Shoutout to the player who showed me a quicker way to set up Terraforming Mars

I used to spend like 20 minutes laying out all the cards and tokens before a game. My group would just sit there watching me sort through 5 different piles. Then a guy at our weekly meetup showed me his trick: just deal out the starting hands and corporations first, then build the board as you explain the rules. He said it keeps people engaged and cuts setup by at least 10 minutes. I tried it last Saturday with 4 players and we were rolling dice in 8 minutes flat. Has anyone else found a similar shortcut for a heavy game?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray56215d agoTop Commenter

Did a buddy tell you about that trick or did you figure it out yourself?

michael80315d ago

Is that really the kind of thing you need a buddy for though? Like, @ray562, it's just a basic trick almost anyone could stumble on by accident. I mean, unless you're building something next-level, it's probably not that deep. People act like every little shortcut is a life hack these days.

kai_ramirez3815d ago

Hold up, I gotta agree with michael803 on this one. It's really not some mind blowing trick to just hand out starting cards first. I mean, that's basically just reading the rulebook in a slightly different order. People act like they cracked some secret code for saving a few minutes.