Board Game Arena

True. Of the original corporations, UNMI seems most in need of a buff to me. 50 MC starting cash? Decrease the cost of the ability? Both?

I know, I know, this has been discussed extensively on every TFM forum in existence.

The rebalanced and league buff her trigger to 1mc and 10 more starting MC and she is still bottom tier. Why would I ever run with the vanilla version after knowing all that. Math don't lie, don't worry about UNMI on Tharsis unless it's for the meme, bc trust me if you won you could have won more with the other corp.

Gen 1: I really, really do not like playing lava flows gen 1; it is release of inert gases level of development and will delay strip mine. I would rather pass and play artificial+strip next gen. I would also keep escarpment. Maybe you can speculate on quantum as well, but it's okay to skip.

Gen 2: Since there are 2 cities in this pack, I think it's better to pick ecozone than to pick one of the steel cities. And now we suffer from the consequences of our actions from last gen: we can't develop strip mine this gen, and forego a UNMI bump anyway. But once you've picked domed crater you might as well buy it, since you are going up to 2 steel prod soon.

Gen 3: I would also keep imported nitrogen (super efficient points, even more so than large convoy in my opinion) and local heat trapping, which may be useful with black polar dust.

Gen 4: Open city is probably going to be free for the opponent, so please pick that over imported GHG and import of advanced GHG (which accomplish nearly the same thing, so it's good to pass them back). Opponent giving back open city is a blunder. I think I mildly prefer capital over hired raiders as well-- opponent has lots and lots of steel. Instead of trying to "deny" mining guild even more steel prod, I would just put the ocean on 1 card. You don't have any steel targets right now, and steel prod has diminishing returns for mining guild.

Gen 5: Heat trappers is the pick over search for life. It's devastating on you, and moreover mining guild loves having power because many of the good building cards require power [In gen 6 opponent plays AI central with SP power. Imagine if they had heat trappers!]. SFL on the other hand... you already gave up quantum and have no science payoffs in hand, so it is not good at all. Stunningly opponent picks asteroid mining which is another terrible play. You get off scot-free this time. Do not buy soletta. I would rather play guild and try to draw for better cards. There might be some lines for converting with large convoy, but we are locked into a bad spot on ascraeus mons (I think this happened in the previous game from yours I reviewed as well). This lava flows gen 1 is really problematic.

Gen 6: I think guild is still OK to play here.

Gen 7: Media group is absolutely the pick over GHG factories, which opponent (and us) have absolutely no interest in playing. I slightly prefer physics complex over birds because oxygen is not moving at all. GHG factories is pretty terrible for you too, even with so much floating steel, because we have no power and also already have too much heat.

Gen 8: Protected valley is a great find! Thermalist fund may be slightly dubious-- we are rushing here and want to use all our heat. Opponent also just played optimal aerobraking so we have to be very careful. This might end up being like 8mc for 2 points if you have to forego 3 heat bumps, say.

Gen 9: We take a poor choice of oceans leaving us at 7 plants and unable to convert. Take the two 2-plant oceans instead.

Gen 10: Once nuclear zone and corporate stronghold come back, absolutely pick nuke zone. Corporate is free for opponent, yes, but it's -2 points. Nuke zone (ok it's also -2 points) gives up the ocean bonus which is more significant imo. I would buy invention contest as well, as it has a great chance of giving you a good card (which you could definitely use right now). OK, turned out nuke zone was irrelevant since opponent had deimos, so your pick works out this time. But floating the 7 plants last gen got punished very hard. That capital we passed also hurts. Your greenery conversion spot doesn't make sense, just take 4 cash and 1 plant. Due to overkeeping GHG factories and the bad greenery spot, we cannot play trees right now.

Gen 11: Due to our thermalist fund we have to make normally terrible plays like purchasing carbonate. I would not convert next to your city; those rebateless spots will be there during greenery conversion phase. Go for 4 cash instead.

Gen 12: Standard two cities instead of SP greenery and SP city. The two cities will be 3 points each (north of the river). Now we see the problem with soletta: we end the game with 40 useless heat!!! The thermalist fund does not make up for this. The wasted money from soletta could have been used to turn on kelp farming two gens earlier probably.

Opponent's setup was pretty strong but we definitely made many mistakes throughout. Not sure if the result was flippable but it could have been a lot closer. Good attempt at least, trying to make gold out of an abysmal starting hand. Biggest errors are: investing too much into heat prod, delaying kelp farming, floating 7 plants and getting them all killed by deimos, and passing media group.

Thank you for the thorough analysis. that all sounds good.

I honestly do not know what my issue is. Am I just going through the motions without giving thought to what I am doing? The post-game analysis al makes sense, and yet within-game I am just making one mistake after another.

I played against yesterday and .... Yeah, same result, and this time I thought I had a good hand, but Ecoline is so annoying to play against and I know I made some horrible choices in the draft. That game I definitely should have won, despite struggling to find earth tags against Ecoline. I think I vaporized 15 plants, and managed to drag the game out to 12 generation, only to have Ecoline do Ecoline things and spam the board with greeneries and cities anyway. I thought I needed to play a long game, but my engine (lame as it was) ran out of gas anyway. I passed decomposers because ... reasons ... I forget why, and that was a disaster.

On a bright note, I seem poised to get a Elo#2 badge for "Earth", I just need to complete a game (cannot get an achievement by backing into it).
Seems my skills are better suited to a game based on our home planet instead of an outer planet. Bummer for me.

I think there’s a few intuitive patterns that can help streamline the thinking process to avoid misplays. Some examples:

• Overinvestment into heat prod: playing cards like big asteroid and lava flows early tends to be bad development. Soletta has this problem of giving you too much heat and delaying more efficient plays by a few gens, so I avoid it unless there are very special circumstances.
• Drafting: when there are two similar cards and a third card (that isn’t substantially weaker), you can’t really go wrong picking the third card. eg open city, import of advanced ghg, or imported ghg? Just pick open city and let your opponent waffle over the other choices.
• Mining guild’s issues: mining guild often struggles with power problems because steel cards require power. So you can more aggressively cut energy. Of course, if there is a much better card, do pick that instead of mindlessly taking away energy.

A lot of these I learned from watching high level players like ThreadPacifist explain their thought process.

Congrats on top 3 in earth by the way!

There is no realm in UNMI's world for him to buy and play domed after the power has already been accounted for strip mine. That's potentially around 38 to 40MC for UNMI to drop domed after strip mine. When is that gonna happen? Never. Why can't we just play BPD then lava or something? There is no hurry to develop strip mine. You will catch a break on TR on gen4 via heat from BPD. That's how you play UNMI, pumper or heat to get free TR, catch a break to develop. There is no shame to drop strip mine later for UNMI. You gotta start the heat game or oxy pumper early. We are shooting for gen9 or gen10 latest to finish, nothing else matters.

Heat unlock ocean and plants, strip mine does diddly squat for your overall TR push as UNMI, it's engine. Oxy is nice but it's a powerful engine card first and foremost, because it takes so much energy. It will slow UNMI way down.

I think anyone who pass media and ecozone for almost nothing should lose that game, it's fair.