Your First Three Games of Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars has a lot of small rules, and a new table plays some of them wrong without noticing. Others are legal moves that cost a lot of points. This lesson covers both, checked against the current FryxGames rulebook.

Rules slips that cost TR

Forgetting the TR. Every step of temperature, oxygen, or ocean raises your TR by one. A common slip at a new table is moving the track and forgetting your own marker.

Missing the bonus steps. Some spaces on the tracks have a bonus. At 8% oxygen, the temperature also rises a step. At 0 °C, you place an ocean. Those are real raises, so they give TR too. Early spaces on the temperature track also give heat production.

Expecting TR from a full track. Once a parameter reaches its goal, raising it gives no TR. You can still play a card that raises it and use its other effects. A greenery placed after oxygen hits 14% still scores its point, but no TR.

Rules slips that cost money

Forgetting TR in your income. In the production phase, your M€ is your TR plus your M€ production. A player at TR 25 with 3 M€ production collects 28, not 3.

Leaving energy on the board. At the start of production, all your energy becomes heat. It does not carry over as energy.

Missing the ocean bonus. Every tile you place next to an ocean pays 2 M€ per ocean, even when the tile is another ocean.

Mixing up steel and titanium. Steel only pays for cards with a building tag, at 2 M€ each. Titanium only pays for space tags, at 3 M€ each. If you overpay with them, you get no change.

Rules slips about cards and tiles

Counting event tags later. A red event’s tags count only while you play it. Afterward it is face down, so its tags do not count toward requirements, milestones, or awards.

Treating requirements as ongoing. A requirement only matters when you play the card. If oxygen later passes a card’s limit, the card stays in play.

Red borders. A red border means the effect can target any player. Removing red-bordered resources is optional. Lowering red-bordered production is not: if no opponent has that production, you lower your own, or you cannot play the card.

Lowering production you don’t have. A card that lowers your own energy production needs you to have energy production to lower.

Greenery placement. A greenery must go next to one of your own tiles if any such space is open.

City placement. Cities can never touch another city.

Blue card actions. Each one works once per generation. Put a marker on it when you use it.

Passing. Once you pass, you are done until the next generation.

The last greenery. After the final production, everyone may turn plants into greenery one more time, in player order. Heat gets no such chance.

The big strategic mistake: buying too much

The research phase is a trap for new players. Every card looks good, and 3 M€ sounds cheap. Then the action phase starts, and there is no money left to play them.

Remember that a card costs twice: 3 M€ to keep it, and its printed cost to play it. The rulebook warns that money stays tight for the first few generations. The fix:

• Buy only what you can play soon. A card you cannot afford for four generations is 3 M€ sitting idle.
• Sell what you will never play. The Sell patents standard project turns each unwanted card into 1 M€.
• Watch your hand size. Unless you are chasing the Planner milestone (16 cards in hand), a growing hand usually means too much buying.

Ignoring production

New players love cards that do something big right now. But production pays every generation. A card that adds 2 M€ production in generation 2 pays out again and again until the game ends. The same card in the last generation pays once.

Letting a window close

Some cards only work while a parameter is still low, such as oxygen at 9% or below. Others need a parameter to be high. If you hold a low-oxygen card while the table pushes oxygen up, it can become unplayable. Read requirements when you buy, not when you play.

Holding plants and heat too long

Saving up 16 heat to raise the temperature twice later feels clever. But if another player maxes the temperature first, your heat is worth no TR at all. Plants hold up better, since a greenery still scores a point, but they can still lose their TR. Convert when you can.

A quick checklist for game three

Before you end each turn, ask:

1. Did I raise a parameter? Did I move my TR?
2. Did I place a tile next to an ocean? Did I take the 2 M€?
3. Can I still afford to play the cards I am holding?

That habit fixes most of what goes wrong in the first three games. If the whole table is slowing down, our guide to analysis paralysis has more ways to keep turns moving.