EPIC

TERRAFORMING MARS
by Christian Zoli.
Rules version 1.6

INTRODUCTION
After a lot or procrastination, I decided to embark in the huge endeavor of compiling and describing
in an intelligible way (hopefully so) all the work and efforts spent on the last years in the creation of
my own version of an ultimate omni-comprehensive game of Terraforming Mars.

A brief history. I started playing on a double map almost since the very beginning and, as soon as
Giulio Baldi published the first map of GIGA, I almost played only this version of the game. I have
something as 60 games with various iterations of this format of the game and endless time spent in
changing, testing and adapting. I am a free-lance game designer myself, having published some titles
over the years and have the opportunity to have access to a very large and experienced group of
players that helped me with all the playtesting. For the whole time, I have been in contact with
Giulio and we both went on creating our own versions, but with many influences on one another
(we even managed to play an EPIC game in person together, even during the hard covid times!).

So, what about EPIC TM? Have you ever heard about best games be simple, elegant and minimalist?
Well, probably there is some truth in that, but that’s definitely not my cup of tea! I love huge games,
with tons of interactions, options, choices and possible strategies. I don’t necessarily mean complex
or difficult games, but several hours longs and with lots and lots of content, especially when it’s well
tailored around the theme of the game. In a word: EPIC games!
I have adapted several games over the years to the epic scale, but none of those ever came even
close to the result of EPIC Terraforming Mars.

All the contents that have been adapted to the EPIC format will
display the Epic logo that you can see besides. This is only to point
out that they might be different from their original version in
order not to create confusion among the players. The paternity of
the ideas remains to their original authors. I am grateful to all
players who contributed with their ideas and feedback to the
fanmade Terraforming universe, but a thanks in particular to
Jakub Wiecheć, Adhai Grey, Niels Jensen, Tim Emerick, Yaman
Yilmaz, David J., Kenny Wong, Corey Brown, Robert Schraut and
Matt Chaos for their contributions. And of course, to Giulio Baldi,
without whose amazing work I would have never been able to
take this project so far.

A final disclaimer: this version of the game is not for everyone. Actually, it can even be possible that
it is just for me, my crazy friends and some other crazy dude out there with similar tastes. But hey,
in for a penny, in for a pound, maybe you can find out you ARE one of those crazy dudes!
Enjoy!

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 MAIN GAME CHARACTERISTICS
If you have played or know GIGA, this part is probably the easiest to explain. The basic features of
the game are just scaled-up on every possible dimension: bigger Mars map, global parameters twice
as long, more colonies, twice the political parties, twice the milestone and awards, hundreds of
additional corporations and projects and much more. It also includes all official content and tons of
additional material created over the years by many different authors.
On average, a game of EPIC TM lasts 10 or 11 generations, played in around 10-12 hours and leads
to winning scores between 200 and 250.
Regardless of the increased map, I would still suggest to play the game with at most five players,
else the downtime could increase to annoying levels.

The best way to proceed with the description is by take on a single aspect of the game at a time.
This is probably not the most canonical way for any kind of rulebook, but has the added advantage
of separating each single component, leaving the option for some player to try out and add just that
expansion or rule to their standard Terraforming Mars games.
For each entry, I will divide the explanation into three main parts: description, why and rules.

Description
A general description of the theme and rule. Here, where possible, I will also refer the author of the
content in case it has been adapted from someone else’s work. If the content has a specific topic on
the forum, here I will also add here the link to it.
Why
An explanation of the ideas and goals behind the content, or the reason for the modifications that I
made in order for it to suit the EPIC game format. You can skip this part altogether if you are not
interested in the part about game design and game balance.
Rules
An in-depth description of the mechanics and components of the specific content in a game of EPIC
TM. Since some of the contents I include have their own more extensive rules, I’ll try to be as short
as possible here especially since there is a lot of ground to cover.

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 CORPORATIONS AND PRELUDES
Description
Corporations and preludes collected from many sources over
the course of the years. Credits due to the authors of all the
different expansions they are taken from, plus many
independent contributors, including: Ben Haanstra, Patwick,
Kento Oda, joeyskywalker, Sander Kunst, Toby Kellaway, Matt
Parker, Coen Muller, wkufan89, zazoula, Janus, Oushuo Huang,
Steve Clark, Mark Young, FroX, Tim W, Phil Fleischmann, AJ
Cooper, Matthieu Fontaines, George Kramer, Je Nas, Blake
Gottschall, Jim Burr, Memories, Chemical and Kunst027.

Why
Corporations and preludes are one of the easiest solutions to
achieve a high game variability over time. The variant forum is
full of ideas and proposals, my work here has been reviewing all
of them one by one and adapting them to the EPIC game format.
Corporate Groups rule was created in order to exploit at best all
the corporations and see more of them during a game.

Rules
The game includes 345 corporations and 188 preludes (!!). Many corporations do have similar
effects but I tried to keep each different idea even if it had minor variations since thematically it
seemed most fitting solution. You can use them in many different ways, adapting to your tastes
about game setup and drafting. I will describe here a couple of rules that worked best for our group.

DRAFT
At the start of the game, each player draws four corporations, keeps one and passes the others in
anti-clockwise order. Repeat this process until each player has four corporations. The same is done
for preludes in clockwise order. When players choose which projects they want to keep, they also
keep one corporation and two preludes, discarding the remaining.

BIDDING

This rule is alternative to draft. It is intended for very experienced players and is aimed at a real-
time rebalancing of the various corporations as a result of players’ starting bidding choices.

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At the start of the game, draw face-up a number of corporations equal to the number of players and
place on each of them five copper cubes to represent 5M€. Then, each player takes ten cubes of
their color and places them in the M€ slot of their player board: during the bid each of them is worth
1M€ but it’s important to use colored cubes to identify players’ bids.
At the end of the bid, every player will get one of the corporations: the number of copper cubes on
it represents the amount of extra M€ they will receive at the start if the game together with that
corporation; the amount of player cubes represents the amount of M€ they need to pay if they want
to play with that one.
To start the bid, choose at random a starting player, who has to bid on one of the corporations by
placing at least one of their cubes on it and removing any number of copper cubes. The next player
in clockwise order has then two choices: they can choose to place a bid on a corporation with no
player cube on it or they can outbid the first player. In order to do so, they must do one of the
following:

- Reduce the extra M€ gained by playing the corporation by removing one or more copper
cube on it.
- Increase the M€ needed to pay in order to play that corporation by adding more player cubes
than those already present on it.

In either case, the player who has been outbid takes back all their cubes they had on the corporation
and must perform immediately another bid. When all players have a bid on a corporation, each of
them places that corporation along with all cubes on it next to their player board.
Repeat the process above three times, in order for every player to have three corporations to
choose from.

When players choose which projects they want to keep, they also choose one of their corporations
and take the correspondent M€, increased or reduced according to the cubes on it. In the example
above, blue player would receive 46M€ (45 plus 2 for the copper cubes, minus 1 for the player cube),
white player would receive 45M€ (43 plus 3 for the copper cubes minus 1 for the player cube) and
red player would receive 37M€ (40 minus 3 for the player cubes).

CORPORATE GROUPS
At the beginning of the 4th generation, repeat the draft process described in rule above. At the end
of the draft, players can choose to add one of the four corporations the drafted by paying 60M€
minus the initial M€ granted by the corporation (or receiving the difference in case it is more than
60M€). All powers, actions, starting resources and tags of the new corporation are considered as
normal. First action must be performed at the beginning of the incoming generation.
At the beginning of the 8th generation, repeat the same process, but this time the initial cost is 40M€.

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 COLONIES
Description
Twenty-five different colonies, most of which
coming from the Rouge Colony set in High Orbit.

Why
Colonies offer a great addition the game, but in our
experience founding new colonies was not
interesting enough in a game where most of the
other actions on the map had received an
improvement of some kind. Also, we needed a more detailed rule for the various states a colony tile
could be in, including producing, not producing and out of play.

Rules
At the start of the game every player draws three colony tiles. The EPIC map has ten slots for colony
tiles. Keep empty a number of them equal to the number of players and fill the rest with colony tiles
drawn at random. The first two colony tiles drawn this way will be in the Active status (see below),
all the others will be in the inactive status.
When players choose which projects they want to keep, they also keep one colony and discard the
others. When players reveal their corporation and preludes, they also reveal the colony tile they
have chosen and place it on the map. At that moment, they can pay 12M€ and place a colony on it
taking the correspondent reward.
During the game, colony tiles can be in three different states, with different rules for each of them.

- Active
The colony tile has a marker on that advances at the end of each generation. It can be the
target of a trade fleet and provides resources for both the fleet and the colony owners. All
the colonies placed by players and the first two drawn at random start in the active state.
Every time a colony is built on an inactive colony tile, its status changes to active.

- Inactive
The colony tile is on the board, but there is no marker on it. It
cannot be the target of a trade fleet, but players can play a
new colony on it either by cards or its standard project.

- Unexplored
The colony tile is not on the board. Player cannot build a
colony on unexplored colony tiles, but they can enter the
game through cards and game effects, like the card in the
example. When a player places an unexplored colony on the
board, they must remove an inactive colony. If all colonies in
play are active, no new colony tiles can be added to the game.

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Since EPIC uses marketplace for non-standard resources, the rule to freeze colonies producing
resources no player can hold is no longer used.
There are other changes to the colony and trade rules. First, the available options for the trade
action are 3 energy resources and 9M€ (titanium had already enough uses in the EPIC format).
Second, at the end of the game all colonies are worth 1VP, to compensate the greater appeal that
other parts of the game received on the front of VP.

TAG BOARDS
Description
Tag boards are not a rule, but just a tool to keep track of each
player’s tags.

Why
It started off because of pure practicality, but ended up
allowing some additional use of tags as rewards to be assigned
or assets to be paid (like in the “Silesia”).

Rules
EPIC simply uses tag boards to
keep track of tags. Once an
Automated card is played,
update the tags on the board
and put the card in a face down pile. Keep that pile separated from
the events pile, as those do not contribute to tags as per standard
rules. There are several ways to keep the count, we find using a
combination of dice and gold cubes to be the most practical (dice up
to 10 and gold cubes for additional tens). In case Population rules are
used, the Tag Board keeps track of that as well.

MILESTONES AND AWARDS

Description
EPIC has a total of 60 milestones and 60 awards, most of them coming from the work of Kenny
Wong. Also, several fanmade contents had their own M&A that has also be integrated.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2381340/curated-custom-
milestones-awards-tm-v20

Why
Milestone and awards are a great addition to the game longevity, but
their relevance in the much higher scores of EPIC was becoming
marginal. By introducing new ways of claiming more milestones and
awards, players have the opportunity to use the variety of the options
for those related to all the extra content and to increase their
contribute to the overall score.

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Rules
The game board has nine slots for both milestones and awards. Fill them by drawing both at random,
leaving a number of empty spaces equal to the number of players. Each player draws three
milestone and three awards face-down. When players choose which projects they want to keep,
they also choose one milestone and one award and discard the remaining. When players reveal their
corporations, they also reveal the milestone and award they choose and
place them on the board.

ADDITIONAL MILESTONES AND AWARDS

If individual parameters are used, at the end of the setup players place
one of the three milestones, keep one other face down and discard the
third. The do the same with awards. When they reach the reward that
allows them to place an additional milestone or awards, they can discard
one unclaimed one from the board and place the one they choose to
keep in its place. Then, they can choose to claim the one they just placed.

PROJECTS
Description
The project deck in EPIC counts an astonishing number of 1440 cards, including projects from most
of the specific expansions detailed below, plus several more contents which are only made of project
packs. Among the several additional authors there are Chemical, Corey Brown (Corporate
Betterment pack), Robert Schraut (RobAntilles pack), Matt Chaos (Ides of Mars pack), Giulio Baldi
(Solaris pack), Tim Emerick (Fighters pack), GadyLaga, Matt Parker and Phil Masters.

Why
Many cards have been changed to adapt them to the increased
game pace provided by the EPIC game format, including some of
the cards from the official set itself. Most of the changes have been
to include tags that fitted the design, but some other were aimed
at balancing cards which had been designed for a smaller game. The
extended research has been introduced to compensate specific
card-based strategies watering down with the added content.

Rules
Cards’ requirements have all already been redesigned to take into
account the double sized game (like oceans requirements).

EXTENDED RESEARCH
During the research phase, players draw six cards. They can keep one and pass the remaining.
Players repeat this process four times (discard remaining cards after the 4th pick). At the end of the
research, players must buy all the cards they choose to keep.

ONE TAG RULE

When a player plays a card with more than one tag, they can choose and resolve only one of them
in regard to advancing a track on the board (see also Planetary tracks, Life Cycle and Radiation track).

7
 NEW KINDS OF AREAS
Description
Mountains and polar areas have specific icons. A new
mixed area for oceans and land tiles is introduced.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2469415/areas-
eligible-both-oceans-and-land-tiles

Why
For how big it was the map, after many games the fixed
shape and are rewards were leading to similar
developments. The reason for the border color, instead, is
purely aesthetic, to allow the starting map to be
completely mars-brown and to evolve in green and blue as
the game proceeds.

Rules
Both mountains and polar areas are represented on the
map and are used instead of references for specific areas
present on other maps.
A new kind of area is present on the map: ocean-land mixed. On those area, players can place both
land and ocean tiles (but they are not considered Reserved for Oceans).
The color reference is as follows.

- Reserved for Oceans: full white border

- Mixed: full grey or grey and white border
- Land: at least one of the sides is black

PLAYERS’ ORDER
-

Description
In an EPIC game, the first player is not passed every generation,
instead the order is determined by the order in which players
passed in the previous generation.
On the image besides, you can find a full turn order list for EPIC
games.

Why
TM is a great game, we all know that, but one of its possible issues
is snowballing, and this is even more true in a larger scale game
like the EPIC format. By allowing player ending their actions earlier
to act first in the upcoming generation, we definitely saw an
improvement on that front, as most of the times, players who
have more actions are also the ones on the lead and having them
play last rebalances a bit the scales.

8
Rules
Every time a player declares they have no more actions to take and passes, they flip their player
order tile on the back side and place a die next to it to indicate their turn order in the following
generation.

SILVER CUBE RULE

During the Solar Phase, the player who passed first that generation (not the one who was first during
the generation) places a silver cube on one of the seven global parameters of the game (three for
Mars, three for the Moon, one for Venus). During the next generation, whoever advances first that
parameter adds the cube as 5M€ to their player board.

INDIVIDUAL GLOBAL PARAMETER TRACKS

Description
Tracks that allow players to keep recorded how much they contributed to each individual global
parameter for Mars.

Why
This rule aims to reward terraforming and encourage early commitment to it. Dominance of card-
based strategies has been an issue for most early stages of the game and several attempts have
been made to address it. This rule has been the one hitting the goal in the most effective and also
thematic way.

Rules
Players keep track of their individual contribute to oxygen, oceans, temperature and cities. For the
first three, move their marker one step forward on the correspondent track each time they advance
the parameter; for the city track, each time they place a city or play a card with a city tag (only once
in case the same action or card does both). There are three different ways in which individual tracks
reward players. The first way is one-time rewards. Every time a player marker reaches a reward spot
on the track, claim immediately the reward depicted on the map. Some of these rewards are
“shared” with the correspondent global track beneath or above: the reward is the same, but it is
triggered in different spots of the two tracks (for example: heat production in the picture above).

9
All individual tracks have, among their rewards, Postlude cards and additional milestone/award.
Postludes will be explained in their specific section. Additional milestone/award allows the player
to claim that benefit even if all the default claims have been filled.
The second reward from individual track is during the production phase of each generation. The
leading player of each track (or players in case of a tie) gets from World Government the resource
indicated at the end of the track (plant for oxygen, heat from temperature, steel from cities and
2M€ from oceans).
The third and final reward from individual tracks is at the end of the game: the leading player (or
players) gains 3VP.

POLITICAL AGENDAS
Description
Political Agendas represent a combination of various bonus and policies connected to the same
overall political line but related to different aspects of the game (cards, board, global parameters,
etc..). The rule had been created by me shortly after turmoil, but has been expanded and adapted
to include all the parties introduced by Adhai Grey in High Orbit: Society.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2411719/turmoil-20-political-agendas

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2272687/high-orbit-society-secret-goalsnon-conventional-pl

Why
The goal is to have each party being able to support and adapt to different kinds of strategies, also
allowing players to have more choices and influence on the game through politics. One of the main
reasons for the change is that most of the original parties had effects were related to tags and that
contributed to card engine strategies being dominant (a big issue on almost every game in the early
stages of EPIC).

Rules
Each party has two different bonus they provide once they become the ruling party (A and B) and
four different policies they can provide during that generation (1 to 4) for a total of eight possible
combinations, described below.

A – Gain 2M€ for each delegate in a party.

B – Gain 2M€ for every Chairman bonus and
every influence.
1 – This generation you can take at most 2
actions on cards in play, plus the influence you
have.
2 – At the start of each turn, pay 3M€ minus the
influence you have.
3 – Gain 3 M€ every time you place a delegate.
4 – Discard a card every time you play a card.
Does not apply to the chairman.

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 A – Gain 1M€ for each different tag you have.
B – Gain 2M€ for every kind of tile you have.
1 – Pay 1 of each standard resource, except M€,
and gain 15M€.
2 – Pay 7M€, raise one of your lowest
productions 1 step.
3 – Gain 4 M€ every time you play a card with a
tag you did not have.
4 – Action: spend 4 M€ to buy the first card with
a tag you do not have.

A – Gain 1 M€ for every energy and nuclear tag

and for every card with no tag.
B – Gain 1 M€ for every energy production level
and 2 M€ for every industry.
1 – - Energy resources can be used as 2 M€, 2 M€
can be used as energy resources.
2 – Gain 2 energy resources every time you raise
or lower your energy production.
3 – You’re considered having 2 more energy tags.
4 – Action: choose energy tag or radiation tag,
spend 4 M€ to buy the first card with that tag.

A – Gain 1 M€ for every plant, microbe and

animal tag.
B – Gain 2 M€ for every greenery you have.
1 – Gain 4M€ every time you place a greenery.
2 – Gain 1 plant resource every time you place a
tile on Mars.
3 – Every time a card with a plant, microbe or
animal tag is played, gain one plant resource or
place the corresponding resource on that card.
4 – Action: choose plant, microbe or animal tag,
spend 4 M€ to buy the first card with that tag.

A – Gain 1 M€ for every heat production.

B – Gain 2 M€ for every step on your individual
temperature track.
1 – Gain 3 M€ every time you raise the
temperature.
2 – Action: lower your heat production 2 steps,
gain 1 TR.
3 – Pay 9M€, raise your heat production 2 steps.
4 – Gain 2 heat every time you place a tile on
Mars.

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 A – Gain 1 M€ for every building and Mars tags.
B – Gain 1 M€ for every tile placed n Mars.
1 – Gain 1 steel every time you place a tile on
Mars.
2 – Action: pay 22 M€ (steel can be used), place
a city tile on Mars.
3 – Gain 2 M€ every time you play a card with
building tag or Mars tag.
4 – Action: choose building tag or mars tag,
spend 4 M€ to buy the first card with that tag.

A – Gain 1 M€ for every event you played.

B – Gain 2 M€ for every population and face-up
faction card you have.
1 – Every time you play a card with VP (positive
or negative), gain or pay twice that many M€.
2 – Action: pay 4 M€, gain one population from
any sector.
3 – Every time you play an Event card, draw one
card.
4 – Action: spend 4 to buy the first card with the
event tag.

A – The player (or players) with the lowest TR

gains 1 TR.
B – The player (or players) with the least tiles on
mars gains 1 TR.
1 – Pay 3M€ every time you gain 1 TR.
2 – Discard one card every time you play a
standard project.
3 – Pay 3M€ every time you place a tile on Mars.
4 – Decrease M€ production one level every time
a Mars global parameter is raised.

A – 1 M€ for every science tag.

B – 1 M€ for every card in your hand.
1 – All players are considered having 2 more
science tags.
2 – Mars global parameters requirements are
adjustable +/- 2.
3 – Draw one card and discard one card every
time you raise a Mars global parameter.
4 – Action: choose science tag or requirement,
spend 4 M€ to buy the first card with that tag.

12
 A – Gain 1 M€ for every level in the city track and
for every lunar habitat and cloud city.
B – Gain 1 M€ for every tile you own adjacent to
a city and every colony.
1 – Draw one card every time you place a city tile.
2 – Gain 4 M€ every time you place a lunar
habitat or cloud city tile.
3 – Action: pay 15 M€ (titanium can be used) to
place a colony.
4 – Pay 5 M€ to place a town tile on Mars and
advance their individual city track.

A – Gain 1M€ for every wild tag and card with a

tag requirement you have.
B – Gain 2 M€ for every postlude you played and
every claimed milestone or award.
1 – You’re considered having 1 more wild tag.
2 – Every time you play a standard project
gain 2 M€.
3 – Action: 5 M€ to buy a postlude.
4 – Action: spend 10 M€ and draw 2 milestones
or awards. Replace an unclaimed one with one
of those. You may immediately claim that tile.

A – Gain 1 M€ for every planet tag except Mars.

B – Gain 1 M€ for every space tag, infrastructure
and titan production
1 – Titan resources are worth 1 more M€.
2 – Action: spend 10M€ and gain a trade fleet.
3 – You’re considered having 2 more space tags.
4 – Action: choose any planet tag (except Mars)
or space, spend 4 M€ to buy the first card with
that tag.

At the start of the game, the initial bonus and policy for each party is randomized (you can do it by
drawing one randomly or by rolling a d8 from A1 to B4).
Every time a new delegate is added to a party, if that player becomes or already is the party leader,
they can change both the current bonus and policy for that party. If a neutral delegate becomes the
new party leader, change both bonus and policy randomly.
If it happens for a party which is currently the ruling party, only the bonus can be changed while the
current policy remains unchanged for the whole generation. If the same party wins the elections
and is confirmed as ruling party, the player becoming the new Chairman is allowed to choose in that
moment a new policy for the next generation (or a new one is rolled in case of a neutral delegate).

13
Note: several parties do have bonus and policies related to other content used in EPIC, if you happen
to play without that specific content, just ignore the rule or the reference.

OPTIONAL RULE: Voting

With this optional rule, every time a player adding a delegate is tied up for the most delegates, they
may call a voting for the party leadership. Every player has a number of votes equal to the number
of delegates in that party. Neutral delegate vote for a neutral candidate, if it exist, or abstain if it
doesn't. This rule is for players who do like a bit more of political game and gives players a small
space for creating factions and negotiating in order to take a party leadership.

EXTENDED GOVERNMENT
Description
At every time, among the twelve possible parties, six will be part of the government and six will be
outside the government fighting to get a place in.

Why
This rule is just intended to allow players to play the game with all the twelve different parties.

Rules
At the start of the game every player draws two party cards. When players reveal their corporations,
they place one of those parties in the government and the other outside of it, choosing bonus and
policy for both of them. Then, one of the six parties in the government chosen at random becomes
the ruling party. If it has not been chosen by any player, chose a random bonus and policy.
Players can place delegates both on parties inside and outside the government, but the latter can
only host three delegates. Mark the external party with the most delegates with the Emerging Party
token (in case of tie, the token stays on the previous party until bested). After resolving Current
Global Event, but before changing the ruling party, if the Emerging party has more delegates than
the one inside the government with less candidate, switch their places. The party leaving the
government loses all its delegates. If a player was the Leader of the party entering the government,
they can choose one of the rewards for entering the government. Choose an unclaimed reward on
the party seats and place a player cube on it. If all rewards have been claimed, none is gained.
To compensate neutral delegates spreading on twice the parties, when the global event moves from
distant to coming, the first player chooses whether to add a delegate to the mid or top party shown.

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 CHAIRMAN REWARDS
Description
Becoming Chairman does not grant a TR but, instead, allows to claim a reward among a wider choice.

Why
This rule aims at adapting the chairman reward to
different strategies and needs. It also increases the
benefits of a political centered playstyle allowing for
increasing rewards.

Rules
Instead of the default TR, the new chairman chooses
an unclaimed reward on the board and places a player
cube on it. The second level of rewards is available only
to the player who already claimed the first level.

LIFE CYCLE
Description
A system that keep tracks of the evolution of life, in its
various forms and rewards players for a balanced and
holistic approach.

Why
Plants, animals and microbes had been left out of most of
fanmade contents. As a consequence, most of the other
tags had become more valuable. The rule aims at
rebalancing these tags by introducing a thematic
approach to the cycle of life.

Rules
Every time a player plays a card with an animal, a plant or
a microbe tag, they can place a cube on that space on the
life cycle circle. If that is the last cube that completes the
cycle, they can choose one of the available rewards by
placing one of their player cubes on it. After the reward
has been claimed, remove all cubes from the life cycle
circle.
Rewards are divided into three levels: the four one the left columns are the first level, followed by
the top three on the right column and then from the bottom three, as also their shade of green in
the background indicates. All claims of a lower level must have been claimed in order for an upper
level reward to be available.
Once all ten rewards have been claimed, no more cubes are placed on the life cycle circle. At the
end of the game, the player (or players, in case of a tie) with the most cubes on the life cycle section
gain 3VP.

15
 MARKETPLACE
Description
A marketplace for converting non-standard resources into other available ones M€. The idea is taken
from the Mercury expansion by Jakub Wiecheć and adapted to include all fanmade resources used
in EPIC. I will include a colony-shape version for people wanting to use it outside of EPIC.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2483225/marketplace-non-standard-resources

Why
Allowing players to trade rare resources that
they cannot hold for other kinds they might
need more, opening for potential strategic
collaborations with other players.

Rules
At the start of the game, place one silver cube
in a random row for each of the seven
resource columns.
Every time a player receives non-standard resources from an event, an automated card or as a result
of a trade with a colony, instead of collecting them, they can immediately be sent to the
marketplace. Resources generated in other ways, like Active Cards, Infrastructures or Postludes
cannot be sent to the marketplace.
When a player does, they can place a silver cube on any square on the market with the same
quantity of the resource they are sending or a lower one. If all squares for that resource are taken
or the only available ones do require a greater quantity, the market has not need for that those
resources and sending those resources to the marketplace will provide no effect.
Only once cube can be placed this way, meaning that the player is not allowed to split the resources
to fill two different squares at the same time.
After placing the cube, the player can collect the reward for the resources they sent choosing
between the following options:

1. Take another kind of resource available on the market: remove a cube on the same line of
the one that has been placed or on a lower one and gain the amount of that kind of resources
indicated under it.
2. Collect the M€ indicated in the column on the left. This is a sub-optimal reward, since the
conversion into M€ leads to a lower value, but it could be the only choice if no other resource
is available or needed.
3. Advance any Act by the number of spaces indicated on the asset column on the right. This
option is available only if the Acts from Mercury expansion are being used.

TRADE WITH THE MARKETPLACE

Marketplace is also a possible destination for trade fleets. When players send one of their trade
fleets to the marketplace, they can collect all the resources of one kind as result of the trade: remove
all cubes from that column and collect the total of resources of that kind correspondent to the total
indicated by all the squares.

16
 PLANETARY TRACKS
Description
Planetary tracks are from one of the first fanmade expansion ever made: Pathfinder, created by
Jakub Wiecheć. They represent the advancement of the various planets’ colonization and their
cultural impact upon the solar civilization.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1869171/terraforming-mars-pathfinders-full-fan-expansion-e

Why
I always liked the idea of tracks, but I needed some change for them to work on EPIC, mostly because
the original rules rewarded exclusively with matching tags, and card-based strategy were already
dominant on their own. Also, I never particularly liked the part about giving a bonus to all players,
since I saw no real point for it to be. And finally, I definitely wanted the Moon to be one of the tags,
being it an amazing expansion itself and since it completely made sense. VP to lead a track have
been updated to the scores in EPIC.

Rules
There are four planetary tracks: Moon, Venus, Mars and Jovian. Each planetary track has its own
planet marker that is moved forward every time one of the two following conditions met:

- Moon: a card with a Moon tag is played OR any tile is placed on the Moon map.
- Venus: a card with a Venus tag is played OR any tile is placed on the Venus map.
- Mars: a card with a Mars tag is played OR a special tile is placed on the Mars map.
- Jovian: a card with a Jovian tag is played OR a colony is place on a colony tile.

Any single action or card can advance at most a single

track once. If the conditions for several advancements
are met, players must choose which one to apply.
Each planetary track also has a leading contributor,
who is the player (or players in case of a tie) with the
highest total of correspondent tags and tiles. That
player places one of their cubes on the planet at the start of the track, as in the image above.
Each time a planet marker is advanced on a new spot on the track, the player advancing it gains the
reward indicated on the top of that spot and the leading contributor (who can be the same player)
the one indicated on the bottom.
At the end of the game, the leading contributor for each of the planetary tracks (or contributors in
case of a tie) gains 4VP.

EARTH
Earth has not a planetary track itself, instead, every time an Earth tag is played, the player can
choose to move forward the lowest of the four planetary tracks (choosing in case of a tie).

17
 DOMES, WILDERNESS AND RIVERS
Description
Domes and Wilderness are new upgrades that players can build on top of their cities and greeneries.
Rules for Domes were originally proposed by PJ Cunningham. Rivers were proposed more recently
by Berney P. and represent running bodies of water that run through land areas. I chose to group
all three together since they all represent alternatives to city, greenery and ocean tiles and follow
the same rules for that regard.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2450703/domes-mars-unofficial-mini-expansion

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2722811/canals-carriage-and-cable

Why
I loved the rules for Domes since the
beginning as it both fitted thematically
and provided a rule for upgrading an
existing tile, which is an interesting
option. I created Wilderness as an obvious
consequence to provide a similar and
symmetric option for greeneries.
Creating costs that matched the those for
both greenery and a city projects (minus
the cost of the M€ increase) has been a
key factor to allow them to be placed in
place of cities/greeneries, in order to
create a much more interesting
integration in the existing rules with a
relatively small effort.
Rivers were a part of a more complete set
of rules for adjuncts which included power cables, rails and network. I found rivers to be the most
interesting part of those, and the only which could work with the same mechanic I already had for
domes and wilderness.

Rules
There are three new Standard Projects available to players: Dome, Wilderness and Rivers.

- Dome (cost 20M€)

Place a dome tile on top of one of your cities on Mars. Choose
whether to increase your plant production by 1 OR to increase
both your heat and M€ productions by 1.
Placing a dome counts as placing a city in regards to any effect,
ability or rule.
During the game, a city with a dome counts as two cities in
regard to all cards and effects.
When scoring, a city with a Dome is worth 2 extra VP.

18
 - Wilderness (23M€)
Place a wilderness tile on top of one of your greeneries. Increase
your TR one step, gain 1 plant, 1 microbe and 1 animal
resources. Placing a wilderness counts as placing a greenery in
regards to any effect, ability or rule.
During the game, a greenery with a wilderness tile on top counts
as two greeneries in regards to all cards and effects.
When scoring, a greenery with a Wilderness is worth and
treated just like a normal greenery.

- Rivers (18M€)
Place two river tokens on the mars board (they do not have to be placed adjacent one to the
other). Increase your TR one step.

PLACEMENT
Placing two rivers counts as placing an ocean in regards to any effect, ability or rule.
Each token is placed along the edges of two hexes, none of which must be an ocean tile or
an empty tile with an ice icon. Additionally, one of the token’s ends must be connected to
another river token or to an ocean tile. If, later on, an ocean tile is placed in such a way that
a river is along one of its edges, the river token is removed from the game (after providing
its adjacency bonus, see below).
When they are placed, river tokens get adjacency bonus from both the hexes they are placed
along, but give no other placement bonus. Placing a river token next to a hazard tile follows
the same rules as placing a tile there (see hazards).

EFFECTS
Once in play, river tokens are considered adjacent both to the hexes they are placed along
and to those they are connected at their ends. River tokens provide a 1M€ adjacency bonus
for all tiles placed adjacent to them. Additionally, greeneries placed adjacent to a river
though the plant conversion action require one less resource.
During the game, river tokens do NOT count towards the number of oceans in play.

SCORING
Since they are not owned by any player, river tokens do not score VP, but they modify city
scoring as follows.
At the end of the game, each city on Mars is worth one less VP if it’s not adjacent to a river
token or to an ocean tile (can score negative).

ALTERNATIVE PLACING
In addition to being placed with Standard Projects, Domes, Wilderness and Rivers can be placed in
an additional way which allows them to better integrate with other parts of the game.
Every time a card or an effect of any kind allows a player to place a city, a greenery or an ocean tile
in play, they can choose to place a dome, a wilderness or two river tokens instead, getting the same
benefits as if they used the standard project. If the placement of the city or greenery has some
restrictions, those are applied to the existing city or greenery which is upgraded.

19
 INFRASTRUCTURES
Description
Infrastructures are the first expansion of the High Orbit series,
created by Adhai Grey. They represent orbital constructions aimed at
colonizing the interplanetary void. Infrastructures also introduce Ore
resources.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2067254/high-orbit-space-
infrastructure-fan-full-deck-expa

Why
Infrastructures are probably among my favorite fanmade content.
My changes in adapting them to EPIC has been on two different
levels: increase their effect and reduce their availability with the aim
to create more interaction among the players. The reduces
availability also served to compensate the greater number of space
tags available in an EPIC game.

Rules
There are 18 infrastructure cards with multiple copies of each.
Infrastructure are silver cards, they work in the same way as blue project cards, but do not count as
blue projects in any case.
At the beginning of the game, place six of them at random in each of the three sections on the
corners of the map, next to the square with the name Infrastructures (all copies of the same title
are placed in the same space).

As an action, players can put one of their cubes in one of the three Infrastructure squares and play
one of the six Infrastructure cards of that sector. Each sector can be used this way by only one player
on each generation, once all three have been used no more infrastructures can be played until the
next generation.
At the end of the generation, remove all player cubes from infrastructure sectors.
Infrastructure cost Titanium instead of M€ and require that the player has more space cards than
infrastructures (before the one that is being played).

20
 POPULATION AND FACTIONS
Description
Another content taken and adapted from the High Orbit series. Populations and factions describe
the appeal that the corporations are able to exert on the masses and, in particular, on specific groups
and associations that might help them in their terraforming goals.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2272687/high-orbit-society-secret-goalsnon-conventional-pl

Why
I liked population, as I did with most content from Adhai Grey, but adapting all the different ways
of scoring VPs to the EPIC scale would have been a HUGE work, so I definitely needed to find out a
different solution to keep the flavor of the factions without having to redesign every single scoring
system for each faction. My inspiration for that has been Illuminati, from Steve Jackson games.
Triggers for getting population have been changed to turn instead of action to allow more choices
on how to chain actions in the most effective way. Needs have been expanded to other EPIC content.

Rules
Population is a special resource awarded to players by meeting specific needs. At the start of the
game, place the four population tiles on the board on a random side and place 2 populations on
each of them (using copper cubes).
At the end of each of their turns, players can take one population from each of the tiles Habitation,
Social Issues or Media Presence for which they have met the conditions. Conditions are always
checked for the sum of the actions taken during the turn, not for single actions taken.
Population from the Basic Needs tile is instead gained as an action, by paying one of the costs shown
on it. This action can only be taken once per generation as normal (use player cubes to keep track).

- Basic needs (side 1): pay either 2 plant, 3 ore or 4 heat resources
- Basic needs (side 2): pay either 1 animal, 3 steel or 3 energy
resources
- Habitation (side 1): place either one city or one colony
- Habitation (side 2): place either moon habitat or venus habitat
- Social Issues (side 1): play cards with 2 or more total VP
- Social Issues (side 2): increase TR 2 or more
- Media Presence (side 1): spend 35 or more M€
- Media Presence (side 2): become leader in a party

21
Every time the last population is taken from a tile, switch it to its opposite side.
At the end of every generation, players gain a number of M€ equal to the number of populations
they have. At the beginning of each new generation, add 2 populations to that spent by players (see
faction below) and split all of them among the four population tiles in order to have totals as even
as possible. In case it’s not possible to have even totals, the first player chooses which tiles get one
extra population.
At the end of the game, players gain 1 VP for each three populations (rounded down).

FACTIONS
Factions are support groups with which the player can claim as affiliations during the game.
At the start of the game, each player draws four faction cards. When players choose which projects
to keep, they also keep two of the factions and discard the other two face down.
During the game, players can use population to both draw new faction cards or chance the ones
they have by taking the two following actions:

- Shift Politics: pay any number of populations, draw and discard the same number of factions.
- Consolidate Brand: pay 2 population to draw a faction. Requires 4 or more populations.

Population spent this way is kept aside next to population

tiles and is refilled on the following generation (see above).
Players can decide to reveal one of their factions at any
time. Revealed factions are played face-up next to the
player’s corporation and can no longer be discarded.
During the production phase, player gain 2M€ for each of
their revealed faction.
At the end of the game, player must check the conditions
for each of the factions they have, both revealed and not-
revealed (this is mandatory).
Players must meet two different requirements in order to
score factions.
The first requirement is the parameter on which the player
must be ranked, indicated on the bottom right of the card.
Being ranked means being first in it with two players, first
or second with three or four players and first, second or
third with five players or more (as indicated on the board).
The second requirement is that no other faction that has
already be scored has an alignment opposite to the one being scored.
Alignments are ten, divided in five opposite couples: capitalist and socialist, traditionalist and
progressive, separatist and globalist, technological and spiritual, authoritarian and liberal.
The first scored faction is worth 1VP, the second 2VP, the third 3VP and so on, up to a maximum of
5VP per faction. Factions that are not scored are counted as negative VP with the same progression.

22
 ADJACENCY AND HAZARDS
Description
Ares, by Niels Jensen, is probably the most played
fanmade content in TM. It introduces adjacency tiles and
hazards promoting player interaction on the board in a
very interesting and effective way.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2218211/tm-ares-
fan-expansion-more-interaction-map-mars

Why
I really like how Giulio Baldi, the author of GIGA, adapted adjacency to all special tiles, streamlining
and aligning the process. The change about how adjacency works is intended to increase the
cooperation part of the rule and discourage self-referential use.

Rules
Every time a new tile is placed next to a tile with an adjacency bonus:

- If the player placing the tile is the same player owning the one with adjacency bonus, they
may pay 1M€. If they do, they receive the adjacency resources indicated.
- If the player placing the tile is different from the player owning the one with adjacency
bonus, the player placing the tile can choose to gain the adjacency resources indicated. If
they do, the owning of the adjacency tile gains 1M€.

In case of two or more stacked tiles, adjacency is always considered only from the top visible one.

HAZARDS
In an EPIC game, four dust storms are placed at the start of the game and four erosions are placed
during its course. Every time a hazard has to be placed on the map, roll a random number between
1 and 167 (in any way you can come up with) and place it on the space corresponding to that number
on the map (tens are indicated to help you place). If the space is already occupied by a tile, reroll
until a free space is obtained. Hazards are always placed on the mild side of their effect, but can be
flipped in the game according to their own rules.

Players placing tiles next to a hazard must reduce one of

their production by the number shown on the tile.
Players can also choose to place tiles directly on top of
hazards by paying the additional cost indicated on them
(8 or 16 M€) and gaining 1 or 2 TR as a consequence.
Hazards are placed, flipped on their severe side or
removed in correspondence to specific values of the
global parameter tracks, according to the following rules:

- Ocean tiles, from 6th to 9th: place one erosion with each tile
- Temperature track, from -4°C to -1°C: flip one erosion on each level
- Oxygen track, from 6% to 7,5%: flip one dust storm with each tile
- Ocean tiles, from 13th to 16th: remove one dust storm on each level

23
 INDUSTRIES
Description
Industries are, again, one of the many contributions from
High Orbit. They are standard projects that allow to
increase the production of a resource and to place a tile
on the board.

Why
I like Industry tiles since the beginning. I choose to use the
same mechanic used in adjacency tiles from Ares since we kept confusing the two rules. Also, I found
interesting the idea of introducing production for non-standard resources.

Rules
Industry tiles are a new Standard Project that can also be
paid using steel. Two industry tiles are available for each
standard resource and one for each non-standard
resource.
In order to be able to use the industry standard project,
the player must have a number of energy tags greater than
the number of industry tiles they already have in play.
Industry tiles must be placed adjacent to any other owned tile and they do provide adjacency bonus
according to the rules described above.
Playing a standard resource industry tile increase the correspondent production 1 step.
Conversely, players who have a non-standard resource industry tile, can add a resource of that kind
to any card that can hold it during the production step. If they cannot, the resource is lost.
Note: in EPIC, the Power Plant standard project also adds one power tag, that can be useful to
kickstart the placement of early industry tiles.

NUCLEAR
Description
Nuclear expansion introduces new cards, a new tag and a new resource connected to pollution,
contamination and risks connected to nuclear. The original author of this content is Tim Emerick.

Why
Both the change on the use of energy and the nuclear
track and tiles aim at better integrating the material
to the rest of the game maintaining the original flavor
of danger associated with it.

Rules
Projects with radiation tag can be paid using energy
resources, each resource is worth 2M€.

24
Every time a card with a radiation tag is played, the global radiation tag is advanced one step. If a
resource is indicated on the new spot, the player who has advanced the track gain that resource
and all other players lose it, if possible. If a nuclear tile is indicated in the new spot, the player who
has advanced the track can place it on the board on either its land side (on any empty non -reserved
space) or its ocean side (on top of any standard Ocean tile). Players placing tiles next to a nuclear
tile loses the amount of M€ indicated on it. At the end of the game, each player loses 1 VP for each
nuclear zone and each tile adjacent to a nuclear zone they own.

MERCURY AND ACTS

Description
Mercury is the second expansion created by Jakub Wiecheć and
introduces a new planet in the solar civilization as well as the
mechanics of the acts and the marketplace for non-standard
resources, which I already described under its own entry.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2376314/tm-mercury-vs-
mars-fan-expansion-more-player-inter

Why
Introducing a new planetary tag posed several questions about
how it should interact with the previous ones and the
correspondent existing mechanics, most notably the planetary
tracks. The choice of keeping the mercury tag slightly different
from the others had reasons both thematically and rule wise.
Assigning assets from party leader instead of influence has been modified to discourage
bandwagoning on the winning party.

Rules
Mercury tag is considered a planetary tag, meaning that players can choose it with cards that allow
a planetary tag of player’s choice. Conversely, mercury is not a real destination for human
colonization, so it does not have its own planetary track.
Mercury is connected to the trades in the solar system. If playing with the non-standard resource’s
marketplace, each time a player plays a card with a mercury tag, they can move one cube on the
marketplace one space in any direction (up, down, left or right), changing the availability of some
resources.

DRAWING AND PLAYING ACTS

The main introduction in the Mercury set, which, if players feel so, can also be played as a
standalone content, is the act cards.
Acts are divided into two kinds: treaties (cooperative) and rivalries (competitive). The first allow two
players to share their effort in order to both gain a benefit. The second let them compete in order
to have the edge on each other and get the reward. Acts are advanced by assets, gained mostly
during the turmoil phase.
At the start of the game, each player draws four acts. When players choose which projects they
want to keep, they also keep two of the acts and discard the others.

25
As an action, players can reveal and play an act choosing one
other player. Rivalries cannot be refused, while, in case of
treaties, the other player must agree on participating. If they
do not, the treaty is placed back in the hand of the proposing
player (the action is considered used in any case). Some acts
may have requirements in order to be played.
When an act is played, place a cube from each player on the
correspondent spaces on it.
There is no limit to the number of acts a player can be involved
in, as long as they are all with different players (regardless of
the kind of act).

ADVANCING ACTS
After the new Chairman has been elected, each player, in turn
order, gains 1 asset for each party leader they have (both
inside and outside the government, in case rules for twelve
parties are used) and must immediately use them to advance
their acts. Players can always split the assets they gain in any way among the acts they are involved
in.
Assets can also be gained from non-standard resources marketplace and specific cards.
In rivalries, each player advances their cube while in treaties both players advance the cube on the
proposing side (left).

RESOLVING ACTS
As soon as a cube on an act reaches the resolving square, indicated by the handshake icon, the act
resolves immediately. Apply the effect described on the act, then the player who caused the
resolution of the act adds the icons indicated on the act to their tag board, draws two new acts,
chooses one and discards the other. Players should keep acts they resolves in a face-down pile in
order to be able to check the tags on them in case of need.

THE MOON
Description
The Moon expansion introduces another big destination for colonization, providing a new map, new
moon tiles and many new projects related to the moon theme, mostly connected to mining, steel
and titanium. It has been created by Yaman Yilmaz and wonderfully illustrated by David J.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2273194/fan-made-expansion-moon/page/1

Why
Both the Moon and Venus struggle to compete with the attractiveness provided by all the extra
content that had been introduced for Mars (postludes and individual tracks to name a few). For this
reason, I decided to increase the value of steel, titanium and floaters used on those maps, which
mostly compensates the extra 4M€ cost included in all standard projects.
The rule for habitat placement was changed to prevent too frequent locked placing situations.

26
Rules
The Moon has three global parameters: Colonization, Logistic rate and Mining rate, which must be
completed along with those on mars for the game to end. The following three standard projects are
available:

- Lunar Habitat (cost 25M€, titanium can be used and it’s worth +1M€)
Place a lunar habitat tile on the Moon, increase Colonization rate 1 step
(gaining 1TR) and increase M€ production 1 step.
Lunar habitats can be placed everywhere on the Moon except on
Reserves Areas (with bold names), but cannot be placed next to another
lunar habitat.
At the end of the game each lunar habitat is worth 1VP for each adjacent
road and lunar mine.

- Lunar Mine (cost 23M€, steel can be used and it’s worth +1M€)
Place a lunar mine tile on the Moon, increase Mining rate 1 step (gaining
1TR) and increase steel production 1 step.
Lunar mines can only be placed on red-brown spaces on the Moon.
At the end of the game each lunar mine is worth 1VP if it has at least an
adjacent road.

27
 - Road (cost 20M€, steel can be used and it’s worth +1M€)
- Place a road tile on the Moon, increase Logistic rate 1 step (gaining 1TR).
Roads can only be placed on grey spaces on the Moon.
- At the end of the game each road is worth 1VP.

Project cards can also allow placement of tiles on the Moon. Even on those case,
the placement rules described in the standard projects do apply.

VENUS 2.0
Description
Venus 2.0 has been created by Giulio Baldi as a symmetric counterpart to the Moon. It includes
many new projects, new venus tiles and a map, all centered around floaters, energy and heat
resources.

Why
Most of the points detailed in the Moon expansion were true for Venus as well, so floater conversion
placing rewards have been both increased to increase the attractiveness of playing on the Venus
map. You may also note that some of the colors on the tiles has been changes, the reason is very
practical: most of the players confused mines and habitats, because the darker tile had to be place
on the map to the lighter space and vice versa.

28
Rules
Venus global parameter must be completed along with those on mars for the game to end. The
standard project Air Scrapping is not available in EPIC. The following standard projects are available:

- Venus Habitat (cost 25M€, floaters can be used, worth 4M€ each)
Place a venus habitat tile on Venus, increase Venus parameter 1 step
(gaining 1TR) and increase M€ production 1 step.
Venus habitats can be placed everywhere on Venus except on Reserves
Areas (with bold names), but cannot be placed next to another venus
habitat.
At the end of the game each venus habitat is worth 1VP for each
adjacent floating array and gas mine.

- Gas Mine (cost 21M€, floaters can be used, worth 4M€ each)
Place a gas mine tile on Venus, increase Venus parameter 1 step (gaining
1TR) and increase heat production 1 step.
Gas mines can only be placed on darker spaces on Venus.
At the end of the game each gas mine is worth 1VP if it has at least an
adjacent floating array.

- Floating Array (cost 19M€, floaters can be used, worth 4M€ each)
Place a floating array tile on Venus, increase Venus parameter 1 step
(gaining 1TR).
Floating arrays can only be placed on lighter colored spaces on Venus.
At the end of the game each floating array is worth 1VP.

Project cards can also allow placement of tiles on Venus. Even on those case,
the placement rules described in the standard projects do apply.

POSTLUDES
Description
Postludes introduce upgrade to cities, greeneries and oceans which players can unlock during the
game. The original author of the expansion is Kenny Wong, but several improvements have also
been made by Giulio Baldi in his own adaptation to GIGA.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2297598/postlude-new-standard-projects-or-special-
projects/page/1

Why
Postludes played a very important part into balancing the EPIC game format.
Together with individual tracks, they managed to rebalance strategies based
on the map with those based on card engines. Most of the changes I have
made concern when and how players should be allowed to draw Postludes,
since in the first tries they were definitely too present and central in
comparison to normal project cards. Claiming an Awards received the
postlude bonus to balance its more limited effect in an EPIC game.

29
Rules
At the start of the game place the postlude deck in the bottom left corner of the map, draw from it
cards equal to the number or players plus 2 and place them face-up in the row next to the deck.

DRAWING POSTLUDES
Postludes can be drawn by meeting the correspondent
requirement on the following areas of the game:

1 Reach the 3rd space on each individual parameter

track.
2 Reach 25 and 35 TR.
3 At the beginning of the 7th generation.
4 By claiming an Award.

For the first three conditions, only a limited number of postludes will be available for that space. At
the start of the game, place a silver cube on those seven postlude icons on the board for every two
players. In case of an odd number of players, place the additional cube on half of those spaces,
choosing at random. For example, with three players place a silver cube on all the seven spaces,
then place a second silver cube on four of those at random.
When a player meets the condition for drawing that postlude, they can only proceed if that space
still has a cube on it. After drawing the postlude, discard a cube from that space. Cube at the start
of the 7th generation as assigned in players’ order.
When a player has to draw a postlude, they can choose any of those face-up on the row or draw the first
from the deck. Then, discard the rightmost postlude on the row, shift the
remaing on the right filling the holes and draw new cards to restore the
starting number or postludes.

PLAYING POSTLUDES
Place the postlude tile on top of one of your cities or greeneries (cities
with domes do qualify, wilderness do not), or on top of an ocean tile.
In order to play an ocean postlude, the player must have a level of
the ocean individual track greater than the number of ocean
postludes they already own. Tiles can only have one postlude on
them. Postludes tiles still count as the base tile the upgrade.
As an action, players can discard any number of postludes and gain
3M€ for each of them.

THE SILESIA
Description
Generational Ship “Silesia” is one of most ambitious projects the humankind has conceived. While
the rest of humanity will colonize the Solar System, it will leave it behind with the goal of exploring
the vast space beyond it. The Silesia expansion has been created by Sylvia Howard and, personally,
I find it one of the most thematically fitting and fun to play.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2492432/fan-made-expansion-silesia

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Why
The Silesia fit perfectly into the EPIC game, allowing players to “spend” tags that tended to
accumulate. I choose not to include projects because having already more than a thousand of those
in a quite well-balanced state, I try to touch that part as less as possible. Of course, adding inside
the ship board the references to every other EPIC content was quite easy and satisfying.

Rules

The Silesia expansions is composed only by the ship board, divided into ten different areas
correspondent to different parts of the ship project and structure.

As an action (which is not a standard project), a player can claim one the components of the ship
components which is still available by paying the cost indicated next to it. When they do, they place
a player cube next to that component and gain 1 TR.
Components with and additional TR icon next to them are worth 1 additional TR (for a total of 2).
If the cube which is being placed is the last one needed to complete that section of the ship, the
player placing the cube gains an additional TR.
Most of the costs include paying resources, lowering productions or paying tags. Tags are paid by
lowering their number on the player tag board (which is highly recommended if playing the Silesia).
Three components are paid differently from above (marked with an asterisk on the board):

- DIRECTION: pay five different planetary tags.

- MASS MEDIA: remove five events from the played events pile.
- SHIPYARD: discard two infrastructures from play (do NOT lower infrastructure tags).

WORLD GOVERNMENT
During the solar phase, if there is at least one claim on the Silesia, the player who passed first
places a neutral cube on any empty claim of his choice (without taking any kind of reward for it).

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 CRISES
Description
Crises is a mini expansion of 12 cards intended to convey the
feeling of risk and unpredictability associated with terraforming
and colonizing remote areas of the Solar System. Global Event
are required in order to play Crises (or you can find an alternative
way of having them enter play in a random way).

Why
I always felt one of the missing parts of the narrative framework
of the game was the sensation of risk and uncertainty of
colonizing space and other planets. I designed Crises to try to feel
this gap. I drew inspiration from Cataclysms, an idea which Chris
Dias implemented in his solo/cooperative mode, which you can
find here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2007641/review-and-
cooperative-rules

Rules
Crises cards and mixed inside the Global Event decks and are revealed at random generations during
the game, introducing limitations and providing a source to gain TR for all players.

SETUP
During the setup, choose three Crises cards at random without looking at them, then create three
piles of four Global event cards each and shuffle one Crisis into each of them.
Stack the three piles one above the other and place the final pile on top of the Global Events deck.
This process will ensure that there will be a Crisis on random generation among the first four, one
more then on generations 5 to 8 and, finally, a last Crisis on generations 9 to 12 (if the game is not
over before that).

REVEALING CRISES
If a Crisis is drawn when revealing
a new Global Event, it is
immediately placed face-up next
to the board and its effects start
to be applied with the coming
Generation.
After a Crisis is drawn, a new
Global Event is drawn and placed
in the Distant slot.
If the unlikely event a second
Crisis is drawn in the same
generation, repeat the process
above.

32
CRISES EFFECT
Each Crisis shows three or four icons in its text box, next to some of those there is "ban" icon
representing actions which are forbidden as long as the Crisis is in play, according to the following
description:

- ban tag no card with that tag can be played

- ban tile no tile of that kind can be placed
- ban global parameter the indicated global parameter cannot advance
- ban project card new cards cannot be drawn outside of research phase

Cards and Standard Project that do have some of the above as an effect can still be played, but the
specific banned effect will not happen.
For example: with a "ban: Oxygen" it is possible to place greeneries, but oxygen (and so TR) will not
advance as a consequence of that.

RESOLVING CRISES
Once during each of their turn, as an action, players can pay an amount of M€ equal to 5 plus the
current generation plus the number of players cubes on a Crisis (no matter the owner) in order to
fight the current Crisis. If they do, they place one of their cubes on that Crisis and gain 1 TR.

Next to some icons on each Crisis there is a M€ value, which means players can discard those
resources, spend those tags or lower those productions in order to receive the indicated amount of
M€, which can only be used to pay the cost of placing a cube on that Crisis.
(if they should receive more M€ than the cost of the cube, the excess M€ is lost).

During each Turmoil phase, before revealing and moving Global Events, place a silver cube on all
active Crises. When the total number of cubes on a Crisis is equal to the number of players, it is
immediately resolved and discarded from play.

EXTENDED GLOBAL PARAMETERS

Description
Both placing oceans and generating heat retain some utility after the
correspondent parameters have been maxed out.

Why
The rules have both a thematic and a rule-wise reason. Thematically, it makes
sense more water and warmer temperature are still sought out. From a rule
point of view, it felt unbalanced that some resources kept their utility while
some others became useless.

Rules
Oceans can still be placed after the twenty-once necessary to end the game. They won’t provide
any TR but will work the same on every other aspect.
Once the temperature has reached 9°C, heat can be directly converted into M€.

33
 UNDERCOVER
Description
Undercover is my latest creation, inspired by an idea from Chris Lex. The theme of this expansion is
the most classical of the spy genre, with bluff, con games and industrial espionage. It uses a
mechanic similar to Turmoil, but with Agents and secret missions instead of delegates and parties.
Of course, if you do not like the “take that” part of the game, probably Undercover is not for you.
A big disclaimer: this variant is still in its early stages, so it’s quite likely some parts will go through
revisions and changes, so you are free to let me know your feedback!

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2620905/article/37249210#37249210

Why
As soon as I read the idea, I knew I wanted this addition to the big (epic!) TM world. I also knew I
wanted mechanics that fit the theme, so secret information, risk-taking and, of course, a bit of take
that. From there, it has probably been the fastest of my content to emerge from ideas ever, in less
than a week I had most of the variant set.

Rules
Place the Undercover board next to the main board. Shuffle the 40 mission cards and place the deck
on its space on the board. When the deck is empty, shuffle the discard pile and create a new deck.
Each player places 1 agent on the Ready area of the Undercover board and the remaining 6 on the
Reserve area, then draws two mission cards, keeps one and discards the other face down.
Agents on the Ready area, on a mission or in counterintelligence mode (see below) are called
“available” agents. Conversely, agents on the Recovery or Reserve area are not “available”.

34
ESPIONAGE ACTIONS
Players have 5 new Espionage actions they can take during their turns. These actions are not standard
projects and can be taken any number of times per generation. While taking these actions, players must
abide the following two rules:

SINGLE ACTION RULE

During each turn, players can only take one kind of Espionage action (but it can be taken twice).
LAST PLAYER RULE
When all players except one have passed the turn, no espionage action can be taken.

Action: RECRUIT AGENT

Pay 5M€ and move one of your agents from the Reserve area to the Ready area.

Action: PLAN MISSION

Move one of your available agents into the Recovery area. Draw two cards
from the mission deck, keep one and discard the other face down on the
discard area of the board.
Players can have as many missions in their hand as the total number of
agents they have, adding up available ones and those in the Recovery area.
Missions placed on the board (called “ongoing missions”) do not count
towards this total. If a player has more than that at any time (including after
resolving the Plan Mission action), they must immediately discard those in
excess.

Action: ASSIGN AGENT

This action can be used in three different ways: start a new mission, assign new agents to an ongoing mission
or put agents in counterintelligence mode.

- New mission: pay 1M€, place one of your missions face down on a free space of the board for which
you meet the requirements, then move one of your available agents on it. You can look at your own
ongoing missions at any time.

o Pay 2 data resources.

o Leading (or being tied) the TR track.
o Being Chairman or being Leader in 3 parties.
o Having 2 factions revealed.
o Discard 1 postlude.
o Leading (or being tied) the jovian track.
o Leading (or being tied) the Moon track.
o Having the most earth tags (or being tied).
o Leading (or being tied) the Venus track.
o Leading (or being tied) the Mars track.

- Adding a new agent to an ongoing mission: pay a number of M€ equal to 1 plus the number of agents
already on that mission, then move one of your available agents on it. After adding an Agent, the
player can move that mission on another space of the board for which they meet the requirements.

- Send an agent in counterintelligence mode: choose a counterintelligence space on the board with no
other players’ agent. Pay a number of M€ equal to 1 plus the number of agents already on that space,
then move one of your available agents into it.

Missions placed on the board that, for any reason, have no agents on them are immediately discarded with
no effect whatsoever, regardless of the number of advancement tokens on them (see below).

35
Action: PROBE MISSION
Move one of your available agents into the Recovery area as a cost. Look at any two missions in any
combination, choosing from those ongoing on the board, those in players’ hands or those on the top of the
mission deck.

Action: RESOLVE MISSION

Reveal one of your ongoing missions. All players that have agents on a counterintelligence space on the same
row of that mission secretly choose if and how many of those agents they want to use (by holding that many
cubes in a hand). After all players have chosen, add up the number of agents and advancement tokens on
the mission to determine the mission points and decide how many of those you want to use against each
player. The player or players you choose are the “targets” of the mission.
All players reveal the number of agents in counterintelligence mode they used and move them into the
Recovery area. In player order, each targeted player chooses one of the two following options for each agent
in counterintelligence they used:

- Lower by one the agent points used during the mission resolution against them (see below).
- After the mission has been resolved, place one of the agents that was on it back in the Reserve area
instead of the Recovery area.

Agents in counterintelligence mode used by players not targeted by the mission have no effect.
Then, the player resolving the mission spends the mission points left according to the description on that
specific mission (check the mission list to have a complete list). Mission points can be combined in any way
and each effect on the description can be chosen multiple times.
After the mission has been resolved, move all agents that were on it into the Recovery area.

SABOTAGE
Some missions have as a possible outcome the placement of sabotage tokens. Sabotage tokens are player
cubes placed on another player’s card. They can be placed on active cards, infrastructures, postludes or even
corporations. As long as a card has a sabotage token on it, its actions and effects cannot be used.

SOLAR PHASE
During the Solar phase, cards that have sabotage tokens remove one of them, agents that have been used
become available again, players can abort missions and dismiss agents (if they so wish) and, most
importantly, all ongoing missions receive an advancement token. Players also pay maintenance for all their
agents.

Follow these steps in this order:

- Restore: remove 1 sabotage token from every card.

- Recover: move all agents from the Recovery to the Ready area.
- Abort: move any number of agents from ongoing missions or counterintelligence spaces into the
Ready area.
- Dismiss: move any number of agents into the Reserve area from anywhere on the board.
- Mission advance: add 1 advancement token to each ongoing mission.
- Maintenance: pay 1M€ for every two agents in the Ready area (rounded up), 1M€ for each in
counterintelligence mode and 2M€ for each on an ongoing mission.

36
 EARLY BASES
Description
Early bases represent the first settlers sent by the corporation to kickstart colonization and
terraforming. The idea is a mix of a couple of ideas about Corporate HQ, laid out by Bill Buchanan,
and Corporate Headquarters, introduce in ManVSNature by Rikard Johansson.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2117154/article/32929191#32929191

Why
With all map additions and buffs added through all the various expansions,
often the first tiles placed on the board could be of key importance. Having
all players place the first of those at the start of the game levels this a bit.
Also, thematically it fills a niche left open in the fictional framework of the
story by representing early settlers already on the red planet at the start of
the game.
Lastly, having players choosing these in reverse playing order compensate a
little the advantage of being first player at the start of the game.

Rules
At the start of the game, reveal at the center of the board a number of Early
Bases equal to twice the number of players. After all players chose their starting setup of cards
(corporation, preludes, etc), players in reverse turn order choose one of the revealed Early Bases
and places it on the board and discards one of the remaining ones.
Early bases can either be placed on Mars, on Venus or on the Moon, with the exception of those
with the corresponding planetary tag which must be placed on the planet shown on the tag.
Early Bases cannot be placed in reserved spaces or adjacent to other Early Bases.
After placing the Base, the player collects the resources or adds to their tag board the tag shown on
the it. If they do not have any card able to store the resources shown, they can place an equal
number of copper cubes on the Early Base and move those resource at any time later on during the
game to a card able to store them. For effects that trigger when a tag is played, placing an Early base
counts as playing a card with the corresponding tag.
Starting from the second generation, after the research phase, players place in players order one of
their players cubes adjacent to their Early Base. Spaces reserved for Oceans can be chosen this way,
but those reserved with names for specific cards cannot. Only the player who placed the cube can
place tiles on those spaces, when they do remove the player cube previously placed.

GOVERNMENT PROJECTS
Description
Government projects are cards that all players can use, but only one of them will gain the benefits
on each generation. The original author is Tim Emerick, where they are just called .

Why
Many of my changes in the game revolved around action priority. Government projects fit smoothly
on that regard and add an interesting alternative to other priority actions.

37
Rules
Government projects work like active cards (but are not considered active cards in any regard), with
the exception that every player can claim them for the generation and use their action and effects.
They are shuffled together with all the other projects and are drawn and played normally. The
players who play the card receives the benefits on the bottom half of it as normal and does gain all
the tags. Once a government project has been played, the following action becomes available:

- Claim a Government project

Place a player cube on a Government project and gain all effects on it for the current
generation. If the card has an action, use it as part of the claim action.

Both playing and claiming a

Government project immediately
end the current turn, so if those are
taken as a first action, no second
action can be taken. Also,
Government projects cannot be
played nor claimed if all other
players have already passed during
that generation.
At the end of the game,
Government projects are
considered owned by the player
who claimed them that generation.

PROJECT ROW
Description
Project row is just an additional, alternative and interactive way of introducing new projects into
the game. Every generation a number of projects is revealed and all players, as an action, can buy
one of them.

Why
Compared with the standard draft (which is the default rule used by many players), the project row
has the advantage of adding another layer of priority-dependent action, which, in turn, increases
the interaction and the decision-making in the game. They also help in dealing with the dilution for
tag-dependent strategies derived by introducing other fanmade contents.

Rules
After the research phase has been completed, and starting from the second generation, reveal from
the deck a number of projects equal to the number players plus two, and place them in a row where
everybody can see them.
Once per turn, as an action, a player can buy one of those projects for 3M€ (any rule or ability which
applies to buying cards during the research phase applies here as well).
At the end of the generation, discard all projects which have not been bought by any player.

38
 ROBOTICS
Description
Robotics expansion introduces a new kind of non-standard resource: robots! (How could we go into
space without them!)
Robots start as a quite minor asset, but as the game goes on, players will evolve them (or robots will
evolve themselves, who can say) into really effective tools for construction and terraforming.
Robotics is entirely handled through the Robotics Board, which you find below. The shape is thought
to be printed and replace the bottom-right corner of the EPIC map (limiting infrastructures to a
random selection of 12 on 18 and one less action to build them for that game).
The science track on top of it represents the global scientific advancement towards which all players
will contribute. The six sectors below it represent the current status or Robotics in the game: the
players' available robots (sector 1), the way they can be produced (sector 2), how effective they are
(sector 3) and towards which types of constructions they can be applied (sectors 4 to 6).

Why
And just when I thought I was done with fanmade content for Terraforming Mars, Jim Burr came
along with the idea of creating a general Robot resource. The idea, initially, was for having project
cards with it, but I saw the potential for a different approach which, on one side, does not dilute
even more the project deck and, on the other, is more readily available for all players.

Rules
During the setup, place an advancement token on the science tag (space 0) and one silver cube on
it every 4th space for a 2 players game, every 5th space for 3 players and every 6th for 4 players or
more players.
At the beginning of the game, Robotics starts with only 3 ready components: standard production
in sector 2 (spend one energy and one steel to create a robot), standard effectiveness in sector 3
(robot can be used as 4M€) and standard application in sector 4 (robots can be used for any card
which lowers energy production).

BUILD ROBOTS
Players can produce Robots as an Action that can be repeated any number of times per generation
(it is not a standard project though), with a base cost of 1 steel and 1 energy resource per robot.
When a player produces a robot, they pay the resources and place a cube of their color in the
Reserve space on the Robotics board (all Robot resources are stored here). There is no limit to the
number of Robot resources players can have.

39
USE ROBOTS
Every time a player is playing a card or an action for which Robots can be used as M€, they can spend
any number of their Robot resources to pay for that cost.

IMPROVE ROBOTICS
Every time the token on the global science track reaches a space with a silver cube on it, the player
following the one who caused the advance (in player order) can place it in any space on the Robotic
board, improving one of the Robot resources aspects of their choice (no order or priority has to be
followed for this placement). Players can also directly improve the development of Robotics. Once
per generation (not once per player per generation!), players can pay 5M€ and place an additional
silver cube (not taken from the science global track) on any space of the Robotics board. To indicate
that the action has been taken for the current generation, when a player takes the action, place one
of its cubes on the action space to the left of the track.

CLAIMING ROBOTICS REWARDS

Robotics improvement is a major asset for all mankind, every time a player is placing a silver cube
on the last space of a Sector in the Robotics board, they gain 1 TR.

START & ENDGAME RECAP

Description
Recap of all the rules used in a full EPIC game during the game setup and the final scoring.

Why
The initial setup, with the choices it implied, has always been one of the parts we liked the most of
the game, so it was natural for us to expand it to new content. The disclaimer is: this draft takes a
considerable amount of time, try it out only if you consider this to be a fun part as much as we do.

Rules
What follows is a general recap of all the starting choices players have in a game of EPIC TM.
Each player draws:

- 4 corporations, keeping one and passing the others clockwise until each player has kept 4.
- 4 preludes, keeping one and passing the others anti-clockwise until each player has kept 4.
- 3 colony tiles.
- 3 milestones and 3 awards.
- 4 acts.
- 4 factions.
- 2 parties.
- 2 missions.
- 6 projects, keeping one and passing
the others clockwise until each player
has kept 6.
- 6 projects, keeping one and passing
the others anti-clockwise until each
player has kept 6.

40
At the end of the setup, each player keeps 1 corporation, 2 preludes, 1 colony tile, 2 acts, 2 factions,
1 mission, 2 milestones, 2 awards, 2 parties and keeps all the projects they are willing to pay for
during the first draft.
Each player, in player order, reveals their choices,
getting all resources and triggering all effects. They
place the chosen colony on the board and may buy a
colony on it by paying 12M€. They place one Milestone
and one Award on the board and keep the other two
face down next to them (to be placed with the rules for
Additional Milestones and Awards). They place one
party on the government and the other outside of it.

At the end of the game, players score VP according to

image on the right. They also score 3VP for each
individual track, 4VP for each planetary track they lead
and 3VP for the majority of player cubes on the life
cycle.
Then, they score milestones, awards, factions (both
positive and negative) and VP from projects,
infrastructures and postludes. Finally, they lose 1VP for
each nuclear tile and nuclear tile adjacency.

CONCLUSIONS
If you really reached this point, my compliments to you! And if they seemed a lot to read, think
about playing a game with all them. Jokes a part, actually I have seen most players starting to
familiarize with the rules even during their first EPIC game. On one part probably because it lasted
more than ten hours (!!), but on the other because the overall experience is really capable of letting
all the rules fit into a single epic game framework.
Have epic games!

41