Terraforming Mars: Colonies Expansion

I like that this expansion adds more strategy by granting you exact resources you need if you time your turn right instead of waiting for certain cards from a fat game deck.

Adds new cards and other cool stuff. Look into overlays for the tiles

Another T.M. expansion you want, with 5 new corporations, 49 projects, a new resource called floaters (also found in TM: Venus Next), and finally some new mechanics! Here's the gist: In Colonies, there are now 11 areas where players can build (placing a marker, no tile placement unfortunately) and trade, some of which aren't immediately accessible, all of which benefit local residents (the other players who built there) when traded with. Each colony tile steadily gains trading benefits over the generations until someone visits, at which point it drops to minimum value. The trading benefit is independent of what residents get when the trade happens. As you might guess, that brings resource abundance & a fair amount of complexity. Or maybe a mad scramble with no forethought whatsoever, depending on your game night... The group effect is a nice change of pace, and honestly there should be more of it spread throughout T.M.- Martian quake? Of course everyone's affected! Trade embargoes? Yes please! Venusian sun worshippers? Well, I don't know what they'd do, but more global effects are great. Strangely, there are only four cards that play into that in Colonies. There are a small amount of high-impact projects, maybe ten. The set does add 7 Jovian-tagged cards, which helps a lot with that particular approach. The floater resource will stack up with some of the TM: Venus Next interactions, making it a dangerous combo for those who'd rather avoid blow-out games. The high and low ends of the new corporations are Arklight and Aridor; Arklight with 45 mc, +2 mc production, and 1 VP per 2 animals on the corp card, which itself gains an animal for every plant or animal tag you play. The right mix of draws for starting hand could mean double-digit VP for them! Aridor gets 40 mc, and their first (forced) action is to place an extra colony tile, which has literally no significant benefit. They also get +1 mc production per new tag they put into play, which doesn't work well with their tile placement, and is dependent on buying a hodge-podge of cards that may have little synergy. The colony tiles are picked at random, and to represent the trading fleets are the saddest excuse for a ship I've ever seen- a generic white plastic arrow with a divot for a player marker. They look like they came out of a garbage factory at $1 per 100 units. I have no clue why this manufacturing choice was made in an era where almost every popular game is relying on proprietary miniatures to sell their theme. Big oof, Fryx. Only one of these abominations can trade with a colony at a time, which means timing and brinksmanship are going to be big factors for experienced players here. Also, the colony trade tracks go from 1-7, but always start on 2- A weird design choice considering the lack of trade-bombing cards. Other than the ships, my quibbles are: No card tray, again, forever. In the words of Jack Slater, Big mistake. There is only 1 card in the box that negatively impacts trade. 1 card. Why? What? Players can only have one colony per colony tile, with very, very few special exceptions. Should have been packaged with TM: Venus Next What's the bottom line? You get new mechanics, a bunch of new cards, a new resource, and complexity, which is something every veteran player craves out of a time-worn classic. No amount of quibbles should stop you from picking this up. It, along with Venus Next, should be your first picks for playable content expansions in Terraforming Mars.