The upcoming Prelude expansion to Terraforming Mars gives the corporation a substantial starting boost, but it also comes with 5 brand new corporations to play! In the early days of Martian colonization, Point Luna had a perfect situation to leverage – the largest space port on Luna. By offering efficient resource relocation from Earth to Mars, they could partner up in a variety of terraforming projects. This is simulated by their ability to draw cards whenever they play an Earth tag. You may not have much control of what you draw, but the variety of cards you’ll be sure to get will offer many interesting opportunities for you. In order to do well, though, you’ll need to play multiple Earth projects. Many of them are the space events that Point Luna specializes on – shipping resources to Mars, using the titanium from their Lunar mining operations.
Another early competitor is Robinson Industries. Being founded by early terraforming pioneers, Robinson Industries works with a variety of projects, and has a holistic view of the process, involving every aspect of the colonization. In the game, they have a really cool ability to reflect this: once per generation, you can pay 4 MegaCredits to increase your lowest production! This is a good deal for any resource, but really excellent for titanium and plants. As Robinson Industries, you can start off by increasing one of those, or energy or steel if that is needed more. You have great flexibility, but also have to use some strategy to maximize this ability in the long run…
Then we have Arklight, a species preservation organization that offers much needed diversification of the emerging Martian ecosystem. With sponsors at their back (MC production), they gain a VP for every pair of animal or plant tags they play. But wait – that is not the Prelude icon on the side of the card! Oops, it seems we just spoiled a card from the upcoming Colonies expansion as well.
Oh well, you deserve it.
