Relative card evaluations, strategy discussion.

[Wacky1]

Hi forums.


Just for the sake of discussions / hearing other people's thoughts, I am posting this to ask:


How often do you pass an S / A tier card in the draft for a lower tier card, and when was it a great play? When was it not?


For my recent play which inspired this post, in this table game:

https://boardgamearena.com/11/terraform ... =602101091#


2 player game, preludes.

250 ELO (I know, not very high).

Gen 3 or 4.

I am Cheung Shing, with around +24 MC income, my opponent is phoblog, with -1 MC income and like +3 titanium income I think. I have around 3 cards in hand, opponent has around 6 or so.

The card I passed? Earth Catapult. The card I took over it? Space Hotels.

We could both play space hotels (we both had two earth tags)>

My ( I am pretty sure wrong / faulty ) reasoning? I am fully aware Earth Cat is an S tier card; I do think I am way ahead at this point and keeping my income lead will lead to an easy victory. I also thought I wanted to draft away as much titanium as I could from him and leave him with unused titanium.


How did the game go?


Opponent (kind of rage?) quit gen 11. The scores were tied but I had 53 unspent credits that generation, and amazing cards to play (Lake Marineris!). I swept all three milestones pretty easily, and funded 8 banker and 14 landlord I was winning very comfortably. It looked like my plan to keep my opponents income low was working. He did have a metric ton of titanium, and AI central going. I was definitely ending the game gen 12, perhaps gen 11 (I had not worked out all the ocean placements yet).


So, what do you think? How often do you pass an S / A tier card in the draft for a lower tier card, and when was it a great play? When was it not?

[RoyalRook]

No never do that, gen 3 or 4 earth cat unless you know what you are doing(rushing at higher elo level), you are just mostly dead. Your opponent's problem is more about playing a bottom tiered corp at the low skill level.

I am not hating on space hotel, but we are talking about night and day here comparing to earth cat. How significant is the card? Look at my avatar.

Forget about 2p, even for 3p. I am currently in this game, and everything counter balancing out, then bam for whatever the reason a player passed me earth cat, instant gg b/c how the game is developing with me doing science with card draws. I will switch my whole strategy when see earth cat is played, I would not bat an eye when space hotel is played by someone.

[bwalsh96]

Wacky,

I would say very rarely. You can evaluate it by calculating the expected points or the actual points received. For example, you pass AGT and your opponent plays it for 3 points and then plays 20 cards ~ 40mc saved. Just do the same math on what card you kept. Usually the generation is the deciding factor for me. If it’s like gen 7-9, I’m more likely to pass Earth Cat if I’m rushing the game out. In a situation like this, maybe I’ll take Nuke Zone over Earth Cat. You just have to read who is the engine and who is the terraformer.

In your example, you should definitely keep Earth Cat. It’s a way better ‘engine’ card. You are not quantifying the prod correctly. A global 2mc discount card is a better engine than 4 prod because you can play more than 2 cards per gen. If you play 3 cards in a gen, you are producing 6mc through Earth Cat that gen. Space Hotels is 15mc for 4 prod. If you are in gen 3-4, let’s assume you get to gen 10. That’s 6-7 gens or 18-21mc. That’s about 4 points if we assume 5mc per point. Earth Cat is 2 VP straight up and the discount will prove stronger. I’d assume you play like 20+ cards after gen 3? Idk. But something in that realm, so call it 40mc prod. That’s double what space hotels was producing.

Hope that helps! Happy to discuss.

[Wacky1]

Thanks to everyone who posted (Rook, Walsh).

Excellent points all.

I completely agree that Earth cat is an S / A+ tier card, and should be taken 90% of the time. Space Hotels can be A tier or worse, depending on context.


Part of what makes T Mars a great game is that conditions can change priorities. I think the game I mentioned I had is close, if not one game, where taking Space Hotels over Earth Cat is correct.

I am aware that each game is unique and one instance does not a generalization make. That said I think I love to learn and improve in the game; and I think I have seen some spots where some high ELO / level players do not draft, or draft and do not deploy, Earth cat. I am trying to better learn when this is the correct move.

The details my previous game (in this forum thread, original post):

-Opponent had -1 MC income, low TR, was Phoblog, and had quite a bit (+5?) titanium income production.
-We both had tags to play all cards including Space Hotels.

What ended up happening.

- Opponent conceded gen 11.
- Opponent took Earth cat, and was constrained for MC.
- Opponent had a ton of unused titanium (around 25 titanium leftover unused when they conceded).

The opponent had a ton going for him, including AI central (another S tier card). I did however get a nice hand, played a huge income lead (I think it was +27 income by gen 3?) and then basically TR/ brute forced my way to milestones (which I swept?) and awards to end the game comfortably ahead (again opp conceded so who knows but still).


Thanks for reading.

[SpajderDzerusalem]

The fact that your opponnent lost doesnt mean it was a good play. It was horrible. You sweeping the awards and milesone has nothing to do with space hotels. Denying mere 3 titanium sink is completely irrelevant.

You said you wanted income. Earth Catapult produces WAY more than 4 MC per generation.

[RoyalRook]

In zero situation you take space hotel over earth cat on Tharsis gen 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.... ZERO, we are telling you this so you don't do it in a 3p game, honestly. The math is so off between those two cards, there is no debate unless we are being sarcastic, like "hohoho sure, take the hotel over cat, ."

Ok ok ok, you know how crazy the card truly is? Even on gen 11 when the game can possibly go to gen 12 or 13 with banker in contention, opponents with 15 cards in hand can you entertain passing earth cat over? The answer is no, bc awards and MS are neutralize when you have infinite money and can play cards for free and you get 2 points straight up, why bother drop cities and greenery when you can drop earth cat? Always pray TO the cat, the one true god than praying the 4MC prod to hold banker.

Walsh told you the math part, I am trying to tell you the applied side of the card.

[charliec247]

This sounds like the opponent just had a bad draw and probably would have lost with Space Hotels anyway. Did you review the game from the opponent's POV? Could they have been playing suboptimally as well?

You are basing your observations off a sample size of 1 game. As you said they had lots of titanium left over. What if they found a few Jovs? Space events? It only worked out for you this game because they didn't find the cards to get out of their slump, but you will get burned hard in many other similar scenarios if you choose Space Hotels over Earth Catapult every time you try to keep the opponent low on production by giving them an S-tier card.

[SuperPikasso]

Gen 3 or 4.

I quickly watched the beginning of this game. It was funny. This was not Gen 4 or even Gen 3. This was a Gen 2 draft, meaning the first draft in the game. And that's not all. The opponent had already played an Earth Office in Gen 1.
But the funniest thing is that the opponent had the first pick from this pack. And his first pick was Asteroid Mining (he already had 2 titanium production, AMC in hand, and 0 titanium prod on opponent). And he got Earth Catapult back as his 3rd pick.
And the opponent also spent his titanium on Ganymede Colony gen 1.
Honestly, everything I've seen (starting picks, first generation, and draft) was bad on both sides. But it's just a game, no one has to play perfectly. The main thing is that you had fun.

[HighlanderKG]

As others pointed out - never.

Follow a general rule of a thumb - draft cards that are better for you in game. You can cut cards when you lead, but that applies to cards that are similar in value. Earth Catapult that early is certainly better for both. Also, if you have a huge advantage in MC production, there is no point to cut MC production card from the opponent. Production cards lose value exponentially, and it is easy to see. Without a rebate (for example, I am Teractor and I have Earth Office as well), I wouldn't bother to play Sponsors or Acquired Company after generation 2, generation 3 is the absolute latest. Space Hotels as well, incidentally I am drowning in titanium and I want to transfer that into MC production I need more.

You should calculate the end game and end game conditions. In 2p prelude, game should end in generations 9 or 10 on average. If your games are longer on average, you are likely not playing efficient enough. If the game ends in gen 10 (most often case), you can easily calculate the ROI of production cards.

Play lets say Acquired Company on generation 3. The cost is 10+3 (for buying the card) and you gain 3 MC production. On gen 10, you gain 7x3 MC back, which means that you got 8 MC as a return on your investment, on the last generation.

Now, there are other things that you need to pay attention to. The MC on generation 1 worth more than MC in generation 10. There is inflation in the game. I would say it is not linear, it is exponential. It should be clear. especially if the game goes for too long, on gen 12-13 (if the game goes to this stage in 2p, it is clear someone missplayed), you won't be able to invest your money into points efficiently, so you will pay over 10 MC for 1 point. All the cards that are worth playing will mostly be played, so you should pay attention to that.

In general, on gen 10, 1 point will be paid with 5 MC, before global rebates. This estimation should help you evaluate cards. So, gen 3 Acquired Company is worth less than two points, which means it is borderline unplayable. It isn't enough for you that ROI is positive, because if you get nothing to pay with that money late game, you are technically wasting early cash.

Also, there is opportunity cost. You will never be able to play all the cards you want at once. So you need to prioritize them. Buying and playing a production card on generation 3 will surely delay some card which is more important. So you don't only gain 8 MC gen 10, you lose something for a card you delayed, which makes your play even worse.

Earth Catapult is also a production card by its effect, but it isn't linear as real production cards. The effects stacks, and becomes more powerful as the game progresses. Late in the game, there is a point of passing EC to opponent if they don't have enough cards for EC to pay off, but early in the game it is rare. You can pass it for Giant Ice Asteroid for example or similar types of cards that go well with your strategy.

Never pass it for a production card, especially Space Hotels or similar cards.

Even in the most extreme example, it is generation 3 as you said, and you choose between Earth Catapult and IO Mining. Your opponent is Saturn Systems and can play IO Mining right away. Never pass Earth Catapult, give them IO Mining, which is the best production card in the game for Saturn, and a great scorer in the end.

Earth Catapult is good for both, IO good only for your opponent. Earth Catapult is likely better than IO for your opponent as well.

There is no case in which you pass Earth Catapult early in the game over a generic production card, this is always a mistake. Even if your strategy was correct, which sadly wasn't in this particular case.

[Wacky1]

Great discussion everyone. I do find it funny that my post included a 'I am aware that each game is unique and one instance does not a generalization make. ' yet so many people posted a 'you can't base your post / thoughts on just one game'.

Thanks for the thoughts and discussion, I think I learned plenty.