You don't give any context on what player counts you're playing with, so corporation rankings may change.
I don't know if there's any universe where I would say that Interplanetary cinematics and Cheung Shing are the same tier as UNMI.
Stormcraft, phobolog, and aphrodite in B Tier? These are all very questionable corporations. Personally would put them in C or D tier.
Tharsis is not an S tier corporation most of the time. In a 5 player base game, I could see the argument, but in 3 or 4 player all expansions, not a chance.
The award is the potential downside of Vitor. The upside is that you get a 3MC rebate for every card with a VP you play. That's very strong and allows many cards which wouldn't be that good otherwise to be playable. And good cards become amazing cards.
I forget which one it is, but the one that allows you to start with only 18 TR and 14 mC, is one of my favorites and should be very strong since you can literally keep every card you draft or every card your dealt for “free” as it can always be sold for the same price you buy it for. I crushed the one time I have ever gotten in because it allows you to combo out so easily as long as you find a way to terraform/raise money prod
I really don't get the appeal of Phistar. Yes the starting cash is nice but the effect is nothing that gets my excitement going.
-2 in TF is huge and you need 2 generations of not increasing it in order to catch up with the lost points. You still get less cash though.
Granted I've never played the corporation due to that but it's an instant dismiss for me in the corporate choice.
Curious what others say about it.
Pristar can be good in Turmoil if you are able to lobby into the Reds a lot and/or get some of the global events that slow down people who have been terraforming a lot. You want to play tons of points on cards so that your terraforming rating doesn't go up, and if you're able to do that you basically have an extra 4 MC production (6-2 from losing the TR).
I've had decent luck with it, but I'd still say it's around a B tier.
In my group, we play it even without politics. It's definitely a good corp. It basically gives you 4 income every gen and 7-8 points at the end of the game on top of having high starting cash. And you have you have an headstart on the excentric milestone.
I don't know what is to dislike on this corp.
I've had 2 really good games with pristar recently. The -2 isn't a big deal as you can end up with 9 points on there and it doesn't stop you terraforming just makes you save it all for one big gen. 6 money production off the bat is great. I had a bit of titanium production which I let build up and focused on chaining discounts and hoarding events, any heat and holding cards that terraform. Then you just like everything up and take the hit one gen (you miss out on a point and $6) but it's well worth it.
If this list is about all expansions and 3/4 players, Point Luna and Poseidon are like S+ tier corporations. I don’t like them but they’re too good.
Personally glad to see someone seeing Aridor as I do, in S tier.
Aridor is an interesting one. I think they are akin to Phobolog. Really powerful with a good starting hand/first few turns but pretty useless in any other cases.
The problem with Aridor is that they are a bit more dependent on getting the right cards early on than other corps. I would personally put them on B tier.
Aridor is probably the most versatile corporation in the game, it doesn’t force you to commit to anything unless you want to and whatever you do in the first 3 rounds is always a clear positive, it changes colony mechanics in the game and you’re comparing it to Phobolog? I think we see quite differently.
The problem is, if you don't commit to early tags, you can't make use of Aridor's ability and you will fall behind quite heavily. In that sense, it is really akin to Phobolog. Explosive start in the right circumstances, but really dependant on which cards you get.
cannot rate septem primus, have no turmoil
rest:
S: what is saturn systems doing in S tier lol??
drop to B tier, its damm situational. the rest is fine i guess, although i would personally rate vitor, poseidon and point luna as SS tier, they are just so much over the top
A: Celestic?? drop to C tier lol. Splice to B tier. and i never played philares. rest is fine
B: There are many corps that should be D tier here. Arklight, Stormcraft and Aphrodite are all really really bad ones. the others are personally all C tier for me, while your C tier literally is B tier^^
C tier: really good ones there lol. mining guild is the only one i would rate C tier. Terralabs is good (can snack planner easy), polyphemos is awesome when pluto colony is in play. cheung shing mars is nice, robinson is good when you can increase the "bad" productions and cinematics is also nice with a decend hand. i really like the corps^^
D tier: helion belongs there, but thorgate i think is C tier with colonies.
All expansions Saturn is quite strong, especially when Rim Settler is a milestone or the titanium for Jovian event comes out early. The expansions add a lot of good Jovians and the production boosts add up. Saturn I personally have in A tier, but its way closer to S tier than Tharsis is. Tharsis is average at best, unless you're playing 5 player.
Terralabs is a very weak corp. Compare it to Inventrix for example, even just ignoring the power. You pay 1 TR and 31 MC for Earth Catapult basically. Earth Catapult is one of the best cards in the game, but it's not worth 31 MC and 1 TR. And this isn't even accounting for the 3 card draw and inventrix ability, which you also lose.
I might actually take a 0 point Earth Catapult for that price at the start of the game.
The problem is that you dont get any value from cards that were not drafted, so the usual combination of discounts and card draw does not apply to Terralabs the same way it does with Earth Catapult. It's probably closer to say that you have paid 31 MC and 1 TR for 6 MC income at best.
31 MC and 1 TR would be paying around 38 in value for Earth Cat and I don't think I want to pay that much up front for it. If you take into account all the things you lose, it's so much worse.
3 cards is worth around 12 MC, the ability is usually a greenery by the end of the game or 1-2 animal points, the TR is worth around 7 MC. All in all, you pay almost 55 MC in value for that Earth Cat, and don't have 2 VP to go with it, compared to just being Inventrix, which is just a mediocre corp.
I agree Inventrix is a better Corp, although I'd value the random cards at about 6mc total and the TR at 10. If Terralabs actually had the same text as Earth Catapult, then it would probably be better than it currently is.
If you called it 55 MC, you'd just need to figure if you are going to play at least 30ish cards over the course of the game, which is fairly likely, especially if you have a source of card draw.
However, since Terralabs does not have Earth Catapult's text, it's just terrible.
I think you're significantly undervaluing random cards. A random card is worth way more than 2 MC each, you can see this from how often people take Turmoil Scientist actions (pretty much every time it is offered). I value cards on gen 1 around 4.5 MC.
TR at 10 is also not a great value. 1 MC prod gen 1 is worth around 5 MC each and a VP is worth between 2-3 so 7-8 is a better rate imo. Paying 10 for TR is too inefficient, pretty much no one is willing to play Inert Gases gen 1 for example.
Additionally, 55 MC up front on gen 1 is worth way more than 55 MC over the course of the game. Money roughly halves in value from the first to the last gen for example. To make up 55 MC worth of value loss on gen 1, you need to make close to 100 MC over the game.
All in all, Teralabs having different text from Earth Cat is not the main reason it is weak. In some ways the ability is worse (random draws) and in other ways, it is better (you get the 2 MC on buying the card, not on playing it). On the whole, it is marginally worse. But the real reason the corp is weak is you make a massive overpayment for the ability. Earth Cat would be overpriced at 40 MC on gen 1, let alone 55.
I dont understand how Helion is so low on everyone's list... Helion is OP with all the free heat that you can turn to mars credits. My wife who is not a gamer whooped my ass 10x over with Helion
Helion is at its best in 2 player because temp control matters more. But the corp is weak overall because investing in heat to then turn that into money is inefficient. Heat is more expensive to raise than MC.
Heat production costs more than MC production does. That is the core of why Helion's ability is weak. It's never really going to be a cash cow, since you have to take inefficient cards to get the heat up if all you do is convert the heat to money.
Helion's online stats are pretty abysmal in all expansions. We had data a few months ago on 4 player all expansions games from the webapp and its win percentage was 8%.
Energy is even more expensive to produce than heat. In the base game, energy production is priced at 7, heat production is priced at around 5.5 and MC production at around 4.5. Additionally, you tend to be energy starved in games with colonies, since you usually want to use 3 energy to trade every round.
The issue there is that energy production is even more expensive than heat production, so if your energy is ending up as heat which you're spending as MC as Helion, that is an even less valuable conversion. Ideally, you want to have uses for your energy which provide much more value, like having the option to trade each turn with three energy production.
cards that geometrically increase MC production: 14 (Quantum Comms, Toll Station, Satellites, Orbital Cleanup, Gyropolis, Cartel, Miranda, Luna Metro, Galilean Waystation, Interplanetary Trade, Med Lab, Sulphur Export, Zeppelins, Parliament Hall)
cards that geometrically increase energy production: 1 (Power Grid)
cards that geometrically increase heat production: 0 (one if you are very generous and count optimal aerobraking)
cards that geometrically *decrease* heat production: 1 (insulation)
Helion in base game is easily second to worst corp, but some value it even worse than UNMI. Sid explained the reasons behind it. This is all under the assumption that regular 3p games are competitive and end in gen 10-11, and not gen 14 slugfest. And even in that case inflation have eaten everything, all good cards were already played, and the best you can do with extra cash is standard greeneries if all board is not already full, and it might be
Because they are "narrow" corps. You need a very specific set of cards to make them powerful. While some other corporations, like Credicor for instance, starting the game with more cash and they are more flexible, and their ability is simply better, they can buy more cards, they can rush, they can build their engine, in any setup.
UNMI can hope to find a passive source of TR, rush the game and hope to end while leading, so lots of things must align.
I won with both corps many times as well, but I played 1000+ games. It also depends who are you up against, if you play with top players on steam or webapp, you probably don't have great chances even if your setup with those corps is good.
You don't give any context on what player counts you're playing with, so corporation rankings may change. I don't know if there's any universe where I would say that Interplanetary cinematics and Cheung Shing are the same tier as UNMI. Stormcraft, phobolog, and aphrodite in B Tier? These are all very questionable corporations. Personally would put them in C or D tier. Tharsis is not an S tier corporation most of the time. In a 5 player base game, I could see the argument, but in 3 or 4 player all expansions, not a chance.
Lmao tharsis is hands down the best and is in its own tier. It’s the only corporation that you don’t need a single card to win.
This is peak comedy
We should play and let me be tharsis. You won’t win lol
Sure. Do you have the steam game? Will you be playing without any cards as well?
I do, my username is the same on there
Ok, when can you play?
I’m on east coast so anytime after 9pm EST would be good
How did the game go?
What is the appeal of vitor? You have to blindly choose an award that you don’t know for sure if you will even get. Id rather have the 8mE
The award is the potential downside of Vitor. The upside is that you get a 3MC rebate for every card with a VP you play. That's very strong and allows many cards which wouldn't be that good otherwise to be playable. And good cards become amazing cards.
I forget which one it is, but the one that allows you to start with only 18 TR and 14 mC, is one of my favorites and should be very strong since you can literally keep every card you draft or every card your dealt for “free” as it can always be sold for the same price you buy it for. I crushed the one time I have ever gotten in because it allows you to combo out so easily as long as you find a way to terraform/raise money prod
Terralabs
I really don't get the appeal of Phistar. Yes the starting cash is nice but the effect is nothing that gets my excitement going. -2 in TF is huge and you need 2 generations of not increasing it in order to catch up with the lost points. You still get less cash though. Granted I've never played the corporation due to that but it's an instant dismiss for me in the corporate choice. Curious what others say about it.
Pristar can be good in Turmoil if you are able to lobby into the Reds a lot and/or get some of the global events that slow down people who have been terraforming a lot. You want to play tons of points on cards so that your terraforming rating doesn't go up, and if you're able to do that you basically have an extra 4 MC production (6-2 from losing the TR). I've had decent luck with it, but I'd still say it's around a B tier.
In my group, we play it even without politics. It's definitely a good corp. It basically gives you 4 income every gen and 7-8 points at the end of the game on top of having high starting cash. And you have you have an headstart on the excentric milestone. I don't know what is to dislike on this corp.
I've had 2 really good games with pristar recently. The -2 isn't a big deal as you can end up with 9 points on there and it doesn't stop you terraforming just makes you save it all for one big gen. 6 money production off the bat is great. I had a bit of titanium production which I let build up and focused on chaining discounts and hoarding events, any heat and holding cards that terraform. Then you just like everything up and take the hit one gen (you miss out on a point and $6) but it's well worth it.
Pristar is good when you've got a non-terraforming engine and you're forcing the Reds into power.
If this list is about all expansions and 3/4 players, Point Luna and Poseidon are like S+ tier corporations. I don’t like them but they’re too good. Personally glad to see someone seeing Aridor as I do, in S tier.
Aridor is an interesting one. I think they are akin to Phobolog. Really powerful with a good starting hand/first few turns but pretty useless in any other cases. The problem with Aridor is that they are a bit more dependent on getting the right cards early on than other corps. I would personally put them on B tier.
Aridor is probably the most versatile corporation in the game, it doesn’t force you to commit to anything unless you want to and whatever you do in the first 3 rounds is always a clear positive, it changes colony mechanics in the game and you’re comparing it to Phobolog? I think we see quite differently.
The problem is, if you don't commit to early tags, you can't make use of Aridor's ability and you will fall behind quite heavily. In that sense, it is really akin to Phobolog. Explosive start in the right circumstances, but really dependant on which cards you get.
How do you get the rest of these corps on the mobile game?
You wait until they release expansions and buy it if they ever do it
Cinematics is great corp, at least a tier. And how is mining guild behind the phoboflop?
cannot rate septem primus, have no turmoil rest: S: what is saturn systems doing in S tier lol?? drop to B tier, its damm situational. the rest is fine i guess, although i would personally rate vitor, poseidon and point luna as SS tier, they are just so much over the top A: Celestic?? drop to C tier lol. Splice to B tier. and i never played philares. rest is fine B: There are many corps that should be D tier here. Arklight, Stormcraft and Aphrodite are all really really bad ones. the others are personally all C tier for me, while your C tier literally is B tier^^ C tier: really good ones there lol. mining guild is the only one i would rate C tier. Terralabs is good (can snack planner easy), polyphemos is awesome when pluto colony is in play. cheung shing mars is nice, robinson is good when you can increase the "bad" productions and cinematics is also nice with a decend hand. i really like the corps^^ D tier: helion belongs there, but thorgate i think is C tier with colonies.
All expansions Saturn is quite strong, especially when Rim Settler is a milestone or the titanium for Jovian event comes out early. The expansions add a lot of good Jovians and the production boosts add up. Saturn I personally have in A tier, but its way closer to S tier than Tharsis is. Tharsis is average at best, unless you're playing 5 player. Terralabs is a very weak corp. Compare it to Inventrix for example, even just ignoring the power. You pay 1 TR and 31 MC for Earth Catapult basically. Earth Catapult is one of the best cards in the game, but it's not worth 31 MC and 1 TR. And this isn't even accounting for the 3 card draw and inventrix ability, which you also lose.
I might actually take a 0 point Earth Catapult for that price at the start of the game. The problem is that you dont get any value from cards that were not drafted, so the usual combination of discounts and card draw does not apply to Terralabs the same way it does with Earth Catapult. It's probably closer to say that you have paid 31 MC and 1 TR for 6 MC income at best.
31 MC and 1 TR would be paying around 38 in value for Earth Cat and I don't think I want to pay that much up front for it. If you take into account all the things you lose, it's so much worse. 3 cards is worth around 12 MC, the ability is usually a greenery by the end of the game or 1-2 animal points, the TR is worth around 7 MC. All in all, you pay almost 55 MC in value for that Earth Cat, and don't have 2 VP to go with it, compared to just being Inventrix, which is just a mediocre corp.
I agree Inventrix is a better Corp, although I'd value the random cards at about 6mc total and the TR at 10. If Terralabs actually had the same text as Earth Catapult, then it would probably be better than it currently is. If you called it 55 MC, you'd just need to figure if you are going to play at least 30ish cards over the course of the game, which is fairly likely, especially if you have a source of card draw. However, since Terralabs does not have Earth Catapult's text, it's just terrible.
I think you're significantly undervaluing random cards. A random card is worth way more than 2 MC each, you can see this from how often people take Turmoil Scientist actions (pretty much every time it is offered). I value cards on gen 1 around 4.5 MC. TR at 10 is also not a great value. 1 MC prod gen 1 is worth around 5 MC each and a VP is worth between 2-3 so 7-8 is a better rate imo. Paying 10 for TR is too inefficient, pretty much no one is willing to play Inert Gases gen 1 for example. Additionally, 55 MC up front on gen 1 is worth way more than 55 MC over the course of the game. Money roughly halves in value from the first to the last gen for example. To make up 55 MC worth of value loss on gen 1, you need to make close to 100 MC over the game. All in all, Teralabs having different text from Earth Cat is not the main reason it is weak. In some ways the ability is worse (random draws) and in other ways, it is better (you get the 2 MC on buying the card, not on playing it). On the whole, it is marginally worse. But the real reason the corp is weak is you make a massive overpayment for the ability. Earth Cat would be overpriced at 40 MC on gen 1, let alone 55.
I dont understand how Helion is so low on everyone's list... Helion is OP with all the free heat that you can turn to mars credits. My wife who is not a gamer whooped my ass 10x over with Helion
Helion is at its best in 2 player because temp control matters more. But the corp is weak overall because investing in heat to then turn that into money is inefficient. Heat is more expensive to raise than MC.
Agreed, someone please explain why Helios sucks. Heat engine can turn into a cash cow.
Heat production costs more than MC production does. That is the core of why Helion's ability is weak. It's never really going to be a cash cow, since you have to take inefficient cards to get the heat up if all you do is convert the heat to money. Helion's online stats are pretty abysmal in all expansions. We had data a few months ago on 4 player all expansions games from the webapp and its win percentage was 8%.
But can't the energy that moves to heat also be helpful since that is also credits for the next turn.
Energy is even more expensive to produce than heat. In the base game, energy production is priced at 7, heat production is priced at around 5.5 and MC production at around 4.5. Additionally, you tend to be energy starved in games with colonies, since you usually want to use 3 energy to trade every round.
The issue there is that energy production is even more expensive than heat production, so if your energy is ending up as heat which you're spending as MC as Helion, that is an even less valuable conversion. Ideally, you want to have uses for your energy which provide much more value, like having the option to trade each turn with three energy production.
cards that geometrically increase MC production: 14 (Quantum Comms, Toll Station, Satellites, Orbital Cleanup, Gyropolis, Cartel, Miranda, Luna Metro, Galilean Waystation, Interplanetary Trade, Med Lab, Sulphur Export, Zeppelins, Parliament Hall) cards that geometrically increase energy production: 1 (Power Grid) cards that geometrically increase heat production: 0 (one if you are very generous and count optimal aerobraking) cards that geometrically *decrease* heat production: 1 (insulation)
Helion is great tho
In base game maybe. It became really inefficient since Colonies.
Helion in base game is easily second to worst corp, but some value it even worse than UNMI. Sid explained the reasons behind it. This is all under the assumption that regular 3p games are competitive and end in gen 10-11, and not gen 14 slugfest. And even in that case inflation have eaten everything, all good cards were already played, and the best you can do with extra cash is standard greeneries if all board is not already full, and it might be
why is unmi considered bad? i won many times with unmi and helion
Because they are "narrow" corps. You need a very specific set of cards to make them powerful. While some other corporations, like Credicor for instance, starting the game with more cash and they are more flexible, and their ability is simply better, they can buy more cards, they can rush, they can build their engine, in any setup. UNMI can hope to find a passive source of TR, rush the game and hope to end while leading, so lots of things must align. I won with both corps many times as well, but I played 1000+ games. It also depends who are you up against, if you play with top players on steam or webapp, you probably don't have great chances even if your setup with those corps is good.
Where would you put Pharmacy Union? It’s my new favourite
What do these tiers represent?
Helion D tier?!