Board Game Arena

This might be a controversial one. Whilst discussing Martian Rails I've stated that prod cards are poor in Non-Corp Era. I extend this to Soletta as well, which most players happily play in early gens. My rationale:


1) Assuming game is ending in Gen 8 it costs 38 upfront cost to gain at most 7 heat bumps. So on the face of it not bad given 7 SP asteroids costs 98 MC.

However, the 5 heat bump space events are very easy to find because of the diluted card deck. These are some of the best cards in this format. They take out 9 of the 19 heat bumps, and with the bonus heat bump from raising O2 to 8%, this leaves just 9 heat bumps.

If the other players invest in heat prod then it's unlikely you'll be able to take all 7 of the heat bumps from Soletta.


2) This massive investment early on only slightly helps with the Terraforming Milestone (3 TR by gen 4 when most of the Milestones are going), and no others. So investing so much capital upfront takes away from the race for Milestones, which in my opinion is the most important part of the Non-Corp era game. If I claim 2 milestones very unlikely another player will win.


Definitely controversial, but I'd welcome your views. I think the only time I'd play Soletta is if I'm Phobolog and have it in starting hand. But I may then regret it later when I pick up space events that help with the Gardener milestone (either killing plants and/or placing oceans).

Thanks for posting this, really enjoying the discussions here.

I do think the context matters; if you are phoblog (as you said) and you can play early Soletta and you haven't found a better Titanium card... then this can be quite a good play?

On a tier list, I'd definitely put it (in non corp 2 or 3 player games) in B tier or so. Many other A and S tier space cards ahead of it I think.

I agree 10000000% with your take, the only Tharsis game that I have ever lost, is because I over invested heat with Soletta with my large cash reserve in early gen. I ended up with over 30 heat at the end of the game. In NCE, Soletta is indeed an over investment that often put you out of MS contentions, and as a TR rusher, losing on all 3 MS is a devastating situation to be in. Soletta is counter productive, like you said, even Phoblog has a hard time to stomach it, b/c couple asteroids(and they will be played in NCE), and other heat cards been played, under cuts all your huge upfront investments.

It's still a scary pass though, I think it's the psychological effect of the card, almost securing Thermolist, Titanium dump, Eco Soletta etc etc. In reality it's a bad card in NCE.