When comparing Terraforming Mars vs Kingdom Builder, the Slant community recommends Terraforming Mars for most people. In the question“What are the best strategy board games?” Terraforming Mars is ranked 1st while Kingdom Builder is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Terraforming Mars is:
The constant anticipation and sense that you're working towards a goal is very pronounced. At the start of the game, you'll have limited money and resources, but as the game progresses and these resources accumulate, you can start to do more and more things each turn. Seeing your strategy slowly start to pay off as your corporation grows, and knowing you'll soon have the resources to unleash your big play helps to keep you excited for the next round.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Exciting feeling of progression
The constant anticipation and sense that you're working towards a goal is very pronounced. At the start of the game, you'll have limited money and resources, but as the game progresses and these resources accumulate, you can start to do more and more things each turn. Seeing your strategy slowly start to pay off as your corporation grows, and knowing you'll soon have the resources to unleash your big play helps to keep you excited for the next round.
Pro Theme and gameplay gel well
Pro Huge amount of strategy
Juggling your resources, money, and production against your opponent's actions as you try to satisfy the win conditions (getting the oxygen, temperature, and ocean coverage to their desired levels) can be pretty intense. Always having to think several turns ahead will definitely appeal to people who like a game that makes them strategize and prioritize. Choosing which cards to buy each round, what to spend your resources on, and how to terraform the planet without giving too much leeway to your opponents creates plenty of situations to outplay others.
Pro Loads of replayability
There are over 200 unique project cards in the game that represent all of the terraforming projects available such as introducing plant or animal life, greenhouses, new buildings, and more.
Since you'll be drawing random cards in a random order each time you play, each and every game session turns into a unique experience. Even if you've seen a card in a previous session, the conditions on the board (oxygen levels, temperature, and ocean coverage) will most likely be different than the last time you saw that particular card, meaning you'll be calculating the cost vs. benefit of playing that card in a brand new way.
Additionally, each player-controlled corporation has its own specialties. Some examples are being able to substitute certain resources for money, or perhaps having an increase in production for specific resource. Each one plays dramatically different from the others, so something as simple as choosing a new corporation on your next playthrough will change your strategies.
Pro Great balance in the game systems
The win condition states the oxygen, ocean levels, and temperature must reach a certain level. However, all three of these parameters are interconnected with one another, meaning you'll have to focus on all of them rather than just trying to brute force one.
For example, if you want to build a water production facility, you will need at least 2 ocean tiles in play. But in order for those ocean tiles to come into play, the oxygen and temp will first have to be satisfactory.
Overall, the game systems are very deep and complex, but the takeaway is that everything has a condition that needs to be met that is reliant upon all three parameters. This results in a very balanced experience where you need to pay heed to everything equally if you want to succeed.
Pro Lots of great expansions
There are several expansion packs which add new moons and planets for you to terraform. The rules and game flow is the same as the vanilla game, but they add new cards and corporations. The most interesting twist is that the board layouts are completely different for each expansion - with heat sources, oceans, etc in vastly different spots. They are an excellent addition that take the fun and excitement of the base game while giving you an all new playing field full of new possibilties.
Pro Starts simple and then grows more complex over time
At the beginning of the game, you'll be pretty limited to placing your settlements based on the terrain cards you draw. At this stage it's very simple - draw a desert card, place a settlement on a desert tile. However, after a few turns, the coverage of your settlements on the board will allow for more strategic plays. You'll have more options for placing adjacent settlements and expanding towards key points on the map like castles that award bonus gold.
Pro Random win conditions encourage you to adjust your strategy every game
There are builder cards that represent various win conditions, and before each game, three are chosen at random. These cards give you specific goals to work for when building your kingdom, and award gold each time you successfully meet one of their conditions. For example, the fisherman card awards one gold for each settlement you place next to a body of water. The knight card gives you one gold for each settlement you have in a horizontal line at the end of the game. There are ten of these total, and three in play per gaming session, meaning each time you play you will be trying to build your kingdom in new ways.
Pro The game board allows for vast replayability
You can set up a unique board, so the terrain on which you're building your kingdom will be different every time you play. In total, there are eight interlocking game board pieces with varying amounts of mountains, lakes, forests, deserts, etc. At the start of the game, you choose four of these pieces and then place them together in a 2x2 grid layout. Each piece not only has two sides to choose from, but they can also be rotated however you wish.
Pro Great for quick gaming sessions
Setup is minimal and the game itself only takes about 45 minutes to play from start to finish.
Pro Easy to understand
The rules are very simple and easy to grasp, allowing you to jump right into the game with very minimal instruction.
Before the game begins, three cards are randomly selected from the builder deck. These builder cards give you goals to work for such as building the most settlements in a forest, next to a body of water, or in a horizontal row. For each one of these conditions met, you earn gold.
Each turn, you place three settlements on the game board. Where you can place your settlements is determined by a randomly drawn terrain card. For example, if you draw the desert card on your turn, your settlements may be placed on a desert tile anywhere on the map. The only rule is all settlements must be placed adjacent to other settlements.
There are also castles on the map that award bonus gold when you are able to build a settlement adjacent to one. These come into play as your kingdom begins to expand and you have more options for placing settlements.
At the end of the game, the gold is tallied up based on win conditions satisfied, and the player with the most gold wins.
Cons
Con Games can feel very long and drawn out
The sheer amount of things that need to be tracked is fairly high, and continually grows in complexity as the game goes on. Keeping track of cards in play, actions, awards, milestones, map, resources, money, etc. can lead to some intense calculations. Most players will want to carefully ponder their strategy each turn, and the end result is a game that often seems like it comes to a grinding halt.
Con Not suited for large groups
Regardless of how many players you have, getting the oxygen, temperature, and ocean levels to their goal level to satisfy the win condition is the exact same. The more players you add to this equation, the longer the game will take as each person has to contemplate and think their strategy each turn. As such, this game is best played in only very small groups and doesn't lend itself well to larger parties.
Con The board is flimsy
The game board itself is very thin cardboard with no linen finish, and tends to dent easily. After enough wear and tear, the game tokens/pieces won't stay in place due to the lumps and pockets that form in the cardboard. The board must be handled carefully at all times due to its low quality or you risk damaging it.
Con Game pieces are cheap and wear down easily
The little game cubes (the tokens/pieces that represent resources) are coated with a metallic finish that chips and wears away easily. This leaves you with some rather ugly game pieces with flaking and peeling paint, especially in the corners.
Con A little too luck based
Where you can place your settlements each turn relies on which terrain card you draw. For example if you keep getting forest cards, you will have to continually build in forests which is very limiting and makes it hard to expand out to other areas of the map or satisfy the various win conditions.
Con A rough start can be overly punishing
The game usually lasts only about 10 rounds, so if you get some unlucky terrain card draws early in the game, it makes recovering in the endgame almost impossible. For example, you may want to build settlements around a castle for bonus points, but that castle is in a desert and you keep drawing forest cards. There's simply not enough rounds to outplay the luck of the draw.