Follow me on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/marsexpert to catch me live streaming Terraforming Mars regularly.
Follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mars_expert?t=dnhgpwAU91mJ34OcRNSXAQ&s=09 to get news, updates and more.
Please also check out my second channel, where I post Total War: Shogun 2 campaign series: Please also check out my second channel, where I post Total War: Shogun 2 campaign series: @IkkoManu
Now that I’ve gone through my tier list of all of the project cards in Terraforming Mars, it’s time to show you how I would balance all of them. This is the first video of a two part series. In the first episode I will nerf the S tier cards and in the second one, I will buff the F tier cards.
source
Now try to do this for weaker cards.
I dont know i feel like playing with the nerfed version of these cards would just feel bad xD, i think terraforming mars lives fron these high power impactful cards that give u an amazing feeling when you play them, i think to rebalance stuff i would much rather bring up the really bad cards to make them mor exciting rather than nerfing these amazing cards that are a big reason why you even play tm
I feel like three Earth tags for Earth Cat makes it way too hard to play in base game, and ends up boosting two of the strongest corps in Point Luna, Terractor, and Vitor simply because they get starting Earth tags. Excluding EC itself, there are only 16 Earth Tag non-event preludes and project cards. You would need incredible luck to have the cards to get this down Gen 1 with a non-Earth tag corp.
I've been mulling around this exact same topic over the past few weeks and came to some similar, but not identical results.
In no particular order, here are where our opinions diverge:
1) I don't actually think Eco Zone is S-tier. High A maybe, but every time I crunch the numbers on it I always come away feeling like it's just worse than Advanced Ecosystems given that you have to play it sooner. If you really feel the need to nerf it, just up the cost by, like, 2-3 MC.
2) Research Outpost I think can be balanced just fine by adding an energy prod cost to it like other city cards. This makes the upfront cost much higher such that the 1 MC discount doesn't net positive as frequently. If you think of Outpost as generating 1 MC per card you play, you need to play an average of 3 cards per generation for it to match Cupola City or Domed Crater – possible but not guaranteed in every game.
3) For Mars U, I think simplifying the effect to -1 Resource, Discard a card, Draw a card is a lot less wordy, much cleaner, and requires no asterisk and that's always preferred in card design imo.
4) I don't like the microbe requirement for Viral – you want to play the cards in the other order for the payoff. This is one of those weird cases where it's very hard to adjust the card without fundamentally destroying its identity. I think I'd prefer if you increased the cost slightly and removed the science tag.
5) Removing the space tag from TG is a huge nerf to space as a strategy and an indirect nerf to Phobolog – a corp that already needs all the help it can get. The solution is probably to just increase the cost of TG from 33 to 40+. At a certain point, the cost per point payoff becomes less attractive since, on its face, it's already 3 points.
6) In retrospect, an Earth tag requirement makes EC much harder to play, but earth tags are fairly rare, there are only 13 in the base game so asking for 3 is a bit much. I think I would probably knock the requirement down to only 1 earth tag, and knock the discount down to -1MC. -2 is entirely too steep for a card that wants to be played early, and it would make AGT stand out more as a payoff for science.
7) For AIC, I'd probably change it from an energy requirement to costing 2 energy to activate, just to slow it down a touch and make it a big brother to Dev Center.
Also, as a side note, Deimos is a named moon of Mars but it's actually quite small and far enough away that it will eventually escape Mars' orbit on its own in the future. In fact, you'd probably barely even be able to see it from the Martian surface. It's a glorified big rock.
Viral enhancers 1 microbe tag required not 2 but everything else you suggested I agree with
I agree, I playd yeasterday and the S rate cards are gamechanger, if u dont get them…its hard to do well or win…
Appreciate your effort, and as always a very good work
Personally however, the only thing to do with these S+ cards is to make the DRAFT also for the 10 projects starting hand. And could also add the bet for corp or prelude as done during TM tournaments.
With the initial draft you can select just one big card and making combos is more difficult. That's why playing on-line I don't like it so much. It's not so rare to win or lose just in the first gen.
I dont know. The more games you play, the more you find yourself not being able to play -or afford AI or EC. Especially AI is a card that often collects dust in my hand and never gets played. Also the game settings has a big influence on the power level of both cards and corps. In 2P on Tharsis Credicor is amazing but a 3P on Hellas with expansions Credicor is B-tier at best imo. Finally some of the expansions helps improving the bad cards like making microbe cards more desirable.
Oh, lord. i love this kinds of vieos; I love "fixing" stuff in games like these.
– Earth catapult witha requirement I definitely agree. Don't know about Earth tags, though; they are common and pushes it even more towards two corps (Teracor and point luna) who are already very good. Perhaps power tags or space tags is an alternative so they can have an endgame card (Now I am thinking on similar cards for other otherwise useless tags as a finisher tomake them worth it), but I understand it helps the flavor, so I agree in the end.
– It was either kill teh plant destruciton, or the heat. Why does an ice asteroid cause the temperature to increase? But I understand the plant destruciton is a better choice.
– I may want to remove all the VP from convoy: it already gives VP through its effect and it feels unnecesary. Plus Vitor doesn't need more discounts. Perhaps reduce the cost by 5 to compensate the VP lost; I like this card to be a little more playable, for its full terror potential.
– Science resources, hmm… if those can synergize with otehr science cards, this can become a neat little card cycler! I do despise how many cards this thing can spurt out, truly. The prelude that gives science resources could also synergize with it, this way.
– Oof, five plant tags for a non plant prelude or Ecoline is really high! I doubt most people would ever get that many; four is surely enough! I guess depending on how many expansions, but 5 plant tags would be difficult to pull off for anyone without a plant corp!
– Research outpost is now a science/City engine? I think this just makes it a science combo card and removes its potential for general play. I already squint at it not needing any power, and that seems like the obvious first thing to solve, if only for standarization's sake. Perhaps you can make it more interesting by it being a -1 discount to science, cities, and a -2 to any other tag of your choice? A research outpost surely would be customized to its creator, and it would make it a viable wild card,
– Hard agree on viral enhancers being the microbe endgame card: it will make microbes much more attractive if this is the reward. it's just taht if that is the case, it loses the momentum it usually has by being played early. The idea is solid, but there is the Microbe corp and note furhter expansions make microbes far mroe common… Perhaps a more steep requirment of 3 or even 4, and allowing animal tags (Frome cological and pets, for example) to add to it so we still have a reason to use micros while not making it an easy pick for anyone who's not seriously going for it.
Overall a good group!
The problem with this video is a lot of the cards you're weighting highly are clearly with 2p in mind. AI Central is oppressive in 2p but situational and often unplayable in 4p. A lot of the "fixes" on targeted plant hate on GIA and Deimos are the same way. Instead of trying to rebalance individual cards, the real fix would be to just figure out a way to make Terraforming Mars a better 2p experience. The fact that global parameters don't scale with player count is a huge oversight imo, and targeted hate cards change power level significantly with player count as well. (On a related note, a lot of these "fixes" straight up kill the cards at higher player counts).
But also, from a general game design perspective, a lot of these nerfs make the cards unexciting and boring. The cards don't need to be balanced. The cards being randomly drawn is itself a balancing mechanism because you and your opponent(s) have equal access to the cards. Poker is a game where the power level of the cards are radically different, but no one would say poker is "imbalanced" by this fact because the discrepancy in the power level of the cards does not confer any advantage to anyone a priori. It's no different here.
Edit: The other issue too by the way is that it seems like you feel engine is OP, which is probably more to do with the fact that Helion and UNMI are so weak. Many of these changes would be unnecessary if you just buffed Helion/UNMI, removed Thorgate, and nerfed Credicor (instead of some weird sideways nerf of making everything cost 19). The net impact of all these changes by the way is that you'd make Ecoline oppressively strong.
I think that you have just put Viral Enhancers in F Tier, so I hope that it will be getting a buff in your next video.
I feel like the viral enhancers nerf is actually too much. Not only are microbe tags rare but many of them just aren’t good either. You would most likely be paying for a microbe card you wouldnt otherwise play, which could be an extra 10-15 MC. Any microbes that you would have played anyway are also nerfed by not being able to get VI down before them, so this is essentially adding a -2 plants nerf to VI in addition to the cost and requirement. I feel like a single microbe requirement or a mixture of microbe and plant tag requirements would be better.
Thanks for the video!
aww man you killed eco zone
Im fine with most S tier I only hate game breaking T1 plays (AI Central). Make it 5 tags.
"Mars U is just overall busted" – Mars Expert 2024
You are making me blush here man.
I think generally speaking nerfing S tier cards is not as important as buffing F tiers. Two reasons
1. Playing busted cards feels good
2. Many of these have narrow use cases andor timing to be played at full potential. Player count also plays a huge role, as cards like the plantprod-asteroid already are way worse if you play in 4p or 5p. Same with many of the other cards
It would be much interrsting to buff weak cards, that are objectively poorly balanced in term of the average built-in cost of productions, points, resources and so on
A few of these nerfs feel a bit too harsh.
Restricted Area – Your version feels like a worst Inventors Guild while costing more slightly more, since it's a forced card draw for 3 instead of look and decide. I think just nerfing the tile placement by having it go next to no other tile would be enough and maybe bump it's cost by 1-3 MC.
Ecological Zone – I'm on the boat of people that didn't feel like this is an S-tier card, rather a strong A-tier and think it was fine as is. If you are really set on making it a 1/3 point animal card, I think you should at least have it grant an extra animal upon playing so it still starts with 1 VP.
Earth Catapult – Not sure I like the Earth tag requirement since a majority of the other Earth tags just already synergize with an engine strat. The Earth tag requirement just punishes the player that might draw it along with a rush style hand, or the person that might have to pivot from one strat to the other. I do agree that it does need to some how not be super easily playable Gen 1 though. I agree with remove the points, you could perhaps have it require power production similar to Electro Catapult, or even give it a minimum requirement like 2-4% oxygen so it isn't instantly playable from an opening hand.
Viral Enhancers – Oh boy, this one is a tough one without completely killing the card. I think there needs to be a trade-off for triggering the effect of VI, so perhaps you would need to trade a heat resource in order to get the extra plant, microbe, animal. This would feel similar to Local Heat Trapping, but ongoing. Also, remove the science tag.
When do you stream next time?
I might be alone with my opinion, but A. I. Central never felt that OP to me. It has decent requirments and costs, and its ability is linear (meaning each gen you do not play it, you loose an equal measure of it's potential). Other S tier cards, like earth cat or viral enhancers on the other hand, have an abilty, that's nonlinear. Meaning they benefit with more played cards, wich intensifies in the lategame.
What I want to say is: if you play AI. central in the 5th gen, you already lost half its potential. If you play earth cat in the 5th gen, you can still harvest 75-80% of its potential.
I like the idea of the microbe tag requirement for Viral Enhancers but I would've made it only 1 tag because I think 2 hurts too much, even if that means increasing the cost a bit more. The card feels great to play I think it deserves to stay strong unlike other ones.
Most of the fixes seem bad to me. We tried the 3 earth tag requirement on earth cat previously. It just made it either completely useless or completely OP. I don't think it was a very good change. Instead, lowering the VP to 1 and increasing the cost a bit made it feel much more balanced.
2 Power and no building tag for AI feels crazy to me. I don't think it will be playable in many games with that change.
I don't like the eco zone change as I feel like it's the perfect blend of OP, but not too OP. Your change basically makes it worse decomposers.
I think algae is now better than kelp farming with your change.
I never thought Large convoy was OP. I think your change heavily hurts the card.
NRA nerf is insane. It's basically unplayable now. Easily your worst suggestion.
Research outpost change doesn't deserve the next to no other tile rule with the nerf.
Restricted area is now just a worse inventor's guild essentially.
I have no idea how TG will be very playable when you have to have a large amount of Ti prod for the other jovs.
For viral I would just raise the cost like you did. Microbe requirement doesn't seem practical.
3 earth on earth catapult is too much. 2 microbes on viral enhancer is too much. 3 cost on restricted area is a boring nerf, and maybe too expensive. Other than that, I agree on everything!