Terra Nova for Terra Mystica players and very short faction guide

[Wonderful Plays]

I think Terra Nova is one of the most exciting games. I am very happy with the beta release and I hope we can get some comp scene going. To found that I thought it might be a good idea to bridge the gap to TM players.

Glossary:
- House instead of Dwelling
- Trading Post is still trading post
- Palace instead of Stronghold
- No more temples or sanctuaries (but we have 2 Palaces now Leftie and Righty)

Other changes:
- No worker and priests (you pay with cash or 🪯power for everything)
- No cult tracks
- One round shorter
- Two colors are gone (Gray and Brown)
- Digging cannot be improved (but is much easier)
- Income is much more diversified for houses and between the factions
- You can’t half dig the terrain (you always need to make it to your home terrain when digging)
- There is no more Power sacrifice to speed it up in Bowl 2
- Leeching is no longer tied to the building Emblems
- Every building just leeches 1🪯 (you don’t use the value of buildings, they are all equal for leeching purposes)
- You never loose VP for leeching (it’s not a choice anymore it happens automatically)
- There are no favors! You don’t get to just score with Earth1 or Water1 those are tied to specific faction abilities/palaces

Some basic strategic tips:
- this game is not all about building the economy early, focus on scoring efficient points
- cheap terrain can be less valuable than having access to proper leech and cheaper trading posts
- faction choice is extremely important as are first houses placements

Quick faction guide. Mainly based on my 100+ games 2 player experience. Every faction has a setup that it is the best faction IMO, but for some of them it will be very rare.

Fairies
A very good starting versatile faction, likes building Trading Posts, but can honestly do most stuff reasonably well


Druids
Very interesting and powerful Palaces. You can lean on one or the other or both

Sun Worshippers
Another one I would recommend as starting point. Very similar to Nomads, very powerful here

Sand Cats
Not the best at 2 players usually, but they love high economic games and have a source of VP on the Righty

Golems
The kings of low scoring setups with trading posts, when they happen


Fire Sprites

Another versatile faction, that can do a lot of different tracks

Water Sprites
They don’t like swimming that much, but love late towns. Very similar to Witches from Terra Mystica

Sea Dogs
They like swimming and are very similar to Mermaids. First round Righty is usually a trap


Leprechauns
The Darklings of Terra Nova. They don’t have that many similar mechanics (in fact their palace and ability more closely resembles the Alchemists), but in my experience play like them, very powerful in most setups, but of course not all of them


Inventors
Honestly a faction I still need to explore more. Get over shined by Leprechauns usually, but have a few tricks up their sleeve. Access to Earth1 on the Righty can be really good, as with Sea Dogs first round Lefty is a trap

I plan to record some footage of playing Terra Nova on my youtube channel, I'll add the links when I have something. Hope you enjoy this one, let me know what I can improve.

[DNA86]

Thank you, I was just looking for this!

[Calmon70]

"Every building just leeches 1🪯 and all of them leech (you don’t pick the highest value building)"

In Terra Mystica they also all leech, so you don't pick anything. You either leech for potential VP loss or you don't.

[Wonderful Plays]

"Every building just leeches 1🪯 and all of them leech (you don’t pick the highest value building)"

In Terra Mystica they also all leech, so you don't pick anything. You either leech for potential VP loss or you don't.

Thanks for catching my mistake, when I was writing it I didn't fully understand TM rules. Fixed.

[leduwlae]

This is what I was lookingbasketball stars for. It's very easy to understand. Many thanks.