I went ahead and pasted a super short guide for newer players in the description of this video, so feel free to check that out if you're just getting started with the game and are feeling overwhelmed by all of the options
I played this game for the first time last night. I just picked Darklings because they looked cool. The guy that owned the game told me that I had to start five points behind because Darklings are considered to be really strong. I still ended up winning the game by quite a bit even though I had no idea what I was doing for half the game!
It took me a good 10 games to get even decent at the game. There's such a rich tapistry of tactics and strategies that you can learn if you want to improve. It's one pf my all-time favs for that reason :) And yeah, Darklings are busted :p On the base map at least.
@@themanicpineapple8772 Yeah, I was way ahead most of the game. I was afraid I was going to run out of gas but I had started to get a grasp of the game by that point and kept chugging along. The owner of the game passed me up towards the end but I grabbed the tile that gets you a point for each dwelling you had at the end of the turn and I terraformed as much as I could and built as many dwellings as I could and passed him again. If I had known what I was doing, I could've easily gotten more priests and scored a lot more points. I'm really torn as to whether or not I'd play them again. They were fun and I really liked their playstyle but on the other hand, if a total newb can win a game with them whilst playing very sub-optimally, then it does show how overpowered they are.
Landscapes were an expansion dimension that was introduced to help balance the game somewhat. Each faction gets a special building that they can use, sometimes at liberty, sometimes with certain restrictions. Some of them are totally useless, while others can make worthless factions super viable. It's worth trying them out on boardgamearena if you get the chance to see if it's worth investing in a hard copy (pretty sure the expansion comes with a ton of other balancing things, but I've only ever played the game online)
I would love them to "fix" landscapes i.e. revert the Mermaids and Dwarves landscapes and make the Halflings one playable even good. Would probably change the Witches one too.
I think if Halflings and CM had better landscapes, that would definitely be a good thing for the game. Who knows: maybe someday they'll get an errata ;)
I got my friend a copy for his Christmas ;) I haven't played it yet, but it's supposed to be very good. Can't wait to try it with my friends IRL once the pandemic is over
Landscapes are an expansion that was added into the game after release that allows for each faction to have a special structure. They basically add an extra dimension to each faction--some are really cool, some add nothing to the game. The benefit of having them present is that most of the lesser factions got really good landscapes ;) That's why I like them so much
This week I am set out to play with my friends our first terra mystica game, just watched the rules yesterday and decided to research which faction should I play first, and christ this is so overwhelming lol. Can you recommend some “noob friendly” factions? There are 4 of us
Indeed I can! I'll give you a copy paste of my beginners guide in the description of this video. In short, Witches, Auren, Darklings, and Halflings are, in my opinion, the easiest to start with, although Darklings have a high skill ceiling at top level. At mid level play, Swarmlings are easiest because they're very straightforward, and Engiss can be very streamlined as well. Hope to see you on the arena someday ;)
@@themanicpineapple8772 Thank you! An update if you're interested: my friends played Cultists, Darklings, Engineers. I played Nomads. Darklings won and I shared second place with the engineers, lost by 5 points (played with the starting 15 VP for others and 20 VP for me). Cultists resigned on 2nd round (personal reasons, but was sandwiched anyway so would've gotten last). We absolutely loved it, will definitely be on the arena and will purchase this game, it's brilliant. The only thing I tried to explain is that playing whoever passes first plays first, second second etc. and one of my friends started giving me shit that "my" rules are shit because they are not by the official (without expansions) rules... We played Catan 2 weeks earlier (also first time)... Was kinda meh for everyone tbh, I really didn't like the random aspect, but now I understand even more why you dislike Catan. But I think I didn't play to my best potential. I opened myself with an Earth temple as you suggested, but after that it was pretty bad. Always played tps and dwellings, that temple got upgraded to a sanctuary and I basically sat without any religion until the end. The nomads stronghold ability was great though, got longest road. I was only able to catch up others after building the stronghold, is a round 4 stronghold bad as nomads? I also played fairly bad on the cult track, engineers and darklings dominated it, I was able to only get 2nd or 3rd place in the cults. Another question of mine is that it took us to play from 1.30PM and we only finished at 7.30PM. We did have a break for eating but still it's extremely long. If we were to limit playing time for each player each round, what is the optimal number? 6-10 minutes per round per player?
Engi can die very quickly, but are very powerful. Make sure to get workers Auren need to power up the cults and use them as income. They need a setup with good rewards like dig and sa/sh rounds.
Cool video, along with al the other Terra stuff! I agree with the desire to speed up auctions and an even numbers only auction seems like a great way to achieve that, your faction analysis can't really be accurate to a single point over the course of a game. Personally as a relatively newer player I don't think I agree that landscapes are a good solution, just because I don't think they are great additions to the game - basically due to the reasons you listed in the vid. And their rules are not approachable for the casual/newcomer viewer who we are trying to appeal to. :)
Sorry man. It's true: longest road could mean a lot of things in Terramystica. It could mean: 1) most connected structures 2) most connected ice cream shops in your area 3) most connected stream of sexy singles in your area 4) longest actual road in your area (if you live in Germany or the US, you win the game automatically because they have long highways) 5) you gain bonus points depending on how your last game of Catan went, and those get transferred to your current game of Terra I can see why you'd be so confused, so I'll delete this video immediately and reupload it with a clarifying disclaimer.
So, the Fire&Ice factions weren't available on Board Game Arena as of this video being made, and a ton of the meta is developed there (you can play hundreds of games a month very easily). It's tough to come to any definitive conclusions on their role in the meta IMO, but Zoras did make a short guide to Yetis on his channel.
My own original tier list had Engi higher than Cultists, but the top level players managed to convince me otherwise. It really does come down to the fact that Cultists are way less susceptible to having bad matchups, whereas Engis' evaluation should largely come down to whether they have colour neighbours present. Engis are still busted if they don't have green or red in the game though: the gap between the A+ and A tier, is, as I mentioned in the video, quite small
![Horizon Walker (호라이즌 워커) [Larina's Dopamin Ch. Steaming Hot Winter Op] Stage 7 Very Hard Difficulty](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/e_9MvqMwxmI/mqdefault.jpg)
I went ahead and pasted a super short guide for newer players in the description of this video, so feel free to check that out if you're just getting started with the game and are feeling overwhelmed by all of the options
(Landscapes/No Landscapes)
1:51 Darklings (A+/A+)
2:46 Cultists (A+/A+)
4:10 Engineers (A/A)
5:07 Swarmlings (A/A)
6:04 Dwarves (A/B+) -1 tier
7:24 Witches (B+/B+)
8:11 Auren (B+/B-) -2 tiers
9:45 Mermaids (B+/B+)
10:57 Fakirs (B+/C-) -4 tiers
12:35 Nomads (B+/B+)
13:40 Alchemists (B/B-) -1 tier
15:53 Chaos Magicans (B/B)
17:24 Giants (B-/C) -1 tier
18:19 Halflings (B-/B-)
I played this game for the first time last night. I just picked Darklings because they looked cool. The guy that owned the game told me that I had to start five points behind because Darklings are considered to be really strong. I still ended up winning the game by quite a bit even though I had no idea what I was doing for half the game!
It took me a good 10 games to get even decent at the game. There's such a rich tapistry of tactics and strategies that you can learn if you want to improve. It's one pf my all-time favs for that reason :)
And yeah, Darklings are busted :p On the base map at least.
@@themanicpineapple8772 Yeah, I was way ahead most of the game. I was afraid I was going to run out of gas but I had started to get a grasp of the game by that point and kept chugging along. The owner of the game passed me up towards the end but I grabbed the tile that gets you a point for each dwelling you had at the end of the turn and I terraformed as much as I could and built as many dwellings as I could and passed him again. If I had known what I was doing, I could've easily gotten more priests and scored a lot more points.
I'm really torn as to whether or not I'd play them again. They were fun and I really liked their playstyle but on the other hand, if a total newb can win a game with them whilst playing very sub-optimally, then it does show how overpowered they are.
"Claybo, you absolute Chad" is an all-timer 12:01
I only spit facts ;)
Im new to TM. What does it mean to "bet down" a faction?
What does low colour neighbour sensitivity mean?
17:20 what is that amazing art in the background? Looks great!
I'm confused, what's "landscapes"?
Landscapes were an expansion dimension that was introduced to help balance the game somewhat. Each faction gets a special building that they can use, sometimes at liberty, sometimes with certain restrictions. Some of them are totally useless, while others can make worthless factions super viable. It's worth trying them out on boardgamearena if you get the chance to see if it's worth investing in a hard copy (pretty sure the expansion comes with a ton of other balancing things, but I've only ever played the game online)
I would love them to "fix" landscapes i.e. revert the Mermaids and Dwarves landscapes and make the Halflings one playable even good. Would probably change the Witches one too.
I think if Halflings and CM had better landscapes, that would definitely be a good thing for the game. Who knows: maybe someday they'll get an errata ;)
@@themanicpineapple8772 I'd completely forgotten about the CM landscape, it is pretty terrible. An errata would be the dream.
What are landscapes?
Have you played Gaia Project? Just ordered my copy. Been playing TM for a while now, apparently the sequel is a better game?
I got my friend a copy for his Christmas ;) I haven't played it yet, but it's supposed to be very good. Can't wait to try it with my friends IRL once the pandemic is over
@@themanicpineapple8772 I hope you will enjoy it. I would love to see a video like this for Gaia Project. :D
What do you mean by landscapes?
Landscapes are an expansion for the game! Comes with the Fire and Ice map as well, I believe.
Hey can you do one for fire and ice please?
Auren and Nomads are my favorites at the moment. I haven't played a lot, nor have the two friends I play with...so none of us are pros.
I'm a huge noob. What are landscapes?
Landscapes are an expansion that was added into the game after release that allows for each faction to have a special structure. They basically add an extra dimension to each faction--some are really cool, some add nothing to the game.
The benefit of having them present is that most of the lesser factions got really good landscapes ;) That's why I like them so much
This week I am set out to play with my friends our first terra mystica game, just watched the rules yesterday and decided to research which faction should I play first, and christ this is so overwhelming lol.
Can you recommend some “noob friendly” factions? There are 4 of us
Indeed I can! I'll give you a copy paste of my beginners guide in the description of this video. In short, Witches, Auren, Darklings, and Halflings are, in my opinion, the easiest to start with, although Darklings have a high skill ceiling at top level.
At mid level play, Swarmlings are easiest because they're very straightforward, and Engiss can be very streamlined as well. Hope to see you on the arena someday ;)
@@themanicpineapple8772 Thank you! An update if you're interested: my friends played Cultists, Darklings, Engineers. I played Nomads. Darklings won and I shared second place with the engineers, lost by 5 points (played with the starting 15 VP for others and 20 VP for me). Cultists resigned on 2nd round (personal reasons, but was sandwiched anyway so would've gotten last). We absolutely loved it, will definitely be on the arena and will purchase this game, it's brilliant. The only thing I tried to explain is that playing whoever passes first plays first, second second etc. and one of my friends started giving me shit that "my" rules are shit because they are not by the official (without expansions) rules...
We played Catan 2 weeks earlier (also first time)... Was kinda meh for everyone tbh, I really didn't like the random aspect, but now I understand even more why you dislike Catan.
But I think I didn't play to my best potential. I opened myself with an Earth temple as you suggested, but after that it was pretty bad. Always played tps and dwellings, that temple got upgraded to a sanctuary and I basically sat without any religion until the end. The nomads stronghold ability was great though, got longest road. I was only able to catch up others after building the stronghold, is a round 4 stronghold bad as nomads? I also played fairly bad on the cult track, engineers and darklings dominated it, I was able to only get 2nd or 3rd place in the cults. Another question of mine is that it took us to play from 1.30PM and we only finished at 7.30PM. We did have a break for eating but still it's extremely long. If we were to limit playing time for each player each round, what is the optimal number? 6-10 minutes per round per player?
Engi can die very quickly, but are very powerful. Make sure to get workers
Auren need to power up the cults and use them as income. They need a setup with good rewards like dig and sa/sh rounds.
Cool video, along with al the other Terra stuff!
I agree with the desire to speed up auctions and an even numbers only auction seems like a great way to achieve that, your faction analysis can't really be accurate to a single point over the course of a game.
Personally as a relatively newer player I don't think I agree that landscapes are a good solution, just because I don't think they are great additions to the game - basically due to the reasons you listed in the vid. And their rules are not approachable for the casual/newcomer viewer who we are trying to appeal to.
:)
Glad you enjoyed the video! And I'm just a big ol' landscapes stan, so I get why some people don't like them ;)
Why does this dude keep talking about "longest road" like this is Catan!?!?! I'm SO confused!!
Sorry man. It's true: longest road could mean a lot of things in Terramystica. It could mean:
1) most connected structures
2) most connected ice cream shops in your area
3) most connected stream of sexy singles in your area
4) longest actual road in your area (if you live in Germany or the US, you win the game automatically because they have long highways)
5) you gain bonus points depending on how your last game of Catan went, and those get transferred to your current game of Terra
I can see why you'd be so confused, so I'll delete this video immediately and reupload it with a clarifying disclaimer.
@@themanicpineapple8772 I'm not a man, and based on this dumb response, neither are you. Childish reply, lame video.
Where are F&I factions in all this??
So, the Fire&Ice factions weren't available on Board Game Arena as of this video being made, and a ton of the meta is developed there (you can play hundreds of games a month very easily). It's tough to come to any definitive conclusions on their role in the meta IMO, but Zoras did make a short guide to Yetis on his channel.
21:40 tradition is never a valid argument.
Strong ditto on that ;)
I've seen lord of the rings, we all know halflings are the best faction
I guess by busted you mean “good?”
Also cof
Also For the guide, y r mermaids hard?
Since when are cultists better than engi
My own original tier list had Engi higher than Cultists, but the top level players managed to convince me otherwise. It really does come down to the fact that Cultists are way less susceptible to having bad matchups, whereas Engis' evaluation should largely come down to whether they have colour neighbours present. Engis are still busted if they don't have green or red in the game though: the gap between the A+ and A tier, is, as I mentioned in the video, quite small
@@themanicpineapple8772 yeah engi can die with colour neighbors