![]() ![]() Now if you really just love engine building and card combos, Ares certainly has that in spades. Since there is no Mars to put the greenery tiles on you simply take some for end game points. And while I don’t necessarily mind that at times-I’m certainly torn on take-that type cards in strategy games-but removing all sense of caring about what other corporations are doing on this red planet just makes the game feel a bit more like a spreadsheet and less of an exploration of a new world. Ares Expedition is entirely multiplayer solitaire. If it’s racing people for milestones, tossing asteroids at them, or building your city right next to their greenery tile… you might be disappointed here. But it really depends which parts of the original game really draw you in. Most folks coming at this game from Terraforming Mars might appreciate that it gives the same feeling in a shorter amount of time. The KS edition comes with nice, recessed player boards to track your goods. Which leaves it a bit without a home-on Earth or Mars. But it somehow doesn’t manage to be as good as either of them. Ares Expedition is a good game that is a mashup of both of those things. I’m also a fan of _ for the Galaxy, especially Roll. Especially when you add in drafting and the Prelude expansion to speed things up a bit, it’s a fantastic game. The only board is used for tracking temperate, oceans, and oxygen. Then the game continues in this manner, choosing what to activate and performing all active phases over and over until Mars is ready for us humans to come live. Production – Gain money, cards, heat, and greenery based on your production levels.Players choosing this can activate one card twice. You can also perform standard actions any number of times. Action – Activate as many of your cards as you wish. ![]() If this is your chosen phase you can draw a card or place a second card. Construction – Play a red or blue card.You get a discount if you chose to activate this phase. Let’s quickly outline the phases of the round: Players do get a small bonus during the phase that they chose. If any phases are chosen by no players, they are skipped entirely. If any player chooses a phase, all players will get to take that action. Borrowing heavily from Race/Roll for The Galaxy, each round begins with players choosing one of the five phases that they would like to execute. The biggest change is how the actions themselves take place. Ares Expedition is full of project cards with much improved art from the original. There is a small board to indicate when oceans are built but they simply serve to give you a small bonus when placing an ocean and there isn’t any area control or placement decision to be made. Instead, you’ll be using cards to take actions and score points. However, there is no map of Mars to place a lot of fancy tiles on. Once you’ve done that the game ends and whoever’s company is adjudged to have terraformed the best is the winner. Players take the role of corporations whose job is to raise the heat and oxygen level of Mars while also making some room for a few oceans. If you’ve played Terraforming Mars, you’ll understand the theme of Ares Expedition right away. But it also launched Ares Expedition, a game set in the same world, Mars obviously, but with some different mechanisms and a mostly different feel. Its success has also resulted in expansions and fancy upgrades. Currently the 4th highest ranking game ever on BoardGameGeek, it’s become one of the go-to examples of “heavy eurogames” that has reached a broad audience in the hobby gaming world. ![]() And of course, for us board gamers, Terraforming Mars. Mars Attacks! That Matt Damon movie where he grows potatoes. That’s pretty incredible and could just be key in humanity’s long-term survival.īut don’t forget other Mars-related things that have contributed to humanity. ![]() Among those, thanks to a lot of human ingenuity and amazingly smart people, we’ve managed to launch a rover from Earth and land it on the surface of Mars over six months later. And a lot of great things have resulted from this fascination. Earth-bound humans have long been fascinated Mars, our nearest planetary neighbor ( editor’s note: this is not actually true. ![]()
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