On 1st Feb 2025, Terraforming Mars was definitely the biggest game of the night. Playing from 2pm till 10pm they had a huge finish to their epic campaign. Read about it in their extensive reports below…
The rest of us played a list of interesting games.
- The Quest for El Dorado
- Terraforming Mars
- Fromage
- Labyrinth
- Solar Storm
- The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
- The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
- SpelBook
- Wingspan
- Trash Pandas
- Karvi
- Sink N’ Sand
- Dungeon Mayhem: Monster Madness
- Mysterium
- Oh Heck (Playing Cards)
- Ticket to Ride: Berlin
- Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
- Guillotine
- Star Realms: Deluxe Nova Collection
Terraforming Mars Report – Jimmy
Well, here we are, I am typing up the final game report for the Terraforming Mars campaign, and as they say all good things must come to an end.
It is a bittersweet feeling, because it is sad that it is over, but we are all happy that we have experienced every expansion Terraforming Mars has to offer and looking forward to delving into other games.
Anyway, tonight me, Belinda, Mel & Cliff played game 6 of 6 of the Terraforming Mars Progressive Campaign. This time around we introduced the expert expansion, the dreaded ‘Turmoil’. This expansion rarely comes off the shelf, because how difficult it is to play, and it extends the time to play by a substantial amount. This one game took us the whole night to play, and what a brain burner it was! Not only did we have to do our best in being the best terraformer on Mars, but we also had to deal with the chaos of the political scene back on Earth with placing our delegates in six different parties to sway things for our own corporate agendas. Everyone had to deal with a loss of 1 TR every generation and the only way to get that back was to become the most powerful in the political scene and become the Chairperson. This was extremely hard to do when everybody is trying to do it! On top of this, we are still trying to send trade fleets out to colonies and trying to terraform Venus as well. Yes, there was a LOT going on! I think one of the worst events we had (and we saw it coming) was ‘War on Earth’, where everyone lost 4 TR and the only way to reduce that was to have political influence. You got one influence for being the Chairperson, one for being the dominant party leader and one for having at least one other delegate in that party, so everyone was scrambling to jump on the bandwagon and get in with the most popular party – lolz.
Enough rambling from me. Tonight’s results were as follows:
1st : Jim (blue) : Point Luna (tiebreak win) : 77 TR
2nd : Cliff (green) : Inventrix : 77 TR
3rd : Belinda (black) : Saturn Systems : 66 TR
4th : Mel (yellow) : Terralabs Research (merged with Ecotec) : 60 TR
5th : Lynette (red) : Pristar : 48 TR
Milestones claimed:
Geologist (first to place three tiles on or adjacent to volcanic areas) : Cliff (5 TR)
Farmer (first to get a combined five Animal or Microbe tags) : Cliff (5 TR)
Hoverlord (first to have seven floater resources on cards) : Cliff (5 TR)
Awards won:
Traveller (most combined Earth and Jovian tags) : 1st Belinda & Jim (5 TR) : 2nd Mel (2 TR)
Blacksmith (Most combined Steel and Titanium production) : 1st Jim (5 TR) : 2nd Mel (2 TR)
Highlander (most tiles played not next to Oceans) : 1st Cliff & Jim (5 TR) : 2nd Belinda & Mel (2 TR)
Overall, it was a really great campaign that, game-by-game, it introduced a new expansion to experience, culminating in an all-in game for the finale. Overall, we did not care what position we came in the end (although I am sure the others would have liked to have seen me lose a few times), it was the journey along the way that really mattered. The good times around the table, the jokes that were shared, and the friendships that were strengthened. ‘Oh, you played Recession (groan) – lolz!’, and ‘Po-tay-toes! Boil ’em, mash ’em, stick ’em in a stew!’
A big thank you to Mel, Cliff, Lynette, and Belinda for joining in and having fun with me, you truly were a great bunch to game with.
Terraforming Mars Report – Mel
Thanks everyone for all the fun. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign and look forward to the next one!
Terraforming Mars Report – Belinda
I really looked forward to each and every session and thoroughly enjoyed all the banter and cheeky rivalry. The trophies are an extra special touch and I’ve placed mine in pride of place with my Alan R. Moon award. Thank you everyone for making this campaign so memorable and fun! 😊
My favourite ‘pull a lever’ and ‘throw a spanner in the works’ moment was playing the Recession Prelude card 🤪 Watching everyone pay the substantial cost of the recession and then try to build your corporations back up into surplus was funny and the resulting target on my back in both verbal jibes and board tactics throughout the rest of the game was hilarious and unforgettable.
Terraforming Mars Report – Lynette:
Ditto Jim, while I have loved playing the game, and learning it finally! It was the people that made it 🙂 thank you all 🙂
(Click on the image above to zoom)
Terraforming Mars Report – Cliff
Once again I identified a strategy that should help given the parameters of the new expansion. (In this case; look to increase my mega credit production. Fast forward 5 hours and my TR is below where I started and I have an income of +0. So this has been a common theme throughout the entire campaign. I guess the human ability to adapt is essential for life on Mars and I am pleased that I got better at this over time. My game was helped with 3 early awards (15 guaranteed points) which is almost as much as my total score in game 2 :zany_face:. With the introduction of politics and turmoil this game I looked to a green future; I was young, in the midst of my education and cared for the planet and its flora (adding delegates to the “Green” and “science” parties.After an early boom in points i quickly settled into my mid life crisis and blew all my savings on a secondary trader ship. Its sleek design looked fantastic in the space garage; where it sat unused until the final generation. Fuel prices were out of this world! In my old age I ditched the political stance of my youth and became chair of the “Mars First” political party. My acquired businesses were booming and I finally increased my mega credit production: gaining 5 production from having 10 building tags. I was making Mars great again but fell short of building a wall between mine and Belinda’s territories before being ousted from the chair position. It was a close game and in the end not having enough credits cost me the win (drawing with Jimmy on TR and losing the tie breaker). if the game included assets I could have sold my once used spaceship and maybe secured the win???
In the end it did not matter as Jimmy was far out in front on total score for the campaign. I had a great time terraforming mars with you all, thankyou all for your time, patience and in good fun banter. Thanks to Belinda for the rule print outs, to Mel for explaining to me what they meant, and then again an hour later. Thanks to Jimmy for your time and effort in organising and teaching the games, and for our wonderful trophy! Thanks to L’nett for our unified alliance and for all the potatoes!
