Players: 3-6
Time: 20-40 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
The Components
Terra comes with:
- 108 playing cards
- 1 scoring track
- 8 scoring markers
- 12 player markers
- 1 rule book
- 2 reference cards
Playing Cards: The cards are all printed on a medium cardstock, grayscale on the back, full color on the front. The deck include 18 crisis cards and 90 solution cards. They're all quite simply designed.
The crisis cards are printed in one of three colors (green, blue, yellow) which show the category of problem (social, military, or environment) and feature a number at the top indicating the severity of the problem (10-16) and at the bottom a displayed location (one of the continents) on a global map. They also each feature cartoonish artwork showing the category of problem and matching the color.
The solution cards are printed in the same three colors and numbered 1-6. Each individual solution level gets its own artwork.
Overall, the cards are simple and easy to use. The numbers are printed large in the center of the card, but also at each upper corner. Thus they're easy to read when fanned.
Scoring Track: You keep score on a scoring track which is circular and features a track numbered 0-39. There's a troubled Earth in the middle in the same art style as the cards. The track is printed on solid, linen-textured cardboard and is printed in full color.
Scoring Markers: The scoring markers are small circular chits each labelled "+40". They're given to a player if he laps the scoring track. They're printed full-color in red and gold.
Player Markers: These are twelve wooden discs, two each in the six player colors (red, blue, black, yellow, purple, green). One is placed on the scoreboard, another in front of the player so that you can easily keep track of who's who.
Rule Book: The rule book is printed full-color on glossy paper. The rules are fairly simply described and accompanied by a few illustrative examples. There's also a two-page listing of what all the solution cards mean (e.g., the yellow 4 of military solutions is said to mean "Defusing conflicts to better maintain peace." It shows someone standing between two arguing parties. The rules are actually printed in five different languages.
Reference Cards: These cards, printed on the same stock as the playing cards, give good summaries of how the game works.Two cards, "End of the Game" and "Possible 3-Card Combination Hoarded" are very helpful for first time players and should be left out on the table. (There are 2 of these cards in each of those 5 languages too.)
Box & Tray: The box is oversized for what it contains, but has little flaps to help keep the cards from going all over. A slightly smaller box, such as that used for Gang of Four by the same publisher would have been a better fit.
Overall the components are colorful, attractive, and of quality manufacture. This game rates an above average "4" out of "5" for Style.
The Game Play
In Terra you must hoard as many Solutions as possible while at the same time ensuring that the world isn't destroyed through selfishness and neglect.
Setup: Each player selects a color, places one of his markers on the score board at zero, then is given 2-4 Solution cards. Afterward, the Crisis cards are also mixed into the deck, and play begins.
Order of Play: Each turn each player takes the following actions:
- Draw a Card
- Initiate any Impending Crises
- Repeat Draw until a Solution is Drawn
- Play Solutions
- Hoard Cards
Draw a Card: The player draws one card from the draw deck, which now contains both Solutions and Crises. If a Solution is drawn, the player moves straight on to the Play Solutions section. If a Crisis is drawn, instead an Impending Crisis begins.
Impending Crisis.A Crisis is of one of three types: blue social, yellow military, or green environment. Each Crisis has a value from 10-16 and takes place in one of 6 geographical regions.
Once a Crisis is drawn, each player, in turn, immediately has one chance to play one Solution card of the same color to try and solve the problem. These solutions are also color coded and ranked 1-6. If, after every player has played or passed, the Solution points equal or exceed the Crisis score the problem is solved and discarded. The player who played the first Solution and the player who played the highest value Solution are each granted 3 points.
If the Crisis is not solved, all the Solutions are discarded--wasted. The problem becomes a Full-Brown Crisis and is moved to the center of the table, possibly causing the end of the world.
End of the World. The world immediately ends and all players lose if: there are 7 full-blown crisis; or there is one of each type of crisis all in the same geographical region; or there are 4 crises all in the same color. All players lose.
Redrawing. After an Impending Crisis is dealt with (either solved or having become a Full-Blown Crisis) the player gets to draw again. If he gets a Solution, great. Otherwise there's another Impending Crisis to deal with.
Play Solutions: The player may now play Solutions to Full-Blown Crises on the table. He may play no more than one Solution per Crisis each turn. Matching colored Solutions must be played on the same color Crises. These cards stay out, accumulating, until the Full-Blown Crisis is solved.
If a Full-Blown Crisis is solved, the player who solved it gets 5 points.
Hoard Solutions: If a player has played at least one Solution during his turn he may hoard a set of three cards by placing them face-down in front of him. These three cards must all be: same value, same color (e.g., 3 blue 5s); or same value, one color each (e.g., blue, green, and yellow 5); or same color straight (e.g., green 2, 3, 4); or three colors straight (e.g., blue 4, green 5, blue 6). The player will get to add these points to his score at the end of the game.
End Game: The game ends when the world is destroyed or when you've gone through the entire deck one time. If the latter, all players now reveal their hoards, and add them on to the points they scored for resolving Crises. The player with the most points wins.
The Balance. Terra is a delicate balance between hoarding enough cards to win, while at the same time helping out on Crises, even if it gives points to other players. Play is often as much about talking other players into helping out as it is about actually getting your own points out.
Game Variations
I've seen a number of suggestions offered to deal with the greedy player problem I discuss a bit in the Game Design. Inevitably these go against the basic theme of the game, which is to talk about those exact issues of selfishness and selflessness. However, I think they might make a better game too.
The best variant I've seen on the 'net simply suggests that when you score at the end, the player who had hoarded the highest value of total cards automatically loses, much like the biggest spender in High Society.
Your mileage may vary.
Relationships to Other Games
Terra is a fairly unique critter, in that it's a cooperative game, but it has a very competitive edge. Traditional competitive games like Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings and Richard Launius' Arkham Horror more frequently add on competition as an afterthought, with cooperation the true heart of the game; that's really not the case here.
The gameplay of Terra is based on Olson's Paradox, which Bruno Faidutti describes well at his web site. It's related to the Prisoner's Dilemma, which you find much more frequently discussed in game theory. Faidutti describes Olson's Paradox such: "Olson was studying the individual involvement in social movements, like trade-unions. He argued that any rational self-interested individual will not take part in collective action, since he will in all cases benefit from its benefits, when his own involvement has a cost in time and money. Of course, when all individuals make the same rational calculation, no collective action can ever take place, and the group objective will never be achieved."
The Game Design
Terra is a game that really depends upon the quality and demeanor of its players. To make the game work, you need to have a number of like-minded players who are willing to play in the semi-cooperative way suggested by the rules. If you have more variance among your players' gameplay style the game can be a bit wonky.
Rather than a group of semi-cooperative players, some players may be entirely selfish, totally unwilling to help out on the growing crises unless they're absolutely a matter of life and death, while others might be entirely cooperative, always helping their utmost toward crises and never hoarding. In these situations the selfish players will almost always win and the cooperative players will definitely always lose.
I think it's possible that this unity of play style will develop among players as they progress through a few games of Terra, but I'll still offer the warning that it could be an issue.
Beyond that, Terra maintains a good feeling of tension as the game progresses. You're always worried about that one more Crisis coming up which might send the world over the edge, and constantly feel that you're teetering. It also plays quickly, and there's some feeling of hard choices as to whether to hoard when you get a three-card set or keep them for future crises. (I say only "some" feeling because it felt like the correct answer was usually to hoard and hope for the best.)
It's somewhat hard to evaluate Terra solely as a game because that's not it's only purpose. It was put out in conjunction with the 2004 Barcelona Forum to generate discussions about greed, generosity, and the common good. And, in that aspect, I have to say it succeeded. My group talked for a good 30 minutes on the topics after we played a couple of times, and from what I understand that's a fairly common result.
I do have interest in playing Terra again, but it also didn't feel particularly innovative or strategic to me, thus I've awarded it an average "3" out of "5" Substance.
Conclusion
Terra is an interesting thought experiment and an interesting conversation starter on topics of global cooperation. It's a more typically average game that will probably appeal to families and casual gamers much more than serious strategists.
