Terraformers – Beginners Guide

Don’t panic. This game has a steep learning curve. I haven’t by any means finished it, but after some cursing at the RNG god i have found a few tips i wish someone had told me when i first started. So here goes.

Guide for New Players

• Don’t try to stay in the positives in the support per turn. You don’t need those entertainment buildings when you only have one choice of card and you can get something you can use right now, like an energy building early game.
• Build many cities, don’t try to develop your cities too much. This is crucial, and sometimes it makes more sense to build a new city even if you hold a juicy building that will raise the population of your existing city (side note: robots are your friends: You can drop down a new city and throw some robot buildings and have instant access to new locations.
• Food is king. You need food for population, and you need population for support. So build lots of farms and do it the smart way. Position your farms so that a farm boosting building will benefit the most. Place farms only on rich soil (duh).
• Exploring smartly. How you explore is crucial to your success. You should understand the priorities while exploring. Rover exploration stations and exploration satelites are very much worth their money. A simple rule is the rule of what can i do right now. To give an example lets say you can explore several locations, and you can get some happiness, some research, some titanium or some water. Take a look at the cards in your hand, at the map and at your space projects. Are you early in the game and you hold a card that needs titanium that could give you 3 robots but you can’t afford it yet? Better explore where you see the titanium icon. Are you some research away from putting down a bacteria spreader? Better get that research. Are you mid game and one revealed location from unlocking building a city witch you can afford? Go for that location.
• It is called terraformers for a reason. To advance, you need to start early on raising the terraform parameters. Even when you are playing with different winning goals, you have to put down life and have water, temperature, oxygen, atmosphere. If you don’t start early on bacteria, heat and oxygen you have no chance in the long run.

Remember

If you only make the most efficient moves, your progress is going to be slow. Good reasons to start building up a new city when your existing city isn’t finished include:

• Managing exploration costs.
• Obtaining access to new resources and/or resource types.
• Managing the support cost of sprawl.
• Getting access to a different climate zone for a lifeform spreader.
• Having access to a new city map and therefore a fresh set of adjacency bonuses.

Hope this helps a bit for those who find the game too hard. I did too, but it seems more balanced the more i ply.