Terraforming Mars: What a Game Looks Like

Charting a Game

(Pre-Note: Information I have is limited to 3 & 4 Player games. I am looking for data on 5-Player games, and if your interested in helping me collect data, please contact me at: cfolmar@gmail.com. I'd like to create a library of Game Plays and share the results after a period of time. If enough interest, I'll create a sheet to download and record game plays with instructions).

Having determined the magical 13MC/VP, it's time to look at what a game actually 'looks' like. This is important to determine how long a game of Terraforming Mars lasts. It also shows an interesting trend.

Any individual play will differ based on a number of factors: corporation chosen, card draw, player experience, set chosen, etc. The focus of these individual factors is for later blog posts. For this analysis, however, we will look at the total VP given out to all players each turn. We will also only look at the Terraform Rating gained from working towards one of the main End Game conditions. So, for example, if during Turn 1 Player A increased Oxygen 1 Step and Player B increased the Temp 1 Step, then Turn 1 earned a 2 VP total (just to different players).

This may seem a strange and arbitrary way of looking like at a game, but the insights are amazing.

3-Player Game

We start with a four 3-player games (graph below). The important thing to see is how the games ended from Generation 10 to 12. More can be seen, but we will dissect it more later in the post.

3-Player Games

4-Player Game

 Next we look at 4 player games. Here the games end from Generation 9 to Generation 12. Still, despite the somewhat shorter games, for which there is a reason we will go into later, we can see the beginning of a definite patter. To make it more obvious we will take the average of the 3 and 4 player games and compare them.

Comparison: 3v4 Player Game

The games above may seem to have no pattern, but when we average the games together, and compare these averages, we see a definite pattern. I've included an average of the 3-player and 4-player games as a reference in the graph below.

 Here we can see the general outline of a game take shape. The game starts with an initial rush of Terraform Rating increases, immediately followed by a slight dip in turn 2. We can begin our analysis here on a relatively turn by turn basis.

Turn 1 - Initial Grabs: Turn 1 sees a player's jockeying to get some early initial TR. This can provide a boost to income in later turns, and (as we'll see), an boost early is significant. I suspect much of these initial boosts are also related to the Heat bonuses on the Temperature chart at the 3 position.

Turn 2, 3, 4-Economy Setup: These turns see players grab a few additional TR, but money is in
shorter supply as they are now dependent on 'self generated' income and not on the initial income. This is also where most players begin focusing on building their economy. This may be either to supplement their gains from Turn 1 (focusing on Heat production), or building resource  mining operations.

Turn 5, 6, 7 (& 8)-Milestone Grabs: Here we see real activity occurring. In particular there are three points of interest.

First, the economies built from turns 1-4 have come to fruition. Players actively begin grabbing TR at a rapid rate. These are not haphazard, however, and lead to the second indicators.





The Second point is the "Turn 5/6 Plateau" in 4-player games or, in 3-player games, the "Turn 5/7 dips". I suspect this is caused as players begin to snatch up the Milestones. In both types of games this would be a reduction in total income of 24MC. However, in the 3-player games the removal of the MC effect is more pronounced.

Lastly, there is the Peak. In 4 player games this peak is more pronounced and definitely occurs around Turn 8. In the 3-player games, given the smaller total economy of all the players, the curve occurs around turn 8 and 9, but is still present. This is also when players hit those Upper Level Environment Bonuses (Free Temp & Ocean). Even if not grabbed, another player may rush to get the last Ocean in place to prevent an opponent from getting the full benefit, which has the same net effect on our graph.

Turn 8, 9, 10, 12 - Decline and Game End
Typically by Turn 8 the TR purchases are in decline. Instead, players have changed to focus on grabbing the Awards, which are a big drain on the overall economy (-22 MC to purchase first two awards, -42 to purchase all 3 awards). In the end, there are only a few TR left to grab so player's position to maximize their score by purchasing Settlements next to Greenery, blocking opponent's, or pursuing VP maximizing cards.

Conclusions

Looking at the games, most 3 and 4 player games follow a definite pattern (although anomalies exist: keep reading if interested below). Although there is enough variation in the game to keep it interesting and challenging. Understanding the flow of a game will assist in recognizing what to expect in the game.

Lastly, it is important to recognize that most games end around the 10 Turn mark. Some finish earlier, some later, but a good game length is 10 Turns. This will become the standard used in calculating values in later blog posts.

Interesting Anomaly

 Look at the graph of a 3-player game below which is somewhat anomalous:

First, There is a huge initial TR grab on Turn 1. Second, the game was over by Turn 10, with almost no plateau, although one huge dip in Turn 7. Except for the Initial Turn 1 Grab, it looks like a fairly standard, if short, game.

The reason for this game is because of 2 of the corporations chosen by players and both choosing a similar strategy. The Corporations were Credicor and Teractor. Both of these have high initial MC (57 & 60 respectively). Both players decided to take no cards and, instead, just purchase Temp increases. These two players accounted for 8 of the 9 TR in the first turn (4 each). The 9th was purchased by the 3rd player. The two of them continued to purchase TR throughout the game until Turn 5. Around Turn 4 they switched to Oceans, and used ocean placement plants to power Greenery tiles.

Both players seemed in competition (the third player was never really in the running) until Turn 6. At that point Teractor switched strategies. While Credicor would continue purchasing Oceans and Heat, Teractor purchased Greenery outright and grabbed the Gardner milestone. On Turn 7 both players switched to Cities to try and gain the Mayor Milestone, which explains the sudden drop of TR. Teractor, due to Turn order, managed to beat Credicor to that milestone again, although Credicor did burst forth on Temp claimed Terraformer, it was too late.

At first glance, this game appears to defy the "average" game described earlier in the article. However, on closer examination we can see the same overall pattern. Except for the dip on Turn 6 and 7, this more closely resembles a 4 player game than a 3-player game. This is due to the players opting for the same strategy with two corporations with unusually high initial incomes.