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.
Honestly, my idea was to prevent you from playing it in gen 1 most of the time. You're also not supposed to play AGT in gen 1. And my rating was only based on the base game alone, so Vitor and Point Luna are not a factor...yes Teractor is one of the best corps and its Earth tag helps immensely in getting the updated EC down, but that's just one corp. Maybe, (to fix EC also for playing with Prelude) we could change the requirement from 3 earth tags to 3 space tags. Sure, Point Luna still profits, but the other space tag corps (Helion and Phobolog) are not as strong.
My thought was that it could require 1 earth tag, 1 space tag, and 1 energy tag. Would make sense thematically, wouldn't boost Point Luna, Terractor or Vitor too much, and would give the forgotten power tag a bit of a buff.
@@Noaaaaaaaaaah that's a neat idea. Besides boosting some weaker tags it also would make the requirement more unique. In general there's a lot of cards that reward specialization in tags but not many that reward diversification (NRA is the main one, since plants and space often diverge)
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.
1) Sure, if you don't think Eco Zone is S tier, my nerf seems a bit extreme. I'm fine with it, but I can see your argument. 2) Could be a way of handling it - I like my change better since it brings a bit more flavour to the game. There is no city discount and there is only Valley Trust with a science discount. 3) That's what I wanted to do first, but that way it can be very easy to have more resources on the card than you can spend. I like my version, but I can see why you'd prefer yours. 4) Sure, removing the science tag and increasing the cost could nerf it to a good state. 5) True, I did not think about the indirect nerf to Phobolog... 6) Yeah, good idea. Make AGT with its insane requirement the only global 2MC discount. I like that. 7) Really great idea, I like it! Why didn't I think of making it similar to Dev Center? I like your version much more than mine. On Deimos: lol
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've never played with drafting the starting 10. Do you always do it like that? How long does it take to draft the research phase with 3 players? I have some friends I play with that would take ages I'm sure :D
@marsexpert4276 We always use the starting draft. We play most of the time in 5p and if we are all experts it doesn't take so long, because we already know the best card to take or not to pass. I think in less than 5p is even faster because you see the same card again. You can definitely try once
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
Your opponents will strongly disagree, if you play Earth Catapult and/or AI central in Gen 1. And after they barely try to scavenge enough plants for a forest, you crush them with GIA and Deimos Down, drawn via AI Central, while holding Prohected Habs in hand.
I mean of course, S tier cards are insanely fun to play. But imo the most fun thing about Terraforming Mars is comboing stuff together and stacking various smaller effects. These S tier cards are often just gamebreaking on their own. Fun, but frustrating sometimes.
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.
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.
Restricted: true, maybe the nerf was a bit too harsh. But even if Restricted is now weaker than Inventor's Guild, what does it matter? Inventor's Guild is in B tier, so Restricted could land in C or D tier and still be playable. Eclogical Zone: Alright, I understand you reservations on my change on Eco Zone. You could do it like you suggest and just give it another instant animal such that it starts off with a point. Viral: I honestly don't think the two microbe requirement is killing the card, but maybe I'm underestimating the impact of that change.
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 and\or 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
@@Galva94a agree, exactly my line of thinking. I feel like these nerfs would also kill the game for a lot of people since we are so used to the power lvl of these cards
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!
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 understand your point, but AI Central is just still super strong in my opinion. Of course more so in 2p, and the earlier you play it the better, but its ability to let you see 50% more cards than usual is just insanely strong.
@@marsexpert4276 Well yes, but you see 50% more cards only if you play it gen 1. I looked up some numbers, to back up my argument: In the base game there are 208 project cards, 33 have science tag. 3 of them are events. 7 of them have minimum requirements (plus AI). That leaves you with 22 science cards you can play in the first few gens, 10,6% of all the cards. To have 3 of these, on average you'll need to draw 28 project cards to be able to meet the requirements (plus AI itself). You start with 10 cards, + draw 4 at the start of every gen (but only starting gen 2), that brings you to gen 6 first being able to use the action of AI. Yes, you can have other card draw mechanisms, which bring the numbers a bit higher, but still, most of the time AI brings you 10 cards total (even if it started in your hand) from midgame to endgame, and half of those are going to be productions cards, unviable for lategamge play. Of course, these are average numbers. Every now and then someone has a dreamhand with Research, Search for life, Power plant and AI, and yes, breaks the game. But that's one in a thousand chance. Don't get me wrong, it's a great card, but on a scale from Earth cat. to Inventors guild, it's much closer to the latter.
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.
Yes, obviously some of these cards are not as good in 3p or 4p even. The rating was mainly based on 2p and a bit on 3p as these are the formats I most often play. But I need to set some kind of standard to talk about or otherwise I cannot talk about anything :D
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!
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!
Earth Cat: maybe we could change it to a space tag requirement (2 or 3 tags) to not make the strong Earth tag corps even stronger - I discussed that with a few other people in the comments already. Viral: you think one microbe tag and 11MC cost would be fine? Restricted: maybe make the tile require no other adjacent tiles and increase the cost of the card (not the action)?
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.
Could be enough to balance it, I agree - but I think it's not much of a difference - with one microbe tag it's probably B tier and with two it's C tier.
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.
Appreciate your insights and you might be right on a lot of suggested changes. But there's one point that I'd raise: a lot of people seem to have problems with me nerfing the cards too much - you for example say that Kelp would be worse than Algae after my change. But is that a problem? I never stated that my intent would be to nerf these cards "just" out of S tier. For me, it's totally fine if they land in A, B, C or even D tier. So Kelp landing below Algae means it could still land in B tier (same tier as Algae), C or D. Of course, it's still entirely possible thag some nerfs are too harsh or go into the wrong direction, but I feel like many people are just not open to heavily nerfing cards.
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.
Honestly, my idea was to prevent you from playing it in gen 1 most of the time. You're also not supposed to play AGT in gen 1. And my rating was only based on the base game alone, so Vitor and Point Luna are not a factor...yes Teractor is one of the best corps and its Earth tag helps immensely in getting the updated EC down, but that's just one corp.
Maybe, (to fix EC also for playing with Prelude) we could change the requirement from 3 earth tags to 3 space tags. Sure, Point Luna still profits, but the other space tag corps (Helion and Phobolog) are not as strong.
My thought was that it could require 1 earth tag, 1 space tag, and 1 energy tag. Would make sense thematically, wouldn't boost Point Luna, Terractor or Vitor too much, and would give the forgotten power tag a bit of a buff.
@@Noaaaaaaaaaah that's a neat idea. Besides boosting some weaker tags it also would make the requirement more unique. In general there's a lot of cards that reward specialization in tags but not many that reward diversification (NRA is the main one, since plants and space often diverge)
"Mars U is just overall busted" - Mars Expert 2024
You are making me blush here man.
Hahahaha for sure :D
Im fine with most S tier I only hate game breaking T1 plays (AI Central). Make it 5 tags.
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.
1) Sure, if you don't think Eco Zone is S tier, my nerf seems a bit extreme. I'm fine with it, but I can see your argument.
2) Could be a way of handling it - I like my change better since it brings a bit more flavour to the game. There is no city discount and there is only Valley Trust with a science discount.
3) That's what I wanted to do first, but that way it can be very easy to have more resources on the card than you can spend. I like my version, but I can see why you'd prefer yours.
4) Sure, removing the science tag and increasing the cost could nerf it to a good state.
5) True, I did not think about the indirect nerf to Phobolog...
6) Yeah, good idea. Make AGT with its insane requirement the only global 2MC discount. I like that.
7) Really great idea, I like it! Why didn't I think of making it similar to Dev Center? I like your version much more than mine.
On Deimos: lol
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.
Hahaha, I don't think Viral is in F tier now. The effect is still insane, it's just harder to get down.
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've never played with drafting the starting 10. Do you always do it like that? How long does it take to draft the research phase with 3 players? I have some friends I play with that would take ages I'm sure :D
@marsexpert4276 We always use the starting draft. We play most of the time in 5p and if we are all experts it doesn't take so long, because we already know the best card to take or not to pass. I think in less than 5p is even faster because you see the same card again. You can definitely try once
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
Your opponents will strongly disagree, if you play Earth Catapult and/or AI central in Gen 1. And after they barely try to scavenge enough plants for a forest, you crush them with GIA and Deimos Down, drawn via AI Central, while holding Prohected Habs in hand.
Its extremely rare to play AI central in gen 1.
@@5434345 yeah of course, but isnt this a big reason why u play this game to have these insane combos and highroll games
I mean of course, S tier cards are insanely fun to play. But imo the most fun thing about Terraforming Mars is comboing stuff together and stacking various smaller effects. These S tier cards are often just gamebreaking on their own. Fun, but frustrating sometimes.
@@marsexpert4276 Also Hackers on gen 1 is also OP, especially without Preludes.
aww man you killed eco zone
Dunno - less points, yes but still a lot of utility.
@@marsexpert4276 Yeah I mean it's a tile still, but it might be weaker than decomposers. What if we just remove the tile?
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.
Yeah, I can see changing this to one tag...
I agree, I playd yeasterday and the S rate cards are gamechanger, if u dont get them...its hard to do well or win...
If you don't get them, but your opponents do :D if noone gets them it's fair game :D
@marsexpert4276 yea 😆
When do you stream next time?
I'll try to stream on Tuesday, probably around 21 CET.
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.
Restricted: true, maybe the nerf was a bit too harsh. But even if Restricted is now weaker than Inventor's Guild, what does it matter? Inventor's Guild is in B tier, so Restricted could land in C or D tier and still be playable.
Eclogical Zone: Alright, I understand you reservations on my change on Eco Zone. You could do it like you suggest and just give it another instant animal such that it starts off with a point.
Viral: I honestly don't think the two microbe requirement is killing the card, but maybe I'm underestimating the impact of that change.
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 and\or 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
@@Galva94a agree, exactly my line of thinking. I feel like these nerfs would also kill the game for a lot of people since we are so used to the power lvl of these cards
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!
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 understand your point, but AI Central is just still super strong in my opinion. Of course more so in 2p, and the earlier you play it the better, but its ability to let you see 50% more cards than usual is just insanely strong.
@@marsexpert4276 Well yes, but you see 50% more cards only if you play it gen 1. I looked up some numbers, to back up my argument:
In the base game there are 208 project cards, 33 have science tag. 3 of them are events. 7 of them have minimum requirements (plus AI). That leaves you with 22 science cards you can play in the first few gens, 10,6% of all the cards. To have 3 of these, on average you'll need to draw 28 project cards to be able to meet the requirements (plus AI itself). You start with 10 cards, + draw 4 at the start of every gen (but only starting gen 2), that brings you to gen 6 first being able to use the action of AI. Yes, you can have other card draw mechanisms, which bring the numbers a bit higher, but still, most of the time AI brings you 10 cards total (even if it started in your hand) from midgame to endgame, and half of those are going to be productions cards, unviable for lategamge play.
Of course, these are average numbers. Every now and then someone has a dreamhand with Research, Search for life, Power plant and AI, and yes, breaks the game. But that's one in a thousand chance.
Don't get me wrong, it's a great card, but on a scale from Earth cat. to Inventors guild, it's much closer to the latter.
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.
Yes, obviously some of these cards are not as good in 3p or 4p even. The rating was mainly based on 2p and a bit on 3p as these are the formats I most often play. But I need to set some kind of standard to talk about or otherwise I cannot talk about anything :D
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!
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!
Earth Cat: maybe we could change it to a space tag requirement (2 or 3 tags) to not make the strong Earth tag corps even stronger - I discussed that with a few other people in the comments already.
Viral: you think one microbe tag and 11MC cost would be fine?
Restricted: maybe make the tile require no other adjacent tiles and increase the cost of the card (not the action)?
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.
@@itslevi00 hard agree
Viral enhancers 1 microbe tag required not 2 but everything else you suggested I agree with
Could be enough to balance it, I agree - but I think it's not much of a difference - with one microbe tag it's probably B tier and with two it's C tier.
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.
Appreciate your insights and you might be right on a lot of suggested changes. But there's one point that I'd raise: a lot of people seem to have problems with me nerfing the cards too much - you for example say that Kelp would be worse than Algae after my change. But is that a problem? I never stated that my intent would be to nerf these cards "just" out of S tier. For me, it's totally fine if they land in A, B, C or even D tier. So Kelp landing below Algae means it could still land in B tier (same tier as Algae), C or D.
Of course, it's still entirely possible thag some nerfs are too harsh or go into the wrong direction, but I feel like many people are just not open to heavily nerfing cards.
Now try to do this for weaker cards.
underground should have -1 points on it
@@marsuniversity-tm With how much money you waste on the card + action, it's basically -1 point everytime you activate it.
@@Popcornio hahahaha
I'll work on it, but it will take a while :)