Best and Worst Corps discussion

[cranesflyhigh]

Corp era - Tharsis map tier list. Personal opinion with some explanations. Obviously seeing a higher tier corp does not mean it is better for the current situation - very much depends on your starting hand.

1. Credicor - insane starting money and really good corp ability that works with some of the best cards. Also can do greenery spams with it. Extremely flexible, works with any strategy.
2. Teractor - insane money, and Earth is one of the best tags for early cards. But mostly just the money.
3. IC - if you can find a steel target, it has the most starting capital out of any corp, bar Phobolog. Pray to your favorite deity for Advanced Alloys and you're golden. Media Group is also a very good card, getting a mini version of it built-in is really nice.
4. Ecoline - it does one thing, but does that one thing extremely well. The low starting capital hurts quite a bit, but 7 conversion rate with the starting plant and plant prod can get your TR running really quickly. Do the ocean walk, baby.
5. Helion - Generally a rusher, and in 90% of cases you should use the heat to push... heat. Not spend as money. The 10% of cases where you can flex into an engine when your opponent outrushes you is very neat tho.
6. Tharsis Republic - Generic corp. Decent starting cash with a city placed. Nothing to brag home about, the only reason it is this high is due to the map Tharsis and it having a headstart on the slightly more niche milestone Mayor and on the not that niche Builder.
7. Saturn Systems - Kinda meh starting cash, but has some nice built-in prod. Also makes your enemies scared of passing you jovs, so they might pass you better cards. Problem is that you have no innate boni for any of the milestones, so you have to somehow work out which one you could go for.
8. Mining Guild - If you have good tile placement and some steel targets, this corp can be great. Nuke Zone Pavonis Mons all day. Builder is very feasible. If no tile placement or buildings: you will struggle. Be careful not to overproduce steel though, you will need some lategame steeldumps like Open City.
9. Inventrix - You pick this if your starting hand sucks and want the card draw or you really need the science icon for something. The ability is kind of niche, but can come in handy, works best with some of ocean plant prods. You have a head start on Planner, but your economy might suffer if you rush for it.
10. UMMI - It is the most fun corp... however you need something to make it work. Cheap TR events like Bribed committee and Flooding are your best friends, until you can get enough heat prod, a bumper, or something along those lines. Standard projecting asteroids isn't a good UNMI engine, people. And don't forget your ability also costs 3.
11. Phobolog - The best space events have titanium costs. Phobolog can deliver those babies like a drunken Santa delivers... bad analogies. Also works with some jov strats. The upside is very much there - if you actually hit it. If you do not have good titanium targets in your opening hand, then you are kinda dead. Also very much wants titanium prod. 23 starting money forces you to be very conservative what you pick from your starting hand.
12. Thorgate - Do you want a corp with basically no ability? Here is Thorgate! The starting cash is okay, so you might play it if your other corp does not work at all with the starting hand. Inventrix would be better in those cases, but you drew Thorgate, so here we go.

[Yahyra]

Poster above - your tier list seems close to reasonable but you didn't specify player count (unless I missed it). For example, Tharsis is much, much stronger in 5p/4p than 2p say. I mostly play 2p and prefer it. For 2p, I'd like to see Inventrix and UNMI buffed along the lines of the posts of the game designer on BGgeek. Thorgate needs a buff too I think. Best wishes.

[cranesflyhigh]

Poster above - your tier list seems close to reasonable but you didn't specify player count (unless I missed it). For example, Tharsis is much, much stronger in 5p/4p than 2p say. I mostly play 2p and prefer it. For 2p, I'd like to see Inventrix and UNMI buffed along the lines of the posts of the game designer on BGgeek. Thorgate needs a buff too I think. Best wishes.

You are correct, it changes a bit. I had the arena ruleset, so with 3p in mind.

[Nekojin]

10. UMMI - It is the most fun corp... however you need something to make it work. Cheap TR events like Bribed committee and Flooding are your best friends, until you can get enough heat prod, a bumper, or something along those lines. Standard projecting asteroids isn't a good UNMI engine, people. And don't forget your ability also costs 3.

I'll point out that UNMI pumping Standard Projects for TR is actually economical, if they have nothing better. TR are rated at 10 MB each; granted, this value starts higher and goes lower as the game progresses, but for general purposes, this is what we're working with.

• Asteroid is the cheapest, but not usually the best. Asteroid + UNMI is two TR for 17 MB, which means a 3MB discount - definitely worth it. There's not usually any combos available here, other than the two +Heat Prod spots.
• Aquifer + UNMI is 21 MB, so technically not worth it... but most water spaces come with bonuses that more than offset the 1MB "overcharge." Extra plants, refunds from being adjacent to other water tiles, steel or titanium - it's hard for this combo to NOT be worth it. Water is also the shortest of the three Terraforming tracks, so finishing it off early isn't too difficult, and can deny Heat builders the track bonus.
• Greenery + UNMI is 26 MB for 3 TR, a net savings of 4MB... unless Oxygen is already maxed, in which case it's only 2 TR, and a net loss of 6. However, again, since it's placing a tile, it can come with combo effects just like Aquifer, and often gives 1 VP (worth 5 MB) as well, if you have cities to place them by.

UNMI can be a very competitive rushing corp, trying to drain the game of all of the TR available as fast as possible. If you play UNMI slow, trying to only get one TR combo for your UNMI ability and draw it out over as many turns as possible, you'll lose as other players' engines will eat you for lunch. If someone else is doing a Heat engine or a Greenery engine, compete with them for it and close it down faster, denying them some of that track's TR.

But, as with all corps, you really do need some starting cards that lean into the UNMI strategy, otherwise you may end up floundering. The Standard Technology Project Card is gold in your starting hand, as it makes playing Standard Projects only slightly worse than cards.

[cranesflyhigh]

10. UMMI - It is the most fun corp... however you need something to make it work. Cheap TR events like Bribed committee and Flooding are your best friends, until you can get enough heat prod, a bumper, or something along those lines. Standard projecting asteroids isn't a good UNMI engine, people. And don't forget your ability also costs 3.

I'll point out that UNMI pumping Standard Projects for TR is actually economical, if they have nothing better. TR are rated at 10 MB each; granted, this value starts higher and goes lower as the game progresses, but for general purposes, this is what we're working with.

• Asteroid is the cheapest, but not usually the best. Asteroid + UNMI is two TR for 17 MB, which means a 3MB discount - definitely worth it. There's not usually any combos available here, other than the two +Heat Prod spots.
• Aquifer + UNMI is 21 MB, so technically not worth it... but most water spaces come with bonuses that more than offset the 1MB "overcharge." Extra plants, refunds from being adjacent to other water tiles, steel or titanium - it's hard for this combo to NOT be worth it. Water is also the shortest of the three Terraforming tracks, so finishing it off early isn't too difficult, and can deny Heat builders the track bonus.
• Greenery + UNMI is 26 MB for 3 TR, a net savings of 4MB... unless Oxygen is already maxed, in which case it's only 2 TR, and a net loss of 6. However, again, since it's placing a tile, it can come with combo effects just like Aquifer, and often gives 1 VP (worth 5 MB) as well, if you have cities to place them by.

UNMI can be a very competitive rushing corp, trying to drain the game of all of the TR available as fast as possible. If you play UNMI slow, trying to only get one TR combo for your UNMI ability and draw it out over as many turns as possible, you'll lose as other players' engines will eat you for lunch. If someone else is doing a Heat engine or a Greenery engine, compete with them for it and close it down faster, denying them some of that track's TR.

But, as with all corps, you really do need some starting cards that lean into the UNMI strategy, otherwise you may end up floundering. The Standard Technology Project Card is gold in your starting hand, as it makes playing Standard Projects only slightly worse than cards.

I am guessing you are claiming TR is worth 10MC due to standard projects costing 4 MC more than some other means through cards. Unsure about this being a correct value, but in any case you are not really happy paying 10MC early for a TR in any case - consider a card like Release of Inert Gases, which is in most cases pretty bad.

You treat UNMI as having its action to justify that extra cost for the SP, while the obvious answer is that you do not want to spend the 4MC extra, cause you are already very poor, and it is just way better economically if you tag onto an efficient TR play. You are paying opportunity cost by playing UNMI (horrendous starting cash and being forced to play for the ability), something that already makes most of the other corps more appealing. Now you are tagging on another opportunity cost with the SP markup. Even in the case where for some reason I have the spare money and no better cards, I would rather save up money, skip a gen and hope for a giant TR event like Deimos Down or Giant Ice Asteroid, than to SP a TR move into ability. But most likely try to not even get into that position and choose the other corp, cause my hand wasn't good for UNMI. Horrendous tempo and if your opponent is half decent, they will take advantage of it.

[paulainsworth]

To note: All of the rankings here are based on the starting tharsis map and only include the base corporations. There are a ton of more corporations and boards/milestones that can influence what corporation is considered good.

S tier-
Credicor -Tons of money with a super useful ability. Any ability in the game that just gives you money or makes things cheaper equals good. The less this ability is dependent the better so here the ability to get a rebate on expensive things is easier to trigger then phobolog's titanium is better ability.

A tier-
Ecoline - A solid greenery engine can easily win the game. I like this with NRA and two easy greenery tags.

Tharsis -The tharsis map is designed for Tharsis to shine and it does. Yeah the ability can be played around and you should, but tharsis with immigrant city has an easy path to victory. Landlord and banker are doable for awards and mayor and garderner work to your advantage as well.

Terractor -This corp has money like credicor, but the ability isn't as useful. Earth tags generally go with money generation which you want, but you have to find the earth tags to make this useful. One can think how often the card that mimics this corps ability gets played to think is this useful, and in most games the card with this ability isn't highly valued.

B Tier -
Mining Guild - Easy path to get builder and the ability allows you to probably win miner as well for the awards. For new players you can think whoever has the best production engine is who is actually winning.

Interplanetary Cinematics - To note building tags are the most common tags in the base game. I think overall this is ok, usually event cards are not that bad.

Phobolog -As everyone has already stated conditional, but could be useful

C Tier-
Saturn Systems - I would only take this over something better with a lot of jovian scorers in my starting draft, otherwise ability is kind of meh.

Unmi- I mean the ability sounds good, you get a point and money production for three megacredit's what's not to love? Then you play the game and notice for some reason it's actually a lot. I mean I still think this is better then Helion so I mean it could be worse, but the ability I think sounded better in development then it does in real life.

Helion -Ability is a trap, but since the base game has thermalist and getting heat TR's is a thing, the base board is good for this corp.

Inventrix - Not the best droid, Planner isn't something you should save for, getting it a bit unnaturally is ok, but the focus of the early game is to get the engine moving and then keep expanding your engine until you win the game. The science tag card with this ability isn't played that often because the plus/minus ability for cards is usually not that big of a deal, I also think for newer players its not as user friendly as credicors ability.

D Tier-
Thorgate -Most useless ability, makes some worthless cards just slightly bad instead of horrible. To note: with Colonies I would still say C tier it does come with decent cash to start, but the ability is pretty worthless.

[efidiaf]

I don't play None-Corp, so no opinion.

My personal Corp Era tier

1. Interplanetary Cinematics/Tharsis
2. Teractor/Credicore
3. Saturn System
4. Ecoline/Phoblog
5. Mining Guild/Thorgate/Inventrix
6. Helion/UNMI

[efidiaf]

My list for the corporate era:
1. Teractor
2. Mining Guild
3. Tharsis
4. Ecoline
5. Inventrix
6. Credicor
7. Saturn systems
8. IC - very conditional
9. Phobolog - very conditional
10. Helion
11. Thorgate
12. UNMI

IC is too underrated. Unlike Phoblog's titanium, there are so many building cards which are useful in early games, including arguably the top tier cards like Research Outpost and Electro Catapult.

Also unlike many corporations which are power only in specific situations (e.g. Tharsis, Ecoline, Saturn systems), it can compete with these specialist corps in any meta (e.g. compete lands with Tharsis / compete science with Teractor/Credicore / compete space with Phoblog/SS).

IC is a top-tier corporation in my opinion.

[Yahyra]

Something we all like about T Mars is how the valuation of actions, project cards, bonuses and corporations change due to context (presumably; if we all loved static perfect information games we'd be playing chess not this?). I like IC plenty when I draw an opening hand full of good events (or even mediocre ones?) and building project cards. Without any knowledge of my opening hand, I'd take any prelude corp, credicor etc. over IC hands down. Context matters. If you happen to have / find advanced alloys and you are sitting on 20 steel... good times. Best wishes.

[RoyalRook]

D Tier-
Thorgate -Most useless ability, makes some worthless cards just slightly bad instead of horrible. To note: with Colonies I would still say C tier it does come with decent cash to start, but the ability is pretty worthless.

I got to step in and address this one: Thorgate is top 4-5 right now. Standard Tech is just bonkers for either Credicor and Thorgate. But Thorgate can often out rank Credicor in a hurry by activate its build in Earth Cat more often. If I play three early energy tags, I am 9MC ahead with builder on tab with passive heat prod/oxy pumper online. With current meta, UNMI also is way better than it should.

Maybe it's the funky influx of beginners on BGA right now, but Thorgate is top 5 no doubt about it. I think Corbz kinda realized it 2 from last season, since he went essentially undefeated with Thorgate. I am pretty much invincible with Thorgate atm, with one 2nd place finish b/c pointless king making from the 3rd, and it was a final MC tie breaker, Thorgate is so hot right now.