How to Play
The goal, setup in brief, and the four phases of a generation.
Overview
You run a corporation that is paid to terraform Mars. You buy project cards and play them to raise
the three global parameters — 
temperature, 
oxygen and
oceans — and to build cities, greeneries and an economy. Every parameter step you raise
adds 1 to your 
terraform rating (TR), which is both your income and your base score.
The game is played in generations (rounds). It ends after the generation in which all three
parameters reach their goals, and the most 
victory points wins (Game End and
Scoring).
Setup
The full checklist, with the numbers for your player count, is on the Setup page. In short:
- Board in the middle, 9 oceans on their space, temperature at −30 °C, oxygen at 0 %, generation 1.
- Each player takes a player board, puts a marker on 1 on all six production tracks (standard game only) and one on 20 on the TR track.
- New players take a Beginner Corporation: 42 M€ and 10 free project cards. Everyone else is dealt 2 corporations and 10 project cards, keeps one corporation and buys any of the cards at 3 M€ each.
- In player order, reveal corporations, take their starting resources and pay for kept cards.
Generations
Each generation has four phases. The first generation starts straight at the action phase, because setup already did the player-order and research work.
1. Player order
The first-player marker moves one seat clockwise and the generation marker moves up one step on the TR track.
2. Research
Each player draws 4 project cards and buys any number of them for 3 
each. Unbought
cards are discarded face down. There is no hand limit. (With the Draft variant
you draft these 4 cards instead of just drawing them.)
3. Action
Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player takes 1 or 2 actions on their turn, then play passes on. Turns keep going round until everyone has passed. If you take no action on your turn you pass and are out for the rest of the generation. The seven actions are on the Actions page.
4. Production
Everyone does this at the same time:
- Move all
energy cubes to your 
heat box. - Take M€ equal to your TR plus your M€ production (which may be negative).
- Take every other resource equal to its production.
- Remove your player markers from used blue-card actions.
Then the next generation starts.
Open information
Played cards, including face-down events, are open: you may ask what someone has played. The number of cards in a hand is open too; which cards they are is not.
Who decides when effects trigger together
When several effects trigger at once, the active player chooses the order, even for other players’ effects.
The project deck
The deck has no end of its own: running out does not end the game.