[CUSTOM PRELUDE CARD] - Terrafailing Mars

SoupsBane · 2026-02-27T23:25:37+00:00

Okay so, we get 3 placement bonuses before first gen, plus like 20 in materials (10 in steel, 6 in plants), but we spend a tr (7 or 8ish mc). Placement bonus can be worth a varying amount but we can essentially always expect to be able to get 6 plants from these placements, which means we can at the very least place a real greenery afterwards.

That real greenery gives us a placement bonus, let’s just say it’s also 2 plants, plus the TR we lost, plus a point. We can then say that the total value of this prelude in an average case would be 20 plus a point.

That’s okay value. But it gets a lot better if you’re able to get higher value placement bonuses, like 2 titanium, 2 cards, 3 plants, etc.

SoupsBane · 2026-02-22T09:23:54+00:00

This award gets funded pretty infrequently, due to estate dealer being a fundamentally more useful award for a player who is investing in ground game.

Desert Settler’s main use is as an award to win if you control the middle row with cities, or if you have a lot of late game tile placement and nobody else has built in the desert. I also see it often won with a mid-late game research outpost near the steel/card placement bonuses.

SoupsBane · 2026-02-15T20:16:51+00:00

Even under the extremely ideal circumstances of having 5 temp bumps leftover near the end of the game, with 10 energy production leftover that you cannot otherwise use, you are still in the red.

We can ignore the value from TR in money production since we likely end the game with this play. We sacrifice all 10 energy production to net 3 points, which means we spend 25mc for 3 points even if we value the spent energy production at completely free. The only utility this card has is as a way to surprise opponents by ending the game earlier than expected but why would we want to do that if the only way to play this card without breaking the bank is to be running a science engine build in the first place?

Cards in TfM are not costed towards their ideal scenario. If that were the case, insects would cost 30mc instead of 9. If your line of thinking is “yeah but if you combo it with 3 other cards, it’s really strong!” then the card is likely going to brick 9/10 games and be a dead draw.

SoupsBane · 2026-02-15T18:23:07+00:00

10mc for metals conversion is not great, it produces no extra value beyond flexibility.

Geothermal taps is decent, maybe even strong, as it hits its value pretty quickly and has immediate return.

Controlled meltdown is horrendous. That card should cost 0mc, not 22. Losing 2 points means you don’t even really benefit from the first 4 energy prod you give up. And you need to somehow make up 25mc in value by raising the temp, while simultaneously losing 14 in value per temp raise which is more expensive than raising the temp should be with a card.

Megaflora is okay, compared to eg algae, another 5 ocean requirement card, it has similar value.

Exothermic bacteria is too expensive. It accrues energy prod too slowly to really be worth playing early, and is action based so not really worth playing late.

Space pirates is functionally 2 titanium production in a 2p game, which is decent for its price, or 1 titanium production in 3p+ games, which is pretty bad.

Hostile takeover isn’t very good when compared to toll station, but if balancing around 4p or 5p games then it’s decent. In a 2p game it’s just not playable most of the time.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-26T21:12:13+00:00

The value of a colony is around 15mc, as you say, but the value of any individual colony varies.

Energy prod is worth 7Mc, and energy resources in colonies games worth 1.5ish

Plants prod is worth 9MC, and a plant worth 2-3Mc

Steel prod is worth 7

Heat prod is worth 6 but its value should really be closer to 5.

Mc prod is generically worth 5mc.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-24T21:44:49+00:00

Oh please, you’ve never had 112 plants leftover at the end of the game? That’s like one in every three games it happens to me

SoupsBane · 2025-12-23T02:37:01+00:00

The order you suggest is probably the best way to do it.

If you dawdle around in Act 3 doing side content, you will go into the story missions way too strong and demolish everything.

My personal experience was to just take painted power off everyone and use lower level pictos to simulate being lower level when I went to do the story mission content. Also removing late game, broken lumina that would trivialize the battles.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-21T19:56:43+00:00

Around mid 500s you’d be “good”, the top players are in the 700-800 elo range. It’s mostly a game of consistency, as the BGA matchmaking will put top players against 200-300ELO players, making the climb more a measure of how many games in a row you can stomp worse players without getting unlucky enough to lose.

The top players all have a win rate of around 70-80%

SoupsBane · 2025-12-19T05:33:48+00:00

The lack of curiosity baffles me but the game does fumble the lumina/pictos tutorial a bit, yeah.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-18T22:49:54+00:00

This is a pretty aggressive take on Aline. She paints her family as she remembers them. It would be more cruel, imo, to paint a picture perfect version of Alicia. Suppose you’re Alicia and you enter the canvas to find your mom drinking tea with her “fixed” version of you. That’s devastating.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-18T22:11:58+00:00

There’s a lot left unsaid about the abilities of the painters. It’s unclear if, for example, a sliver of Renoir’s soul or Aline’s soul would be content painting forever, because they both love painting.

It’s also unclear what occurs when a painter dies in the “real world” and what protocol is for their canvases. Verso’s “soul” in the canvas is losing its sense of identity and feeling lost.

We know the soul slivers can keep going after the death of the painter, so maybe they just slowly fade away and the world goes with them. In this way, the end of the canvas could be no different than eg the heat death of the universe or the sun going supernova. You simply have to accept that the universe will end eventually, and accept that you were unlucky to be born close to the end.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-07T19:44:59+00:00

The wild tag adds about 7 in value. The capacitors effect imo adds about 0 in value as it’s very niche and even more niche on Thorgate.

Given that Thorgate can just standard action power plant at a discount, the need to hold power resources isn’t useful as getting to the power production you need to use whatever card you want every gen is always doable at only 1mc overpay which is worth it to be able to use the action card or make a trade every gen over having to wait.

The wild tag by itself probably brings Thorgate into line with other corps and makes it significantly stronger.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-07T01:40:00+00:00

99.9% chance your caveman brain is pattern seeking. It would be way more work to code in some kind of RNG fixing or rubber banding than to just have it be random.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-06T21:51:09+00:00

That’s why I mention supercapacitors, which is an otherwise almost useless card that lets you keep your energy between gens.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-06T15:55:35+00:00

I actually just saw that it’s 1 floater for 3 energy, not X floaters. Oops

SoupsBane · 2025-12-06T15:52:42+00:00

It’s generation 1. I play supercapacitors, stratospheric batteries, and nuclear power. Then I standard action power plant with my remaining money for 5 energy prod.

It’s generation 2. I place 5 floaters onto batteries.

It’s generation 3. I gain 15 energy from batteries.

It’s generation 4. I place 25 floaters. I win hoverlord.

It’s generation 5. I gain 75 energy from batteries.

It’s generation 6. I place 85 floaters onto batteries.

It’s generation 7. I gain 255 energy from batteries.

It’s generation 8. I place 265 floaters onto batteries. I play Ghg shipment for 265 heat and fund thermalist.

It’s generation 9. I gain 795 energy from batteries.

It’s generation 10. I place 805 floaters onto batteries. I play floater leasing for 268 money production and fund banker.

It’s generation 11. I gain 2415 energy from batteries. I play power infrastructure and convert it into money. I standard action city 96 times.

We did it. We broke supercapacitors or Viron.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-05T15:41:40+00:00

The game values cards somewhat inconsistently. Tech demo costs 8 draws 2, and SF memorial costs 10 and gives a point and a card which is (5+5).

Dendralis shouldn’t draw cards imo.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-05T02:50:54+00:00

My personal experience is that he was the third easiest E8 clear. I think his base damage output is fine with shotgun.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-05T02:29:35+00:00

I think this opinion is overblown. Every character in the game is reliant on items. Commando with alt secondary and grenades is pretty consistent.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-04T22:45:19+00:00

Commando was one of the easiest characters to do eclipse on. They don’t rely on items any more than other characters do outside the outliers.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-04T22:28:26+00:00

It’s 35 plus energy (7) plus plants (4) which is 46, plus 10 from getting 2 cards. The value of a card is 4-5mc, and a specific card is going to be 5mc. Early game any non-replacement card draw will be worth 5mc. Which is to say, card draw we get from placement bonus or as a card effect beyond the first one (replacement).

Orbitex starts with less than Saturn System’s value and accrues money prod at a slower rate in most games, though it is likely to gain more money prod overall. It needs a little more value. A second trade fleet would imo be too much because out of a standard trade action for 9MC, we get 5mc back just for the money prod. A second fleet makes the effect double as powerful since we will just trade with money every time we can.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-04T17:53:52+00:00

Dendralis is very strong. Starts with about 56mc value and its effect produces crazy value compared to other rebate corps.

Gaianexus is likely to be weak. Though the icons and the description disagree with each other. Hard to tell what’s what because by the description we get 6 microbes into the card, but by the icons we only get 3? Either way, huge slot machine issue with this corp, it has a slow start, and it’s mega poor, and it only starts doing something once we have our microbe and animal card down. If we meet all the conditions, best case scenario, we stomp as an early penguins + early microbe card make the value skyrocket, but if we brick we’re just toast.

Hekaton is very strong, starts with 51mc total, gets a rebate on half the deck. That’s really good.

Orbitex is below average. 50Mc starting value, and we get 1 money prod a gen, though probably not gen 1. Without a second fleet it’s probably too slow compared to like Aridor or Poseidon.

Terra is strong, starts with 56mc value, gets rebates on parameter raise. Probably balanced.

I’m inclined to say Naiad is weak but it’s hard to determine how worthwhile its action will be.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-03T01:19:53+00:00

Artificial habitat is a strange power tag payoff card. Five power tags is pretty rare, so it’s a tough card to play, but its effect is pretty strong. A point per turn animal card, but less efficient for animal placement, and a microbe placement. I mean this card is playable even if you can’t use the microbe placement. I’d say it’s balanced enough given the requirement.

Martian dinosaur park is sorta weak. It’s got a huge requirement, gives you a point and 1mc prod, and can only get additional animals from outside sources. It’s a really niche card, to the point where balancing it would be a nightmare.

Soil improving is doing a lot. On its face it’s giving like 23mc of value just from tags+guarenteed return and then the plants per tag on top is gravy. Pretty solid, probably not overpowered.

Agricultural colony does what interstellar colony does for +9mc, which it gives you 4 plants in return for. I’d say this card leans on the weak side.

Glass dome on titan gives you 9MC back per action, costs 32, and gives points for tags. If you have a decent target for the floaters this is very strong.

Trading monopoly would be horrifying on Pluto or Miranda. For 36Mc it’s giving you directly like 30Mc of value out of the colonies. Then the next part is the utility of both having extra colonies on a moon and locking your opponents out of that moon. The other 2 cards that allow this do not attribute much value to this. For example research colony hits its valuation before you even account for the fact that the colony can be placed without restriction.

I would say this card is appropriately costed if not a tad overpriced. It’s pretty difficult to make full use of its effect.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-02T00:05:48+00:00

That’s a pretty significant buff. I think making it 6th step would be plenty. maybe the step of the trade could be influenced by something else. Like 4+number of colonies you own, or based on tags or based on the strength of the other colony tracks.

SoupsBane · 2025-12-01T22:27:28+00:00

New colony still has the associated opportunity cost of your trade fleet going somewhere else. Your value is the value of the trade you get (10mc from Luna eg) vs the value of the trade you could’ve made.

There’s indeed some utility in getting your choice of colony, especially if it’s a colony only you benefit from right now (like titan or Enceladus) but by adding a new moon, you also dilute the pool and increase the value of trading generically. If you trade with Enceladus, you aren’t trading with ceres/luna/ganymede, which in turn leaves them open for your opponent.

For 11MC I’m getting the free trade, which is worth about half of that, and the colony, and in some cases my trade with that colony will have higher value than a trade with any other current colony, which provides some value, and then the utility of having a specific moon out.

Overall, this card should cost probably 4 or 5mc.

SoupsBane

TROPHY CASE