An Anomaly on Mars - Terraforming Mars: Prelude Expansion Review

Prelude is a compression. It addresses one of the most...

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Great expansion, and like Wade mentioned, it's mixed in the default setup. I compared it to Injury/Madness from AH's DUNWICH expansion—it's making the base game so much better you should play with it every time. Basically, the first few generations of TM can just suck. You might have some great cards waiting for conditions, or only have enough $Me to play one a turn or whatever, and you are looking to see how things will gel for the game, and PRELUDE just skips all that. You have a theme, you have some more $Me, and you can start rolling. And because you and the others are rolling, the conditions get met faster. Great job by Fryxelius/Stronghold to see this issue and address it so succinctly.

Agree. This is an every-time expansion, and of the best sort, as it adds variety and, maybe more important, some initial direction (in the form of corporation/Prelude synergy).

So how much playtime is shaved off? 10-20% A full hour off a normal 3-4 hour playtime? I love TM but it is a long game for me since I dont play it often enough to have a full set of informed players.

jason10mm wrote: So how much playtime is shaved off? 10-20% A full hour off a normal 3-4 hour playtime? I love TM but it is a long game for me since I dont play it often enough to have a full set of informed players.

ssimeonoff.github.io/stats if you're entirely too much into Terraforming Mars,

Short answer - by those stats it shaves off about a turn/turn and a half across all player counts. That's about 10-20 minutes? The last turns are always the longest.

jason10mm wrote: So how much playtime is shaved off? 10-20% A full hour off a normal 3-4 hour playtime? I love TM but it is a long game for me since I dont play it often enough to have a full set of informed players.

ssimeonoff.github.io/stats if you're entirely too much into Terraforming Mars,

Short answer - by those stats it shaves off about a generation and a half across all player counts. That's about 10-20 minutes? The last turns are always the longest.

jason10mm wrote: So how much playtime is shaved off? 10-20% A full hour off a normal 3-4 hour playtime? I love TM but it is a long game for me since I dont play it often enough to have a full set of informed players.

My experience has been 20% shorter but that has varied depending on if there were new players involved or if they know with the game pretty well.

Great review, if I pick up the copy at my local used bookstore I'll def add this.