Stronghold GamesStronghold Games Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition Card Game Collectors Edition ,1 to 4 players, Orange

This game showed up very quickly, in pristine condition. It is the "streamlined" version of the regular Terraforming Mars game, which I have not yet played. But this game is fantastic on its own merit and still incredibly complex and satisfying to play. We sunk many hours into it, so don't plan on being finished in the time frame listed on the box.I run a board game club at my office and I am always looking for streamlined games that I can play. We have a few regular board game enthusiasts as well as a few folks who join us for smaller games. This is a medium to heavy board game that requires a lot of attention to detail, and despite being "lighter" than standard Terraforming Mars it is insanely fun to play, with a focus on strategic card selection and creating a tableau of cards that work well together. It is an "engine builder" , so play starts out a little slow but quickly picks up pace.The instructions state that players should do their actions in each phase simultaneously to speed up play, but we felt it was best to go individually, as we helped each other to keep track of all of our moving parts. Despite this being a "competitive" game, we wound up playing with open hands and discussing the way cards worked to help one another learn, especially on the first playthrough. I think you could play it as cooperatively or competitively as you like.Players take the role of companies, competing to do the most to terraform Mars for human life. Winning comes down to points, and some folks may find that aspect a little uninteresting. But the cards themselves, and the way everything interacts, as well as the science and logic put in by the game developers became the most interesting aspect for us. A wonderful game for science nerds or space enthusiasts. It seems like it will have fabulous replayability.

You must have the base game of Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition to play this game as it uses many of the components of the base game. This game gives you a new board and some new cards. Yes, it may not look like a lot, but it totally changes the way you play the game.My husband and I love co-op games and were excited to see this new expansion released. In the base game, you are working to terraform Mars, in this game, mars is already terraformed and you are working together to try and keep it terraformed.Each round starts with you turning over a crisis card. The crisis card usually does something bad right away, like drop the temperature or the oxygen, and then if you don't resolve the crisis, it will have a persistent negative effect until you do resolve it. Sometimes solving the crisis is as simple as playing two blue cards, which is great unless you were planning on playing green cards that round. So, you are constantly needing to change your strategy.While we enjoy playing the base game of Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition, we will probably play it mostly with this version. In the base game, the build-up is slow. You are slowly raising the oxygen and the temperature, and flipping ocean tiles. In this game, it's fast and furious. You solve one crisis and another one is waiting at the start of the next round.

For people who are intimately familiar with Terraforming Mars, this will seem like a familiar game with fewer complications. For people who have no clue what Terraforming Mars is, this is a great game that teaches people about how Mars could be terraformed in a card game with simultaneous actions. This is great as a 2-player game, though it is even better as a 4-player game. Since I only own licenses to Terraforming Mars on Steam and Google Play, having Ares Expedition on my game shelf feels right. If I could only own either Terraforming Mars (with all of its expansions and upgrades) or Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, I'd buy Ares Expedition and be very happy with it.A fun part about this game is choosing which one phase out of five to play. Since each player does this, there could be one to the number of players different options available (which is why playing with four people is better than with two people). If all players choose the same phase, not as much happens on the turn (since the phases chosen indicate the abilities of the round).The purchasing mechanic is nice since the steel and titanium accumulate over time and add discounts to the card prices (without resetting the steel or titanium amounts). This is different than in Terraforming Mars.Having a specific Action phase is great since that allows for triggering the various actions on the cards and/or on the player board (like funding an ocean or forest). I noticed we didn't play the Action phase much in the 2-player game.I'm very thankful for Branden and Lexi from All Aboard Gamer teaching us the game at Dice Tower East. They did a great job and we tried to buy the game there, but it was sold out. I look forward to receiving the three expansions that are due to be released soon.

Value for money