Thanks a lot for this playthrough. I really enjoy this game with these expansions. I'm french and I'm very happy to understand all you say throughout the game because of your great explanations.
Hey Jon! First of all, nice playthrough and I must say you handled it well with 3 players, a lot going on with Turmoil also...Ive made way more mistakes in my 40ish Solo Playthrough videos Haha! A few strategy pointers I would like to share with whoever wants them is: 1. Utopia Corp should be used way more, especially when you near the end, if you dont think there is 4+ more generations left it makes sense to lower any production type to gain 4 of that kind right. 2. When you have a card draw option, always use it the first thing you do in a generation since that new card(s) might give you new options that you want to spend your resources on in that same gen. 3. A lot of people forget to focus on the milestones and awards from the start, its good to have a plan and a direction early on and work towards getting them, the milestones really bring a lot of points and denys the same from the opponents. Just my thoughts after watching it all, happy to see you play one of my favourite games :) (Even though Im starting to get a little tired of playing it to be honest, need variation! ;) )
I'd say one of the things that hurt you most was the money crunch you were constantly suffering given it meant you had a harder time putting cards out or waiting longer and the relatively low production of steel and titanium. I must say I was amazed by how much blue caught up so to speak considering at one point they were losing terraforming points but bounced back quite well with some well timed card plays. I like how the Red party in this game is essentially the sabotage option given it penalizes players who try to steamroll ahead in the terraforming and putting the breaks to it which gives time for maneuvering until they're out of power. Overall great video as always Jon, was really fun to watch.
Grabbing those milestones ended up being key, if Green hadn't grabbed 2, they would not have won, as they would have 5 less and one of the opponents would have had 5 more.
Great content and playthru as always. I really like that you play a complete game because it can show the complete arc of a game from end to end. Sometimes it makes a big difference because the beginning, middle, or end of a game can impact how the overall game plays. I did have a question towards the end you had the opportunity to use a card that reduces production by x to get x of a resource. With regard to hear could you have gone down 4 steps to get 16 heat and that combined with what you had could have give you enough to claim the heat award correct.
Such and Amazing game. Each time I play, I think about all the mechanisms and how interlinked all of the things are. Truly a masterpiece game. Jacob is just out of this world coming up with such a great design. Only thing that I wish Mars had is a little bit more interaction. It is mainly solitaire.
1:43:00 you could have used your action of your corporation for 4 more plants to place a greenery tile! It would've cut down on your production which also gave you 8 plants. But great content once again.
Quite a fun playthrough, though I had the green player pegged as the winner from pretty early on (especially once they played the capital city card as that was highly synergistic with their corporation). That is unfortunately the main drawback of this game, a great amount of the victory point difference is due simply being lucky or unlucky with card draws and synergies. The draft variant mitigates this somewhat (which is another reason to use it) but it is ultimately a mitigation and not a fix. I love this game's themes and to some degree its mechanics, but that flaw will always keep it from reaching the ranks of my favorites (and from buying it myself).
Catching up to a leader is tough in any engine building design, and in general the aggressive cards in TM can certainly help. The lack of drafting was a big factor here too, it exacerbates draw luck.
Agreed that the biggest issue is lack of the draft (removed for obvious reasons). I stopped watching at 31:14 on the extended because I knew it was over. Surprised to see another comment saying it was close. Though having that much income also guarantees green wins the bulk of milestones and awards. Another thing to consider is Jon played without Corporate Era to make the game shorter. This means it took no time to get the engines running and less time for his other players to react. Also, first time I’ve seen Waterfront Realty. That Corp looks a little unbalanced with both Prelude and lacking Corp Era as it is the same as Tharsis but more guaranteed if players have agency to put out water early (Tharsis only gives income on cities which aren’t played in rush games which are de rigeur without Corp Era).
I don't need to see everything, if it speeds up the flow of the game. That being said, it should be things we already have seen a few times or some tedious stuff. Personally my game is focused around cities a lot more. Personally i would have prefered the red player to place a city right where green placed the 3rd. Once more my mandatory..... "Twilight Imperium 4 next?" Thanks for the nice Video!
Dang, you are right. I bet we could have used those extra 10 credits, that's a bummer. Thanks for pointing that out, I've added a note about this to the Klingon subtitles.
Could I ask where you bought your copy of the game? I’ve been thinking of buying but the reviews on Amazon seem to indicate the quality of the components are very low, whereas this demo game looks very good
