Prelude cards already played. Cards in your hand do not count towards these requirements, nor do event cards.
Tile requirements indicate a player must own at least one tile of the appropriate type in order to play the card (e.g., “Ecological Zone” [4] – requires that you have a greenery tile.)
Production requirements indicate that the player must have at least 1 production of the appropriate resource in order to play the card (e.g., “Asteroid Mining Consortium” [5].)
Party requirements have two components; they can be met (and the corresponding card can be played) if (A) The Party noted is the ruling party OR (B) You have 2 or more delegates in the Party noted. Delegate requirements indicate that the player must hold a Party leader or the Chairman position.
If a card requires me to lower production of “X” resource by one, can I play it if I have zero production of that resource?
Except for MC, no. Changes in production are MANDATORY effects on a card and must be met if a card is to be played. If a production box has a red outline, then ANY production can be reduced – either your own or an opponent’s. However, if NO PLAYER has production of that resource to reduce, the card cannot be played.
The exception is MC production, which can be reduced below 0 to a minimum of -5 but no lower than that.
If you are playing the solo game and play a card that reduces ANY production (red outline), you may reduce the production of the (imaginary) neutral opponent rather than your own.
Tags are symbols on the upper right corner of cards (including project, Prelude or Corporation cards.) Some cards do not have tags, but most in the game do.
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There are currently 11 different tags in the game – Earth, Space, Building, Energy, Science, Microbe, Animal, Plant, Venus, Jovian, and City tags.
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The Wild tag is not considered a distinct tag, but after being played, it can count as any other tag that you choose when performing an action.
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Tags on events (e.g., space, science, earth, etc.) are used for triggers/discounts/tag counts when they are played, but after being played they are placed face down such that their tags are not visible (and no longer count for any effects or actions.) For example, when “Solar Probe” [6] (Draw 1 card for every 3 science tags you have, including this.) is played, the science tag on the card counts towards the total science tags tallied for the card effect. After it has been played, the event is turned facedown and the science/space tags on the card have no further effect in the game.
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The yellow downward arrow “tag” on any event is NOT considered a valid tag in game, but is instead simply a symbol to indicate that that the card is a one-time event.
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When a card requires certain tags to play it, the tags on that card DO NOT count towards the requirement (e.g., “Warp Drive” has a science tag, but requires 5 science tags to play. You must have 5 OTHER science tags played already in order to play this card – which would give you a 6th science tag.)
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When a card references “play(ing) a tag” or “when a tag is played”, this means playing a card (Corporation, Prelude, or project card) that has the tag in question.
- It DOES NOT mean using an action on a blue card that has the particular tag
- If an effect is triggered or a discount is applied for a specific tag, that is counted once for EACH tag on a card. Therefore, a card that has two of the same tag would trigger the effect twice, or would be discounted twice. For example, “Research” (2 Science tags) would be discounted by 4 MC by the Valley Trust Corporation (Effect: When you play a science tag, you pay 2 MC less for it), and “Luna Governor” (2 Earth tags) would trigger “Martian Zoo” twice (Effect: When you play an Earth tag, place an animal here)
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When a card references “tags in play”, this means tags that are visible – on blue cards, green cards, Corporation cards or Prelude cards, including the played card itself (even if it is an event card.) This does not include cards in players’ hands or event cards previously played.
Certain tags will trigger effects on your cards (e.g., a science tag triggering “Mars University” [7], allowing you to discard a card from hand and draw another) or on your corporation (e.g., a Jovian tag being played increasing your MC production by 1 when playing Saturn Systems.)
The tags from events, green cards, blue cards, corporations, and Prelude cards can all trigger these effects. As well, other than event cards (which go facedown after being played) tags on your green cards, blue cards, corporations, and Prelude cards are active and can be used to meet requirements for certain cards, milestones, and awards.
Note that many project cards/corporation cards will trigger their own effects with their tags. In these cases, the card will usually specify “including this” (e.g., for the Point Luna corporation, the Earth tag on the corporation triggers its Effect, allowing you to draw a card immediately.)
Wild tags cannot trigger effects when being played; they only function as a tag after they have been played, on a subsequent action.
Only at the time when the card is played. At this point, the tags on an event matter for the following situations:
- If you have a discount on a specific tag, this would apply to the event in question.
- If the tag for the event triggers an effect on another card (e.g., a Science tag triggering “Olympus Conference” [8], allowing you to discard a card from hand and draw another) this would apply when it is played.
- If an event has a space tag, you can use titanium towards its costs.
- If the event card has you count tags in play, the appropriate tag on that event would count towards that tally.
After the event is played, ITS TAG(S) no longer has(have) any effect and DOES NOT count towards requirements for playing other cards, for milestones, or for awards. The number of events would still count towards the Legend milestone.
No. If a card requires a certain number/type of tag(s) to be in play, you must have that tag (or number of tags) in play on face up cards already. For example, “Quantum Extractor” has a Science tag, but requires 4 Science tags to play. You must have 4 tags in play already, excluding this card, in order to play it. Once “Quantum Extractor” has been played, it should be your 5th Science tag (except in the case where you are using 1 or 2 Wild tags towards the requirement.)
When performing a draw to obtain cards with a specific tag for Prelude cards or corporation actions, are the cards visible to all players?
Yes. When cards are revealed to look for specific tags or icons via a corporation’s first action (Celestic, Morning Star Inc., Splice) or via a Prelude card (Acquired Space Agency [9], Experimental Forest [10]), all cards drawn should be visible to all players, INCLUDING the cards that the player eventually takes into hand.
Once the card(s) have been obtained, all other revealed cards are added to the discard pile.
Unlimited actions. Each turn consists of 1 or 2 actions, after which each other player takes 1 or 2 actions until it is your turn again, at which point you can perform another 1 or 2 actions or pass. This process continues until every player has passed.
Note that blue cards/corporations with red action arrows can only be used once per generation, but actions on the player board (converting 8 plants to 1 greenery, or 8 heat to 1 temperature) as well as standard projects listed on the game board (e.g., Power Plant, Asteroid, Aquifer, etc.) can be done as many times per generation as you have the resources for.
Standard Projects include the 5 printed on the player boards (Sell Patents, Power Plant, Asteroid, Aquifer, Greenery, City), 1 on the Venus board (Air Scrapping), 1 with Colonies (Build Colony) and 1 with the TR solo variant (Buffer Gas.)
- Each Standard Project is available to and can be performed by any player as one of the two actions on their turn.
- Standard Projects can be performed an unlimited number of times.
- A player can perform the same Standard Project or two different Standard Projects as their two actions on a turn.
- For the City and the Greenery Standard Projects, you MUST be able to play the appropriate tile in order to perform that action. If there are no legal placements available, you cannot perform that action.
- You can pay for any of the 3 Terraforming Standard Projects for no effect (likely only to stall) if the associated parameter is maxed. This includes the Aquifer standard project (18 MC) if there are no oceans left, the Asteroid standard project (14 MC) if temperature is maxed, or the Air Scrapping standard project (15 MC) if Venus is maxed.
- The Sell Patents Standard Project involves selling 1 or more cards for 1 or more corresponding MC. You can sell any number of cards as a single action (e.g., sell 12 cards for 12 MC, then perform a second action on the same turn.) * Sell Patents can be used as a stalling tactic; you may sell a single card and then end your turn to see what other people will do or to allow yourself some time to think/plan.
- Note that the City Standard Project grants 1 MC production in addition allowing you to place a city tile.
Resources can refer to the six standard resources that each player can produce on their player board (megacredits, steel, titanium, plants, energy, or heat) or may refer to cubes that can be stored on/added to specific project or corporation cards.
Some cards will have a unique resource “type”, which is specific to that card, while some resource types are used on many different cards. A card can store resources only if it specifies that it can – note that there are some cards which can ONLY put resources on other cards, and cannot store resources themselves (“Symbiotic Fungus” [11], “Extreme-Cold Fungus” [2], etc.)
Some common resource types that are associated with many cards include:
- Floaters (“Extractor Balloons” [12], “Dirigibles” [13], Celestic Corporation, etc.)
- Animals (“Fish” [14], “Stratospheric Birds” [15], “Ecological Zone” [4], Arklight Corporation etc.)
- Microbes (“Ants” [16], “Nitrite Reducing Bacteria” [17], “Venusian Insects” [18], etc.)
Some resources that have specific cards associated with them include:
- Science resources (“Search for Life” [1], “Physics Complex” [19])
- Asteroid resources (“Rotator Impacts” [3])
- Fighter resources (“Security Fleet” [20])
- Camp resources (“Refugee Camps”)
- Disease resources (Pharmacy Union corporation)
Typically resources, whether on your player board or on a project/corporation card, are tracked using the standard resource cubes (bronze = 1, silver = 5, gold = 10.)
Only when you see the red border around a resource or production symbol can you affect another player. Examples include:
- “Deimos Down” [21] and other asteroids, which can remove plant resources from other players
- “Fish” [14], which can be played to reduce another player’s plant production
- “Flooding” [22], which can remove MC from another player when played
- “Ants” [16], which can be used every generation to remove a microbe from another player’s microbe card
Cards that add or remove resources without the red border around the resources CANNOT be added or removed from another player’s card – e.g., “CEO’s Favorite Project” [23] cannot add a resource to another player’s card nor can “Local Heat Trapping” [24] be used to add animals/plant to another player.
When removing resources from an opponent, you must choose 1 opponent and 1 card (if applicable) to remove the resources from. You cannot remove resources from multiple cards or multiple opponents. Removing resources from an opponent is optional (unless stated otherwise on the card) – you can remove less than stated on the card, or none at all when playing it. The player that is removing resources (the active player) gets to choose what card to remove them from. If removing resources is part of the cost of an action (e.g., “Ants” [16] or “Predators” [25]) then the action CANNOT be performed unless the appropriate resource is removed (either from your own card or an opponent’s.)
When removing production from an opponent, you must choose 1 opponent to remove the production from. You cannot remove production from multiple opponents using one card. Removing production is mandatory – if the production cannot be fully reduced from a single opponent, you must reduce your own production or you cannot play the card.
Steel and titanium are special resources that can be used to pay for a card or an action. Steel can only be used to pay for cards with the building tag, and titanium can only be used to pay for cards with the space tag. You can pay for a card with both steel and titanium if it has both building AND titanium tags (e.g., “Space Elevator”.)
When paying for a card, you can mix and match MC and steel/titanium. Each titanium is worth 3 MC towards the cost of a space card, and each steel is worth 2 MC towards the cost of a building card (unless you are playing the Phobolog Corporation, have played the “Advanced Alloys” [26], “Mercurian Alloys” [27] or “Rego Plastics” [28] cards - in which case your titanium and steel may be worth more.) Some actions will let you use steel or titanium towards the cost of the action – for example “Aquifer Pumping” [29] or “Rotator Impacts” [3]. In these cases, the steel or titanium would be worth the same amount as it would for buying a card.
Once per generation. If a card has more than one action, you must choose which action to perform. Note that playing a blue card and using its printed action are two separate actions. When you play a blue card, the action is not automatically triggered – you must use the action at some point afterwards.
This also applies to corporations that have an action that you can perform (Arcadian Communities, Celestic, Robinson Industries, UNMI, Viron.) When playing the Viron corporation, you can use another action card a second time – once again choosing either action (if there is more than one on the card.) If a card with two actions is used twice this way, you can choose to perform a different action the second time (e.g., use an action to add a cube to a card, then use Viron to remove the cube for an effect in the same generation.)
Note that the above applies only to blue cards with actions (red arrows) on them. Blue cards that have “Effect” on them can be triggered unlimited times per generation, as long as you meet the requirements for the Effect (e.g., “Rover Construction” [30] – Gain 2 MC when any city tile is placed.)
Unlimited times per generation. As long as you have the 8 resources to perform the action, you can do it as many times as needed until you unable to do it anymore. Note that each conversion of 8 plants to 1 greenery or 8 heat to 1 temperature is considered 1 action. Therefore, you can raise the temperature twice or place two greeneries on your turn, but must wait until your next turn to do more.
The red arrows (outlining the plant conversion and the heat conversion) on the player board can be a little confusing. They are only there to indicate that each conversion is considered an action; unlike blue cards, however, they are actions that can be done repeatedly in a single generation.
No. All project and Prelude cards that grant a greenery have a reminder to increase oxygen 1 step. This is the oxygen rating you would get from placing the greenery anyway, NOT an additional oxygen that you get above and beyond what is provided by the greenery itself.
The reason for this reminder is that you obtain TR for raising the oxygen, but NOT for placing the greenery. Greenery tiles themselves can be placed even after the oxygen is maxed out, in which case the oxygen step would be ignored, but you would still be able to place the greenery.
Note that any greeneries placed after oxygen is maxed will still obtain points at the end of the game (for the greenery tiles themselves and for your adjacent cities.) You would not raise your Terraform Rating for greeneries placed after the oxygen is maxed, however.
Yes. Specifically:
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Any card that places a water tile when there are none left, or raises temperature/oxygen/Venus when the corresponding parameter has been maxed out can still be played for other effects.
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Heat can be consumed, 8 at a time, as an action (primarily as a stalling tactic) with no effect even after the temperature has been maxed.
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Any action on a blue card that raises a global parameter can still be performed after that parameter has been maxed.
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Certain cards that convert energy to oxygen + titanium/steel (Steelworks, Ironworks, Ore Processor) can still be used after oxygen has been maxed to obtain the titanium or steel
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You can pay for the Aquifer standard project (18 MC) if there are no oceans left, the Asteroid standard project (14 MC) if temperature is maxed, or the Air Scrapping standard project (15 MC) if Venus is maxed. Doing any of these actions get you nothing, however.
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A slightly related note is that you can still place greeneries and obtain points at the end of the game (for the greenery tiles themselves and for your adjacent cities) after oxygen has been maxed out. You would not raise your Terraform Rating for greeneries placed after the oxygen is maxed, however.
If playing a card that places resources onto a card (animals/floaters/microbes, etc.) can I split them between multiple cards?
No. You must choose a card to receive all of the resources. If receiving multiple types of resources (e.g., “Imported Nitrogen” [31], which grants plants, microbes, and animals) you can choose a single card for each resource type.
Yes. There is theoretically no real limit to how high production of a resource can go. To indicate values above 10, simply put 1 player cube on 10 and another on the added number (e.g., a cube on 10 and one on 6 to indicate 16 production.)
If going beyond 20, simply stack 2 cubes on the 10 spot, etc.
No. Discounts will reduce the cost of a card to a minimum of 0 (free) but not -1, etc.
Milestones grant 5 victory points each at the end of the game to the person(s) that claimed them. Each Milestone may be claimed by only one person, although a single person may claim multiple Milestones. It is an action to claim a Milestone, and costs 8 MC – therefore multiple people may have met the requirement for a milestone, but only the person who claims it will get the points. Only 3 Milestones can be claimed each game.
Awards can be funded by anyone, but the victory points are granted only at the end of the game (5 points to first place, 2 points to second place.) Therefore, the person that funds an award may not end up winning any points from it.
Ties for awards are friendly – both players get the points. If two people tie for first place, they both get 5 points and there is no second-place award. If two people tie for second place, they both get 2 points. If you have zero (or less than zero) of something counted towards an award, and are still in second (or first in rare cases!) for that award, you still earn victory points for it. For example, if someone funds Scientist on the Standard board (have the most Science tags in play) and all other players are tied with 0 Science tags, then they would all get 2 points for second place. Likewise, if someone funded Banker on the Standard board (have the highest MC production) and two other players were second with -2 MC production, they would win second place, earning 2 points each.
In 2-player games, second place is not awarded – only first place.
Milestones and Awards are not used in solo play.
Certain steps on the temperature (-24°C, -20°C, 0°C), oxygen (8%) and Venus (8%, 16%) have bonuses associated with them. If you raised the appropriate parameter onto OR past that value on your turn, you would get the appropriate bonus – heat production or a Water tile (if there still are any) for the temperature track, a temperature step (if there still are any) for the oxygen track, and a card or an extra Terraform Rating for the Venus track.
For example, if you raised the temperature 3 steps with “Deimos Down” [21] from -2°C to +4°C, you would place the ocean tile (if available) as part of the action of raising temperature past 0°C.
Floaters are a specific type of resource, associated with certain cards. They work are stored on cards to obtain points, or can be consumed for various effects, depending on the card text. See “What are resources?” above for more details.
The following card/action effects are mandatory (must be satisfied in order to play the card or perform the action):
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Any requirements for a card must be met in order for the card to be played (e.g., 2% oxygen, maximum 3 ocean tiles, 5 science tags, colony requirement, etc..)
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Any production boxes at the bottom of the card (one-time effects when the card is played) must be satisfied. If the production is red bordered, you can reduce any player’s production; if no other player has the production required, you must reduce your own or you cannot play the card. Production for steel, titanium, plants, energy, and heat cannot go below 0. Production for MC cannot go below -5.
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If a standard project is performed, you must be able to do the complete action (e.g., you cannot pay for the City standard project to get the MC production without successfully placing a city as well.) For this reason, if there are no valid City placement locations on the board, for example, you cannot use the City standard project, even if just to get 1 MC production.
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If a tile is placed by a card, you must be able to place the tile based on the requirements outlined, or you cannot play the card. For example, you cannot play Research Outpost (play next to no other tile) if there are no longer spots on the board that are free of surrounding tiles. The only exception is a card that places an ocean tile when all oceans are gone – these cards can still be played even if there are no oceans left.
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If a colony is placed by a card, you must be able to place the colony in a valid position, or else you cannot play the card.
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If you must forfeit a resource or card to resolve the effect of a card, this is mandatory to play the card (examples include “Stratospheric Birds” [15] – spend a floater from any card, and “Sponsored Academies” [32] – discard 1 card from hand and then draw 3 cards.)
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If performing an action on a blue bordered card, you must be able to pay the cost of the action (if any) on the left side of the arrow in order to perform the action. Note that discounts you may have for playing project cards DO NOT apply to the cost of actions. This also applies in cases where the “cost” of the action (to the left of the arrow) is red-bordered and can be performed on any player (e.g., “Ants” [16]); you must remove a resource from any player in order to perform the action.
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When converting plants to greenery tiles, you must have a legal spot to place the greenery or you cannot perform that action.
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When an action (e.g., card effect, trading with a colony, etc.) adds resources to another card and you have a card that can hold those resources (e.g., playing “Imported Nitrogen” [31] which grants animals when you have “Fish” [14], or receiving the colony bonus from a colony on Enceladus – 1 microbe – when someone trades on it and you have “Tardigrades” [33].) You must add these resources to the appropriate cards if you have the ability to do so. If you do not have cards that hold those resources, you may still play the card and ignore that effect.
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When trading with a colony adds resources to a card and you have a card that can hold those resources. You must add these resources to the appropriate cards if you have the ability to do so. Conversely, however, you are allowed to trade on a colony even if you cannot hold the resources it grants (e.g., trading with Enceladus when you have no microbe cards.) In this case you would trade as normal, and the awarded microbes would not be added (mostly applicable when blocking another player.)
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If your corporation has action to be performed “as your first action”, this action MUST be performed before you can perform any other actions (assuming you are able to.) If for any reason you are not able to perform your mandatory first action (e.g., if all 3 Awards are claimed before starting your turn as Vitor), you can skip this and proceed with other actions instead.
- If you pass without performing any actions in the first generation, you must still perform your mandatory first action in the next generation, if possible!
The following card/action effects are optional (non-mandatory) – you can play the card or perform the action even if the effect is not met:
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When a card outlines that you remove resources from another player (and is not part of an Action.) This effect can be resolved partly, or not at all. For example, you could play “Virus” [34] (remove 5 plants or 2 animals from another player) without removing any resources at all.
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When a card effect would raise a parameter that is already maxed. You can still play the card without raising that parameter, and you would not get any TR that you normally would have received.
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When performing an action on a blue bordered card that would raise a global parameter that is already maxed. You can still perform the action (paying all appropriate costs) without having any effect of the action (e.g., you are allowed to use “Water Splitting Plant” [35] when oxygen is maxed as long as you forfeit the 3 energy; there would be no effect from this action.) Any resources you would obtain from the action would still be applicable (e.g., “Ironworks” [36] grants 1 steel and 1 oxygen when its action is used. It can still be used after the oxygen has been maxed to obtain 1 steel.)
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When performing a standard project for a parameter that is already maxed (Aquifer standard project (18 MC) if there are no oceans left, the Asteroid standard project (14 MC) if temperature is maxed, or the Air Scrapping standard project (15 MC) if Venus is maxed.) You can still pay for the standard project, but you would not get anything for it (mainly applicable if stalling.)
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When a card would add resources to a card, but you do not have the card that would collect said resources. You can play the card even if you could not store these resources and would simply omit the resources collected.
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When a passive effect from a blue card or corporation would be triggered by an event (e.g., playing a Science card with “Olympus Conference” [8], getting 2 plants from another player placing an ocean tile with [37], or receiving 2 MC when someone raises Venus with the Aphrodite corporation) this is optional and the active player may choose not to trigger it. However, triggers can be invoked by ANYONE, so another player may point out a trigger thus causing it to be triggered. In this way, triggers are technically optional, in that if no one triggers them (deliberately or inadvertently) they may go without being triggered.
- A card that states that an Effect MAY be triggered is the exception here – no one can force you to invoke it (e.g., “Mars University” [7])
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4▪[Source 5]▪(https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2374854/article/34114400#34114400)[Source 6)](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2374233/article/34114388#34114388)
Yes. Many cards and/or corporations will have similar/synergistic effects, and when combined these abilities will stack. Some examples include:
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Discounts (e.g., the Earth tag discount from Teractor combined with that from “Earth Office” [38] would stack to give a player a 6 MC discount on Earth tags)
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Blue card passive effects (e.g., the Effect of “Advanced Alloys” [26] combined with the Effect of the Phobolog corporation, making titanium worth 5 MC per resource for that player. Another example is playing “Adaptation Technology” [39] as the Inventrix Corporation – in this case your global requirements would be +/- 4 steps for cards you play.)
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Blue card triggered effects (e.g., the Effect of “Media Group” [40] and the Interplanetary Cinematics corporation, to gain a total of 5 MC when playing an event)
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Event dependent triggers (e.g., when someone plays the Mining Guild Corporation and plays either “Mining Rights” [41] or “Mining Area” [42], they would receive 2 production - 1 titanium or steel production for the card effect, based on where the tile was placed, and 1 steel production for the Mining Guild Effect)
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Combinations of abilities (e.g., the Effect of “Rover Construction” [30] along with Standard Technology [43] and the Credicor corporation to get 9 MC [2 MC + 3 MC + 4 MC] back after placing a standard project city for 25 MC.)
The active player may choose the order in which to resolve the card’s effects. As the active player, after you pay for the card in question (this is the only prerequisite), it (and its tags) are considered “played”, and all effects are then resolved in ANY order you choose, EXCEPT in cases where the card specifies an order. If an effect is triggered by a specific event, that event must occur first before you can proceed with the effect.
At any given time, resolving a specific effect may trigger other effects; these are simply added to the “pool” of effects and the action proceeds until all effects are completed, in the order that the player chooses. The possible effects include:
A. The effects of the card itself (reduction/increase in production, addition/removal of resources, card draws, tile placements, increase in global parameters)
B. Card-dependent triggers from other played cards or corporations
- Rebates on cards, such as 3 MC back for events with “Media Group” [40], 3 MC back for VP cards with the corporation Vitor, or 4 MC back for 20 MC+ cards with the Credicor corporation.
- Adding resources to a card, such as adding an animal to “Ecological Zone” [4] when a plant or animal tag is played.
- Card draw, such as that triggered by “Olympus Conference” [8] when playing a science tag and removing a resource from that card.
C. Event-dependent triggers from other played cards or corporations
- Resources obtained from certain board events, such as receiving 2 plants when an ocean tile is placed from “Arctic Algae” [37], receiving 2 MC when a city is placed from “Rover Construction” [30], or receiving 2 MC when Venus is terraformed 1 step with the corporation Aphrodite.
- Production obtained from board events, such as 1 MC production increase for the owner of “Immigrant City” [44] when a city tile is placed, or the same for the corporation Tharsis Republic.
- Gaining resources from an increase in production, specifically for the Manutech corporation.
D. Placement bonuses
- Resources granted by tile placement (steel, titanium, plants, heat.)
- Money gained from placing a tile next to (a) water tile(s.)
- Cards granted by a placement bonus.
- Paying 6 MC for placing a tile on the south pole of the Hellas board and obtaining an ocean tile (if any are remaining.)
The effects can be resolved as follows:
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Category A effects can be resolved in any order.
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Category B effects can be resolved before, after, or in between Category A effects – they are added to the “pool” of effects as soon as the card is paid for.
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Category C effects can only be added to the “pool” of effects once the specific event is triggered. For example, the resources obtained by Manutech for increasing production cannot be obtained until you increase said production; the plants obtained by “Arctic Algae” [37] cannot be taken until a water tile has been placed.
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Category D effects, similar to Category C, can only be obtained once a specific event occurs – namely a tile is placed.
Using the above rules, the active player can choose the order of all resolved effects, EVEN EFFECTS FOR OTHER PLAYERS. For example, when the active player pays for “Giant Ice Asteroid” [45] (Place 2 Oceans, Raise 2 Temperature, Remove 6 plants from any player) with an opponent having “Arctic Algae” [37] (Gain 2 plants when any ocean tile is placed), the active player can perform the Temperature and Water tile steps, then trigger the Arctic Algae effect of his/her opponent, then proceed to removed 6 plants from the same opponent (including the 4 plants just obtained.)
All mandatory effects of the card must be met, but they can be in any order. As another example, when playing “Nitrophilic Moss” [46] (lose 2 plants, gain two plant production) as Manutech, you can resolve the “gain two plant production” requirement first (granting you two plants as Manutech’s effect) then immediately lose those plants to satisfy the other requirement.
Remember – the only prerequisite for resolving the card’s effects is paying for it first! Even if you would receive a rebate on a card (money back), you must still be able to afford the initial cost of the card in order to trigger the rebate.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4)
Yes. Each tag is considered separately, and as such each tag will trigger any effects you have in play. Note that each tag can also trigger multiple Blue Card/Corporation effects. Some examples include:
- Discounts (e.g., the Science tag discount of 2 MC from the Valley Trust corporation would apply twice to the “Research” [47] card, which has two Science tags, reducing its cost by a total of 4 MC)
- Triggers from repeated tags (e.g., the “Luna Governor” card, which has 2 Earth tags, would trigger the Point Luna corporation ability twice, resulting in two cards being drawn)
- Triggers from different tags on the same card (e.g., each of the Animal, Plant and Microbe tags on “Advanced Ecosystems” will separately trigger “Viral Enhancers” [48], granting a total of 3 plants)
- A single tag triggering multiple effects (e.g., playing any Science tag can trigger both “Olympus Conference” [8] and “Mars University” [7] if you have played both of those cards already.
The shared discard pile is reshuffled and forms a new draw deck. When you will not have enough cards to deal in the research phase, be sure to deal 1 card per person beginning with the starting player until the deck is depleted, so that reshuffled cards (which may be less interesting) are evenly divided. In the exceedingly rare instance that you do not have enough cards for the research phase, and there are no remaining discards to reshuffle, deal cards such that every player has an even amount (e.g., with 18 cards left in a 5-player game, each player would get 3 cards.)
A non-reserved area is any area that is not reserved for an ocean (blue shaded), for a specific city, or reserved for another player. The following would be reserved areas:
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Noctis City on the standard board.
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Ganymede Colony and Phobos Space Haven on all boards.
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Luna Metropolis, Stratopolis, Dawn City and Maxwell Base on the Venus Board.
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A space reserved using the “Land Claim” [49] card.
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A space reserved with a cube by the Arcadian Communities corporation.
All other spaces are considered non-reserved. Volcanic areas (bold titled hexes) are also considered non-reserved, and any tile can be placed on these.
Volcanic areas are bolded on the game boards, so that you do not have to remember them all for every board. They consist of:
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Tharsis Tholus, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons or Arsia Mons on the Standard (Tharsis) map
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Arsia Mons, Olympus Mons, Elysium Mons, or Hecates Tholus on the Elysium map
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The Hellas map lacks volcanoes
Volcanic areas are not considered “reserved”, and therefore any tile can be placed on them, not just volcanic tiles.
That being said, the two cards associated with volcanoes (“Lava Tube Settlement” [50], “Lava Flows” [51]) can ONLY be placed on volcanic areas on the Standard or Elysium map. If these spots are all taken on those maps, you cannot play those cards.
On the Hellas map, there are no volcanoes. Therefore, you can place “Lava Flows” [51] on any non-reserved area, and “Lava Tube Settlement” [50] can go on a non-reserved area while following normal city placement restrictions (not adjacent to another city.)
There are several general rules to follow when placing tiles on the board:
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Tiles may not be stacked on top of other tiles. A spot that is already occupied by a tile is off limits for tile placement.
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Placing a tile next to water tiles grants 2 MC per adjacent water tile to the player placing the tile. This applies to ANY tile - cities, greeneries, special tiles, and other water tiles. For example, placing Ecological Zone [4] next to 3 water tiles would grant 6 MC total to the player.
- The only exception to this rule is during the World Government Phase, when the 2 MC bonus per water tile would not go to any player, but rather to the World Government.
- The Lakefront Resorts corporation gets a 3 MC bonus per adjacent water tile instead of 2 MC.
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Certain cards have special rules for tiles placement; these cards either place greeneries, cities, or other special tiles according to the rules stated on the card. In all cases the card placement rules supersede any existing rules for city/greenery placement.
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Cities that are reserved for non-Mars locations must be placed on the corresponding spaces when the card in question is played (see the previous question for a list)
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City tiles cannot be place next to another city on Mars. This includes those from the City Standard Project, the initial city granted to Tharsis Republic, city tiles granted by Prelude cards as well as any city placed by a card UNLESS THE CARD STATES OTHERWISE.
- Exceptions include “Noctis City” on the standard (Tharsis) map, “Lava Tube Settlement” [50] on the standard (Tharsis) and Elysium maps, and “Urbanized Area”.
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Greenery tiles (unless a card specifies otherwise) MUST be placed next to a tile that the active player owns (whether that is a city, or another tile.) For this purpose, the cube placed by “Land Claim” [49] or by the Arcadian Systems corporation DOES NOT count as a tile. If a greenery is the first tile that a player is placing on Mars (i.e., the player does not yet own any tiles on Mars) OR spaces adjacent to his/her tiles are ALL occupied, then the player can choose ANY non-reserved spot to place the greenery.
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Unless a card specifies otherwise, ocean tiles can only be placed on the reserved blue coloured spots on the board.
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No tiles can be played on the reserved blue coloured ocean spots on Mars unless a card says otherwise (there are 3 cards that are exceptions.)
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Only an Arcadian Systems player can place tiles on spots that he/she has reserved.
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Only the player that has reserved a spot on the board with “Land Claim” [49] can place a tile there.
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If a card grants a tile placement of any kind (other than water tiles) and the tile in question cannot be legally placed, then that card CANNOT be played.
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All tiles other than water tiles are owned by the player that placed them and should be marked with a cube (for cases like the Landlord Award.) (Source 1, Source 2)
City tiles are placed by the city standard project, Prelude cards, the Tharsis Republic corporation starting action, and certain project cards. They are all represented by the same grey-bordered tiles, except for “Capital” [52] which places a special white coloured city tile.
Cities can be on or off-planet; the reserved spots for the off-planet cities are used in conjunction with certain cards.
Special tiles (brown tiles) are also associated with certain cards, but none of these are considered cities and most are not worth end-game points apart from what the associated cards would grant.
After the end of the game is triggered and the final generation has ended, all players produce resources and may place any greenery tiles they may have from plants they produced.
This new phase, which involves ONLY greenery placement, is NOT considered a new generation. The player order from the last generation of the game is preserved. Starting with the first player, the greenery tiles are paid for (with 8 plants each, or 7 for Ecoline) and placed one at a time, triggering placement bonuses and other effects before the next tile is placed. The starting player places ALL of his/her greeneries in this fashion – this may be 3 or more greenery tiles. When that player no longer has enough plants to convert to greeneries, the next player goes.
As a reminder, all greeneries placed after oxygen is maxed DO NOT generate a Terraform Rating. During this phase, any relevant Blue Card or Corporation effects can be triggered by greenery placement (e.g., “Herbivores” [53], the Philares Corporation.)
Placing greeneries is always optional, and any player may refrain from placing greeneries if he or she chooses.
If there is no more remaining space on the board to legally place a greenery, you cannot convert plants to a greenery.
When playing the solo variant, this phase still occurs, but if oxygen has not been maxed, it does not rise any further (i.e., if playing the standard variant, you still lose for not having maxed all parameters by the end of generation 14, or 12 when playing with Prelude.) It is only carried for final scoring purposes.
No. When placing the neutral cities, use the card cost of the drawn card to determine the position of each city. When placing the second city (as with the first), you would skip illegal placements – including spots reserved for oceans and spots that are adjacent to the first city.
Yes. After generation 14, you produce plants as normal and can convert 8 plants to a greenery tile as many times as possible. However, these end-of-game greenery tiles DO NOT raise the oxygen; therefore, if the oxygen is not maxed out at the end of generation 14, you will still lose despite placing more greeneries.
In the TR solo variant from Prelude, what is included in your game end TR to reach the goal (63 TR)?
In this variant (also known as the TR63 variant) the game end goal (63 TR) is checked at the start of the Solar Phase which is directly after production. At this point you need to have 63 Terraform Rating to have won the solo game.
At this point you can place greeneries that you have produced from plants (as normal), but if you get any oxygen TR from doing so, this DOES NOT count towards your goal of 63 TR, although it will count towards your final score if you choose to keep track of it for fun.
Project card/corporation victory points, and map points from cities/greeneries DO NOT count towards your TR goal, only towards your final score.
No. If you have reached 63 TR by the end of generation 12 (with Prelude cards) or 14 (without Prelude cards) you win, even if some of the global parameters have not been maxed out.
You choose these at the same time you are choosing project cards, corporations, and preludes.
TODO
Further notes:
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If playing with Turmoil, you would add the expansion to any of the above combinations without changing the starting conditions and end goal.
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You would lose 1 TR every generation in the Turmoil phase, as normal.
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You would still gain 1 TR if chairman.
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Specific Global Events and the Reds’ Ruling bonus have exceptional cases for the solo game, which are specified.
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For ALL Variants:
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Place 2 neutral cities and 2 neutral greeneries on the board. Do not raise oxygen for the neutral greeneries. See Terraforming Mars game rulebook for tile placement instructions.
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Awards and Milestones are not used
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You have a neutral opponent you can steal from, or reduce any kind of resources or production from
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If playing the TR Solo (TR63) Variant, you have access to 1 additional Standard Project: Buffer Gas (Pay 16 MC to raise TR by 1.)
World Government Terraforming (WGT) is a phase in the Venus Next expansion where the starting player chooses one parameter to raise (with no player getting any bonuses or TR, as that goes to the imaginary “World Government”!) after the generation is finished.
The World Government Terraforming phase is Step 2 of the Solar Phase; Step 1 is the Game End Check. If there is only one parameter left to raise and that is raised during WGT, it will occur AFTER the Game End Check. As such, the game would go another generation until the next Solar Phase and Game End Check, when the game would officially end.
When using the World Government phase, do the bonuses on the temperature/oxygen/Venus tracks still occur?
Yes, but no player gets the benefit (the “World Government” would get the benefit – considered a neutral player.) An ocean tile would be placed for the temperature bonus (if possible, at 0°) or temperature would be raised for the oxygen bonus (if possible, at 8%), but no one gets the placement bonuses or TR.
No. Some Prelude cards have an effect that requires that you pay MC (lose X MC.) Given the fact that you play your Prelude cards after buying your starting project cards for your corporation, you should ensure you have enough money to pay for the card!
As with any card in the game, you cannot play a card without being able to resolve all of its effects (with a few exceptions noted, see “What card/action effects or requirements are mandatory, and which are not?” for details.) Forfeiting resources is one mandatory requirement for playing a card.
No. These cards act like green cards but are not counted as green cards.
For solo play, you draw 4 colonies and choose 3 to put into play at the same time as corporations, Prelude cards, and project cards are chosen (so that you can choose colonies that work will with your cards.)
In multiplayer, colonies are randomly drawn and put into play (based on player count) before corporations, Prelude cards, and project cards are chosen.
Players are limited to placing only 1 colony on each tile. The exceptions to this involve 2 cards: “Space Port Colony” and “Research Colony”, which specify that you can place the colony provided by the card on a tile you already have a colony on. In fact, if the same player plays both cards, they can own all three colonies on a single tile.
Yes, but only if you have multiple trade fleets!
At the beginning of each generation, your Trade Fleet(s) starts on the Trade Fleets Tile. Each Trade Fleet can be sent to a single colony tile; once it is there, it CANNOT be moved until the following generation (i.e., you cannot move a Trade Fleet from one colony to another.)
There are project cards (e.g., “Space Port” [54]) that will give you an additional Trade Fleet to use (in addition to the one that everyone starts with.) In these cases, you can perform the trade action more than once per generation – once for each Trade Fleet you own. Note that each colony tile can only hold ONE TRADE FLEET. Each trade action must be paid for separately (e.g., 6 energy for 2 trades, or 3 energy and 3 titanium, etc..)
If a card states that I must build a colony, but there are no valid positions, can I still play the card?
No. You must be able to place the colony in a valid position on a Colony Tile in order to play the card (i.e., on one of the first 3 spots on the tile.)
No. You can trade with any colony tile even if you or anyone else has not yet built on it, with 3 exceptions.
Titan, Enceladus, and Miranda are inactive and cannot be traded with or colonized until a card that collects their respective resources is put into play (Floaters, Microbes and Animals respectively.) These colony tiles remain inactive until the appropriate card is played.
When trading with a colony tile, can I mix and match payment resources (i.e., 2 energy + 1 titanium, or 1 energy, 1 titanium and 3 MC)?
No. When trading you must use only 1 type of resource listed for the full cost.
When trading with a colony tile, what happens if I cannot store the goods obtained from that colony tile?
You may still trade with this colony tile (typically done to block another player.) Any card resources you cannot store are ignored, and you would apply the rest of the effect, if any. You would still move the white trade marker as far to the left as possible after trading, and all colonies present on the moon would still get their colony bonus.
When building a colony, no; when you build a colony and receive the colony placement bonus (e.g., 3 floaters on Titan) they must all go on the same card.
However, let us say you had 2 colonies on Titan (1 from a special card that allowed multiple colonies from the same player on a colony tile.) If you then performed the trade action, the floaters from the TRADE INCOME would all go on one card (for example, 4 floaters onto “Extractor Balloons” [12]), the COLONY BONUS from the first colony could go on a separate card (e.g., 1 floater onto “Dirigibles” [13]), and the COLONY BONUS from the second colony could go on a third card (e.g., 1 floater onto the Stormcraft corporation card.) Each step of the trade action would be resolved separately, and each colony bonus is a separate and distinct trigger from the trade income itself.
Yes. Simply move the white marker to the right one space to free up the spot where you would be building your colony. Other than this specific case, you would not move the white marker when building a colony.
Yes. However, you would not be able to obtain a colony bonus for that Colony tile until the next generation.
The active player decides the order of these effects. In practice, this does not matter often, and all affected players can collect their resources when the trade occurs. In some cases (e.g., card draw for the Pluto or Miranda colonies) the active player may decide the order that players get their cards (e.g., if the deck is running low and some players may get cards from the reshuffled discard pile.)
This space simple indicates the starting spot on which all colony markers are placed during setup (at the start of the game.) Thereafter, after trading with a colony, the colony markers are moved as far left on the track as possible (even beyond the white space to the first spot if there are no colonies on that tile.) When Titan, Enceladus and Miranda are activated and put into play (when cards that hold floaters, microbes or animals are played) then the colony marker would start on the outlined white spot, just like at the beginning of the game with other colonies.
If the global parameters are maxed during the Turmoil phase, does the game end, or is there another generation after this?
The game end check occurs in the Solar Phase BEFORE the Turmoil phase. Therefore, if a global event raises the last global parameter to max, there would be another whole generation before the game ends (with the Turmoil phase being skipped for this last generation.)
The Dominant party is the party with the most total delegates (including player delegates AND neutral delegates.) Dominance can change throughout a generation (and even in the Turmoil phase) as delegates are added to various parties; for another party to gain dominance, it must EXCEED the number of delegates in the current Dominant party.
The Dominant Party will become the ruling party for the next generation, with the party leader becoming Chairman and the ruling policy of that party becoming active. When this occurs, ALL delegates in this party are returned to the reserve and the party with the most remaining delegates becomes the new Dominant Party (with ties going to the party closest to the party that just became ruling, counted clockwise.) This is Part 3 (New Government) of the Turmoil step of the Solar Phase. Dominance can also change during Part 4a and 4c of the Turmoil step (Changing Times), when neutral delegates are added to parties based on Global Event cards.
There are cards that can remove delegates from a party (e.g., “Banned Delegate”.) If doing so would result in another party having Dominance (i.e., it now has more delegates), that party would become the Dominant Party. If there are ties (more than one party has more delegates) Dominance would pass to the party closest in clockwise order.
Note that the chairman is not a member of ANY party, and does not count in any way towards Dominance.
Initially, the party leader position is taken by the first delegate to enter a party (whether that is a player delegate or a neutral delegate.)
To claim Party Leader from the delegate currently holding the position, a player must have more delegates in the party than the party leader does. These means that ties will not result in claiming the party leader position.
In rare cases, there are cards that would remove delegates from a party (e.g., “Banned Delegate”.) If doing so would result in another player (neutral or otherwise) having more delegates in the party, then that player would become the Party Leader. If there were a tie in this situation, the Party Leader would be the next player in turn order (going clockwise from the active player.) For these cases, the Neutral Player is always considered last in player order and the Active Player is always considered first.
No. While each player is limited to the 7 delegates they have in the game, each party has unlimited space.
Each player is limited to a total of 7 delegates. Once those are placed, you cannot move them from the parties in which they have been placed.
Neutral delegates are also limited, and if the reserve has none, then any effect/step that would place neutral delegates is ignored until there are more delegates in the reserve.
Delegates only return to your reserve when they are in the Dominant Party and that party becomes the Ruling Party. When this happens, all non-Leader delegates in that party return to the reserve. If there are no delegates of your colour in the reserve when the Lobby is refilled (in Part 3f of the Turmoil Phase) then you do not get to place a delegate in the Lobby.
Note that any card that requires you to place delegates as part of the effect MUST be resolved; as such, if you do not have enough delegates in the reserve, you cannot play that card.
For supply purposes (i.e., if playing a card that requires you to place delegates, whether it mentions “from the reserve” or not) the Lobby is considered part of the reserve. As such, a delegate can be taken from the Lobby to resolve such a card.
Normally, the active player decides the order that all effects are resolved. In the Turmoil phase, however, there is no active player, and as such all events are resolved in written order (from left to right when multiple effects are outlined.)
Each event is resolved for all players, not just one player; the bonus or penalty would be applied to everyone. When resolving an event that is based on tiles, colonies, tags, cards, TR etc. each player would count THEIR OWN tiles/colonies/tags/cards/TR (and influence) to determine the effect of the Global Event.
When the effect of a global event is calculated, the appropriate variable is counted (and is usually limited to a maximum of 5) after which influence is added or subtracted to THAT NUMBER to obtain a “final count”. After this, you will gain or lose the appropriate resource/TR/cards etc. according to the “final count.”
Examples:
- Solarnet Shutdown Global Event: Lose 3 MC for each blue card (max 5, then reduced by influence.)
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First count the number of blue cards you have (ignoring any beyond 5.) For the example, let us say you have 4.
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Next, subtract your influence (e.g., 1 influence for having a delegate in the Dominant Party.) In this example, you would have a “final count” of 4 blue cards – 1 influence = 3
-
Finally, you would resolve the event using this “final count”, losing 3 MC for each (a total of 9 MC lost.)
- Spin-off Products: Gain 2 MC for each science tag (max 5) and influence
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First count the number of science tags you have (ignoring any beyond 5.) For example, let us say you had 8; so, this would allow you to count 5 maximum.
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Next, add your influence (e.g., 2 influence - 1 for being party leader of the Dominant Party, and 1 for having 3 non-Leader delegates in the Dominant Party.) This would give you a “final count” of 5 science tags + 2 influence = 7
-
Finally, you would resolve the event using this “final count”, gaining 2 MC for each (a total of 14 MC gained.)
There are 3 promo cards provided by the Dice Tower 2018 Kickstarter (Jovian Lanterns, Atmo Collectors, Lunar Exports) that were already planned to be released with the Colonies expansion. They were provided as an early exclusive to backers of Dice Tower but would be redundant once the new expansion was released.
Note that the versions of these cards in Colonies are slightly revised from their promo versions (for balance reasons.) Hence the versions of the cards in Colonies would supersede the promo versions.
If all volcanic areas on these maps have tiles on them, any card that places a tile on a volcanic area (e.g., “Lava Flows” [51], “Lava Tube Settlement” [50]) CANNOT be played.
The 6 MC cost for placing a bonus is an effect that can be resolved any time during the action to place a tile there. For example, you can place a tile there, place the ocean, and then use MC from that placement to pay for the 6 MC cost. If there are no ocean tiles remaining, you still must pay 6 MC to place a tile on the south pole (receiving nothing in return.)
Cards that are specific to volcanic areas (e.g., “Lava Tube Settlement” [50]) can be placed ANYWHERE on the Hellas board (as there are no volcanic areas.)
Corporation Clarifications Card types: S = Standard, CE = Corporate Era, VN = Venus Next, P = Prelude, PRO = Promo, C = Colonies, T = Turmoil, B = Big Box **Corporation ** **Type ** **Notes/Clarifications **
The “Effect” of this card is triggered whenever ANY player terraforms Venus. Any cards that/actions that would raise Venus after it is maxed out would not trigger the ability, however.
This effect is triggered even if Venus is raised during the World Government phase.
This corporation has a mandatory first action – place a community. You can do a second action that turn if you choose, but no more than that until the following turn.
The very first action of the game for this corporation (place a community) DOES NOT follow the regular requirements of the action to place a community (placing adjacent to a tile or marked area.)
Therefore, you can place this first community anywhere, even if you had already placed a city or greenery during the Prelude phase.
Note that “Land Claim” [49] acts as a community for Arcadian Communities, but can be placed anywhere, not just adjacent to a tile or marker owned by the player. You still obtain 3 MC for placing a tile on your Land Claim as this corporation.
You cannot place your tile on a “Land Claim” [49] played by another player.
Note that placing Communities will NOT allow you ignore placement restrictions for a greenery (or “Mining Area” [42]) – these must still be placed next to a TILE you own, not just adjacent to or on a marker you own.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
This corporation has a mandatory first action – put an additional Colony Tile in play. You can do a second action that turn if you choose, but no more than that until the following turn.
When playing solo with this corporation, you would draw 4 Colony tiles, then choose 3 and discard 1. As your first action, you may put into play any unused Colony of your choice, INCLUDING the one that you discarded previously.
Only blue cards, green cards and Preludes played trigger the effect of this corporation. Event cards DO NOT trigger Aridor’s effect.
Each new tag will trigger this effect separately (e.g., a card with 2, 3 or 4 new tags will increase MC production 2, 3 or 4 steps respectively.) The wild tag from “Research Coordination” [55] or from the Research Network Prelude card does not trigger this corporation’s effect, as these tags can’t be used as ANY tag until they are already in play and you are performing a completely different action.
If using the starting effect is used to put Titan, Enceladus, or Miranda in play, they still remain inactive until a card that holds the appropriate resource is put into play.
As the first action of the game, this corporation requires you to reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find two cards with a floater icon; then, take those cards into hand and discard all other cards that were drawn. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the cards taken into hand should be visible to all players.
The floater icon indicates the cloud symbol; for the purposes of Celestic’s first action of the game (drawing cards to reveal 2 cards with floater icons) the cards in question need only have the floater icon on them to qualify (this IS NOT a tag.) This would include cards that put floaters on another card (e.g., “Air-Scrapping Expedition” [56]), cards that have a floater icon in the requirement or as a required cost of the card (e.g., “Aerosport Tournament” [57], “Stratospheric Birds” [15]) as well as cards that hold floaters themselves (e.g., “Extractor Balloons” [12].)
When playing another card that adds (a) resource(s)/floater(s) to a Venus card, this corporation card counts as a Venus card that can have resources added to it.
This ability is triggered for any card that has a face value of 20 MC or more, EVEN IF discounts from other cards would bring the amount paid below 20 MC.
You still get 4 MC back if you paid for the card with only steel/titanium. Note that the “City” (costing 25 MC) and the “Greenery” (costing 23 MC) Standard Projects would trigger this corporation ability.
The ability on this card is NOT an action, but rather an “Effect” – all greeneries placed with plants by this player only cost 7 plants instead of the standard 8. This ability is permanent (i.e., you can convert 7 plants to a greenery as many times per generation as you are able) as it simply modifies the conversion action that is on the player board.
The first ability on this card CANNOT be used at all if you possess any energy resources, even if being used in an attempt to stall (as a “null” action); the action itself is only available if the prerequisite is met (having NO ENERGY RESOURCES.)
The second ability on this card allows you to spend 3 MC to draw and reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find a building tag; then, take that card into hand. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the card taken into hand should be visible to all players.
If you use the second ability to search for a building tag in the deck, and the deck no longer contains any cards with building tags (i.e., you go through the deck and no building tag is revealed), then the action is cancelled and no card is obtained. In this rare case, the action can be repeated indefinitely, revealing the entire deck to all players before reshuffling, but would be cancelled again each time once no building tag is revealed without the action every being exhausted (although this would be cumbersome, time consuming and excessively bothersome to other players.)
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
While the Helion player can use heat as MC, heat resources cannot be removed by other players with cards that would steal/remove MC (e.g., “Hired Raiders” [58], “Flooding” [22].) Furthermore, the Helion player cannot choose to forfeit heat instead of MC when targeted by such a card. As well, when two players are tied for TR at the end of the game and it goes to the tiebreaker (MC), heat does not count towards the tiebreaker. Heat CAN be used as MC for paying any cost, including paying for a Prelude card or buying cards during the Research Phase.
Heat CANNOT be used to pay a penalty for a Global Event that removes MC.
To trigger the Effect on this card (Gain 2 MC when you play an event) you must first pay for the event fully before receiving the 2 MC back. This is NOT a discount on the initial price of the event.
This corporation has a mandatory first action – draw 3 cards. You can do a second action that turn if you choose, but no more than that until the following turn.
Your global requirements are +/- 2 steps for all parameters – ocean tiles, temperature, oxygen, as well as Venus (even though the last is not mentioned on the card.)
The 2-step wording is important; this means you can play a card requiring 0°C at -4°C, as each STEP for temperature is 2 degrees. The same is true for Venus, as each step is 2% Venus.
The effect of this card stacks with the ability of the “Adaptation Technology” [39] card and the “Special Design” card, such that when used with one (or both) of these other effects you can play a card 4 (or 6) steps above or below the global parameter requirements on that card. This corporation ability cannot be used to supersede other card requirements (tag requirements, TR requirements, etc.)
This corporation receives 1 MC production when any ocean is placed, even if during the World Government or Turmoil Steps (Global Event) of the Solar Phase.
This corporation receives resources when increasing production, but does not lose resources when decreasing production. These resources are earned immediately upon gaining the production, and can be used later in the same action (see “What order do you resolve the effects/triggers of a card that you play?”.) You only gain resources at the time you are increasing production, and only the number of resources corresponding to the number of steps of production you receive (e.g., if increasing steel production 2 steps, from 5 to 7, you would obtain 2 steel, NOT 7.)
The effect of this corporation is triggered upon placing any tiles on the board, INCLUDING ocean tiles (as long as you were the one placing the ocean.)
You only get 1 steel production per tile, regardless of whether you collect 1 or 2 resources from a placement bonus. The Effect text (as of the 3rd printing) should read: “Each time you place a tile on an area with a steel or titanium placement bonus, increase your steel production 1 step”, which was made clearer compared to older versions.
When Mars First is the ruling party (Turmoil expansion), granting a steel resource whenever a tile is placed on Mars, the Mining Guild effect is still not triggered unless the tile is placed on an area with a printed steel/titanium bonus. The Ruling Policy does not count as a Placement Bonus.
The starting condition of this corporation that comes into effect when played (All opponents decrease their MC production 2 steps) is not considered an “attack” for the purposes of the “Law Suit” [59] card, as each opponent decreases their own production (rather than the Mon Insurance player decreasing their opponents’ production.) Therefore, the “Law Suit” card cannot be played against the Mons Insurance player based on this starting effect alone. They must play another card reducing production or removing resources from another player to be targeted by “Law Suit”.
If a player plays a card during the Prelude phase (with the Ecology Experts or Excentric Sponsor preludes) that reduces another players production or removes resources, the victim must be compensated by Mons Insurance even though this occurs prior to the action phase.
If the active player chooses to trigger Mons Insurance’s effect at any point in an action when the Mons player has no money, then no money needs to be paid to the attacked player (even if the Mons player obtains money later in that action.) E.g., The Mons insurance player attacks another player while having not money, triggers his corporation effect to compensate the target 0 MC, then collects 2 MC from an ocean placement in the same action.
When played solo, all attack cards are targeted to a neutral player. As such, any reduced production (mandatory) directed at the neutral player would require that Mons Insurance pay compensation to the neutral player (i.e., the general supply.) Any cards played that “steal” resources can still be played against the neutral opponent, but again compensation of 3 MC must be paid to the general supply if you choose to steal those resources from the neutral player.
Any removal of resources from another player is optional, and you can choose not to remove those resources to avoid having to pay compensation (whether playing solo or multiplayer.) This applies whether the card played says “remove” or “steal”.
Reducing production as required by a card however is MANDATORY; if you do not want to reduce an opponent’s production (if the card allows you to do so) then you must reduce your own.
If both of a player’s actions on a turn are attacks (either removing resources or production from an opponent) Mons Insurance has to pay 3 MC for each instance to the respective victim (even if the victim of both attacks was the same) for a total of 6 MC.
When any cards state to “steal” resources, this counts as a single action of removing resources from one player and adding them to another player (“Hire Raiders” [58], “Law Suit” [59], “Air Raid”.) The Mons Insurance effect cannot be triggered in between the removal and addition of resources; the full transfer of resources must be resolved, and THEN Mons Insurance must compensate the victim.
If the ability of the Pharmacy Union corporation is triggered by another player playing a microbe tag (lose 4 MC and add a disease token), Mons Insurance DOES NOT have to compensate that player for the loss, as it is the ability of Pharmacy Union that resulted in the loss of resources, not the other player.
The Effect of Mons Insurance is NOT triggered when Global Events are resolved, as it is the Global Event causing the loss of resources/production, not a player.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4, Source 5)
As the first action of the game, this corporation requires you to reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find three cards with a Venus tag; then, take those cards into hand and discard all other cards that were drawn. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the cards taken into hand should be visible to all players.
Your Venus global requirements are +/- 2 STEPS. This means you can play a card requiring 6% Venus at 2% Venus, as each STEP for Venus is 2%. The effect of this card stacks with the “Adaptation Technology” [39] card and the “Special Design” card, such that when used with one (or both) of these other effects you can play a card 4 (or 6) Venus steps above or below the global parameter requirements on that card.
If another player plays a microbe tag and you are forced to remove 4 MC (or any amount up 4 MC) to trigger Pharmacy Union’s ability, this is NOT considered an attack; it is not the player playing the microbe tag that removes the resources, but rather Pharmacy Union’s own ability. As such, playing a microbe tag cannot be considered a valid trigger to allow “Law Suit” [59] to be played, nor does it require compensation by the Mons Insurance Corporation.
The “disease” resource that is stored on Pharmacy Union is NOT the same as a microbe resource.
The Science tag card that is drawn by the Pharmacy Union player is obtained when the corporation is PLAYED, and NOT during the first action of the game. This is different than other similar corporations, like Morning Star Inc., Celestic, Splice, etc. but similar to Point Luna (which draws a card as soon as it is played.)
When played, this corporation requires you to reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find one card with a science tag; then, take that card into hand and discard all other cards that were drawn. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the card taken into hand should be visible to all players.
After this corporation card has been flipped by playing a science tag, it acts like a played event card and goes into the event pile; its tags have no effect, its passive ability no longer is active, and it DOES NOT count as a tagless card.
When Pharmacy Union is flipped facedown, it is added to the player’s event pile.
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This card counts towards the Legend milestone on the Elysium map, and is also counted as an event when any player plays “Media Archives” [60]
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It DOES NOT trigger “Media Group” [40] because it does not count as “playing” an event.
If a card with both a microbe tag and a science tag is played as this corporation, the following should be considered:
- Both the science tag trigger and the microbe tag trigger MUST be resolved
- The active player chooses the order to resolve these triggers, but they both MUST be resolved
- As such, if there are no disease resources on the corporation, you can choose to trigger the science tag first to flip the corporation card and gain 3 TR. HOWEVER, the microbe tag trigger must still be resolved (as it was added to the “pool” of actions when the project card was originally played) therefore you would lose 4 MC, but would not place any disease cubes (as there is no longer a valid card to hold this resource.)
If you play “Research” [47], and use the first science tag trigger to flip Pharmacy Union, then the second tag does nothing (as the corporation card text states that you MAY flip the corporation facedown and gain 3 TR, making it an optional effect, and ultimately impossible to do a second time given you have already flipped it once.)
Note that the first two effects on Pharmacy Union (the first triggered by ANY microbe tag played, the second triggered by the Pharmacy Union player when playing science tags) are MANDATORY. As such, if the Red Party (Turmoil Expansion) are ruling, then a science tag cannot be played if:
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There is at least one disease resource on Pharmacy Union, AND
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You do not have 3 MC (after paying for the card and triggering all appropriate effects) to pay for the Reds ruling policy for raising TR. If there are no disease resources on Pharmacy Union when the Reds are ruling, however, then science tags CAN be played and the 3rd effect (flipping over the corporation card) can be ignored as it is an optional effect. If you choose to enact it, you MUST have at least 9 MC to pay for the Reds ruling policy (as TR will be raised 3 steps.)
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
A “new adjacency” refers to a border between your tile and another player’s tile.
- This can occur if the Philares player places a tile next to another player’s tile, or another player places a tile next to the Philares player’s tile.
- When Philares places a tile, each border formed with another player’s tile counts as 1 trigger of the effect (e.g., placing a tile between 3 opponents’ cities will trigger the effect 3 times.)
- Each trigger of the effect is distinct; as such, the Philares player can select a different resource to receive for each trigger.
- The adjacencies with other tiles do not have to be from separate players; placing a tile next to 4 tiles owned by the same player would trigger the effect 4 times.
- In solo play, this effect can only be triggered when placing tiles next to the neutral city and greenery.
- This effect is NOT triggered when playing oceans (either yourself or another player), as no player can own these tiles.
- This corporation’s Effect CANNOT be triggered by any city that is not on Mars (“Ganymede Colony,” “Phobos Space Haven”, “Luna Metropolis”, “Stratopolis”, “Maxwell Base”, “Dawn City”, “Stanford Torus”)
The tag from this card triggers its own effect, which allows you to draw a card immediately when the corporation is played (even before the next players reveal their corporations, and before the Prelude phase begins.) If there are multiple earth tags on a card, each tag triggers the corporation effect.
Cards purchased into hand cost 5 MC rather than 3 MC; this includes the starting 10 cards, cards from every Research phase, and cards purchased from “Business Network” [61] or “Inventor’s Guild” [62].
Cards obtained from “Restricted Area” [63] do not cost any more than the 2 MC required to use that action.
Any actions that let you “draw” cards (as opposed to buying them) will not have an additional cost with this corporation.
The ruling policy of the Scientists party still costs 10 MC for 3 cards and is not modified by this corporation.
Playing a Prelude card that increases your Terraform Rating would negate the effect of Pristar for the first generation and not allow you to add a preservation resource or gain 6 MC, since the Prelude phase is considered part of Generation 1 of the game.
In order to obtain the benefit of Pristar during the Production phase, you must not have gained TR at any point prior in the generation (i.e., during the Action Phase, as the Production phase happens after the Action phase.)
Conversely, any TR gained during the Solar phase (e.g., during the Turmoil step) will NOT disqualify a player from gaining the benefit of Pristar as the Solar phase is AFTER the Production phase.
Note that playing a building tag is required to convert 2 microbes into 1 plant production – you cannot make this conversion any other way. Therefore, 3 building tags must be played for each plant production you get.
Microbe cards can be added to this card by other cards (e.g., “Symbiotic Fungus” [11], “Extreme-Cold Fungus” [2]) as well as removed by “Ants” [16].
You may choose to add more microbes to the card (instead of converting 2 microbes to a plant production), even if you have enough microbes to trigger the other effect.
When using the action on this card, you MUST choose your lowest production to raise by one step. If multiple resources are tied for the least production, you can choose any of the tied resources to raise.
If your MC production is currently negative, you must choose to raise it rather than another resource.
The Jovian tag on this corporation triggers its own Effect, thus giving this corporation an extra 1 MC production when played.
Corporation and Prelude cards that have a Jovian tag will trigger this effect. Corporation cards will trigger this effect only if played AFTER this corporation in turn order.
As the Chairman is not a member of any party, it does not count as a Party Leader for the action on Septem Tribus.
The wild tag counts as any tag of your choice only AFTER it is played (i.e., playing it will not activate other project cards/corporations that trigger from specific tags.)
This tag, once played, can be counted as a single tag of any type when:
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Playing a card requiring specific tags to play
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Claiming a milestone that requires specific tags – Builder, Ecologist, Rim Settler, Diversifier
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Playing a card that grants effects based on the number of certain tags that you own (e.g., “Terraforming Ganymede” [64] – gain 1 TR for each Jovian tag you have played, “Satellites” [65] – gain 1 MC production for each Space tag you have)
Note that when performing an action, you must choose one of the 11 tags in the game to be represented by the wild tag; it cannot represent a tag other than the 11 that are in the game. This card CANNOT be used as a tag:
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When it is first played, to trigger another card or to obtain a discount – it has NO tag until after it is played.
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When an opponent plays a card that triggers from other players’ tags (E.g., “Toll Station” [66], 1 MC production for each space tag your opponents have.)
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At the end of the game when resolving Awards (this wild tag would not count towards any Award.)
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When drawn during an action that requires a certain tag to be drawn (e.g., “Search For Life” [1] - If the card has a microbe tag, add a Science resource here)
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At the end of the game when scoring (e.g., it does not count as a Jovian tag when scoring any Jovian multiplier, for example “Ganymede Colony” [67])
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When counting events for “Media Archives” [60] (gain 1 MC for each event EVER PLAYED by all players) or for the Legend Milestone, as event symbols are NOT considered tags.
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When resolving Global Events that count tags (e.g., Diversity, Homeworld Support, Interplanetary Trade.) The Turmoil phase does not involve “actions”; therefore, the Wild tag cannot be treated as any tag.
The wild tag cannot be used as a Venus tag if you are not playing with the Venus expansion that game.
You can choose what tag the wild tag acts as for each action individually. For example, you could state the tag is a Space tag for the first action in a turn, and a Venus tag for the second action.
You cannot use the wild tag as more than one tag within a single action (e.g., you could not use it as both a Venus and an Earth tag when playing “Gyropolis” [68], nor can you use one wild tag as multiple Science tags to meet a card requirement.)
When playing “Community Services” [69], Research Network counts as a card with NO tags – i.e., the Wild Tag is not considered a tag until you designate it as one during an action.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
When the player using this corporation plays a microbe tag, he/she benefits from BOTH effects – either gaining 4 MC or gaining 2 MC and a microbe on the card played.
The microbe tag on this corporation triggers its own effect, giving you 4 MC when the corporation is put into play.
Corporation and Prelude cards that have a microbe tag will trigger this effect. Corporation cards will trigger this effect only if played AFTER this corporation in turn order.
As the first action of the game, this corporation requires you to reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find one card with a microbe tag; then, take that card into hand and discard all other cards that were drawn. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the card taken into hand should be visible to all players.
Floaters on this card can be used as heat; there is no need to convert them to heat before using them. The floaters can be used with heat resources in any combination when using the “convert 8 heat to 1 temperature step” action (e.g., 2 floaters + 4 heat, or 1 floater + 6 heat.)
Each temperature step is still considered a separate action; converting 8 floaters to 2 temperature steps, for example, would be considered 2 actions (and you would have to wait until next turn to perform any more actions.)
Floaters on this card can be consumed to play “Local Heat Trapping” [24] or to use the action on “Caretaker Contract” [70]. They can also be converted to steel with “Meltworks”, although if you use 3 floaters (6 heat worth) for the action, you do not get “change” in the form of 1 heat back. Floaters on this card do NOT count towards the Thermalist Award.
This corporation has a mandatory first action – place a city tile. You can do a second action that turn if you choose, but no more than that until the following turn.
While the first Effect of this card is triggered only on Mars, the second effect is triggered for ANY city you place, whether it is on or off Mars (When you place a city, gain 3 MC.) If you place a city on Mars as this corporation, you get both effects.
The effects of this corporation apply to any Prelude cards that place a city. The neutral cities placed at the beginning of the game in the solo variant trigger the effect of Tharsis Republic and grant 1 MC production each.
Despite the fact that this corporation states “When you play an Earth card” the discount applies to each TAG – a card with two Earth tags (e.g., “Luna Governor”) would be discounted by 6 MC with Teractor.
This corporation’s ability allows cards to be purchased for 1 MC each at the beginning of the game, during each research phase, and using the actions of “Business Network” [61] or “Inventor’s Guild” [62].
Cards obtained from “Restricted Area” [63] will still require that 2 MC be paid for the action.
The ruling policy of the Scientists party still costs 10 MC for 3 cards, and is not modified by this corporation.
The discount on energy tags does not apply to Prelude cards with an Energy tag, since the MC requirement on Preludes is an effect, not a cost (e.g., you would still need to forfeit the MC indicated on the Prelude card in order to play it.)
The Prelude phase is part of generation 1; Prelude cards that grant TR in any way count towards raising Terraforming Rating in the first generation. Thus, playing at least one such Prelude card would allow UNMI to use its Action to raise TR another step in the first generation (even if no other actions have been taken.)
Cards that only raise TR (without raising a global parameter) will still allow this ability to be used.
When the Reds party (Turmoil Expansion) is ruling, UNMI must pay an additional 3 MC when performing the corporation action to raise TR. If the UNMI player has not raised TR in any way during a given generation, that player cannot use the UNMI action and do nothing (as a stalling move); the action itself is not available unless the prerequisite (raising TR that generation) is met.
This corporation action requires that you reduce YOUR production of any one resource, NOT an opponent’s.
Production/resources refers to the 6 standard resources on the player board – MC, steel, titanium, plants, energy, and heat.
You can reduce your MC production below 0 using this corporation action, but no lower than -5.
For all other standard resources, you must have at least 1 production in that resource in order to reduce production and gain the appropriate resources.
This corporation has a mandatory first action – draw 3 Prelude cards and play one of them. You can do a second action that turn if you choose, but no more than that until the following turn.
As the Prelude card that Valley Trust draws is the first action of the game, this occurs after all players have chosen and revealed corporations and played their 2 Prelude cards each. Depending on turn order, some players may have done first generation actions as well.
Note that the 3 Prelude cards drawn are from the Prelude pile, AFTER the setup. Note that the Prelude cards discarded by all players are NOT returned to the Prelude pile, but remain in a separate discard pile and cannot be drawn again by Valley Trust.
The 2 MC discount provided by Valley Trust is per Science tag. Therefore, when playing “Research” [47], with 2 Science tags, the total discount is 4 MC.
This corporation allows you to use a blue action card a second time in a generation after having used it once.
It can only be used on your own card, not that of another player.
If the card in question has two different actions on it, you are not required to do the same action twice with Viron; you can do one action on the card, and then with Viron use the card again to do the other action on the card.
If there are awards that happen to be funded before Vitor takes its first action (fund an award for free) then it still gets to fund an award without cost – but it will be the 14 MC or 20 MC one instead. Note that the award funded is still one of the only 3 that can be funded – it is not an “extra” (4th) award.
The effect of this corporation (receive 3 MC when playing a card with a non-negative VP) includes cards with multiplier VP effects (e.g., “Fish” [14] – 1 VP/animal, “Ganymede Colony” [67] – 1 VP/Jovian tag, “Immigration Shuttles” [71] – 1 VP/3 cities in play, etc.) as these are all non-negative values.
When playing this corporation, the “?” VP icon triggers its own Effect, thus granting 3 MC immediately
In solo play, the “Fund an Award for Free” effect is not used.
Card types: S = Standard, CE = Corporate Era, VN = Venus Next, P = Prelude, PRO = Promo, C = Colonies, T = Turmoil, (T/PRO) = Turmoil Promo, B/PRO = Big Box Promo **Number **
Your global requirements are +/- 2 STEPS for all parameters – ocean tiles, temperature, oxygen, as well as Venus (even though the last is not noted on the symbology on the card.) This means you can play a card requiring -4°C at -8°C, as each STEP for temperature is 2 degrees. The same is true for Venus, as each step is 2% Venus.
The effect of this card stacks with the ability of the Inventrix corporation, the Morning Star Inc. corporation and the “Special Design” card, such that when used with one (or two) of these other effects you can play a card 4 (or 6) steps above or below the corresponding global parameter requirements on that card. “Adaptation Technology” cannot be used to supersede other card requirements (tag requirements, TR requirements, etc.)
This Effect increases the value of your titanium to 4 MC per resource, and for steel to 3 MC per resource. If you are playing Phobolog or have the “Mercurian Alloys” [27] card the Effect stacks, and your titanium resources are now worth 5 MC per resource (or 6 MC if you have all three.)
If you play the “Rego Plastics” [28] card along with this one, this Effect stacks and your steel resources are now worth 4 MC per resource.
When played, this Effect applies to any steel or titanium resources you may currently not have spent yet.
Your steel and titanium are worth more when spending them on cards, as well as when spending them on certain blue card actions (e.g., for “Water Import from Europa” [72], which allows you to use titanium towards the cost of the action.)
When playing any solo variant of the game, you steal 5 MC from your neutral opponent (i.e., take the resources from the general supply.)
The “steal” action is a simultaneous removal of resources from an opponent and addition of resources to the active player, rather than two separate actions. As such, it cannot be split up for the purposes of resolving the effect of the Mons Insurance corporation.
In order to play this card, you MUST forfeit 1 floater from a card you own, even if you decide not to steal any MC (e.g., to avoid triggering the “Law Suit” card.)
You cannot use the action on this card to if there are no microbes in play that can be taken, as a microbe is the cost for this action. You CAN perform this action if:
-
Another player has microbes on a project card or corporation that are not protected (by “Protected Habitats” [73])
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You have another project card or corporation card containing microbes that you are willing to remove
-
“Ants” has cubes on it already and you choose to consume an ant to produce an ant (in which case the number of microbe resources on this card would remain unchanged) – mostly for stalling purposes
Note that if you choose to consume a cube on “Ants” and replace it with another, it will still trigger “Topsoil Contract” [74]. If playing the solo game, you can remove microbes from the “imaginary neutral opponent” to add to “Ants”.
If Applied Science is your only card with at least 1 resource, and it has exactly 1 resource on it, you cannot use the second option of removing one resource to add 1 resource.
You can use steel towards the total cost for this action (8 MC); you may mix and match steel and MC to pay the 8 MC to lay down an ocean tile (you do not have pay all in MC or all in steel.) If you have “Advanced Alloys” [26] each steel you use is worth 3 MC towards paying for an ocean tile with this card, just like paying for building cards.
Discounts on building tags (Cheung Shing Mars Corporation) DO NOT apply to this action.
This card is triggered (and the player who played it gets 2 plants) even when an ocean tile is placed during the World Government or Turmoil phases (Global Event.)
If there is no opponent you want to reduce a titanium production from, you can reduce your own, and then increase it again (if you need the Jovian tag or just want the victory point.)
When playing this card, you may choose to raise either parameter, even if the one you choose is maxed out and there are still steps available for the other (e.g., choose Venus as the card’s effect, even though Venus is maxed and temperature is only at -10 °C.) This would be important for cases such as if playing Turmoil and the Reds were ruling; you could choose a maxed parameter in order to avoid raising TR and paying the Reds ruling policy “tax”.
As with all actions, you are permitted to do an action that raises a global parameter that is already maxed out, with the result that it does nothing.
The card that is chosen to place microbes onto must be able to hold microbes (the microbes cannot be placed onto a card that does not collect microbes.)
If you have no card that holds microbes, this can still be played but the microbes collected are discarded.
This card may cause the Dominant Party to change (i.e., a different party has MORE delegates than the current Dominant Party.) This would take effect immediately.
If playing this card causes two or more parties to have more delegates than the current Dominant Party (in a tie), then the dominance switches to the party closest to the current Dominant Party in clockwise order.
This card may cause the Party Leader to change (i.e., a different player has MORE delegates in the party than the current Party Leader.) This would take effect immediately.
If playing this card causes two or more players to have more delegates than the current Party Leader (in a tie), then the Party Leader switches to the player closest to the active player in clockwise order (the active player is considered “first” for this purpose, the neutral player is considered “last”.)
This card cannot be used to remove yourself as chairman. However, it can be used to remove one of your own delegates from a party.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
The two plant production reduced for this card must be reduced from a single player, and cannot be split between multiple players.
You may perform this action even if you do not have the required 3 MC to buy the card you draw. In this case you must simply draw, look at and discard the card.
If you choose to buy the drawn card as Polyphemos (or Terralabs), you must pay 5 MC (1 MC with Terralabs) rather than 3 MC.
This tile is considered a city; therefore, it activates all city triggers (“Immigrant City” [44] – 1 MC Production, “Pets” – 1 Animal, etc.), will benefit from greeneries placed around it (in addition the ocean tiles), and follows all city placement restrictions (not adjacent to another city.) It counts as a city for other cards, as well as for the Mayor milestone.
The white city tile is used when this card is played to indicate that it counts points for adjacent water tiles in addition to greeneries.
If playing this card as the Stormcraft corporation, you may spend floaters as 2 heat each when using the action on “Caretaker Contract”.
If you have no project/corporation cards that a resource can legally be placed on, this card can still be played without effect.
You cannot add a resource to a card unless it already has one or more resources on it already.
“CEO's Favorite Project” can be played to add one resource to a card on “Self Replicating Robots”, because it does not specify that the card must be in play, only that it has resources on it. This card can be played to add an additional resource to “Search for Life” [1] after it already has one, but this will not add any points to the card (“Search for Life” can only score a maximum of 3 points for one or more resources on it.)
While this tile benefits from being next to a city or cities, it is not REQUIRED to be placed next to a city. It can be placed on any non-reserved area.
This card counts only YOUR OWN cards without tags, not every player’s tagless cards.
The wild tag cards “Research Coordination” [55], Research Network (Prelude card) and Septem Tribus (Corporation) count as cards with no tags for “Community Services” [69]; the wild tag counts as no tag at all until you choose it to be one for a given action.
In addition to blue and green cards, “Community Services” [69] includes both corporations and Prelude cards that do not have tags when resolving it.
This card discounts the next card you play this generation. The discounted card can be played on any later turn. You can do other actions (claim a Milestone/Award, use standard projects, use blue actions on cards, trade with colonies) before playing the discounted card. However, as soon as you play any card, that card must be the one you discount.
This card will not reduce the cost of a card below zero (i.e., you do not get any excess money back.) A card that costs 16 MC or less will be discounted to zero when this card is used.
The resource that this card adds can be a floater, an animal, or a microbe depending on which card is targeted. This card can also be used to add a resource to a card on “Self Replicating Robots” if it has a Venus tag.
If you do not have any valid Venus cards to add a resource to, this effect on the card is ignored and the other effect still applies (increase MC production by 2 steps.)
This card allows you to pay one less standard resource (energy, titanium, or MC) when performing the Trade action. This would reduce the cost of a trade from 3 energy/3 titanium/9 MC to 2 energy/2 titanium/8 MC.
The Effect stacks with that of “Rim Freighters”; having both cards would make the cost of a trade 1 energy/1 titanium/7 MC.
Note that this card has no effect on “Titan Floating Launch-Pad” (spend 1 floater to trade for free.) A floater must still be spent to trade using that card, even with “Cryo-Sleep”.
Part of the card effect includes placing 2 delegates. These delegates must come from the reserve (which includes the Lobby for supply purposes.) If you do not have enough delegates in the reserve/Lobby, you cannot play this card.
A requirement includes any parameter immediately to the right of the card cost that must be met in order to play the card, including, but not limited to:
- Global parameter requirements (Temperature, Oxygen, Oceans, Venus)
- Tag requirements
- Tile requirements (e.g., “Ecological Zone” [4] – Requires that you have a greenery tile)
- Colony requirements
- Party requirements
If the Ecology Experts prelude is used to play this card, then the tags on the prelude WOULD trigger “Decomposers” to add 2 extra microbes onto it, as playing “Decomposers” is an effect that is part of the action of playing the Ecology Experts prelude.
For the Big Box Promo version of this card, the tile placed by “Deimos Down” is not considered a city itself. This tile cannot be legally placed next to any city (including “Capital”.) After this tile has been placed, a city can be placed next to it with no restriction.
This card grants 1 MC for Jovian tags played by ALL players, including Prelude, Corporation, and Project Cards. The tag on this card counts towards the total tallied; it should include the text “including this”, but this was an oversight.
Floaters on this card can be used to pay for a Venus tag card without using an extra action – the floaters themselves can be spent like titanium or steel and do not need to be converted to MC first. The action portion is to place a floater on the card.
This event requires that the player using the card possesses 9 different types of resource cubes at the time that it is played. The 9 types can be any combination of the following:
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The 6 Standard resources
- MC
- Steel
- Titanium
- Plants
- Energy
- Heat
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Card based resources
- Microbes
- Animals
- Floaters
- Fighter resources (“Security Fleet” [20])
- Camp resources (“Refugee Camps”)
- Science resources
- Asteroid resources
- Disease resources (Pharmacy Union corporation)
- Preservation resources (Pristar corporation)
Resources on “Self-Replicating Robots” DO NOT count towards “Diversity Support” since the resources on this card do not have a type.
If you use your last MC on this card, MC will still count as one of the 9 types required at the time that it was played.
When played, this card’s 2 tags trigger its effect to immediately to produce 2 animals (each tag triggers the effect once.)
If this card is played by a player who has already played “Viral Enhancers” [48], each of the 2 tags would trigger this card’s effect once each, then trigger “Viral Enhancers” once each (for an extra 2 animals – total 4, or for 2 plants in addition to the initial 2 animals.)
The tile placed by this card is a special tile, and IS NOT considered a greenery (and would not be scored as a greenery tile.)
If the Ecology Experts prelude is used to play this card, then the plant tag on the prelude WOULD trigger “Ecological Zone” [4] to add 1 extra animal onto it, as playing “Ecological Zone” is an effect that is part of the action of playing the Ecology Experts prelude. This is of course assuming you have met the requirement for a greenery on the board already (e.g., from another prelude) as Ecology Experts would not allow you to ignore this requirement (it only allows you to ignore global requirements.)
While the text on early versions of this project state “Effect: When you play an Earth card, you pay 3 MC less for it”, it should read “When you play an Earth TAG”. The discount is applied for each tag, not per card. Therefore, “Luna Governor” (with 2 Earth tags) would be discounted to 0 MC with “Earth Office”.
“X” in the action of this card must be 1 or more; you cannot convert 0 MC to 0 energy as a stalling tactic using this card.
While the production effects of the card are MANDATORY, they can be resolved in any order. As such, if no player has energy production, this card can still be played to raise your own energy production and then reduce it again (i.e., if you required the tag, etc..)
If you have no animal cards in play when you play Eos Chasma, you may ignore this effect and resolve the other effects (2 MC production, 3 plants.)
This card grants an extra influence at all times. While normally you can achieve a maximum of 3 influence (1 for Chairman, 1 for Party Leader of the Dominant Party, 1 for any amount of non-Leader delegates in the Dominant Party), this card will allow you to have a maximum of 4 influence (if you meet all 3 of those requirements) or a minimum of 1 influence (if you meet none of those 3 requirements.)
When playing this card, you can choose to obtain either option for resources, no matter what other cards you may have. For example, if you also have “Stratospheric Birds” [15] (a Venus animal), but no Venus microbes, you can still choose to take microbes when playing Freyja Biodomes and simple discard them.
When scoring this card at end game, Jovian tags on your corporation and on your Preludes count towards the score.
You may keep adding microbes to this card (with no effect) even after the temperature has been maxed out.
Each distinct tag will trigger this effect separately. For example, a card that has both a plant and an animal tag will generate 2 MC for each, for a total of 4 MC.
This card CAN be played during the Prelude phase with the Ecology Experts or Excentric Sponsor preludes, as the Greens are ruling during the Prelude phase (although their Ruling policy is not active until the Action phase.)
When counting tags to determine MC production, each wild tag can only be counted ONCE; you cannot count a single wild tag as both an Earth and Venus tag – you must choose one or the other.
“X” in the action of this card must be 1 or more; you cannot spend 0 energy to draw 0 cards as a stalling tactic using this card.
When playing any solo variant of the game, you steal 3 MC or 2 Steel from your neutral opponent (i.e., take the resources from the general supply.) The “steal” action is a simultaneous removal of resources from an opponent and addition of resources to the active player, rather than two separate actions. As such, it cannot be split up for the purposes of resolving the effect of the Mons Insurance corporation.
(Source) 231 (VN)
All floaters obtained from this card must be placed on a single Venus card, and cannot be split amongst multiple cards.
This card will allow a player to raise their MC production by 1 MC for every city placed thereafter (including the city placed by the “Immigrant City” card.) This includes cities not on Mars, as well as “Capital” [52].
When playing this card, you must reduce your energy production by 1, reduce your MC production by 2, and raise your MC production by 1 when the effect is triggered. This means that the net change is -1 Energy production and -1 MC production, but it is worthwhile remembering that when you increase your MC production by 1 with the Manutech Corporation, which would grant 1 MC when playing this card. Note that the above effects can be done in ANY order after the card has been paid for. Therefore, if you are at -4 MC production, you can choose to place the city, gain 1 MC production, then lose 2 MC production thereafter (to avoid going below -5 MC production, which is not allowed.) The effect of this card applies to cities that are not on Mars (“Ganymede Colony,” “Phobos Space Haven”, “Luna Metropolis”, “Stratopolis”, “Maxwell Base”, “Dawn City”, “Stanford Torus”) as well as those on Mars.
This card counts all cities for scoring, including those not on Mars, as well as “Capital” [52].
This card discounts the next card you play this generation. The discounted card can be played on any later turn. You can do other actions (claim a Milestone/Award, use standard projects, use blue actions on cards, trade with colonies) before playing the discounted card. However, as soon as you play any card, that card must be the one you discount.
This card will not reduce the cost of a card below zero (i.e., you do not get any excess money back.)
A card that costs 8 MC or less will be discounted to zero when this card is used.
“X” in the text of this card must be 1 or more; you cannot convert 0 heat production to 0 MC production just to play this card (e.g., as a stalling tactic.)
This card can grant a maximum of 11 MC production (for the 11 different tags in the game), or 10 if playing without Venus Next. A wild tag(s) cannot grant additional production beyond this, as it must represent a tag that would normally be face up on your cards (not an imaginary 12th type of tag) (Source)
You may perform this action even if you do not have the required 3 MC to buy the card you draw. In this case you must simply draw, look at and discard the card. If you choose to buy the drawn card as Polyphemos (or Terralabs), you must pay 5 MC (1 MC with Terralabs) rather than 3 MC.
When scoring this card at end game, Jovian tags on your Industries corporation and on your Preludes count towards the score.
The action on this card can be used even after the oxygen has been maxed out, to obtain the steel/titanium rewards. Energy cubes must still be consumed to do so.
The PROMO version of this card has an extra tag (a space tag) and is 1 MC higher in cost when compared to the version that was released in Colonies. This was a deliberate balancing change, and the version that costs 20 MC, without the space tag is the one which should be used as per the designers.
There is no limit to the number of floater resources that can be added to this card – just the number of MC that can be obtained from using it (maximum 4.)
When using this card to obtain MC, you do not remove floaters from it; they remain permanently on the card (you just collect an equal amount of MC from the bank and add it to your pool.)
This card cannot be used to claim a spot reserved for an ocean, or one reserved for Noctis City on the standard board.
When playing this card as Arcadian Communities (Promo Corporation), the following should be noted:
- The Land Claim cube acts as a community, without the placement restriction of placing next to another community/tile you own
- You receive 3 MC when you place a tile on the Land Claim area, similar to any other community
Note that placing a Land Claim will NOT allow you ignore placement restrictions for a greenery (or “Mining Area” [42]) – these must still be placed next to a TILE you own, not just adjacent to or on a marker you own.
Subsequently placing a tile on a “Land Claim” is optional – you may choose to leave the marker there for the remainder of the game without ever placing a tile there.
If you have no legal placements available for a greenery (or are placing your first greenery), you can place the greenery anywhere on the board, as normal. You are not forced to place the greenery on a previously played “Land Claim”.
This tile can only be placed on volcanic areas, including those that are on Elysium (and not specifically named on the card.) These are spots with bolded names, and include:
- Tharsis Tholus, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons or Arsia Mons on the Standard map
- Arsia Mons, Olympus Mons, Elysium Mons, or Hecates Tholus on the Elysium map
- Since the Hellas map lacks volcanoes, this tile can be placed anywhere
Due to the placement restrictions on the Standard and Elysium maps, if all volcanic spots are already covered on those maps, this card CANNOT be played.
This tile can only be placed on volcanic areas. These are spots with bolded names, and include:
- Tharsis Tholus, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons or Arsia Mons on the Standard map
- Arsia Mons, Olympus Mons, Elysium Mons, or Hecates Tholus on the Elysium map
- Since the Hellas map lacks volcanoes, this tile can be placed anywhere, following normal city placement restrictions (on this map, this city CANNOT be placed adjacent to another city.)
Due to the placement restrictions on the Standard and Elysium maps, if all volcanic spots are already covered on those maps, this card CANNOT be played.
This card will activate effects that trigger on events when played if the person playing the card has those effects in play; they do not trigger effects owned by the target player.
For example, when a player plays “Law Suit” after having previously played “Media Group” [40], only that person would gain 3 MC, not the target of the card (even though it would end up with their event stack.) Furthermore, if the target player had “Media Group” [40] active, it would not be triggered since the target is not the one playing the event.
If a player plays a card during the Prelude phase (with the Ecology Experts or Excentric Sponsor preludes) that reduces another players production or removes resources, the victim can play “Law Suit” against the attacking player in the action phase of the first generation (as the Prelude phase is considered part of generation 1.)
This event would count towards the Legend milestone for the person who is targeted by it (as it will be in their event pile after it is played.)
At the end of the game, the negative point on the card is counted against the player that was targeted by the card (who should have it in their event pile.)
After you have passed in a generation, you cannot perform any more actions that generation; that includes playing this card, even if someone were to remove resources/production from you after you had passed.
This card is not playable in the solo game. In this case it becomes a card that does nothing, but can still be sold for 1 MC.
The “steal” action is a simultaneous removal of resources from an opponent and addition of resources to the active player, rather than two separate actions. As such, it cannot be split up for the purposes of resolving the effect of the Mons Insurance corporation.
The starting condition of the Mons Insurance corporation (All opponents decrease their MC production 2 steps), is not considered an attack for the purposes of “Law Suit”, as each opponent is decreasing their own production, rather than the Mons Insurance player decreasing their opponents’ production. As such, this starting event alone would not allow you to play “Law Suit” against the Mons Insurance player.
This card cannot be played against yourself, as it is unplayable in the solo game.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
If playing the Stormcraft Inc. corporation, you can use floaters to pay for the 5 heat required by the card.
Since this card has 2 Earth tags and costs 4 MC, it is discounted to 0 when played with “Earth Office” [38] or the Teractor Corporation (both of these provide a 3 MC discount per Earth tag.)
This greenery tile can be placed on any ocean area even if it is not adjacent to another tile you own, unlike a standard greenery.
This card requires that both effects be completely FULLY in order for it to be played. If you cannot both raise one colony track by one step and decrease another by one step, then you cannot play the card.
Both manipulated tracks must be different (the track that is raised and the one that is lowered) – you cannot increase a track then decrease the same track with this card.
The effect of this card is optional – you need not use its trigger if you do not want to. You cannot, however, draw a card without first discarding one when you choose to use the effect. “Research” [47] will trigger this effect twice, but you must draw and discard in two separate actions (drawing and discarding from the first trigger before drawing and discarding for the second.)
Note that you must discard a card FIRST, before drawing a new one; this is not a case where you can choose the order in which to resolve the Effect.
This card will allow you to place one of YOUR delegates from the reserve into any party for 3 MC.
This card action cannot be used if you have no delegates in the reserve (The Lobby is considered part of the reserve for supply purposes, and a delegate can be taken from the Lobby if it is the last unassigned delegate you have remaining.)
In order to play this card, there need to be 2 cities in play. These can be cities owned by ANY player and need not be your own.
When using this card to obtain MC, you do not remove animals from it; they remain permanently on the card (you just collect an amount of MC from the bank equal to the number of animals and add it to your supply.)
Animals can be added to this card by other cards or by trading/building a colony on Miranda, and can be removed by other cards (“Predators” [25], “Virus” [34].)
This card can be used to place a resource to any other Venus card that holds resources (including animals, microbes, or floaters.) This card can be used to add a resource to a card attached to “Self Replicating Robots”, as long as the card has a Venus tag.
If you gain an animal but have no card to place it onto, it will NOT trigger “Meat Industries”.
If you choose to use “Predators” [25] to consume an animal on itself (remove an animal from “Predators” and replace with another, which is allowed) this WILL trigger Meat Industries to provide 2 MC as a new animal is being gained.
You must pay for the event in full before you can get the 3 MC back as a “rebate”. This does NOT reduce the original cost of the card.
This card stacks with “Optimal Aerobraking” [75] (for a total of 6 MC and 3 heat received when playing a space event.)
This card increases your production based on the building tags you have in play *at the time it is played *only.
If playing the Stormcraft corporation, you can use floaters to pay some or all of the cost for the action on “Meltworks”. If you choose to use 3 floaters (6 heat worth), you will NOT get “change” in the form of 1 heat back.
This card’s effect stacks with “Advanced Alloys” [26] and with the Phobolog Corporation effect; if you have two (or three) of these, your titanium resources are worth 5 (or 6) MC each.
This tile MUST be placed on a space that grants 1 (or more) steel OR 1 (or more) titanium.
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It CAN be placed on spots that grant other resources in addition to steel or titanium
-
It MUST be placed next to a tile you own – not only next to a marker from “Land Claim” [49] or the Arcadian Communities Corporation.
-
If you have no tiles on the board, this card cannot be played.
If this card is copied by “Robotic Workforce” [76], you must copy the exact production that was obtained when the tile was first placed.
If this tile is placed by the Mining Guild Corporation, you obtain 1 steel production (for the corporation) PLUS 1 steel or titanium production (based on where you placed the tile.)
This tile MUST be placed on a space that grants 1 (or more) steel OR 1 (or more) titanium.
- It CAN be placed on spots that grant other resources in addition to steel or titanium
If this card is copied by “Robotic Workforce” [76], you must copy the exact production that was obtained when the tile was first placed. If this tile is placed by the Mining Guild Corporation, you obtain 1 steel production (for the corporation) PLUS 1 steel or titanium production (based on where you placed the tile.)
This card cannot be played if your MC production is -4 or -5 unless you can legally place a colony on Luna.
This tile can only be placed in a spot free of adjacent tiles, INCLUDING ocean tiles. If there is no such spot remaining on the board, this card cannot be played.
This card raises your terraform rating by a total of 3 steps – 2 Asteroid extra terraform rating in addition to the 1 for raising temperature.
If this card is played after the temperature has been maxed out, then it still grants 2 TR.
This city (on the standard map) MUST be placed on the space reserved for Noctis City, disregarding normal placement restrictions – i.e., it can be played on that space even if there are other cities adjacent to the space already.
On the Elysium and Hellas maps, there is no reserved spot for this city and it can be played anywhere, respecting normal city placement rules (not adjacent to another city.)
You may choose which effect to use when the card triggers. You can keep adding resources to the card when playing cards rather than taking them off to draw a card. “Research” [47] will trigger this effect twice; you can either add two resources, remove two resources to draw two cards (if you have enough on the card already) or you can add then remove/remove then add a resource to draw a card.
You must pay for the space event in full before you can get the 3 MC and 3 heat back as a “rebate”. This does NOT reduce the original cost of the card. This card stacks with “Media Group” [40] (for a total of 6 MC and 3 heat received when playing a space event.)
The action on this card can be used even after the oxygen has been maxed out, to obtain the steel/titanium rewards. Energy cubes must still be consumed to do so.
The effect of this card applies to cities that are not on Mars (“Ganymede Colony,” “Phobos Space Haven”, “Luna Metropolis”, “Stratopolis”, “Maxwell Base”, “Dawn City”, “Stanford Torus”) as well as those on Mars.
Animals on this card CANNOT be removed, even by the owner of the card.
This card cannot be played if your MC production is -4 or -5 unless you can legally place a colony on Luna.
The greenery placed with this card must follow all standard greenery placement rules – namely it must be adjacent to a tile you own.
Note that the Chairman does not count as a Party Leader, as the Chairman is not in any party.
This action cannot be used unless at least 1 energy cube is being converted to MC (cannot be used on 0 resources.)
While the production effects of the card are MANDATORY, they can be resolved in any order. As such, if no player has energy production, this card can still be played to raise your own energy production and then reduce it again (i.e., if you required the tag, etc..)
You cannot use the action on this card to if there are no animals in play that can be taken, as an animal is the cost for this action. You CAN perform this action if:
-
Another player has animals on a project card or corporation that are not protected (by “Protected Habitats” [73])
-
You have another project card or corporation card containing animals that you are willing to remove
-
Predators has cubes on it already and you choose to consume a predator to produce a predator (in which case the number of animal resources on this card would remain unchanged)
Note that if you choose to consume a cube on “Predators” [25] and replace it with another, it would still trigger “Meat Industry” [77].
If playing the solo game, you can remove animals from the “imaginary neutral opponent” to add to “Predators” [25].
When playing this card, you choose the order to collect each of your colony bonuses in. Note that if you have multiple colonies on Pluto, each colony bonus must be resolved separately (draw 1 card, discard 1 card for each colony, one draw/discard at a time.)
This card allows you to use one of YOUR card actions a second time in a generation, and not another player’s.
It works exactly like the Viron corporation ability. Note that this card CANNOT be played to reuse the Ruling Policy of the Scientists Party (Pay 10 MC to draw 3 Cards.)
This card CAN be used to repeat a corporation action if there is an action on your corporation card.
This card does not prevent the player who plays it from removing their own resources. This is important if using “Ants” [16] to move lower scoring microbes onto that card or “Predators” [25] to do the same with lower scoring animals.
A player with “Protected Habitats” is NOT protected from global events and can have resources removed by these.
This greenery tile can be placed on any ocean area even if it is not adjacent to another tile you own, unlike a standard greenery.
Microbes on this card can be used as MC when paying for a plant card – this means any card with a plant tag (whether or not that card gives you plants or plant production.)
The action on the card is only to add microbes on to it – it does not take an extra action to use/convert microbes to MC, they are simply spent like MC when paying for a separate plant card.
This card can cause the Party Leader to change (i.e., a different player has MORE delegates in the party than the current Party Leader.)
If playing this card causes two players to have more delegates than the current Party Leader, then the Party Leader switches to the active player, or (if the active player is not one of the tied players) the player closest to the active player in clockwise order.
This card cannot be played if you have no delegates in the reserve (The Lobby is considered part of the reserve for supply purposes, and a delegate can be taken from the Lobby if it is the last unassigned delegate you have remaining.)
The “exchange” of a neutral delegate with one of your own is an instantaneous action, rather than two separate steps (e.g., remove a neutral delegate, then add one of your own.) As such, the Dominant party will not change while is card is being played.
This card counts empty areas as hexes lacking a tile that are adjacent to your tiles and grants 1 MC per area.
-
Since it counts “areas”, not adjacencies, an empty hex bordering 2 or more of your tiles counts only as 1 empty area. Each unique empty hex that borders your tiles count as a single empty area.
-
Areas around ALL of your tiles are counted, not just one.
-
Ocean spaces (without ocean tiles on them) and reserved hexes (e.g., Noctis City) without tiles on them count as empty areas.
-
If your tile is on the edge of the board, sections that extend past the edge of the board DO NOT count as empty areas.
-
Tiles in space (i.e., not on Mars) are considered to have zero empty areas adjacent to them.
-
Areas with only a “Land Claim” [49] token or a community placed by the Arcadian Communities corporation are still considered “empty” for the purposes of this card, as they do not have tiles on them.
This card’s effect stacks with “Advanced Alloys” [26]; if you have both cards, your steel resources are worth 4 MC each.
You may keep adding microbes to this card (with no effect) even after the oxygen has been maxed out.
Playing this card counts as playing 2 Science cards only for the purposes of triggering any Science tag effects twice sequentially (e.g., “Olympus Conference” [8] or “Mars University” [7].)
Although this card states that it “counts as playing 2 Science cards”, you are still allowed to do a second action on the same turn that you play it (i.e., playing it only consumes 1 action.) This card is discounted by 4 MC when playing with the Valley Trust corporation (2 MC per Science tag.)
Once played, this card only counts as a single card; as such it would not count as 2 cards towards the Tycoon milestone or the Magnate award.
This card cannot be used to contravene the “maximum 3 colonies per colony tile” rule – i.e., you can still only place this colony on a tile with 2 or fewer colonies already on it.
The wild tag counts as any tag of your choice only AFTER it is played (i.e., playing it will not activate other project cards/corporations that trigger from specific tags.)
This tag, once played, can be counted as a single tag of any type when:
-
Playing a card requiring specific tags to play
-
Claiming a milestone that requires specific tags – Builder, Ecologist, Rim Settler, Diversifier
-
Playing a card that grants effects based on the number of certain tags that you own (e.g., “Terraforming Ganymede” [64] – gain 1 TR for each Jovian tag you have played, “Satellites” [65] – gain 1 MC production for each Space tag you have)
Note that when performing an action, you must choose one of the 11 tags in the game to be represented by the wild tag; it cannot represent a tag other than the 11 that are in the game. This card CANNOT be used as a tag:
-
When it is first played, to trigger another card or to obtain a discount – it has NO tag until after it is played.
-
When an opponent plays a card that triggers from other players’ tags (E.g., “Toll Station” [66], 1 MC production for each space tag your opponents have.)
-
When drawn during an action that requires a certain tag to be drawn (e.g., “Search For Life” [1] - If the card has a microbe tag, add a Science resource here)
-
When counting events for “Media Archives” [60] (gain 1 MC for each event EVER PLAYED by all players) or for the Legend Milestone, as event symbols are NOT considered tags.
-
At the end of the game when resolving Awards (this wild tag would not count towards any Award.)
-
At the end of the game when scoring (e.g., it does not count as a Jovian tag when scoring any Jovian multiplier, for example “Ganymede Colony” [67])
-
When resolving Global Events that count tags (e.g., Diversity, Homeworld Support, Interplanetary Trade.) The Turmoil phase does not involve “actions”; therefore, the Wild tag cannot be treated as any tag.
The wild tag cannot be used as a Venus tag if you are not playing with the Venus expansion that game. You can choose what tag the wild tag acts as for each action individually. For example, you could state the tag is a Space tag for the first action in a turn, and a Venus tag for the second action.
You cannot use the wild tag as more than one tag within a single action (e.g., you could not use it as both a Venus and an Earth tag when playing “Gyropolis” [68], nor can you use one wild tag as multiple Science tags to meet a card requirement.)
When playing “Community Services” [69], Research Network counts as a card with NO tags – i.e., the Wild Tag is not considered a tag until you designate it as one during an action.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
This tile can only be placed in a spot free of adjacent tiles, INCLUDING ocean tiles. If there is no such spot remaining on the board, this card cannot be played.
This card allows you to pay one less standard resource (energy, titanium, or MC) when performing the Trade action. This would reduce the cost of a trade from 3 energy/3 titanium/9 MC to 2 energy/2 titanium/8 MC.
The Effect stacks with that of “Cryo-Sleep”; having both cards would make the cost of a trade 1 energy/1 titanium/7 MC. Note that this card has no effect on “Titan Floating Launch-Pad” (spend 1 floater to trade for free.) A floater must still be spent to trade using that card, even with “Rim Freighters”.
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This card ONLY copies the production box (brown background) on the bottom of a building card, not other effects. Any decreases in production outlined in the box must still be performed.
For example, if playing this card on “Immigrant City” [44], you would copy only the bottom production box (minus 1 energy production, minus 2 MC production) and not the top production box (1 MC production when a city is played.)
-
This card can be used to duplicate production from a Prelude card with a building tag.
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This card can be used to copy the Research Network prelude card to gain 1 MC production (by treating the Wild tag as a building tag for that action.)
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This card can also be used to duplicate production from a corporation with a building tag (e.g., Manutech.)
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It cannot copy production boxes that are part of an effect or action in the upper panel of a blue card or on a corporation.
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Only a production box on the lower panel (on a green or blue card) can be copied, or production on a corporation that is NOT part of an action or effect. For example, “Robotic Workforce” can copy the steel production from the Factorum corporation, but not the energy production.
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If copying a card that reduces production of any player (e.g., “Heat Trappers” [78]) you once again can choose any player to reduce production from (even a different player than was chosen for the originally played card.)
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This card cannot be played if you have no building cards in play with a production box that you can fully copy.
-
This card cannot be used on an opponent’s project card/Prelude card/corporation – only your own.
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When copying “Mining Rights” [41] or “Mining Area” [42] (placed on a space with a steel or titanium placement bonus, granting the corresponding production) Robotic Workforce will copy the exact production that was obtained from the tile when it was placed (either titanium or steel.)
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When copying “Medical Lab” [79], you recount your current number of building tags when you play “Robotic Workforce” and increase your MC production accordingly (in which case you may gain more production than when you originally played “Medical Lab” [79].)
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
You can use titanium towards the total cost for this action (6 MC); you may mix and match titanium and MC to pay the 6 MC to put a resource on this card (you do not have pay all in MC or all in titanium.)
If you are playing Phobolog, have “Advanced Alloys” [26] or “Mercurian Alloys” [27] (or multiple of these) your titanium is worth more towards paying for a resource on this card, just like paying for space cards.
Discounts on space tags DO NOT apply to this action.
The effect of this card applies to cities that are not on Mars (“Ganymede Colony,” “Phobos Space Haven”, “Luna Metropolis”, “Stratopolis”, “Maxwell Base”, “Dawn City”, “Stanford Torus”) as well as those on Mars.
This card only increases MC production for each space tag you have in play (e.g., only on green cards, blue cards, Prelude cards and Corporation cards you have already played.) It does not count event cards or cards in your hand.
Using this action requires that you spend one floater on this card to activate its ability; although that floater is counted towards the bonus received, it must be then removed from the card.
This card can hold more than 5 floaters; however, the action will only count a maximum of 5 floaters and grant a maximum of 5 MC per use.
When using this card, the top card of the deck must be revealed (i.e., shown to all players) before discarding it.
Once there is one science resource on this card, the action can still be performed as long as the cost is paid, but getting a second (or third, fourth, etc.) cube on the card will earn no further victory points (a maximum of 3 VPs are scored for 1 or more cubes on the card.)
If you draw “Research Coordination” [55] with the wild tag, this DOES NOT count as a microbe tag, as the wild tag can only be used as such after it is played.
-
The action on this card can only be used once per generation, like any other action card (except for the action from Viron, which allows it to be used again.)
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When using this card, you can either add a new Building/Space card from hand with 2 generic resources added onto it OR double the resources on a card that is already on SRR.
-
There can be several cards on SRR. Each card has its own resources.
-
When using this card action to double resources, you can only double those on ONE card, not all of them. If there are multiple attached cards, you choose which one to double.
-
Cards on SRR can be played AS IF from hand - they are not actually in hand, and so they do not count for the Planner milestone.
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Cards on SRR do not count towards the “Scientific Community” Global Event from Turmoil (Gain 1 MC for each card in hand) as these cards are not in hand.
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Cards on SRR cannot be discarded to resolve the “Paradigm Breakdown” Global Event from Turmoil (Discard 2 cards from hand.)
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Cards on SRR cannot be sold for 1 MC (“Sell Patents” standard project) as they are not in hand.
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Cards on SRR are not in play either, so their resources do not count for the Excentric award, because that award only counts resources on cards IN PLAY.
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You CAN play cards onto SRR that have requirements that have not been met yet, as the restrictions apply only when the card is played (i.e., paid for.)
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Any triggers from cards played onto SRR (e.g., Immigrant City – 1 MC Production for each city played [44]) will only activate when the card is PLAYED, not when it is placed on SRR.
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CEO's Favorite Project can be played to add one resource to a card on SRR, because it does not specify that the card must be in play, only that it has resources on it.
-
When playing a card from SRR (as if from hand), the cost is reduced by the number of resources. The cost cannot be below zero.
-
When playing a card from SRR, you discard all accumulated resources and discount the card by the same amount. The resources do not remain on SRR to be used/accumulated on another card.
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“Corroder Suits” [80] and “Maxwell Base” [81] (add a resource to another Venus card) can be used to add a resource to a Venus card that is on SRR.
-
You can use the actions on this card twice with Viron – either put two cards on it in one generation with 2 resources each, put one card on it with 2 resources and double the resources on any card on SRR (including the one you placed that generation), or double the resources on any card on SRR twice (or two cards once each.)
-
The resources placed onto a card on SRR come from the general supply.
-
The resources on SRR do not have a type, and therefore do not count towards “Diversity Support”
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
Like any other blue action card, this action can only be performed once per generation. To obtain another energy production in the same generation, you would have to play a card or use a standard project.
The requirement for this card is that YOU have at least one colony in play, not just for a colony to be in play.
The requirement for this card is that YOU have at least one colony in play, not just for a colony to be in play.
This card cannot be used to contravene the “maximum 3 colonies per colony tile” rule – i.e., you can still only place this colony on a tile with 2 or fewer colonies already on it.
Your global requirements are +/- 2 STEPS for all parameters – ocean tiles, temperature, oxygen, as well as Venus (even though the last is not noted on the symbology on the card) for the next card you play this generation. This means you can play a card requiring -4°C at -8°C, as each STEP for temperature is 2 degrees. The same is true for Venus, as each step is 2% Venus.
The effect of this card stacks with the ability of the Inventrix corporation, the Morning Star Inc. corporation and the “Adaptation Technology” [39] card, such that when used with one (or two) of these other effects you can play a card 4 (or 6) steps above or below the corresponding global parameter requirements on that card.
It cannot be used to supersede other card requirements (tag requirements, TR requirements, etc.)
After playing this card, you may perform other actions (standard projects, claiming milestones/awards, blue card actions, trade, lobby etc.) before playing the card that you want to use the effect on.
You can use “Special Design” on another card that has no global requirements (or has requirements that are not considered a global parameter – e.g., tags, tiles, production, etc.) In this case, “Special Design” would have no effect on the played card.
As soon as you play a card after “Special Design”, the effect “expires” even if that card has no requirements, has global requirements that are met already, or has requirements that are unrelated to global parameters. The +2/-2 effect cannot be “saved” for a subsequent card.
This ability is triggered for any card that has a face value of 20 MC or more, EVEN IF discounts from other cards would bring the amount paid below 20 MC. This Effect is not triggered when placing a 20+ MC card onto “Self-Replicating Robots” – it only triggers when that card is played.
You cannot play this card unless you can discard a card (i.e., you cannot play this card if there are no cards left in your hand to discard.)
This card specifies the order in which it must be resolved; a card must be discarded FIRST before your draw 3 cards, and you cannot change the order of these actions. A card on Self-Replicating Robots cannot be discarded to resolve Sponsored Academy, since any card on SRR is not considered IN your hand.
This card is activated by ANY standard project (except Sell Patents); this includes all 5 listed on the game board, the Air Scrapping standard project on the Venus board, the Buffer Gas standard project (exclusive to solo play in the Prelude expansion) and the Build Colony standard project in Colonies. The “Trade” action in Colonies and the “Lobby” action in Turmoil are NOT Standard Projects, and therefore do not benefit from this card.
Converting 8 heat to 1 Temperature step or 8 plants to 1 greenery tile are NOT considered Standard Projects.
This city tile is placed on the board in space and not on the planet; as such it does not count as a city ON MARS. There is no defined space for this city on the map, and it can be placed anywhere in the outer space (black) area of the board that is not assigned to something else.
This city cannot make any adjacencies, even with off-planet cities like “Phobos Space Haven” or “Ganymede Colony”, and therefore it CANNOT trigger the Philares corporation ability. This city counts towards the Landlord Award, and also counts towards scoring “Immigration Shuttles” [71].
The action on this card can be used even after the oxygen has been maxed out, to obtain the steel/titanium rewards. Energy cubes must still be consumed to do so.
Note that the floater that you spend to play this card must be from one of YOUR cards, not an opponent’s.
“X” in the action of this card must be 1 or more; you cannot convert 0 microbes to 0 MC as a stalling tactic using this card.
The action on this card can be used even if you do not have a card that can hold microbes; if used in this case, the microbe obtained would be discarded (applicable mainly as a stalling action.)
The cost of the trade action using this card (1 floater) is not affected by “Cryo-Sleep” or “Rim Freighters” (When you trade, pay 1 less resource for it.) You must still spend a floater to trade with this card.
Note that to use this card to trade, you must still have an available Trade Fleet to use for the trade. It does NOT let you trade without a Trade Fleet.
“X” in the action of this card must be 1 or more; you cannot convert 0 floaters to 0 titanium as a stalling tactic using this card.
This card increases production for EVERY opponent’s space tags, not just for one opponent. Tags on corporations and Prelude cards count as well.
If you gain a microbe but have no card to place it onto, it will NOT trigger “Topsoil Contract”.
If you choose to use “Ants” [16] to consume a microbe on itself (remove a microbe from “Ants” and replace with another, which is allowed) this WILL trigger “Topsoil Contract” to provide 1 MC as a new microbe is being gained.
If you play “Topsoil Contract” and have already played “Decomposers” previously (Effect: When you play an Animal, Plant, or Microbe tag, including this, add a Microbe to this card.) then the microbe added to “Decomposers” WILL immediately trigger “Topsoil Contract” and grant 1 MC.
The Effect on this card is optional; you may choose not to advance the colony marker on the track when trading. This Effect stacks with that of “Trading Colony”; if you have played both, you can increase the colony marker up to two steps prior to trading.
The Effect of “Trade Envoys” applies whether you use energy, titanium, MC or the “Titan Floating Launch-Pad” card to trade.
The Effect on this card is optional; you may choose not to advance the colony marker on the track when trading. This Effect stacks with that of “Trade Envoys”; if you have played both, you can increase the colony marker up to two steps prior to trading.
The Effect of “Trading Colony” applies whether you use energy, titanium, MC or the “Titan Floating Launch-Pad” card to trade.
If you receive a discount for Venus Tags from “Venus Waystation” [82], then you get 4 MC off the price (2 MC per tag.)
When the effect of this card is triggered, you may choose which benefit to gain (either a microbe/animal resource or a plant resource); if the card played can hold an animal or microbe resource, you can still choose to take the plant instead.
If playing a card that does not hold any resources on it, you MUST choose the plant resource.
If taking a microbe/animal resource, it must go on the card that triggered “Viral Enhancers”, rather than another already played card.
If playing a card with multiple applicable tags (e.g., both a plant and an animal tag) each tag will trigger “Viral Enhancers” separately, and can be resolved separately (e.g., playing “Ecological Zone” [4] and taking a plant for one tag and an animal for the other.)
If the Ecology Experts prelude is used to play this card, then the tags on the prelude WOULD trigger “Viral Enhancers” to grant 2 plants, as playing “Decomposers” is an effect that is part of the action of playing the Ecology Experts prelude.
If removing animals from another player, you must choose a single card from which to remove animals. If there is only 1 animal on a card, you can remove that animal, but you CANNOT choose a second card from which to remove an additional animal.
This card can be played without resolving either of the effects listed, as removing resources from other players is always optional.
This card cannot be played if you have no delegates in the reserve (The Lobby is considered part of the reserve for supply purposes, and a delegate can be taken from the Lobby if it is the last unassigned delegate you have remaining.)
You can use titanium towards the total cost for this action (12 MC); you may mix and match titanium and MC to pay the 12 MC to lay down an ocean tile (you do not have pay all in MC or all in titanium.)
If you are playing Phobolog or have “Advanced Alloys” [26] (or both) your titanium is worth more towards paying for an ocean tile with this card, just like paying for space cards.
Discounts on space tags DO NOT apply to this action.
When scoring this card at end game, Jovian tags on your corporation and on your Preludes count towards the score.
This card CAN be played during the Prelude phase with the Ecology Experts or Excentric Sponsor preludes, as the Greens are ruling during the Prelude phase (although their Ruling policy is not active until the Action phase, so you would not get 4 MC for placing this greenery.)
Boards: S = Standard, H = Hellas, E = Elysium, A = All; Type: M = Milestone, A = Award **Milestone/Award Board:Type Notes/Clarifications
This award goes the player with the most **MC production **only, with no regard to terraform rating.
This award goes to the player with the most blue and green cards with a face value greater than or equal to 20 MC, regardless of the price that was paid for the card (with discounts, etc.) Event cards are not counted for this award.
Tags on blue cards, green cards, corporations, and Prelude cards all count towards these Milestones and Awards.
Tags on event cards DO NOT count towards any of these Milestones and Awards.
Wild tags (from the project card “Research Coordination” [55], the Septem Tribus corporation or the Prelude card “Research Network”) count towards all of the listed Milestones, but NOT towards any Awards.
Errata: The Excentric Award should read “Most resources on cards in play”.
Note that any type of resource counts towards this Award, and both resources on cards and resources on corporations (Celestic, Recyclon) are included.
Resources that are on an unplayed card placed on “Self Replicating Robots”, however, are NOT counted towards Excentric.
This requires at least 2 production in all 6 standard resources in the Standard game (as you start with 1 production of all resources) or at least 1 production in all 6 standard resources in the Corporate Era game at the time when the milestone is claimed.
Production gained from Prelude cards, corporations and project cards all count toward this milestone.
If playing with the Venus Next expansion, this Milestone is added to the 5 existing Milestones on the board you are playing with. Only 3 of the 6 Milestones can still be claimed.
This award goes to player with the highest number of combined steel and energy resources (cubes) at the end of the game, NOT production. Note that as energy becomes heat every round, the energy resources will be only those produced in the final production phase (as opposed to steel, which can accumulate.)
This award goes to the player with the most tiles in play. This includes:
-
Cities and greenery tiles on Mars.
-
Special (brown) tiles, associated with specific cards, placed on Mars.
-
Cities that are on designated spots not on Mars - Ganymede Colony, Phobos Space Haven, Luna Metropolis, Stratopolis, Dawn City and Maxwell Base.
-
The Stanford Torus city in space.
Not counted towards this Award are:
-
Ocean tiles, which are not owned by anyone.
-
Player markers from Arcadian Communities.
-
The player marker from the “Land Claim” [49] card.
This can be claimed once a player has 5 cards in their event pile, including:
-
“Law Suit” [59], played by another player but placed in the target’s event pile
-
The Pharmacy Union corporation after it is flipped, as it is placed in the event pile once this happens.
The Milestone counts cities both on and off Mars. In addition, the “Capital” [52] card (white city) is a city for all purposes including for this Milestone.
Note that when resolving this award, floaters on the Stormcraft corporation do NOT count towards the milestone. These floaters can be used as heat, but are still considered floaters.
Tags on blue cards, green cards, corporations, and Prelude cards all count towards this Award.
Tags on event cards DO NOT count towards Awards.
Wild tags (from the project card “Research Coordination” [55], the Septem Tribus corporation or the Prelude card “Research Network”) do NOT count towards any Awards.
If playing with the Venus Next expansion, this Award is added to the 5 existing Awards on the board you are playing with. Only 3 of the 6 Awards can still be funded.
When played, this Prelude requires you to reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find two cards with a space tag; then, take those cards into hand and discard all other cards that were drawn. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the cards taken into hand should be visible to all players.
When playing a card from hand, ONLY global requirements (temperature, ocean, oxygen, or Venus) can be ignored. Other requirements must be satisfied. Note that all 4 global parameters can be ignored (some translations of the card note only 3, which is an error.)
Note that the Prelude phase occurs AFTER choosing a corporation and purchasing project cards that you choose to keep. Therefore, the card played with this prelude must also be purchased for 3 MC at the start of the game. The card played must still be paid for at face value, minus any discounts (it is not free.)
If the card has other effects that must be satisfied (e.g., reducing plant production) these effects must be carried out, or the card cannot be played.
Ecology Experts and Excentric Sponsor cannot target the same card – they must be played individually with separate project cards.
Any card played with this prelude would trigger any corporation effects as normal (e.g., a microbe tag triggering Splice, or a tile placement triggering Philares.)
If playing with Turmoil, any card that requires a specific ruling party to be in power OTHER THAN the Greens CANNOT be played with Ecology Experts.
Conversely, the Greens are the ruling party during the Prelude phase (even though their ruling policy is not active); therefore, “GMO Contract” and “Wildlife Dome”, both of which require the Greens to be ruling, CAN be played with Ecology Experts.
If the Ecology Experts prelude is used to play ”Viral Enhancers”, “GMO Contract”, “Ecological Zone” or “Decomposers” then the tags on the prelude WOULD trigger the respective card (to grant 2 plants, 4 MC, 1 animal or 2 microbes respectively), as playing the card is an effect that is part of the action of playing the Ecology Experts prelude.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
Note that the Prelude phase occurs AFTER choosing a corporation and purchasing project cards that you choose to keep. Therefore, the card played with this prelude must also be purchased for 3 MC at the start of the game.
The cost of the card cannot be reduced below 0 – you can play the card for free but cannot get any MC back.
All requirements of the card (global requirements, tag requirements, etc.) must still be met, and all effects of the card must be resolved as usual, or else the card cannot be played.
Ecology Experts and Excentric Sponsor cannot target the same card – they must be played individually with separate project cards.
Any card played with this prelude would trigger any corporation effects as normal (e.g., a microbe tag triggering Splice, or a tile placement triggering Philares.)
If playing with Turmoil, any card that requires a specific ruling party to be in power OTHER THAN the Greens CANNOT be played with Excentric Sponsor.
Conversely, the Greens are the ruling party during the Prelude phase (even though their ruling policy is not active); therefore, “GMO Contract” and “Wildlife Dome”, both of which require the Greens to be ruling, CAN be played with Excentric Sponsor.
This greenery must follow all normal greenery placement rules – i.e., it must be placed next to a tile you own, unless it is your very first tile on Mars.
This Prelude requires you to reveal cards (to all players) from the deck until you find two cards with a plant tag; then, take those cards into hand and discard all other cards that were drawn. Both the cards that are drawn and discarded (if any) and the cards taken into hand should be visible to all players.
If playing with Turmoil, you would not get 4 MC for placing this greenery, as the Greens are ruling but their Ruling policy is only active during the Action phase.
These city placements must follow standard city placement rules (i.e., next to no other city, and not on the space reserved for Noctis City on the base map.)
These cities will trigger the effect of Tharsis Republic if someone is playing that corporation.
The wild tag counts as any tag of your choice only AFTER it is played (i.e., playing it will not activate other project cards/corporations that trigger from specific tags.)
This tag, once played, can be counted as a single tag of any type when:
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Playing a card requiring specific tags to play
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Claiming a milestone that requires specific tags – Builder, Ecologist, Rim Settler, Diversifier
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Playing a card that grants effects based on the number of certain tags that you own (e.g., “Terraforming Ganymede” [64] – gain 1 TR for each Jovian tag you have played, “Satellites” [65] – gain 1 MC production for each Space tag you have.)
Note that when performing an action, you must choose one of the 11 tags in the game to be represented by the wild tag; it cannot represent a tag other than the 11 that are in the game.
This card CANNOT be used as a tag:
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When it is first played, to trigger another card or to obtain a discount – it has NO tag until after it is played.
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When an opponent plays a card that triggers from other players’ tags (E.g., “Toll Station” [66], 1 MC production for each space tag your opponents have.)
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At the end of the game when resolving Awards (this wild tag would not count towards any Award.)
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When drawn during an action that requires a certain tag to be drawn (e.g., “Search For Life” [1] - If the card has a microbe tag, add a Science resource here)
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At the end of the game when scoring (e.g., it does not count as a Jovian tag when scoring any Jovian multiplier, for example “Ganymede Colony” [67])
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When counting events for “Media Archives” [60] (gain 1 MC for each event EVER PLAYED by all players) or for the Legend Milestone, as event symbols are NOT considered tags.
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When resolving Global Events that count tags (e.g., Diversity, Homeworld Support, Interplanetary Trade.) The Turmoil phase does not involve “actions”; therefore, the Wild tag cannot be treated as any tag.
The wild tag cannot be used as a Venus tag if you are not playing with the Venus expansion that game.
This tag can be used as a building tag when playing “Robotic Workforce” [76], so that its 1 MC production can be duplicated.
You can choose what tag the wild tag acts as for each action individually. For example, you could state the tag is a Space tag for the first action in a turn, and a Venus tag for the second action.
You cannot use the wild tag as more than one tag within a single action (e.g., you could not use it as both a Venus and an Earth tag when playing “Gyropolis” [68], nor can you use one wild tag as multiple Science tags to meet a card requirement.)
When playing “Community Services” [69], Research Network counts as a card with NO tags – i.e., the Wild Tag is not considered a tag until you designate it as one during an action.
(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)
These moons cannot be colonized or traded with until cards that collect their respective resources are put into play (Microbes for Enceladus, Animals for Miranda, Floaters for Titan.)
Tags on cards DO NOT put these Colony tiles into play – only cards that COLLECT those resources do.
This would include corporation cards that can hold resources such as Arklight (animals), Celestic (floaters), Recyclon (microbes), etc. which would put the appropriate colony into play immediately.
The white markers on these colony tiles are NOT advanced every generation until they are put into play (as noted above.)
When trading with this moon, you gain the production indicated below the spot where the white marker is sitting; the trade bonus is NOT cumulative (i.e., you do not get the production from that spot and every spot before it.)
You are not allowed to choose a trade income in a spot to the left or the right of the marker. For example, in the third spot you would be required to take an energy production and cannot opt for a MC production.
When building a colony on this tile, you get to place an ocean tile and obtain the corresponding TR (if there are any oceans left.)
You can still place a colony here if there are no ocean tiles left.
When trading with Pluto, you can take the Trade Income first (X cards) and draw a card for the Colony Bonus (if you have a colony there) before discarding a card from hand.
The card that you discard for the colony bonus of Pluto can be ANY card from your hand, not restricted to one of the cards you just drew.
If you have two colonies on Pluto, you must resolve each colony one after the other. This means you must draw and discard for the first colony before drawing and discarding a second time.
The first player places an ocean tile, but no player gets any TR or placement bonuses for the ocean placement.
Any triggers for ocean placement (e.g., Plants for “Arctic Algae” [37], MC production for Lakefront Resorts corporation, etc.) would still apply. If placing an ocean with this event would max all parameters, the game still goes another generation until a game end check (which occurs in the Solar Phase BEFORE the Turmoil Phase.)
Wild tag symbols do not count towards these Global Events, as they only count as tags during the action phase of the player who holds them (not during the Turmoil phase.)
The floaters removed for this event must both come from the same card.
The ocean that is removed from the board goes back to its designated area and can be placed again later.
No players lose a terraform rating for the removed ocean.
If all of the oceans have been placed already, the first part of this Global Event has NO EFFECT (since Global Parameters that are at maximum cannot be affected for the remainder of the game.)
Standard resources gained by the event include each of the 6 resources printed on player mats (MC, steel, titanium, plants, energy, or heat.)
Wild tag symbols do not count towards this Global Event, as they only count as tags during the action phase of the player who holds them (not during the Turmoil phase.)
Ties are friendly (i.e., both tied players get the benefit.)
If there is a tie for 1st place, no 2nd place benefit is awarded.
For this event, the heat is lost FIRST, then each player loses MC based on building tags. As with all events, effects are resolved left to right; as such the Helion corporation cannot use heat to pay for the penalty for the second effect.
Errata: The event should read “Increase MC production 1 step for each colony (max 5). Gain 1 titanium for each influence.”
- The original text did not include the “(max 5)”, when in fact you can count only maximum 5 colonies for the event resolution.
Each tile is only counted once, even if next to multiple ocean tiles.
When counting Earth tags for this event, there is no limit to the number which can be counted – ALL tags should be counted.
If there are ties for 1st place, there is no 2nd place penalty (i.e., all tied players lose 2 TR, and no one else loses anything.)
A player must have at least 1 Earth tag OR influence to be considered 1st or 2nd place. If you have no Earth tags and no influence, you are immune from this event.
This event is resolved for cities that YOU own.
Cities that are not on Mars still count towards this event (“Ganymede Colony,” “Phobos Space Haven”, “Luna Metropolis”, “Stratopolis”, “Maxwell Base”, “Dawn City”, “Stanford Torus”.)
If this event decreases temperature to 0°, this does not trigger the ocean bonus.
If this event decreases temperature below 0°, nothing happens, but the ocean tile bonus may be triggered a second time when the temperature is raised again to 0° subsequently.
If the temperature is at maximum (8°C), the first part of this Global Event has NO EFFECT (since Global Parameters that are at maximum cannot be affected for the remainder of the game.)
This Global Event card adds resources to ALL cards, including corporations that collect resources (e.g., Celestic, Pristar, Arklight) and to the “Self Replicating Robots” PROMO card.
This event is resolved for cities that YOU own.
Cities that are not on Mars still count towards this event (“Ganymede Colony,” “Phobos Space Haven”, “Luna Metropolis”, “Stratopolis”, “Maxwell Base”, “Dawn City”, “Stanford Torus”.)
If the increase in temperature triggers the 0° ocean bonus, the first player will place the ocean tile (if available), but no player gets the bonuses.
If increasing the temperature with this event would max all parameters, the game still goes another generation until a game end check (which occurs in the Solar Phase BEFORE the Turmoil Phase.)
The Ruling Policy for all parties, including this one (Gain 4 MC each time you place a Greenery tile) is only active during the Action Phase. As such, any Prelude Card that would give you a Greenery would NOT trigger this effect, as it occurs prior to the action phase.
The greenery placed by the Philares corporation WOULD trigger this effect, as placing the greenery would be your first action of the game.
When Mars First is the ruling party, granting a steel resource whenever a tile is placed on Mars, the Mining Guild corporation effect (“Each time you place a tile on an area with a steel or titanium placement bonus, increase your steel production 1 step”) is still not triggered unless the tile is placed on an area with a printed steel/titanium bonus. The Ruling Policy does not count as a Placement Bonus.
Ocean tiles placed during the Turmoil phase (by global events) or during the World Government phase DO NOT trigger the Ruling Policy, since the Ruling Policy is only active during the Action Phase.
To clarify the rulebook text further, you cannot play a card that raises terraforming in any way if you cannot pay the 3 MC cost per TR on that card while the Reds are ruling.
This does not simply mean you can play the card in question but just ignore the TR boost if you lack the funds.
When the Reds take power and the Leader of the Dominant Party becomes Chairman and gains a TR, there is no 3 MC penalty since Ruling Policies are only active during the ACTION phase. Similarly, any TR gained in the Turmoil phase (i.e., from Global Events) by any player(s) will not trigger the Reds’ Ruling Policy.
In the solo game, for the Reds’ Ruling Bonus, you receive 1 TR if you have 20 TR or below.
For the ruling policy, a player can pay 10 MC to draw 3 cards
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Note that this is a fixed 10 MC, and the same even if playing Polyphemos (buying cards costs 5 MC instead of 3 MC) or Terralabs (buying cards costs 1 MC instead of 3 MC.) Since you are paying 10 MC to draw 3 cards, rather than buying 3 project cards, the corporation effects would not apply.
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This action can only be done once per player. As such, the Viron corporation cannot repeat this action, nor can the “Project Inspection” card be used to perform this action again.
This document was compiled by Jeffrey Anchan. Thanks to Jacob Fryxelius for designing such a masterpiece of a game that continues to entertain and excite for hours and hours on end! Thanks to the rest of the Fryxelius family, including but not limited to Enoch, Daniel, Jonathan, and Isaac Fryxelius for their involvement in this stellar game. Thanks to Stephen Buonocore and the entire team at Stronghold Games for publishing this game and all associated expansions. Thanks to Malcolm Knoll for proofreading and vetting this document for me. Thanks to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for richly blessing me beyond what I deserve, especially through the troubling COVID-19 pandemic. Even amidst this turmoil, I have the blessing of enjoying board games with friends and family. Proud member of the Secret Cabal – striving lest our company be lazy cowardly manure!
[1] Search for Life (3 MC, Blue Card, Maximum 6% Oxygen Requirement), Top - Action: Spend 1 MC to reveal and discard the top card of the draw deck. If that card has a microbe tag, add a science resource here; Bottom - Oxygen must be 6% or less. 3 VPs if you have one or more science resources here.
[2] Extreme-Cold Fungus (13 MC, Blue Card, Maximum -10°C Temperature Requirement), Top - Action: Gain 1 plant or add 2 microbes to ANOTHER card; Bottom - It must be -10°C or colder.
[3] Rotator Impacts (6 MC, Blue Card, Maximum 14% Venus Requirement), Top – Action: Spend 6 MC to add an asteroid resource to this card (Titanium may be used), or spend a resource from this card to increase Venus 1 step.; Bottom – Venus must be 14% or lower.
[4] Ecological Zone (12 MC, Blue Card, Greenery Requirement), Top - Effect: When you play an animal or a plant tag (including these 2), add an animal to this card; Bottom - Requires that you have a greenery tile. Place this tile ADJACENT TO ANY GREENERY TILE. 1 VP per 2 animals on this card.
[5] Asteroid Mining Consortium (13 MC, Green Card, Titanium Production Requirement), Requires that you have titanium production. Decrease any titanium production 1 step and increase your own 1 step.
[6] E. Solar Probe (9 MC, Draw 1 card for every 3 science tags you have, including this.
[7] Mars University (8 MC, Blue Card), Effect: When you play a science tag, including this, you may discard a card from hand to draw a card.
[8] Olympus Conference (10 MC, Blue Card), When you play a science tag, including this, either add a science resource to this card, or remove a science resource from this card to draw a card.
[9] Acquired Space Agency (Prelude), Gain 6 titanium. Reveal cards from the deck until you have revealed 2 space cards. Take those into hand, and discard the rest.
[10] Experimental Forest (Prelude), Place a greenery tile and increase oxygen 1 step. Reveal cards from the deck until you have revealed 2 plant-tag cards. Take these into your hand, and discard the rest.
[11] Symbiotic Fungus (4 MC, Blue Card, Maximum -14°C Temperature Requirement), Top - Action: Add a microbe to ANOTHER card; Bottom - Requires -14°C or warmer.
[12] Extractor Balloons (21 MC, Blue Card), Top – Action: Add 1 floater to this card, or remove 2 floaters here to raise Venus 1 step; Bottom – Add 3 floaters to this card.
[13] Dirigibles (11 MC, Blue Card), Action: Add 1 floater to ANY card. Effect: When playing a Venus tag, floaters here may be used as payment, and are worth 3 MC each.
[14] Fish (9 MC, Blue Card, +2°C Temperature Requirement), Top - Action: Add 1 animal to this card; Bottom - Requires +2°C or warmer. Decrease any plant production 1 step. 1 VP for each animal on this card.
[15] Stratospheric Birds (12 MC, Blue Card, 12% Venus Requirement), Top - Action: Add 1 animal to this card; Bottom - Requires Venus 12%, and that you spend 1 floater from any card. 1 VP for each animal on this card.
[16] Ants (9 MC, Blue Card, 4% Oxygen Requirement), Top - Action: Remove 1 microbe from any card to add 1 to this card; Bottom - Requires 4% oxygen. 1 VP per 2 microbes on this card.
[17] Nitrite Reducing Bacteria (11 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Add 1 microbe to this card, or remove 3 microbes to increase your TR 1 step; Bottom - Add 3 microbes to this card.
[18] Venusian Insects (5 MC, Blue Card, 12% Venus Requirement), Top - Action: Add 1 microbe to this card; Bottom - Requires Venus 12%. 1 VP per 2 microbes on this card.
[19] Physics Complex (12 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Spend 6 energy to add a science resource to this card; Bottom - 2 VP for each science resource on this card.
[20] Security Fleet (12 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Spend 1 titanium to add 1 fighter resource to this card; Bottom - 1 VP for each fighter resource on this card.
[21] Deimos Down (31 MC, Event) - Standard Version, Raise temperature 3 steps and gain 4 steel. Remove up to 8 plants from any player.
[22] Flooding (7 MC, Event), Place an ocean tile. IF THERE ARE TILES ADJACENT TO THIS OCEAN TILE, YOU MAY REMOVE 4 MC FROM THE OWNER OF ONE OF THOSE TILES.
[23] CEO's Favorite Project (1 MC, Event), Add 1 resource to a card with at least 1 resource on it.
[24] Local Heat Trapping (1 MC, Event), Spend 5 heat to gain either 4 plants, or to add 2 animals to ANOTHER card..
[25] Predators (14 MC, Blue Card, 11% Oxygen Requirement), Top - Action: Remove 1 animal from any card and add it to this card; Bottom - Requires 11% oxygen. 1 VP per animal on this card.
[26] Advanced Alloys (9 MC, Blue Card), Effect: Each titanium you have is worth 1 MC extra. Each steel you have is worth 1 MC extra.
[27] Mercurian Alloys (Blue Card, 3 MC, 2 Science tag requirement), Effect: Your titanium resources are worth 1 MC extra.
[28] Rego Plastics (Blue Card, 10 MC), Effect: Your titanium resources are worth 1 MC extra.
[29] Aquifer Pumping (18 MC, Blue Card), Action: Spend 8 MC to place 1 ocean tile. Steel may be used as if you were playing a building card.
[30] Rover Construction (8 MC, Blue Card), Effect: When any city tile is placed, gain 2 MC..
[31] Imported Nitrogen (23 MC, Event), Raise your TR 1 step and gain 4 plants. Add 3 microbes to ANOTHER card and 2 animals to ANOTHER card.
[32] Sponsored Academies (9 MC, Green Card), Discard 1 card from hand and THEN draw 3 cards. All OPPONENTS draw 1 card.
[33] Tardigrades (4 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Add 1 microbe to this card; Bottom - 1 VP per 4 microbes on this card.
[34] Virus (1 MC, Event), Remove up to 2 animals or 5 plants from any player.
[35] Water Splitting Plant (12 MC, Blue Card, 2 Ocean Requirement), Top - Action: Spend 3 energy to raise oxygen 1 step; Bottom - Requires 2 ocean tiles.
[36] Ironworks (11 MC, Blue Card), Action: Spend 4 energy to gain 1 steel and increase oxygen 1 step.
[37] Arctic Algae (12 MC, Blue Card, Maximum -12°C Temperature Requirement), Top - Effect: When anyone places an ocean tile, gain 2 plants; Bottom: It must be -12°C or colder to play. Gain 1 plant.
[38] Earth Office (1 MC, Blue Card), Effect: When you play an Earth tag, you pay 3 MC less for it.
[39] Adaptation Technology (12 MC, Blue Card), Effect: Your global requirements are +2 or -2 steps, your choice in each case.
[40] Media Group (6 MC, Blue Card), Effect: After you play an event card, you gain 3 MC.
[41] Mining Rights (9 MC, Green Card), Place this tile on an area with a steel or titanium placement bonus. Increase that production 1 step.
[42] Mining Area (4 MC, Green Card), Place this tile on an area with a steel or a titanium placement bonus, adjacent to another of your tiles. Increase your production of that resource 1 step.
[43] Standard Technology (6 MC, Blue Card), Effect: After you pay for a standard project, except selling patents, you gain 3 MC.
[44] Immigrant City (13 MC, Blue Card), Top - Effect: Each time a city tile is placed, including this, increase your MC production 1 step; Bottom - Decrease your energy production 1 step and decrease your MC production 2 steps. Place a city tile.
[45] Giant Ice Asteroid (36 MC, Event), Raise temperature 2 steps and place 2 ocean tiles. Remove up to 6 plants from any player.
[46] Nitrophilic Moss (8 MC, Green Card, 3 Ocean Requirement), Requires 3 ocean tiles and that you lose 2 plants. Increase your plant production 2 steps.
[47] Research (11 MC, Green Card), Counts as playing 2 science cards. Draw 2 cards.
[48] Viral Enhancers (9 MC, Blue Card), Effect: When you play a plant, microbe, or an animal tag, including this, gain 1 plant or add 1 resource to that card.
[49] Land Claim (1 MC, Event), Place your marker on a non-reserved area. Only you may place a tile here.
[50] Lava Tube Settlement (15 MC, Green Card), Decrease your energy production 1 step. Increase your MC production 2 steps. Place a city tile on a volcanic area, same as Lava Flows, regardless of adjacent cities.
[51] Lava Flows (18 MC, Event), Raise temperature 2 steps and place this tile on either Tharsis Tholus, Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons or Arsia Mons.
[52] Capital (26 MC, Green Card, 4 Ocean Requirement), Requires 4 ocean tiles. Place this tile. Decrease your energy production 2 steps and increase your MC production 5 steps. 1 ADDITIONAL VP FOR EACH OCEAN TILE ADJACENT TO THIS TILE.
[53] Herbivores (12 MC, Blue Card, 8% Oxygen Requirement), Top - Effect: When you place a greenery tile, add an animal to this card; Bottom - Requires 8% oxygen. Add 1 animal to this card. Decrease any plant production 1 step. 1 VP per 2 animals on this card.
[54] Space Port (22 MC, Green Card, 1 Colony Requirement), Requires 1 colony. Gain 1 Trade Fleet. Place a city tile. Decrease your energy production 1 step, and increase your MC production 4 steps.
[55] Research Coordination (4 MC, Green Card), After being played, when you perform an action, the wild tag counts as any tag of your choice.
[56] Air Scrapping Expedition (13 MC, Event), Raise Venus 1 step. Add 3 floaters to ANY VENUS CARD.
[57] Aerosport Tournament (7 MC, Event, 5 Floater Requirement), Requires that you have 5 floaters. Gain 1 MC for each city tile in play.
[58] Hired Raiders (1 MC, Event), Steal up to 2 steel, or 3 MC from any player.
[59] Law Suit (2 MC, Event), Steal 3 MC from a player that removed your resources or decreased your production this generation. Place this card face down in that player's event pile.
[60] Media Archives (8 MC, Green Card), Gain 1 MC for each event EVER PLAYED by all players.
[61] Business Network (4 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Look at the top card and either buy it or discard it; Bottom - Decrease your MC production 1 step.
[62] Inventor's Guild (9 MC, Blue Card), Action: Look at the top card and either buy it or discard it.
[63] Restricted Area (11 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Spend 2 MC to draw a card; Bottom - Place this tile.
[64] Terraforming Ganymede (33 MC, Green Card), Raise your TR 1 step for each Jovian tag you have, including this.
[65] Satellites (10 MC, Green Card), Increase your MC production 1 step for each space tag you have, including this.
[66] Toll Station (12 MC, Green Card), Increase your MC production 1 step for each space tag your OPPONENTS have.
[67] Ganymede Colony (20 MC, Green Card), Place a city tile ON THE RESERVED AREA. 1 VP per Jovian tag you have.
[68] Gyropolis (20 MC, Green Card), Decrease your energy production 2 steps. Increase your MC production 1 step for each Venus and Earth tag you have. Place a city tile.
[69] Community Services (13 MC, Green Card), Increase your MC production 1 step per CARD WITH NO TAGS, including this.
[70] Caretaker Contract (3 MC, Blue Card, 0°C Temperature Requirement), Action: Spend 8 heat to increase your terraform rating 1 step.
[71] Immigration Shuttles (31 MC, Green Card), Increase your MC production 5 steps. 1 VP for every 3rd city in play.
[72] Water Import From Europa (25 MC, Blue Card), Top - Action: Pay 12 MC to place an ocean tile. Titanium may be used as if playing a Space card; Bottom - 1 VP for each Jovian tag you have.
[73] Protected Habitats (5 MC, Blue Card), Opponents may not remove your plant, animal or microbe resources.
[74] B. C. Topsoil Contract (8 MC, Top - Effect: When you gain a microbe to ANY CARD, also gain 1 MC.; Bottom - Gain 3 plants.
[75] Optimal Aerobraking (7 MC, Blue Card), Effect: When you play a Space Event, you gain 3 MC and 3 heat.
[76] Robotic Workforce (9 MC, Green Card), Duplicate only the production box of one of your building cards.
[77] B. C. Meat Industries (5 MC, Effect: When you gain an animal to ANY CARD, gain 2 MC.
[78] Heat Trappers (6 MC, Green Card), Decrease any heat production 2 steps and increase your energy production 1 step.
[79] Medical Lab (13 MC, Green Card), Increase your MC production 1 step for every 2 building tags you have, including this.
[80] Corroder Suits (8 MC, Green Card), Increase your MC production 2 steps. Add 1 resource to ANY VENUS CARD.
[81] Maxwell Base (18 MC, Blue Card. 12% Venus Requirement), Top - Action: Add 1 resource to ANOTHER VENUS CARD; Bottom - Requires Venus 12%. Decrease your energy production 1 step. Place a city tile ON THE RESERVED AREA.
[82] Venus Waystation (9 MC, Blue Card), Effect: When you play a Venus tag, you pay 2 MC less for it.
The contribution guide below serves two purposes: 1) to keep this version from diverging too far from the source and 2) to manage my well-being. I apologize for making this a little difficult.
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Contributions will only be accepted in the form of GitHub pull requests.
I will accept PRs that
- correct mistakes in this document if they don't make it vary meaningfully from the source.
- make formatting changes that match the overall style, but not those that introduce a new style.
- are due to a new release of the FAQ.
That said if Jacob Fryxelius confirms a new rule that belongs in this FAQ, please don't add it here. Please start with the source.
- That said, I may add one or two new rulings myself (these will be very clearly called out, and may be subject to correction.)