Board Game Arena

Hi all,

I was watching a video and they (ThreadP) mentioned that in the real game you can, for example, play prelude Great Acquifer, place an ocean, resolve the placement effect (so on Tharsis, place on 2 card draw spot, draw two cards) and then decide where to play the second ocean from the prelude. I was not aware; so BGA has been 'misimplemented' all this time?

I think I remember a forum post about this kind of stuff (say nuke zone and timings?) but I don't remember 'learning' (myself) that in the real game rules these are allowed. I don't own the game IRL, only played it once IRL so I... never knew.

Any related thoughts are welcome.

Best wishes.

BGA should be able to implement this rule. Just don't click "whatever" and manually do the work yourself. It matters most when you play ocean-placing asteroids against someone with Arctic Algae because other "whatever" cases are either carried out in optimal order (eg. Olympic Conference and Mars U) or the order of resolution doesn't matter.

The only exception is some of the card draw triggers, which will prompt a message, something about potentially not being able to draw a card. Not ideal as you do want information from drawing cards first, but it will have to do. There's a whole thread on this here; I suggest you check it out.

A couple notes on choosing "whatever":

The game will not make decisions or you. So, if you play a card and several options pop up, and some of those options have an "either/or" decision: If you click "whatever", it will resolve the effects that have no decision, btu then present you the either/or choice for the effects that do still have a decision.

Example: You have the duo of Viral enhancers and decomposers, and you play the card "Ecological zone". several pop-up boxes are going to appear. But eventually, even if you click "whatever", you will need to decide whether to use the effect of viral enhancers to add extra animals to ecological zone or to get a plant or two instead.

Back to the primary question at hand: There are times when you want to see your card draw immediately and the programming does not allow it. A long discussion ensued in a different thread about whether there was any need for this. As the game currently stands, there is no scenario where an action would be unable to be completed after revealing cards from the deck, but apparently just to safeguard against possible future scenarios, sometimes the programming requires other effects to be resolved before drawing the cards.

I have figured out how to start choosing effects in such a way that I can eventually select "draw cards into hand" before doing anything else for which that information matters.

For example, if I play a science tag when I have both Mars University and Olympus conference, I can always choose the effect of Olympus to draw a card before triggering the card swap for Mars University.

Or, if I have Mars and Olympus and optimal aerobraking and media group and I play "Technology demonstration", a LOT of things trigger. "Draw 2 cards into hand" is inexplicably blacked out at the start of the effect resolution. But if I start clicking things that do not matter (gain 3 heat, gain 3 MC, gain 3 MC), the option to draw the 2 cards into hand will usually become available before I am require to make my choice regarding Olympus or Mars.

The ocean question is an interesting one - I do sometimes feel as though when playing a double ocean card (I do not use preludes so there are only 3 of them for me - Giant ice asteroid, ice asteroid, and Make Marineris), once I select "place ocean", it wants me to "finish" the ocean effect by playing the second ocean even if I would rather do something else first (specifically a card draw).

If something like that happens, submit a bug report so people can give it a thumbs up.

charliec247 wrote: ↑16 March 2025, 15:08 There's a whole thread on this here; I suggest you check it out.

For the OP:

Here is the thread:

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40989

Some good discussion ensued, with everyone keeping it civil and constructive.

FrankJones wrote: ↑17 March 2025, 16:16

If something like that happens, submit a bug report so people can give it a thumbs up.

I should add, this is probably not worth doing. The discussion I linked to seems to indicate that the developers are aware of this and made a decision to implement the code this way just to make sure it is never possible to have a card revealed and then have an action not be able to be completed.

Do I agree with this? I do not (As can be seen in that thread.) I do believe that it is possible in any circumstance to determine whether a card's effects can be validly carried out, and to gray out the card if the card cannot be properly resolved (In the same way that the game does not allow us to play arctic algae at zero oceans or AI central with no science tags or no energy production.)

But, xspuipuke made some good counterpoints, and I would guess the matter is considered "resolved" for the time being and the immediate future.

charliec247 wrote: ↑16 March 2025, 15:08 BGA should be able to implement this rule. Just don't click "whatever" and manually do the work yourself. It matters most when you play ocean-placing asteroids against someone with Arctic Algae because other "whatever" cases are either carried out in optimal order (eg. Olympic Conference and Mars U) or the order of resolution doesn't matter.

The only exception is some of the card draw triggers, which will prompt a message, something about potentially not being able to draw a card. Not ideal as you do want information from drawing cards first, but it will have to do. There's a whole thread on this here; I suggest you check it out.

Thanks for the reply. So indeed the card draw issue is what I was asking about; it seems we are agreed that the rules of TMars allow the play to stand (i.e. any card that plays two oceans, for example, you can play one ocean, draw cards off that, then decide where to place the second ocean) but here on BGA the game is not implemented by the devs to allow this. I just wanted to confirm this was the case (and I'm not looking to lambast the "freelance" devs here; but rather learn how to play properly so if the game ever gets implemented correctly on this platform, or if I play on another platform or IRL, I can play properly.

Thanks! Best wishes.

The card draw issue is frustrating. Fortunately, most of the time when placing two oceans I already know which spot I want for the second ocean.

Also, in some instances where it initially will not let you draw cards, you can eventually get the cads without needing to take any undesirable actions first.

If you have Mars University, Olympus conference, optimal aerobraking and media group and you play "technology demonstration", a lot of effects pop up. "Draw 2 cards" will not be allowed at first. But if you start clicking away the effects of the rebates, you will eventually be able to draw the 2 cards before deciding what to do with Marrs U and Olympus.

[EDIT - My apologies; I think I may have pretty much repeated what I wrote already on this same page]