Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition FAQ
177 questions players ask · Updated Nov 7, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup and Planning
- Can you choose the same phase card two rounds in a row?
- What happens when two or more players choose the same phase card?
- Do players take turns or act simultaneously in each phase?
- In simultaneous play, do players have to announce what they are doing?
- How should simultaneous play handle the final rounds when a player may end the game?
- When two players each play a second card in Construction, is it revealed after everyone's first card?
- In a two-player game, does each player choose two phases per round as in Race for the Galaxy?
- Are the starred cards used outside the first-game setup?
- Can Ares Expedition cards be mixed with Terraforming Mars, or the reverse?
- Is the dummy hand variant meant only for two players?
Playing Project Cards
- Are temperature, oxygen and ocean requirements checked at the start of the phase?
- Does a requirement of 2 ocean tiles mean exactly two or at least two?
- If a green card's maximum-parameter requirement stops being met later, does its production still work?
- Does a card's own icons count toward its own prerequisite?
- Do tags in your hand or on opponents' cards count toward tag requirements?
- Do requirements and tag-count effects count tags or resources on cards?
- Do discounts from steel, titanium, the phase bonus and card effects stack?
- Are steel and titanium spent when they discount a card?
- Does a card's discount apply when you play that same card?
- Can the resources a card gives when played be used to pay for that card?
- When does a card's effect trigger: before, during or after it is played?
- If a card lets you play another card for free, must its other requirements still be met?
- How do you pay for a card by discarding cards, and do you get change?
- Are red event cards played face up, and do they count as cards in play?
- Does the corporation count as a card in play, and do its tags count?
- When a card needs events played, does it count other players' events?
- What does the lightning bolt on a card mean and does it trigger when drawn?
- What do the Roman numerals on blue cards mean?
- Can a card be played outside the Development and Construction phases?
- Can you play a card that raises a parameter or adds resources when you cannot benefit?
- Does the printed discount text on a card stack with its reminder-box discount?
Action Phase and Standard Actions
- Is there a limit on how many standard actions you can take in the Action phase?
- What does the Action phase bonus let you repeat, and do you pay again?
- Must card actions, the bonus repeat and standard actions be done in a fixed order?
- Must you spend leftover heat and plants at the end of the Action phase?
- Are players ever forced to spend MC to raise a parameter?
- Does a card that discounts standard actions apply to every standard action?
- Can a card with an Action be used more than once in the same Action phase?
- Does Assembly Lines pay for every card action, including repeats and standard actions?
- Does a card action that raises oxygen also give a forest token?
- Can you discard cards from hand for 3 MC at any time, and as many as you like?
- Do you gain 3 MC when a card effect makes you discard?
- Is the end-step discard down to ten mandatory, and does it pay 3 MC?
- If a card says to discard facedown but a tag matters, how do others verify it?
Parameters, TR and Oceans
- Can you keep raising a parameter after it reaches its maximum in the same phase?
- Do you gain TR for raising a parameter that was already maxed at the start of the phase?
- Do you gain 1 TR for each step of a parameter you raise, even from a card?
- If a card raises a track more steps than remain, do you get TR for all of them?
- If several players raise the final step of a parameter in the same phase, does everyone get the TR?
- Does Livestock gain an animal for each step of temperature raised, and in the maxing phase?
- Do forest tokens still give VP after oxygen is maxed?
- Does a forest VP token itself give TR?
- Who gets the reward of the last ocean tile when several players flip oceans in the same phase?
- When several players flip the last oceans together, which flip counts as the last one?
- Is an ocean tile's reward a one-time gain or production?
- How do you tell an immediate gain from a production increase?
Production, Research and Discards
- How many cards do you draw and keep in the Research phase?
- In Research, must the discarded cards come from the cards just drawn?
- How do Interns, Interplanetary Relations and extra-draw corporations affect Research?
- What do you gain in the Production phase?
- Does tag-based production grow when you play more of that tag later?
- Does Insects count plant tags or plant resources?
- Does an extra activation of a production effect raise the production marker?
- Is there a hard cap on the production tracks?
- What do the symbols at 10, 20 and 30 on the production tracks mean?
- Does it matter who draws first in the Research phase?
Resources, Tags and Card Rules
- Can you place animals, microbes or science on any card?
- Can you put resources on another player's card?
- Can another card's effect add resources to an effect-only card like Livestock?
- Do effects that trigger on playing a tag fire once per tag or once per card?
- How do wild tags work, and can the chosen tag change?
- When do animals on a card convert to VP?
- Where do animal and microbe cubes come from?
- Are the left tracks on the player board production and the right bins real resources?
- Do steel and titanium produce anything in the Production phase?
- Can you spend zero of a resource to trigger a card that lets you spend any amount?
Specific Cards and Corporations
- Where do the cards Celestior does not keep go?
- What does Caretaker Contract do, and what does it require?
- How does Viral Enhancers work with plant, animal and microbe tags?
- Can Restructured Resources be used more than once on a single card?
- Can Anaerobic Microorganisms be used twice on one card for a 20 MC discount?
- Can Nitrate Reducing Bacteria use microbes from other cards to flip an ocean?
- Can animals be added to Decomposing Fungus?
- Does Composting Factory's bonus apply when Brainstorming Session discards a green card?
- Does Kelp Farming have a plant tag?
- Does Anti-Gravity Technology's bonus apply to itself?
- Does Worms keep producing plants as you play more microbe tags?
- Does Diverse Habitats count pairs of animal and plant tags or each tag?
- What does Volcanic Pools' power-tag reduction apply to?
- With Microprocessors, which card can you discard after drawing two?
- Can Celestior or Advanced Screening Technology keep more than one matching card?
- If several microbes are added to Filter Feeders at once, does it get one animal or one per microbe?
- Does Laboratories round partial sets of science tags?
- Does Windmill count energy symbols on cards of every color?
- Does Developed Infrastructure count cards in hand?
- How does PhoboLog change titanium's value?
- Does Advanced Alloys reduce the cost of Aquifer Pumping's ocean action?
- How does Helion's heat-as-MC ability work?
- How does Mining Guild's TR bonus work?
- Does Ecoline need 7 or 8 plants to build a forest?
- Why are corporation effects shown in purple?
- Is Celestior's ability a blue action even though it is printed on purple?
- Do Inventrix-style requirement modifiers stack?
- Does Teractor discount all Earth-tag cards?
- Does Protected Valley double the oxygen raise?
- Does Towing a Comet give 2 TR for oxygen and an ocean?
- What counts toward Anti-Gravity Technology's five science tags?
- Do Livestock, Physics Complex and Herbivores trigger once per raise?
Phase Cards
- With the Construction phase bonus, can I draw before or after playing and does the second card's color matter?
- Can a card played in Construction use effects of a card played earlier in the same phase?
- Is the Research bonus draw taken together with the normal draw?
- Can I use every blue card's action in Action phase, or only one?
- Can I do the parts of a phase in any order, such as drawing before playing?
End of the Game
Solo and Two-Player Co-op
- In solo, what happens if the dummy shows the same phase you chose?
- In solo's final five rounds, how is the dummy's phase chosen?
- When is the dummy's phase revealed in solo?
- In solo, can you pick the same phase two rounds in a row?
- In solo Novice mode, when does the dummy raise oxygen or temperature?
- Does solo end as soon as Mars is terraformed?
- Which expansion modules work in solo?
- In solo, can I keep raising a parameter in the phase it maxes?
- Can Discovery, Foundations or Crisis be used in two-player co-op?
- How do players share information and cards in co-op?
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – DiscoveryExpansion
- If you upgrade a phase card during that phase, do you get the upgraded bonus right away?
- Does Martian Studies Scholarship give a Phase II bonus even if you did not choose Phase II?
- Can upgraded phase cards be used in the base game, solo and Crisis?
- Does every player get a different set of upgraded phase cards?
- When is a milestone achieved, and can falling below the threshold lose it?
- Do project cards of every color count for the milestone of 12 played project cards?
- In a two-player game, are second-place award points scored?
- Which cards are removed when you play without milestones?
- Can I use milestones and awards in solo Discovery?
- Can Research Grant replace a tag once it has three?
- Can the upgraded Action phase bonus repeat one card's action twice?
- Does the upgraded Development card's second green-card play cost MC?
- Does an upgraded Production bonus carry over to later phases?
- Are the two-colored tag tokens a misprint, and is the supply limited?
- Can Discovery cards be shuffled into the base game deck?
- Do production awards include variable production at game end?
- Do 3 VP milestone tokens count as milestones for Private Investor Beach?
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – Discovery · Foundations · CrisisExpansion
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – CrisisExpansion
- How often does the Ocean detriment take effect in Crisis?
- Is the Ocean detriment resolved after temperature and oxygen, and does it take effect immediately if it pushes another track into yellow?
- When do players lose in Crisis?
- What is needed to win Crisis?
- Can Crisis be played solo?
- In Crisis, must you spend leftover heat and plants at the end of the Action phase?
- Does Dust Clouds' temperature raise have to happen in the Action phase?
- When a Crisis card places red detriment tokens, do they resolve at once?
- What does 'do not resolve the Development phase' mean when the oxygen detriment is red?
- Do Crisis cards that affect players also affect the dummy hand?
- When a Crisis card makes you reveal a random phase you cannot choose, which cards are shuffled?
- Can the Crisis co-op team choose the same phase two rounds in a row?
- If a Crisis card makes you discard a green card with VP, is banked VP removed?
- Does the Infrastructure track matter in Crisis?
- Can one action satisfy several Crisis cards, and can I pay a discard cost repeatedly?
- In Crisis co-op can you discuss your hand?
- In Crisis, if the dummy shows the same phase twice, or the same as a player, is it resolved twice?
- In a 3-4 player Crisis game, does the dummy's phase still happen?
- At 3-4 players, does the number before a Persistent icon repeat the whole line?
- Which cards and components are used in Crisis?
- Why do the new ocean tiles have rewards on the back, and are they used outside Crisis?
- What is the starting TR in Crisis and does it drop?
- Do persistent effects apply to the Crisis card you just drew?
- How do forests and VP work in Crisis?
- Does Orbex's Action fire on every action?
- Which Discovery parts work in Crisis?
- Do per-tag point cards score repeatedly in Crisis?
- What if I cannot meet a Crisis card's immediate effect?
- Does a forced Crisis discard give 3 MC?