Terraforming Mars Tile Placement: Reading the Map

The map in Terraforming Mars looks like decoration at first. It is a scoring engine of its own. Greeneries and cities score each other, oceans pay their neighbors, and the printed bonuses on each space can be worth a card or more. This lesson is about reading the board before you put anything on it.

All of it uses the Tharsis map from the base game and the current FryxGames rulebook.

What a space gives you now

When you place a tile, you collect two things:

• The placement bonus printed on the space: steel, titanium, plants, or cards.
• 2 M€ for each ocean already next to it. This applies to any tile, even another ocean.

The rulebook explains the pattern behind the bonuses. Steel and titanium sit on mountain ridges. Plant bonuses cluster around the equator. A few special sites give cards.

So a space next to two oceans with a 2-plant bonus is worth 4 M€ plus 2 plants before you count anything else. Over a game, picking good spaces adds up to a real amount of money.

Spaces nobody else can use

Two kinds of areas are reserved.

• Ocean areas. There are 12 blue areas and only 9 ocean tiles, so three ocean areas will stay empty. No other tile may ever go on an ocean area, even an empty one.
• Special city areas. Some spaces are reserved for specific named cities from cards. No other tile may go there.

Those empty ocean areas matter for cities. A city scores 1 point for each greenery next to it, and a greenery can never sit on an ocean area. A city surrounded by ocean areas has few places for the greeneries that score it.

How greeneries and cities pull on each other

Two placement rules shape the whole map:

• Greeneries must go next to one of your own tiles if you have an open space there. Only if you have no tiles, or no open neighbors, may you place one anywhere.
• Cities may never touch another city.

Put those together and you see why cities are anchors. Once you own a city, your future greeneries will tend to crowd around it, and each one scores for the city as well as for itself. A greenery next to your own city is 2 points at the end, not 1.

That gives you a simple test for a city space: how many open, non-ocean neighbors does it have? A city with room for four or five greeneries is a strong scoring anchor. A city wedged against ocean areas and the board’s edge may never score more than one or two.

What your tile does to its neighbors

Every placement also changes the spaces around it.

• An ocean makes its neighbors worth 2 M€ more for whoever places there next. Placing one beside a space you plan to use is a gift to yourself. Placing one beside a rival’s planned space is a gift to them.
• A city blocks every space next to it for other cities. One well-placed city can take a rival’s best city site off the map.
• Your greenery next to a rival’s city gives them a point. Sometimes the bonus is worth it. Know the price.
• Your city next to rival greeneries collects their points. Rivals must place greeneries next to their own tiles, so a city placed beside a rival’s cluster can score from their future greeneries too.

Where your first tile goes

Your first tile decides where you will grow, because your greeneries must follow your tiles. The openings lesson covers the first few generations. For the map, three questions help:

1. Which resources does my plan want? A steel-hungry building hand likes the ridges. A plant hand likes the equator.
2. Where is there room? Pick an area with open, non-ocean space around it, so your greeneries have somewhere to go.
3. Who is nearby? Building next to a rival means sharing greenery points both ways. That can help or hurt.

Ocean money is easy to miss

A quiet source of income is placing tiles next to oceans. Oceans are placed throughout the game, and each one turns the spaces around it into small paydays. If you plan to place several tiles, look for spaces where two or three oceans will touch. Then, as a habit, check every neighbor every time you place.

A placement checklist

Before you put any tile on the map, run through four questions:

1. What does this space give me now, in bonus and ocean money?
2. What will this tile score at the end?
3. What does it change for the spaces around it, for me and for my rivals?
4. Is there a better space I am about to lose to someone else?

The answers become quick with practice. They are also what separates a map that scores a handful of points from one that scores twenty.