Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition Makes A Comeback 

Another thing we've added since filming this, is drafting your initial opening hand. Get two corporations, draft 8 cards, then pick your corporation and cards. Solid addition that doesn't add much downtime.

"Bink twice if Stronghold Games is holding you at gunpoint !" Jokes aside, very insightful video. Thanks a lot :D

This channel keeps getting better. You have the best content, honest reviews and a very clear and comfortable style.

Here is another card drafting idea: Those who play the research action get to draw the # of players +2 in cards and keep 2. The discards are then placed face up in the middle of the table (from all players who played the research action). The players who did not play the research action do not draw any cards. Those who did not play the research card then select 1 card from the face up pool. To establish who selects first, make it based on the blue card production value on their game board (their research ability essentially). If tied then flip a coin or roll a die (d6 is easy to come by) if more than 2 people are tied. After every player has selected their card from the face up cards, discard them all face down as usual. Thats it! Big advantage if you played research as others won't know what you have picked and you get 2 cards, while the rest get to simply pick from the leftovers. It reminds me a little bit of how real life R&D works as those who pursue it get cutting edge tech while those who don't end up getting more mundane/standard tech. It will take a little longer than the standard rule but I would think be a little faster than the variant you all tried. If you try this or even try and tweak it, then let me/us know how it works! :)

Cool video, Alex! Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to trying these variants 😀

Thanks for the comeback and additions to the game to make it more worthwhile. Happy for you and maybe other players can adapt this to their benefit.

This is a better and slightly more advanced Race For The Galaxy. With a ton more combinations, type of resources, and longer gamer. Exactly what i wanted from this game.

Awesome house rules additions to the game, appreciate the effort towards constant improvement and helping to improve the gameplay! Definitely my go-to gaming source.

The discovery expansion now comes with goal cards

House Rule: keep the ocean tiles in a non-see through bag and randomly draw and place them on the board instead of placing them all first and then flipping them. Saves setup time and no worries about moving other tiles when trying to flip the ones near the center of the board.

I’ll be interested in a follow up in a few months on how you feel about it. Is Ares still a good game with your variants or was it the joy of testing different variants to see what works (or a bit of both)

I'm gonna try some of these. I did like how the income on Ares expedition worked, but overall I was in the 3 out of 5 boat like you. It lost enough of my favorite parts of Terraforming Mars that I generally just wanted to play TM instead. Have you tried the 2p coop variant of Ares expedition yet?

Hey Alex! What happend to the Oros review that should drop Yesterday? :)

A variant that could be interesting to try out about the tenseness of drawing cards and which to keep, is to do the same as TM : when you draw cards, you have to decide right now if you keep them or sell them for 3 money (instead of doing it when you want). Edit : that's the first thing you addressed in the house ruling part, my bad 😁

Just played yesterday and I had the matter generator. It lets you sell a card for 6MC with an action. But maybe it doesn't mess with this house rule of selling because it's only one sell in action phase or two sells if you have selected the action phase and want to use the double action for this card.

I guess we should hope for a deck of goal cards in the first expansion. Until then I will try out these variations.. Well I Just need to get the game first.

Goals and drafting seem like an obvious/needed first expansion for Ares. I'll give the drafting house rule you mentioned in your comment a try (once I get the game delivered in August/September...) and maybe the selling house rule if I feel it's needed (haven't played regular TM yet so not sure).

Favorite game of all time aye? (Blood Rage sheds a tear)

Thanks for sharing. Very well done, as always. Great suggestions. TM:AE, a Comeback Tour. I like it! :-) I agree about solo play. I got my KS copy and have played it solo 3 times now. (note, has only been solo at this time) It's growing on me and I MAY like AE more. At least for solo play. It's easier to set up, takes less table space, plays faster, has improved card iconography, pretty much as the same (maybe better) deck building. I must say, I don't care for the main board. One jolt and the TR, O2, and Heat markers are moved, plus not enough room for 4 TR markers. I now use magnets to track the O2 and Heat. And, use MC:LCG life dials to track TR. Oh yeah, and I start with the Ocean tiles off the board, then pick one, flip it, place it.

excellent video, would you mind sharing your objective list? :D

I did not like the randomness on the ocean tile draw. so we now place the tiles besides the board and you can select which reward you want and place it on the planet. That way getting a good tile early is a draw to get a tile early.

How to house rule Ares expedition or just play Terraforming Mars instead 😁

Goals sounds nice! Maybe add secret personal goals as well as public?

Glad I saw this video as I'm planning to play Ares this week and will implement a few of these house rules. On a side note, I probably played 30+ games of TM on Steam in the last couple weeks. Steam is my favorite way of soloing TM; saves so much setup time. But at any other players count, I would play the tabletop version for the 3D tiles. Although sounds like Ares may take over the 2-player count....

Watching some videos for ideas for making 2 player more interesting -- Never have played Terraforming Mars, so not sure how it compares. But I will certainly test out the Goals idea! Looks interesting --- one other thing I thought of (haven't tried it yet) was to have the Ocean Tiles face up at start of game... so when you get to Flip an Ocean Tile - You CHOOSE what Reward you want to take - then flip that tile Face Down --- so Getting to a Tile First that may help you in the moment has a bit more meaning. Anyway, thank you for posting this!

Just a draft/goals thought - deck of 15 goals, deal 3 to each player, 2 corps, draft until each player has 3 goals and 2 corps to choose from.

I am curious, what are your thoughts on the rule that allows you to spam standard actions as many times as you can during an action phase when a global parameter has reached the cap? I personally believe it needs a house rule as well, limiting other players to raising that parameter only to the cap and not further. To make it clearer, let’s say you got one more step of raising temperature left. If it is an action phase, you and any other player can raise temperature as many times as you have money and energy for and get TR for it. I’d rather allow raising temperature only once by all players, giving them one TR for it, but not further. This is an issue more common for 2-player count, as resources tend to snowball towards the end of the game and often you don’t have a better use for them. Sure, there are ways to counter this, as you could pick an earlier phase to play cards that would bring said parameter to the cap and thus deny the opportunity to those who intend to spam standard actions and get a lot of extra TR. However, such counter is very luck-based, as you might not have cards that let you raise that parameter in the first place.

I need excuses to get rid of games. Having to make house rules to get it to table is a negative for me. I have soooo many games I don’t need to do that for. :)

Where can I buy this game in Canada?

We are going to add the solo dummy player deck with our two player game, just to keep things moving. Wonder if anyone has tried that yet?

About the draft - The draw 2(3), keep 1 is a micro draft that doesn't take up as much time. I don't see any reason to change it. I could see drafting the initial cards at the start of the game, as others have said. About the card cost - This gives all cards value. The lower TR starting point means that many will be spent at the start of the game. Having another choice at the research phase just seems like it would take longer and isn't needed. I think it's still a tense call when you're forced to drop a card you've been saving for those 3MC. About the goals - I absolutely miss the milestones & awards. It seems likely that this will be an easily implemented expansion. About the area control - I miss this too. I imagine an expansion called 'cities' that lets you build cities and place your greenery tiles around them on a side board. Those indentations on the edges of the board seem like they will be used to lock in expansion boards. I remember not liking the original TM at first. It took several plays to enjoy it for what it is. I'm willing to give AE the same chance as it is.

It sounds like drafting was the key. Adding back in the interesting TM drafting mechanics did the trick.

Thanks Alex, I appreciate the video. Based on your video it was like AE was made for me since all of the aspects you dislike I am glad are different. I am not a big drafter and never used that in TM. I thought the area control aspect of TM was meh and was glad to see it go although what the did with the tiles is weird and unnecessary. I thought the goals while interesting I am ultimately okay with not having them. It was a bit of tenseness that I didn’t necessary prefer. The card cost aspect glad it is gone, but the idea of choosing on initial draw to sell for more is intriguing and may implement. Full disclosure I played TM either solo or 2 player so my experience may vary from those of higher player counts.

You could do a draft only at the beginning of the game.

I like the rule about selling cards. I'll have to try that. Not sure fi the Draft rule discussed on BGG is much different but I am worried about adding time. Also, I've considered just drafting the first 8 cards too. Draw 4, Draft Left. Draw 4, Draft Right. The drafting rule talking about on BGG is: Reasearch: -All players set aside hands and draw 4 cards. -Draft 1 card (do not add to hand) and pass remainder to player on left - Repeat x3. -Keep any number of drafted cards. First card is free, following cards are 5 MC each. Discard unwanted cards. BONUS: -Keep 1 extra card for free.

Initial reaction : what?! After the video: fair enough!

Eagerly awaiting to your next "games leaving my collection" video.😉

My house rule for "Ares Expedition": Put it back into its box, fetch the "Terraforming Mars" box, play "Terraforming Mars".

I like the opening hand draft idea, and selling for 3MC immediately, for 1MC later. I think drafting later for AE doesn't feel necessary as you have more access to cards now whenever you want, as opposed to waiting for a new round to begin just to get a few cards. I like the idea of trying to add back in milestones and awards (or at least milestones). Maybe it could be its own phase card somehow, and those who don't play that card don't have an opportunity to achieve a milestone, while those that did, do have that opportunity, but depending on the number of people that did and who are actually eligible to complete that milestone, the TR reward is less for completing it?

The title is perfect. I don't think you need to feel like you were wrong, you had an opinion. You changed something and suddenly the game shinned a bit more to you. I liked 2 of these idea quite a lot. I will try to go on a crescendo here for my opinion of what you shared: 1) board/area control: yep, I agree with you. There isn't much to do in here. It gives the impression the game was (re)made to kind of "forget" that part (probably to speed it up or make it easier) 2) draft: the way the game is structured, I find it hard to make a draft during the game. Besides, like you mentioned, it will slow down the game and I don't think the game will actually gain with it. When you started that section, I actually thought you were going to mention making a draft at the beginning of the game (like you mentioned on you pinned comment). I think it makes more sense for AE to make it at that point. 3) goals: for sure they will need to be worked a bit still, but I really like that idea. Even the small reward you made for them. You could even borrow another idea from Race for the Galaxy (specifically its first expansion): the two sets of goal tiles. In RftG you have: "first goals" (3, each giving you 3p) that once someone hits them, not one else can get those points after; and "most goals" (2, each giving you 5p) that you can claim one when you hit its parameters, but someone else can get reclaim it from you if they surpass you (so those 5p will fluctuate during game). This kind of reminds me the two different set of goals from TM. What do you think about it? My question: when would someone claim the goals? End of a phase or end of a round? 4) cards: yes! When you said it I thought "that is so simple and so ingenious". It probably gives some extra playtime, but here I think it would be worth it. Bottom line, I will try to implement these two last ideas into the game. And I also agree the solo game on AE has a better pay off when everything taking into account (but what do I know? I never played TM solo and I will only be able to play my AE in september xD). I would be interested for an update on this subject, especially the goals and ESPECIALLY if any of the designers actually comment on you ideas. EDIT: I just realized I went on a full explanation about the RftG goals system when you probably already know how that works xD Sorry for that

Sorry, I don't get trying to make it into something it is not. Just play TM if it's your favorite. If you house rule the crap out of this to get it to do something TM doesn't do, just house rule TM. This is just odd. Transparency on my part, this instantly replaced TM for us.

ObligatoryStrongholdBoughtThisReview here. :D

So, I know this is quite old at this point, but we came up with a placement mechanic that can be fun, while still remaining very simple for ocean tiles. It requires 4 additional markers in each player's color. Whenever you flip an ocean tile, you have the option of placing or moving a previously placed marker to that spot. At the end of the game, you score VPs for these spots in groups exponentially, based on the number of consecutive places you have. 1 marker alone scores 1 point, 2 adjacent markers score 4 points, 3 adjacent score 9 points, and 4 score 16 points. Seems to work best with 2 or 3 players, as it gets too tight otherwise. It brings back a fun spatial element though, and makes the placement of ocean tiles actually matter.

1 and 2 player wins for Ares Expedition, 3 player win for the original. As Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman said, two outta three ain't bad. Sounds to me like paradise by the Ganymede Colony.

five mins was enough for me to understand that i never gonna need this as a tm fan.✌

I'm adding the card sale varient right away. As soon as my kickstarter shows up ......

It was really weird that you were comparing a house-ruled game to a retail game without house-ruling in a similar way.

Why not just play Race for the Galaxy? It has much higher tension of hand management, it has goals with the first expansion, it has a draft variant. TM is 1st in my board games top and RftG is 5th so I still can't see a reason to even try to play TM Ares Expedition.

Your autofocus is very sensitve... keeps shifting ever so slightly when you move your hands.

House rules are great.

I thought you meant Ares takes 3 hours and thought, "how the heck does Terraforming Mars take you 6 hours to play" 😅🙈

So how much did Stronghold pay you to keep the game?

Sounds like you should still just play Terraforming Mars :)

How is it solo

I bet he got paid to change his rating. Just kidding!

I like the game but I'm not sure how I feel about all these house rules. Its barely been out a month & you have people whole-sale dumping the rules & coming up with their own rule sets ;) Its nice to have an active community for a game but it kinda makes me feel this game wasn't play tested/developed enough. We're waiting for expansions & variants to make it a great game???

what? Terraforming Mars ist your nr. 1 game of all times? what happened to blood rage?

Suggestion: Make 18 goals You divide the goals into 3 piles/options of 6 each Roll a die (each pile has 2 chances to be picked) Once pile is picked - roll a die, select that one (if already selected, roll argain) Keep going until the number of goals you want to play with are selected Alt ... do one from each pile first, then roll for the last two or plan on doing 2 from each pile anyway. 18 goals are just better with 6 sided dice.

If it had a different name and look you would probably like the game as is. Seems like the main issue is that you are comparing an existing boardgame that has a card element with a card game that happens to have a board in it. Apples and Oranges.

I'm glad I've never played Terraforming Mars... I have _no problem_ with Ares Expedition NOT being like the original game. I can't ruin my experience by being stuck on comparing the two constantly.

Terraforming Mars with no draft makes the game so much worse, the game will be slightly faster but that not worth how much it takes away

I have to say the existence of "Ares Expedition" still hurts me very deeply, because: - It does not offer what I want/like. It even uses mechanics I don't like (aka "Race to the Galaxy"). - It gives others another reason to avoid playing "Terraforming Mars". - It is not good, but it's marketed as a Terraforming Mars product. - The art style and graphic design of "Ares Expedition" is a big step into the wrong direction. - It gives water on the mills of those people that hate on "Terraforming Mars".

Just a draft/goals thought - deck of 15 goals, deal 3 to each player, 2 corps, draft until each player has 3 goals and 2 corps to choose from.