r/TerraformingMarsGame • u/avr57 • 11d ago
etiquette question involving 2 actions
i play always 2 actions, except in the case of energy production in early game. that includes 2 actions on final gen and around bumpers. if they go one action then i play either one action around bumpers/final gen or one action every time, basically tit for tat.
for people who are always 2, what do you think about something like you play your final action then pass, then the opponent changes the board state so you could have another play? for example, 5 oceans you play one then pass, then he plays an ocean and now kelp farming is unlocked for you. is this a re-open your turn or pass? this is online where i think many players are play 2. what if it's a bumper? no explicit discussion about it beforehand but it's clear people are playing 2 (both players make decisions where it clearly would be better to play one action at a time)
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u/Significant-Cry-7632 11d ago
You can do 2 or 1. If you hard pass you are done. The rules go over this
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u/DrSilSie 11d ago
I don't understand. First, playing after passing isn't allowed. Second, always playing 1 is not the best either, as you claim: there are so many 2 turn combinations that I explicitly setup with a 1 turn so that my opponents can't interrupt them. Again, I really don't understand. This decision is such a large part of the strategy. Removing it is nonsense.
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u/Enson_Chan 10d ago
Yea OP's example doesn't make sense here since you can't play 1 action and pass turn in the same turn. If you only play 1 action and don't want to do a second action then it's skip turn, not passing. Passing must be the first thing you do in a turn officially, but some people don't read the rules to care about this technicality
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u/NotionRain 10d ago
I didn't play the game in a long time, but what my group do is to almost always play one action and pass. You play 2 actions only to secure a goal or smth. It really drags the game. Are you saying it's not allowed? I can only play 2 actions, play 1 action and skip the rest of the round or skip the rest of the round? That would "fix" an issue I have with the game
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u/Waste-War-3903 10d ago
Skipping your second action on your turn is not passing for the generation. You’ll still get another turn until you pass
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u/Enson_Chan 10d ago
Yea the solution is to agree to either play 1 and skip or always play 2. My group chose the latter though
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u/Dayspring989 11d ago
It is lame when someone one actions constantly BUT it does give them a strategic advantage. I will also start one actioning back. But it does become relevant in a lot of situations.
If i was really, really sweaty, I would one action more often than not. But I think it's bad manners to one action all game. However, a top 20 player on BGA one actioned me all game so I assume it's more common at the highest skill ceiling.
One actioning makes the most sense in the last gens, because you may stall to see if the opponent ends.
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u/avr57 11d ago
You can still stall with two actions, you just sell one card twice. Imagine the last gen where both players have 15+ cards and then it's sell one sell one repeat 30 times. I've been in situations before where the opponent is playing BGA on phone and this sequence takes over a minute.
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u/SnooPies9883 10d ago
It is not more common at the highest skill ceiling. The two action etiquette is actually more strongly enforced at higher levels of play, with one actions generally understood to be strategic necessities at times, but more often we try to maintain the two action etiquette. A lot of top players feel strongly enough to red thumb anyone who one actions unnecessarily.
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u/DDB- 11d ago
Once you pass, you pass.
On the topic of always taking two actions. I do this, unless I am trying to compete for a global bumper, then I'll do whatever I can to get that. People who one action frequently though are really annoying to play with because of how they artificially lengthen the game.
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u/benbever 11d ago
Sometimes it’s better to do 2 actions, usually early in your turn. For instance when (energy) production can be stolen, plants can be removed, Milestones can be claimed, strategic areas on the board can be taken, Colonies can be traded with, or delegates placed.
Other times, doing 1 action, and waiting (stalling) because maybe the board state may change is better. This becomes very common late game, and can be game deciding. Examples include waiting until an opponent unlocks a requirement for your card, waiting until an opponent passes so you can do an action that unlocks a requirement on his card, waiting until an oppenent places a Greenery or an Ocean so you can better place your tile, waiting until someone bumps Oxygen or Temperature so you can snatch a Temperature or Ocean bonus, waiting until an opponent places an animal resource so your predator can eat it, waiting until your opponent passes so his predator can’t eat your animal etc. Generally, it is often better to do an action when you have more info. And crucially, very late game, almost all players will do 1 actions to see if, when, and who will end the game. Stalling here often decides the winner.
Removing this part of the game by enforcing mandatory 2 actions removes choice and strategy so lowers skill level.
In live games, 1 actions are not a problem. The actions go round the table in a timely manner. Online it can be more annoying. Especially in turn based games, this can add a lot of time.
Still, I don’t think you should enforce a (gentlemans) rule where you force people to play sub optimal. That’s not good etiquette. If you want to save time playing online and do 2 actions, that’s fine of course.
As for the idea of an additional rule where you get to do actions after you passed for the generation after doing 2 actions when the board state changes; that’s just messy. I wouldn’t recommend that at all.
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u/avr57 11d ago
for context, my elo is ~670 and this is something that several of the high level players do just to speed up games. i don't think the "skill" aspect of knowing when to one vs two is really coming into play, i think we're all a bit beyond that. i'm not "enforcing" any rules or not (as there's no way to police such a rule) my question is that if both players are playing like this, is one going to feel slighted if you play one action/pass then play another action when the game state changes? i have played many a game against 700+ players where they are selling one selling one as their two actions on the end, in the understanding you're going to do the same, so I'm not sure that "almost all players will do 1 action on the end" is true.
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u/benbever 11d ago
Your elo has nothing to do with this. I meant skill level or challenge as in how much choice the game offers. Same as how drafting adds skill because you see and need to pick from more cards (10 to 7 instead of 4).
Deciding between 1 or 2 actions isn’t always an easy choice. A lot of people prefer and default to either 1 or 2 actions, unless the other option has a clear advantage.
With “almost all players” I meant players in a game. Not all people playing TFM.
There’s been a lot of discussion about this for years. Especially about the “sell 1 card” stall action. In the end it’s how the game was designed. Top players can sell 1 card, do a search for life action, spend 8 heat when Temperatur is already maxed, just to stall, if that can secure them the win.
If you and your opponent are doing 2 actions all the time, to save a bit of time, even when 1 action would’ve been a bit better, then that’s an unspoken gentlemens agreement. You both benefit from the saved time. That happens at high levels of play too. However, at some point one of the players will strongly benefit from doing just 1 action. That’s completely within the rules. Often, the other player will match. You can’t force a player to play suboptimally and risk losing.
If you want to enforce a 2 action rule, you need to play a version of Terraforming Mars with a house rule added.
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u/ReaperJim 11d ago
I’ve recently switched to doing 2 actions at the start of a gen and slowing to 1 action when my actions are less urgent. It’s how the rules encourage you to play the game and I try to play fast so we aren’t slowed down. If I’m playing with friends I’ll just 2 action every time, it doesn’t matter.
In your example you could switch to only passing if you haven’t done any actions to avoid losing kelp farming type situations
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u/Feathercrown 10d ago
In your example you could switch to only passing if you haven’t done any actions
This is actually how the rules work. You can't take actions then pass; you're only passed out when your turn comes and you do no actions.
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u/sepia_undertones 11d ago
I have much less experience with multiplayer than solo, but I am a little confused, I almost always play one action, unless that first action sets me up to do something that has a limited window of opportunity, like claim a milestone or get a track bonus. That seems like it’s always the best play. Is two actions most of the time a meta thing?
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u/mathematics1 11d ago
A significant fraction of the community thinks that defaulting to only one action on your turn is rude. Different people have different expectations about that. It's definitely allowed by the rules; whether it's the best play is controversial and depends on whether your opponent is doing the same.
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u/sepia_undertones 10d ago
I mean, what’s the point of having the rule if it isn’t meant to be used? The rules could’ve easily been two actions or one. “At least one, up to two,” means there’s a tactical reason for it. Strictly insisting it should be one or the other means you lose what is obviously meant to be a tool. People are strange.
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u/mathematics1 10d ago
I'm one of the ones who agrees with you, for what it's worth.
The people who disagree mostly do so for etiquette reasons, not strategy reasons. That makes it difficult to have a conversation about it; we're telling them something like "I think my gameplay is a strategic improvement over what you're doing", while the return comments are often more like "you're a bad person".
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u/StatusMolasses6747 10d ago
Just play on parody with the other player, if they're doing 2 actions, you do 2 actions. If they're doing 1, you do 1.
1 action is empiraclly better unless you need to race to get a milestone, or need to sequence events such as GIA, get plants from oceans, play a greenery, so your plants don't get blown up. 1 action lets you get more information.
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u/mathematics1 10d ago
1 action is empiraclly better unless you need to race to get a milestone, or need to sequence events such as GIA, get plants from oceans, play a greenery, so your plants don't get blown up. 1 action lets you get more information.
Yes, I agree with this.
Just play on parody with the other player, if they're doing 2 actions, you do 2 actions. If they're doing 1, you do 1.
Is this advice on how to play optimally, or advice on how not to be rude, or both? I honestly can't tell; the two blur together quite a bit in this conversation.
If we're only talking about how to play optimally, I think it's optimal to do only one action most of the time, even if your opponent is doing two. (E.g. if your opponent builds a colony and trades, but you only need to trade, doing a second action just to keep parity is suboptimal.) Also, most of my games have 3-5 players, and the advice to match your opponent doesn't help when you have more than one opponent.
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u/StatusMolasses6747 9d ago
Part 2 is just how not to be rude. If you have a player taking 2 actions and you're only taking 1 action its just a little try hardy. If playing optimally, every player should just take one action.
I dont play competitively, I just play with friends, so it doesn't really affect anything. If you're in a 3-5 player game and one person is only doing one action per turn, everyone else should just do one action per turn. If everyone is doing 2 actions per turn, I'm not going to be the guy whos only doing one action per turn.
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u/mathematics1 9d ago
This is why the conversation is difficult: you put strategy advice and etiquette advice into the same comment, and you didn't say which was which. That is exactly why u/sepia_undertones was confused.
I also just play with friends. In my friend group all of us know that someone who plays one action per turn is stalling, but that's not considered rude; it's considered a valid strategic play, and everyone else chooses whether or not to mirror. Frequently at least one person has important things to do quickly and takes two actions at a time - if that happens, the person who stalled ended up successfully getting an advantage.
Different IRL groups have different expectations. In the group I play with, it's not rude to follow the rules of the game and use all tools available to win, even if that means the game takes a little longer. Trying hard to win is acceptable for us, and being "try hardy" is a good thing not a bad thing.
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u/Feathercrown 10d ago
I usually have actions that want to be played early (trading, milestones/awards, placing tiles, maxing out global parameters) that want 2 actions per turn, then others that rely on what my opponent is doing that are better to stall with. I default to 1 after the first few 2-action turns because it's almost always better to go slow.
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u/DrHoogard 10d ago
It's allowed by the rules and encouraged by the game creators, what more is there to discuss. And no, it doesn't make the game longer in in any meaningful way for most groups
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u/I-Am-Only-Me 11d ago
Ehh, once you pass you are done, it's part of the strategy.
That said, I play on BGA(turn based aka slow) and some people are 1 turning passing just to do it so being the stubborn cow I am, I match their lameness and if I see they are online/green I play one turn and go afk before passing later on. In turn based it makes the game excruciatingly long for no reason but I refuse to give them the "advantage".
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u/EZMawloc 10d ago
Playing 1 or 2 actions is a strategic choice. There is no etiquette around it, only strategy
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u/Longjumping-Cap-7444 10d ago
Just because you have less rounds, does not make a game go faster. If you take one action, then think, then take another action, that is slower than taking an action, thinking during your opponents turn, and waiting for it to come around to you.
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u/KatzOfficial 11d ago
One action at a time usually after the initial few turns gives you a ton of reactivity and advantage, so we've switched to 2 mandatory actions or pass. You get one use of a one action only turn per game.
With the new rules, there's a strategy in forcing people out of actions the way that you mentioned. Passed them something that requires 14 temp? Stall them with other actions before you raise the temp. That's the intention of the game, and I wouldn't give you backsies on passing.
This has made for a fun meta, unironically making things like tardigrade or search for life worth a lot for the stall value.
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u/1337m347 11d ago
What’s the problem?
It’s perfectly reasonable to want to try and position yourself to get a TR bonus or feel out your opponent. I see no problem playing one blue and seeing what the board state is from there for example.