Terraforming Mars: Automa – How Does It Enhance Solo Mode?
Discover how the Terraforming Mars Automa transforms solo play! This guide dives into the Automa system, offering tips, strategies, and insights to enhance your solo gaming experience.
Let’s be honest—Terraforming Mars' default solo mode leaves a lot to be desired. It lacks depth and replayability, which is surprising for such a popular and high rated medium-to-heavyweight game. From a solo perspective, it's underwhelming. However, the game truly shines when played competitively with others, where the interaction and strategy come to life.
Not only does the game feel a bit overpriced with its lower-quality components, but the solo experience seems like an afterthought—added to attract solo gamers but ultimately leaving them with a lackluster experience.
What’s Terraforming Mars About?
For those unfamiliar with the game, Terraforming Mars is an engine-building game where you take on the role of a corporation aiming to make Mars a habitable planet. Using your corporation's unique abilities, you'll gather resources to raise the temperature, increase oxygen levels, and create oceans. The goal is to transform Mars, and the corporation with the most victory points by the end is deemed the most successful.
Issues With the Default Solo Mode
The solo mode through out a lot of the interesting features out the door and became like a ticking bomb needing to terraform Mars within 14 generation or rounds.
Basically you need to get all the correct cards to able to accomplish the oxygen, heat and water tiles. Building the city tiles don’t even matter. Placing greenery tiles remains crucial for raising the oxygen level, but they can be difficult to achieve. Cards that will allow you to gain victory points are like, “Who cares!” If no oxygen or green tiles come about within the 14 rounds. You loose!
There's no real strategy or skill involved—it’s entirely luck-based, just hoping to draw the right cards within the 14 rounds. I won twice, but not because I planned or executed a strategy. I simply crossed my fingers and hoped the right cards would show up.
Milestones and Awards? What are those? They felt like another feature completely sidelined. When I finally played Terraforming Mars with two other human players, it was a totally different experience. Despite reading up on the rules, I still wasn’t clear on how to achieve Milestones and Awards, especially with so many other elements to juggle. I was lost! If you start with the solo mode and then switch to playing with others, it feels like a completely different game altogether.
What about the expansions? Don’t bother! They’re a complete waste of money and shelf space for solo players. The solo experience doesn’t integrate well with any of the expansions. Sure, you can set them up, but they’ll just make the game longer, making it nearly impossible to terraform Mars within the 14-generation limit.
MarsBot
Eventually, I stumbled upon the Marsbot print-and-play version on BoardGameGeek, designed by Nick Shaw, though it's not officially affiliated with the publisher Fryxgames.
I didn’t play it immediately as I was completely turned off by the whole game for solo mode as I couldn’t get anyone to play the game with me. I was even debating to sell the game as it was sitting in my shelf collecting dust.
After a few months, I decided to give the MarsBot solo mode a try. I printed out the rules and guide, which were fairly easy to follow, and YES—this is what the solo mode should have been all along.
Although the printed MarsBot sheet didn’t look too appealing laid out on my table, it still delivered a much better experience than the default solo mode. It even incorporates some expansions, though not all of them.
In essence, the bot draws 4 cards and uses an AI player sheet with tracks, each having a token. When the bot flips a card, the icon at the top determines which track the token will move on. The bot then performs the action associated with the symbol where the token lands, simulating the decision-making process of a real player.
This solo play finally brings city-building into play, creating much-needed competition for Milestones and Awards. You’ll need to stay on your toes to keep up with the solo bot, which adds a real sense of challenge and engagement. By the end of the game, Mars actually becomes crowded with tiles as both you and the AI battle it out to be the top corporation.
Then again it wasn’t perfect but it was heading in the right direction.
Automa Expansion
FryxGames eventually announced an official solo mode for Terraforming Mars on Kickstarter, designed by Nick Shaw and Dávid Turczi, based from the Marsbot concept. I was blown away when I heard the news. Although I didn’t pledge during the Kickstarter, I decided to wait for the retail release since I was occupied with other games.
I haven’t received the expansion yet, but I did pre-order the retail version. From the gameplay videos I’ve watched and also playing the Marsbot concept, plays similar but with extra features. Here are some key features:
Smart AI Bot: The bot simulates competitive play, making strategic decisions and focusing on milestones, awards, and terraforming actions.
Track-Based Actions: The bot operates on a series of tracks. Each turn, it flips a card, moving a token on the corresponding track and performing the associated action.
Expansion Compatibility: The Automa mode is designed to integrate with several Terraforming Mars expansions, adding variety and depth.
Multiple Difficulty Levels: The bot offers different difficulty settings, allowing players to adjust the challenge based on their skill level.
Dynamic City-Building: The bot actively participates in city-building, competing for space and tiles, which adds pressure to the player's own development.
The bot also receives a corporation card. This corporation card gives the bot specific abilities and bonuses that it can use throughout the game. The bot will use this to guide its strategy, including resource generation and engine-building, making it feel more like you're playing against a real opponent with a corporation's unique strengths.
Conclusion
Thank goodness for the Automa release—it’s a game-changer that will keep Terraforming Mars in my collection, as well for many others. This expansion is bound to bring the game to the table more frequently, finally giving me the opportunity to dive into the deep strategies I hadn’t fully explored before.
However, it’s a bit of a letdown for new hobbyists. To truly enjoy the solo experience, you’ll need not only the base game but also the Automa expansion, which adds to the cost. The original solo mode just doesn’t cut it, and for many, it’s not worth the money.
Hopefully, FryxGames will eventually release a reprint of Terraforming Mars that includes this improved solo mode. I’m confident this Automa will not only terraform Mars but transform the solo experience entirely!
If anyone has played it please comment below and give your thoughts! :)
Haven’t played it but been eyeing it. Good to know about the solo mode. Hope they improve it.