Turn Structure

Each round of the game represents one generation of development and colonization on Mars. At the start of each round, the first player token moves to the next player.

In every generation players perform the following steps:

1) Research: draw four cards and add any number of them into your hand. Pay 3 M€ for each one added and discard the rest. There is no hand limit.

2) Actions: take 1-2 actions from the list below or pass. If you pass, you will not play again for the rest of the round. Continue in turn order until all players have passed. (Note that, during another player's turn in BGA, you can indicate that you will be passing on your next turn by pressing the Advanced Pass button in the 'current activity' box at the top of the page. This allows you to go off and do other things without holding up the game. There is a Confirm button!)

1) Play a card from your hand

2) Use a standard project

3) Claim a milestone (total of 3 times per game among all players)

4) Fund an award (total of 3 times per game among all players)

5) Use an action on a blue card (each blue card may be used once per generation)

6) Convert 8 plants into a greenery tile (increasing the oxygen level and your Terraform Rating)

7) Convert 8 heat into a temperature increase (increasing your Terraform Rating)

3) Production: first convert all unspent energy into heat, then all players simultaneously produce resources and M€ according to their production values. Players also get M€ equal to their Terraform Rating. (Note that M€ production values may be negative).

Playing Cards

Some cards have requirements in order to play them, such as:

- Global parameters (oceans, oxygen, temperature) must be above or below a certain level

- You must have enough tags of a given type already in play (like Science)

- You must be able to produce a specific resource (like Titanium)

Cards have a base cost which must be paid in M€. This cost can be reduced by other card effects. You can also spend resources in lieu of M€ if the card has certain tags:

1 Steel = 2 M€ to pay for any Building card (brown building icon)

1 Titanium = 3 M€ to pay for any Space card (gold sunburst icon)

Carry out all of the card's effects, gain resources, and increase/decrease production values as directed. If a change to a production value is indicated with a red border, you can choose to apply it to another player or to no one at all. (These are usually negative effects.)

After you play the card, it moves to one of three areas on your board depending on their color. You can change how these areas are arranged by clicking on the "three bars" icon in the header.

- Red cards have no further effects and are automatically hidden. They do not contribute tags to your overall totals but may be worth points at the end of the game.

- Green cards have no further effects, but remain in play to contribute their tags. They may be worth points at the end of the game.

- Blue cards have either an ongoing passive effect or an action you can take on your turn. BGA sorts them into two piles for your convenience.

Standard Projects

You always have the following options on your turn regardless of what's in your hand or on your board. Don't forget them! Each standard project takes one action on your turn.

Note that you can also raise temperature or place greenery by spending heat or plants instead of M€.

Sell patents: discard any number of cards and gain that many M€.

Power plant (11 M€): increase Energy production one step.

Asteroid (14 M€): increase temperature one step (and gain one TR).

Aquifer (18 M€): place an ocean tile (and gain one TR). Note that oceans don't belong to the player who placed them, unlike other tiles.

Greenery (23 M€): place a greenery tile (raising the oxygen level and gaining one TR). If possible you must place it next to a tile you already own.

City (25 M€): place a city tile and gain one M€ production. Cities may not be placed adjacent to each other. (Exception: Noctis City may be placed into its reserved spot even if there is already an adjacent city there, and Urbanized Area has to be placed next to 2 Cities.)

Placement Bonus

If you place any tile in a hexagon with resource icons, you gain that amount upon placement. You also gain 2M€ per ocean tile adjacent to the placed tile.

Milestones and Awards

Milestones and awards place you in direct competition with other players. With milestones you race to be the first to meet a certain condition; with awards you compete to have the most in a specific category at the end of the game.

Milestones

As an action, you may pay 8 M€ and claim a milestone if you meet its requirements. It is worth 5 VP at the end of the game. Only three milestones may be claimed per game.

Tharsis Map The standard map focuses on urban development and oxygen production.

◙ Terraformer: Having a terraform rating of at least 35.

◙ Mayor: Owning at least 3 city tiles.

◙ Gardener: Owning at least 3 greenery tiles.

◙ Builder: Having at least 8 building tags in play. ◙ Planner: Having at least 16 cards in your hand when you claim this milestone.

Elyssium Map Elysium is characterized by its large ocean area and unique placement bonuses.

◙ The Generalist, for having all 6 productions by at least 1 step (starting production from corporation cards count as increase).

◙ The Specialist, for having at least 10 production of any resource.

◙ The Ecologist, for having 4 bio tags (which can come from plants, microbes, or animals).

◙ The Tycoon, for having 15 project (i.e. blue and green) cards in play.

◙ The Legend, for having played 5 events (red cards)

Hellas Map This map depicts the south pole and relies heavily on heat and water.

◙ DIVERSIFIER requires that you have 8 different tags in play.

◙ TACTICIAN requires that you have 5 cards with requirements in play.

◙ POLAR EXPLORER requires that you have 3 tiles on the two bottom rows.

◙ ENERGIZER requires that you have 6 energy production.

◙ RIM SETTLER requires that you have 3 jovian tags.

Vastitas Borealis This map in the northern wastes features frozen carbon dioxide release that can increase temperature.

◙ Agronomist: 4 plant tags.

◙ Engineer: 10 production of energy and heat combined.

◙ Spacefarer: 4 space tags.

◙ Geologist: 3 tiles on, or adjacent to, volcanic areas.

◙ Farmer: 5 animal and microbe resources combined.

Amazonis Planatia A larger map designed for 4-5 players with higher milestone requirements.

◙ Terran: 5 Earth tags.

◙ Landshaper: 1 city, 1 greenery, and 1 special tile.

◙ Merchant: 3 of each standard resource (after paying the claim cost).

◙ Sponsor: 3 cards that have a cost of 20 M€ or more.

◙ Lobbyist: All 7 delegates in parties (including Party Leaders and Chairman). If you are playing without the Turmoil expansion, this milestone is inactive.

Awards

Awards

As an action, you may pay some amount of M€ and fund an award. The first award funded costs 8 M€, the next costs 14 M€, and the last costs 20 M€. Only three awards may be funded per game. At the end of the game, check each funded award. The first and second place player in each category score VP (see Game End section). The player who funded the award receives no special consideration.

Base Map

• Landlord: most tiles in play of any type(s)
• Banker: highest M€ production
• Scientist: most science tags in play
• Thermalist: most unspent heat resource cubes
• Miner: most unspent steel and titanium resource cubes (combined)

Elyssium map

◙ The Celebrity, for having the most non-event cards with a cost of at least 20 megacredits.

◙ The Industrialist, for having the most steel and energy resources.

◙ The Desert Settler, for having the most tiles south of the equator (i.e. in the bottom four rows).

◙ The Estate Dealer, for having the most tiles adjacent to oceans.

◙ The Benefactor, for having the highest terraform rating. (This award gets counted first.)

Hellas map

◙ The Cultivator, for the most greenery tiles.

◙ The Magnate, for having the most automated (i.e. green) cards in play.

◙ The Space Baron, for having the most space tags (but event cards don’t count).

◙ The Eccentric, for having the most resources on cards.

◙ The Contractor, for having the most building tags (event cards don’t count).

Vastitas Borealis

◙ Traveller: Most Jovian and Earth tags.

◙ Landscaper: Largest group of connected tiles.

◙ Highlander: Most tiles not next to an ocean tile.

◙ Promoter: Most event cards played.

◙ Blacksmith: Highest combined production of steel and titanium.

Game End

Game ends when there is enough oxygen to breathe (14%), oceans enough to allow Earth-like weather (9 aquifers), and the temperature is well above freezing (+8˚C). Play continues to the end of the current generation and then players have one final turn to convert extra plants into one or more greenery tiles.

The winner is the player with most VPs at the end of the game. VPs come from:

• Terraform Rating (TR). Each time you raise a global parameter (oceans, oxygen, temperature) your TR increases. Score VPs equal to your TR at the end of the game.
• Greenery. Score 1 VP for each greenery tile you own.
• Cities. Each city scores 1 VP for each greenery tile adjacent to it, regardless of who owns the greenery tile. If in play, the unique Capital City tile also scores 1 VP for each adjacent ocean.
• Awards (must be funded). 5 VPs to the winner, 2 VPs to second place. If players tie for first, they all get the bonus and no second place is awarded. If multiple players tie for second, they all get the bonus. In a two player game, no second place is awarded.
• Claimed milestones. Each claimed milestone is worth 5 VPs at the end of the game. Only 3 of the 5 milestones may be claimed.
• VPs on played cards. First, count all VPs on cards that collect resources. Then gather all of your remaining cards (including all your played events!) and count your VPs. If you have Jovian cards, these may have to be counted separately. (To identify this look for the number, or an effect like X VP / Y number of resources, marked inside the planet Mars Icon)

If there is a tie for VPs, whomever has the most M€ wins.

Common rules misinterpretations

If you trying to submit a bug report about possible rules violation please note that at this point it is very unlikely to be a real issue or unique.

See list of common rule misinterpretations Bugsclarification_terraformingmars

Digital adaptation

Interface

Interface should be self explanatory for most part.

• You only can do action that you are allowed to do. If you THINK you can do something and there is no button, see section about "Common rules misinterpretations" above. Same as if you think you did something that you should not have.
• You can do a game action either by using a toolbar button or by clicking game element which is highlighted. If there are more than 7 buttons - buttons no longer shown (but if you really want them there is button "Where are my buttons")
• When multiple effects are in play you have to choose order, if you don't want to choose there is button Whatever to chose random order
• When you get too many cards you can play with card layout option using hamburder menu near card pile. Even when card stacked you always see them by clicking on any card - it will show whole pile in popup. The layout is store per player color per table. If you like to change default layout use Setting panel to store current layout as default.
• There is sorting option for cards (button near Hand panel), which has few modes: By Cost, By Playability, By Vp, Manuaahhl and None. Be careful when you set to auto-sort - card order may change as you get them and you click or something you not except to be there. Manual mode is drag and drop

Settings

The game is very complex and there is no size that fits all. So we provide customizations. Settings are accessible via Gear icon on the top right.

There are 2 categories:

• Preferences - these remembered in your account and go with you everywhere
• Local settings - these are browser settings, they saved for per player, per theme and for this browser only.

Preference - Theme

For people who like to see game as it was designed by game designed we provide Cardboard theme. It has exact board, player board and printed cards (with english text). Also there are resource cubes for extra giggles.

Preference - Live Scoring

Live scoring is ability of UI show you preview of VP as you would have ended game now. Because its controversial subject it exists as both game option and user preference. If table creator set the option to Disabled, nobody at the table can see live scoring, regardless of their preferences and feelings. Otherwise its a personal choice - you can use Preference of Show or Hide. Unless you play with Live scoring disabled you can always peek to see current scoring table using show Scoring button or clicking of scoring control (the number of point on players mini panel)

Local Settings - Animation

If you fast player you may want to reduce amount and time of animation using settings. Also Carboard theme is slightly faster because it does less animations in general.

Limitations of digital adaptation

• Cannot choose order of come into play effects of project cards (with some exceptions)
• When order of effect chosen - cannot Draw cards before resolving other complex effects
• If you play Ecology Experts prelude card and have no money to play any card, you will have to skip playing a card, you cannot undo anything
• Cannot undo single action (Undo will undo 2 actions or until after last Draw)
• You cannot undo when you are the last player to take an action in multiplayer state (i.e. setup, draft, research)
• When have to draw/discard out of turn (such as Pluto effect), you will draw X/discard X instead (because draw will be done in order that active player chose, but discard will be done after their turn is over)

Solo Game

The solo version always uses the Corporate Era setup; include all the Corporate Era cards and start without any production, except for what your corporation may give you.

All rules apply as usual with these exceptions:

• Before you choose your cards, place 2 neutral city tiles on the map with an adjacent greenery tile each (these tiles are not yours, and do not increase the oxygen level): one is placed in the top left, and one in the bottom right. Special case: If you choose to play Tharsis Republic this game, you get M€ production for the 2 neutral cities even though they are placed before you reveal your corporation.

• Start with a terraform rating of 14 instead of 20 (marked ’solo’ on the track) and without the extra production of resources described for the standard game.

• Awards and Milestones are not used.

• You have a neutral opponent that you can steal from, or reduce any kind of resources and production from.

• In default solo1 mode you always play 14 generations (no more). In order to win, you need to complete terraforming (i.e making the three global parameters reach their goal) before the end of genearation 14. After generation 14, you may convert plants into greenery tiles, following normal rules but without raising the oxygen, and finally you score Tips to win to get as high a score as possible. If you have not completed terraforming by the end of generation 14, you lose. Note: if you using Prelude expansion the game ends at generation 12

• There is a different solo mode called TR63 - it means you have to reach terraforming rating of 63 (not VP!) by the end of last generation (last generation rules same as in previous item).

Variations

Draft Enabled - Draft 4 cards during Research phase, 1st generation is NOT included.

Beginners Corporations - Beginner Corporations start with 42 MC and get to keep all 10 setup cards for free. Recommended only for beginner players.

Corporate Era - All corporation cards are available and all productions start at 0. Otherwise some cards (mainly engine building ones) are excluded and all productions start at 1.

Expansion: Prelude - Prelude variant includes Prelude cards (player chooses 2 out of 4), extra project cards and extra corporations

Expansion: Colonies - Colonies variant includes Colonies tiles with fleets, extra project cards and extra corporations

Map - options Tharsis (base map), Elysium, Hellas (additional maps), Vastitas Borealis (officially released fan made map), Amazonis Planitia (officially released fan made map, bigger map with larger global parameters)

Realtime Scoring - End game scoring is shown during the game, i.e. from TR, played cards, forests, cities, milestones and awards

Multi-step undo support (Experimental) - Allows to Undo action one by one, instead of both actions