Corp Era Science Domination

[Camzeee]

Mind you I'm only a lowly 200 ELO player, but when playing Corporate Era 3p so far, the game has very often been decided very early by who gets the most science tags.

3 of my last 4 games were won by the science guy who played like a billion actions. How do you beat it? It doesn't seem like you can terraform quickly enough to force their engine down. The scores always end like 90-75-75

Is there a counter strategy to employ against it? I get hate drafting but in 3p if the other person doesn't do it as well then you're kind of dead and playing for 2nd place.

[RoyalRook]

Heat, heat, heat, push the tempo, don’t buy too many cards, do NOT drop cities, and save money to end. Quickest way for you to get guuud is follow this simple trick: buy only 4 or less cards from the start and only buy one card for the first three gens. Buy no cards on gen 6 & 9 and see you at the elo 400 club tomorrow.

[Draffut]

Mind you I'm only a lowly 200 ELO player, but when playing Corporate Era 3p so far, the game has very often been decided very early by who gets the most science tags.

3 of my last 4 games were won by the science guy who played like a billion actions. How do you beat it? It doesn't seem like you can terraform quickly enough to force their engine down. The scores always end like 90-75-75

Is there a counter strategy to employ against it? I get hate drafting but in 3p if the other person doesn't do it as well then you're kind of dead and playing for 2nd place.

The main counter is ending the game before their engine can get enough points. Terraform hard and fast. Also, there's some engine cards that are just too good that you should always hate draft.

[Grunman]

Heat, heat, heat, push the tempo, don’t buy too many cards, do NOT drop cities, and save money to end. Quickest way for you to get guuud is follow this simple trick: buy only 4 or less cards from the start and only buy one card for the first three gens. Buy no cards on gen 6 & 9 and see you at the elo 400 club tomorrow.

That's boooring
Such play is not what 200+ cards were designed for.

[Yahyra]

RoyalR is right about this; if someone is investing heavily on card draw and engine cards, one of the best ways to counter this strategy is to focus on terraforming, get the milestones asap and end the game before the engine can churn out more points to win. Whether you think that's "fun" or not that's up to your personal taste... a winning strategy can be viewed as 'unfun' but it does not make it any less viable a winning strategy.

[RoyalRook]

Heat, heat, heat, push the tempo, don’t buy too many cards, do NOT drop cities, and save money to end. Quickest way for you to get guuud is follow this simple trick: buy only 4 or less cards from the start and only buy one card for the first three gens. Buy no cards on gen 6 & 9 and see you at the elo 400 club tomorrow.

That's boooring
Such play is not what 200+ cards were designed for.

I am just giving a template for beginners to get better. Once you pass 400, there is so much more to consider. There are ton of high level games that players only hold 2 cards in hand, corp era on gen 4 or 5 even if they are ended up going science. It's not boring, it's precise.

[Grunman]

I am just giving a template for beginners to get better. Once you pass 400, there is so much more to consider. There are ton of high level games that players only hold 2 cards in hand, corp era on gen 4 or 5 even if they are ended up going science. It's not boring, it's precise.

I think, better way to learn the game is to play engine games and learn synergies. Then you may go off and skip most cards.

[Camzeee]

I still don't really get how to 'terraform fast'. You have to drop cities to capitalize on the greenery you put down. And unless you're playing Credicor it's very inefficient to spend your money on standard projects over playing cards.

And by terraform you mean putting tiles down rather than heat right? Because you can rarely do both at once. I tend to have the highest TR in most games but find the games I lose are to people putting down tiles and claiming milestones.

It's a tough balance. I can engine build with the best of them and I'm gaining rank from building better engines than people but I still lose to much to ground game and trying to develop my own which I think is important to reach the higher ranks.

[Corbz]

I still don't really get how to 'terraform fast'. You have to drop cities to capitalize on the greenery you put down. And unless you're playing Credicor it's very inefficient to spend your money on standard projects over playing cards.

And by terraform you mean putting tiles down rather than heat right? Because you can rarely do both at once. I tend to have the highest TR in most games but find the games I lose are to people putting down tiles and claiming milestones.

Terraforming is raising all three global parameters. You want to do this quickly. Ideally have some heat prod from the start (or as soon as possible). Need some plant prod cards that get activated as the heat track goes up quickly. And supplement with space events for more heat and oceans. Put your greeneries down along the oceans (called ocean walking) to get MC rebates.

Don't build cities to benefit from your greeneries. They detract from your terraforming and don't get that many points. If you have spare money/minerals in the last Gen then that's when to build cities.

Try and claim Gardner and terraformer milestones along the way. You should get at least one of those.

BUT in base game without preludes, winning by terraforming rather than engine is tricky. You need the parts I described above to stand a chance.

Hope that helps.

[Yahyra]

Indeed, one of the first, best lessons to learn about successful terraforming mars strategy is that you do _not_ need cities for your greeneries. Many games have been decided because the losing player wanted to put a city next to a greenery or two of an opponent.