Terraforming Mars Openings: Corporation, Hand, and the First Generations

Terraforming Mars has no fixed opening, because every game deals you different cards. But the first few generations follow patterns, and most of the important choices happen before anyone takes an action. This lesson is about those choices.

It assumes the standard game, so players who are not on a Beginner Corporation choose between two corporations and buy from ten starting cards.

Corporation and hand are one choice

Read both corporations first, then all ten cards. Look for overlap. A corporation is only as good as the cards that use it.

The rulebook’s own examples show the idea:

• PhoboLog starts with 10 titanium and 23 M€. That is a lot of money for space cards and very little for anything else. In the example, its player keeps a few expensive space cards that put the titanium to work.
• ThorGate starts with 48 M€ and 1 energy production, plus a discount on cards with a power tag. A hand with power cards makes it shine.
• Tharsis Republic starts with 40 M€, places a city as its first action, and earns extra from cities. A hand that wants cities fits it.

If neither corporation matches your cards, take the one with the most flexible start, usually the one with more money, and keep fewer cards.

How many cards to keep

There is no right number. In the rulebook’s example, three players keep 4, 5, and all 10 cards. What matters is the money left over.

Do the math before you reveal. Start with your corporation’s M€, then subtract 3 for each card. Tharsis Republic keeping 4 cards starts with 28 M€. Keeping all 10, it would start with 10 M€ and might not afford a single good play in generation 1.

A useful filter for each card: can I play this in the next two or three generations? If yes, keep it. If it is a great card for later, keep one or two of those at most. The rest are 3 M€ each that you could spend on Mars right now.

Production comes first

Your income each generation is your TR plus your M€ production. Every production step you add early pays out again and again.

Here is the math in plain terms. If ten generations remain, 1 more M€ production is worth about 10 M€ over the game. The same step in the final generation is worth 1. Steel, titanium, plant, and heat production work the same way, just in their own currency.

TR works like this too. Raising the temperature with the Asteroid standard project costs 14 M€. Early in the game, that 1 TR also adds 1 M€ to every income for the rest of the game, plus 1 point at the end. Early TR is part of your economy, not only your score.

So in the opening, favor:

• Cards that add production, especially M€ production.
• Discounts and blue cards that will pay off many times.
• Cheap TR when it comes with a placement bonus or another benefit.

Sort your hand by requirement

Look at each card’s requirement and sort your hand into three piles in your head:

1. Playable now.
2. Only while a parameter is low, such as oxygen at 9% or below. Play these early, before the table closes the window.
3. Only once a parameter is high. These wait. Do not spend your opening money on them.

Then plan your first generations around piles 1 and 2.

One action or two?

You may take 1 or 2 actions per turn. The rulebook points out both sides. Two actions can beat someone to a goal before they react. One action lets you wait and watch what others do.

In the opening, one action at a time is often right. It keeps your options open and shows you where others are building. Take two when you are racing for something: a placement bonus, a milestone, or the last cheap card window.

Your first tiles set your map

Where your first tile goes matters more than it seems. Greeneries must go next to your own tiles when possible, so your first tile decides where you will grow.

• Placement bonuses are worth reading. Steel and titanium lie on mountain ridges, and plant bonuses lie near the equator.
• Oceans pay neighbors. Each ocean next to a space is 2 M€ for any tile placed there later.
• Give cities room. A city scores 1 point for each greenery next to it. Ocean areas can never hold a greenery, so a city surrounded by ocean areas has fewer spots for the greeneries that score it.

A good opening, roughly

There is no perfect target. As a rough check after three generations, a strong opening usually has:

• More M€ production than you started with.
• A hand you can afford to play, not a pile of waiting cards.
• A clear idea of what your corporation wants: cities, space, plants, or heat.

If you have big income and no plan, that is fine. Level 2 covers how to pick a path and turn an engine into points. The engine building explainer covers the bigger idea behind it.