Terraforming Mars: Venus Next Expansion

A cool addition to the Terraforming Mars collection!!

Great addition to terraforming mars base game. Great cards and components.

Adds new cards and a new track

Venus Next makes the game go longer but it’s an interesting addition to the game once you’ve figured it out and gotten used to it. We like the expansion!

TM: Venus Expansion adds a new sideboard with several new city placements and adds a new track to boost your TF rating. Lost of new cards to combo well with the base game and other expansions. Just more Terraforming Mars which is always a win in my book!

Venus Next is the first expansion for Terraforming Mars to bring a new resource (and in fact the only new resource), Floaters, along with a new tag, Venus. It adds one new award and milestone, 5 new corporations, 49 projects, and a terraforming track on a separate Venus board that provides the opportunity for getting a TR at the cost of 15 mc. Sweet! There are 32 cards with a Venus tag, and a lot of interaction; along with that, many projects seem very strong, and often have a lower cost than what the effects might warrant. Lots of extra VP cards here, and there are resource VP cards (similar to the base game animal cards) that can synergize, which may lead to heavy-handed strategy preferences. Also in the mix are several projects with mixed planet requirements (Earth, Venus, Jovian) that are difficult to field but a welcome addition and thematically relevant. Out of the corporations, Morning Star Inc seems overpowered: They start with 50 mc, get +/-2 to Venus requirements, and have a first action of free draw until getting 3 Venus cards. Whew! Behind them, Celestic gets 42 mc, 2 Floater cards, and can both add Floaters and gain 1 VP for every 3 Floaters on the corp card. They are positioned especially well to interact with new projects from VN. Viron, Manutech, and Aphrodite round out the corporations, with Aphrodite seeming pretty lackluster at +1 plant production and +2 mc per Venus TR. Some players may enjoy the challenge, others will sigh after getting the random pick. As the title says, this expansion is basically a point factory; strong cards, a new TR track at low cost, and lots of bolstering effects mean players will be clocking higher end-game totals than ever before, and feeling good about it. It also provides a way to gain TR while delaying or avoiding giving away track bonuses to opponents, which is helpful. The amount of new projects is a welcome sight, adding a huge amount of variety and replay value. And although the new resource works like the old ones, hey, it's more strategy- always a good thing! My quibbles: Again no card tray. C'mon guys, we gamers do not want cards flopping around in the box! New board has no playable area, recordkeeping only. Adds two tiles for award and milestone that could have just been built into Venus board. No additional depth to ruleset, all new mechanics work just like old mechanics. It should have been packaged with Terraforming Mars: Colonies. You know I'm right. And again, despite the quibbles, I highly recommend getting this if you enjoy Terraforming Mars. I would prioritize this before TM: Prelude or TM: Hellas & Elysium, based on the large number of new projects, the resource, the tag, and the TR option.

Makes the base game more fun. I love having more corporations and project cards. Well worth the investment. The cards seem to be lower quality than the original, but I use card sleeves, so it doesn't make a difference.