Protected Habitats

[Vailj]

If the community is insistent on keeping TFM arena hostage as a 1v1 competitive game, we need to address the Protected Habitats problem. The card completely removes meaningful interaction in 1v1 situations, and exacerbates the issue with plant spam strats being the most powerful by far. If we're going to keep being forced to play 1v1, we should at least look at removing cards that remove interaction from the game.

[rambling_coherently]

Nah. It's a very good card, but you often see great players skip it late in the game (or draft something else over it). No one is keeping anyone hostage, 1v1 is just the best player count for a competitive format.

Looking at https://www.tfmstats.com/cards (or stats from the Steam client for Terraforming Mars, compiled a while ago) you can see Protected Habitats is not the end-all be-all of cards.

Steam stats:

[ft029]

Protected habitats has a hidden downside. First you have to spend 8mc to play, so it’s only worth if you can protect say 4+ plants, or if it grants flexibility to do turns in a more favorable order. Second, it discourages the opponent from playing events like Deimos down, Big asteroid, etc. Often those are good because the high plant production player is trying to rush and end the game sooner.

[Bogeyun]

not even a top 20 card

[RoyalRook]

Protected habitats has a hidden downside. First you have to spend 8mc to play, so it’s only worth if you can protect say 4+ plants, or if it grants flexibility to do turns in a more favorable order. Second, it discourages the opponent from playing events like Deimos down, Big asteroid, etc. Often those are good because the high plant production player is trying to rush and end the game sooner.

That's like saying you have to do extra work to find ways to invest your asset bc you have liquid asset over 2 million dollars , and that's the hidden downside of being rich. Ummm, yeah, but I get to be rich. Habs protect everything not just plants, render delta like ants and pred useless and let's not forget virus. I take it over mass and advanced alloy any day in 2p. Habs tremendously lower the efficiency ratio of gia deimo and big, every gen I am delaying those big boys being played is a win not loss in 2p. Eat them that's great.

What you are not accounting is the ranking of gia, deimo and big, virus in opponent hand hyper deflates post hab. Virus drop to negative, yeah buddy, hab is amazing especially at the higher level where TR rush is optimal.

Although, for the OP’s take on removing the card….sorry to give it to you but that’s just how beginners think. It’s not game breaking like AI or Earth Cat, hab is a cute card that’s all, I am not losing a game because you have hab, it’s just annoying. Pass it back to me if I pass it to you, I will take it.

[FrankJones]

If the community is insistent on keeping TFM arena hostage as a 1v1 competitive game, we need to address the Protected Habitats problem. The card completely removes meaningful interaction in 1v1 situations, and exacerbates the issue with plant spam strats being the most powerful by far. If we're going to keep being forced to play 1v1, we should at least look at removing cards that remove interaction from the game.

So, 2-player games are ruined because of ... protected habitats?

Not Earth Catapult, Mars university, Olympus conference, Earth office, optimal aerobraking, ecological zone, Kelp Farming, Anti-grav, Mass converter, Quantum Extractor .... etc. etc.

[PleaseAGB1]

My (humble) vote is to keep prot habs and I agree there's at least five if not 15 cards I'd take over it. I also opine 2p is the best competitive format, and point to the hodgepodge discord, heroku app, BGA and steam app communities as evidence that this is a widely accepted opinion. People vote with their feet / clicks. We've voted, most of us love 2p (I think, perhaps I misunderstood the data?).

Now can someone educate / knowledge transfer tell me why business contacts is a top 20 card? I don't have discounts or media group often enough to justify buying it?

[ArchDevious]

My (humble) vote is to keep prot habs and I agree there's at least five if not 15 cards I'd take over it. I also opine 2p is the best competitive format, and point to the hodgepodge discord, heroku app, BGA and steam app communities as evidence that this is a widely accepted opinion. People vote with their feet / clicks. We've voted, most of us love 2p (I think, perhaps I misunderstood the data?).

Now can someone educate / knowledge transfer tell me why business contacts is a top 20 card? I don't have discounts or media group often enough to justify buying it?

Its not just win rate, look at play rate to see if its only a niche good card or consistently good card.

On topic, while protected habs is nowhere near the best card, it is the card that breaks a lot of the establish mode of playing. The card that REDUCES strategy more than any other card (by not needing to plan out sets of 8 plants, not having to think about the order of playing cards as much). Banning cards on BGA is never going to happen, but I can see in a house game if the other player wanted to i would be fine with tossing it out of the deck.