Stronghold Games | Terraforming Mars - Ares Expedition: Crisis | Board Game | Ages 14+ | 2-4 Players | 60 Minutes Playing Time, Orange

The terraforming of Mars is complete; great oceans lap gently at the shoreline; vast forests blanket the land; once barren desert yields rich grain and succulent fruit; Matt Damon’s chip shop empire flourishes; Arnie remembers everything. The mega-corporations, no longer making obscene profits from World Government terraforming contracts, have moved on to pastures new, seeking ever more inventive ways to fleece the gullible Martian population. ‘Twas ever thus. However, all is not well in the night sky. Harry Stamper and his brave crew of misfits have failed in their secret mission to divert the impending disaster; a huge asteroid the size of something big is on a collision course with this latest jewel in humanity’s crown. When the truth eventually came to light it was too late to even begin the massive evacuation effort. It seemed the Mars colony was doomed. Even in the 25th Century, every crisis has to have a snappy label for the news cycle – they called this one simply “Crisis”.The asteroid strikes. The precious atmosphere is leaking away into space, the temperature is falling and the oceans are evaporating. The mega-corporations must this time co-operate in a race against time to rebuild the terraforming infrastructure in an attempt to prevent the seemingly inevitable reversion of Mars to its former inhospitable state.After the event, the game. Having previously bought the Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition for its advertised co-operative play, my wife and I found the co-op mode more than a little disappointing. We did, however, thoroughly enjoy playing it with our house rule modifications so we decided to get the more fully developed co-op Crisis expansion. I would say that it would be very useful to have had some experience of the base game before diving into this expansion.Initial setup requires some punching out of VP & Crisis tokens and separating out cards from the base game Project and Corporation cards. There is a deck of five new phase cards for a Dummy player which are shuffled and placed near the game board. The function of this dummy player is not particularly well described in the rulebook and although they are phase cards, the rulebook describes this as the Dummy player hand. There are four additional corporations and a deck of Crisis cards for solo, 2, 3 and 4 player counts and a deck of Crisis cards is built at the start of each game containing crises in tiers of increasing nastiness. Each game starts with all of the terraforming factors (temperature, oxygen and oceans) at their maximum. The rulebook describes these factors as metrics. There is also a new double sided gameboard which replaces the base game board. Confusingly the rulebook has no mention of the double-sided board but they are functionally identical; one side follows the base game style while the other side has welcome larger areas for the metric and TR tracks.Gameplay is similar to the base game apart from some crisis management steps.1. If any of the metrics are not in the healthy white zone then a detriment token for that metric comes into play and has an immediate effect (reduce a metric, increase the cost of playing cards etc.). If, during the last round, a metric has moved back into the white zone then the detriment token is removed.2. Resolve any persistent effects (reducing one or more metric) on Crisis cards remaining in play.3. Draw a Crisis card from the deck and resolve its immediate effect (players discarding cards, losing money, disallowed phase cards etc.). A specified number of Crisis tokens are placed on the card and these can be removed while resolving phases by, for example, playing cards of a particular type or tab. Three harmless Crisis cards can be added to the top of the deck to give players time to get their engines started. These cards definitely help.4. Turn over the next phase card from the Dummy player deck. The effect of this dummy phase card depends on the player count, but with two players it constitutes an addition phase to be resolved but without the usual phase bonuses.After these Crisis management steps, gameplay continues as for the base game the aim being to clear crises in play by playing cards of the designated type or scoring Victory Points (VP) while also producing heat & plants to keep the metrics as high as possible. This is quite a difficult juggling act, particularly at the start of the game when money is tight and you often end up spending scarce money to play a card to clear the crisis rather than, for example, improve production. After resolving all of the phases in play, the final step is to optionally spend VPs to remove Crisis tokens from Crisis cards in play.At the end of the round, if any of the metrics are in the lowest purple zone or there are no more Crisis cards in the deck then the players lose. To win the game, the single tier four Crisis card (really nasty) has to have been played then there are only three more tier five Crisis cards so the players have to get all of the metrics to maximum in the next three rounds.This expansion completely changes the feel of the game. Once the damaging Crisis cards come into play, the game becomes an intense experience, trying the balance improving production, keeping the metrics up and keeping the minimum of Crisis cards in play. Full co-operation is essential and, although we’ve never ultimately lost a game (except the first one, obviously), it is not easy to win; there’s a lot of strategy and forward thinking and winning always feel like a skin-of-your-teeth affair.Overall, this is an excellent and finely balanced co-op expansion to the base game, despite the less than brilliant rulebook – once you’ve had the first disastrous playthrough you’ll not need to refer to it again. As with all co-ops, you have to keep an eye out for the dreaded alpha gamer syndrome but the palpable tension and pacey gameplay make for a very fulfilling way to wile away a dull winter afternoon.Rulebook: 5/10 Complexity: 6/10 Component quality: 10/10 Replayability: 10/10 Gameplay pace: 10/10