Terraforming Mars Corporations Ranked

The corporations in Terraforming Mars are a great starting point for players. Each Corporation has a different number of MC, different starting resources, and effects that will influence how you play the game. However, depending on how many expansions you are running, you’ll have quite a few options to choose from! Today, we’re going to be listing the Top 10 Terraforming Mars Corporations. Not all of these corps will be available in all games. However, we will be giving a brief description of each so you can understand our thought process.

Top 10 Terraforming Mars Corporations

These 10 corporations come from the various expansions. The Base Game has 12, and then the various expansions have added another 30 to the game. We will say what expansion they come from if you need to know where these are coming from.

Before we continue, it is important to know that almost all Terraforming Mars corporations are fine, as long as you understand their strengths. The corporations alone will not win you the game. Pay attention to your cards and play to your corporation’s effect, and any one of them will go far! We tried to generalize the statistics for 2-5 player games. However, almost all corporations shine in some groupings!

Mons Insurance is a very aggressive starting company. You start with 48 MC, 4 MC production, and lower the MC production of your foes by 2! That’s great at the very beginning of the game, letting you set up your buildings and cards very early. However, you run into a problem; your effect is negative. Whenever someone causes someone else to lose production or resources, you have to pay 3 MC to the victim. That’s not great, but it balances out your absurd start.

9. Credicor (Base)

Credicor is an extremely simple company. You start with a wild 57 MC. Then, whenever you pay 20 or more for a card or project, you gain 4 MC. Simple and effective! The high MC start will let you pay for 3 of these high-cost projects right away, and the “discount” of MC will keep you from bankrupting early. You are lacking starting materials, though, so make sure you make those cards count!

Astrodrill is the asteroid resource manager. You start with 35 MC and 3 Asteroid resources. Asteroid cards are somewhat rare, but can allow access to rare resources and combos that other companies will have a lot of trouble with. You also gain the action to add 1 asteroid to ANY CARD or crush asteroids to get titanium. AstroDrill is great for players who like combos, but should only be tried once you have the mechanics down.

See Also: Best Terraforming Mars Organizer

7. Aridor (Colonies)

Aridor is one of the poster childs of the Colonies expansion. You start with 40 MC and a colony, a great start. The colony would normally cost 17 MC, so now you get a free trading post that can fast-track your resources. If that wasn’t enough, you can increase your MC production drastically with its effect! However, you will require a good hand so you can gather as many tags as possible. If you do it right, you can get up to 13 MC from this effect alone! Though that can be a chore.

6. Septum Tribus (Turmoil)

This tribe is based around the new Terraforming Committee board. Your start is terrible; 36 MC with no other benefit, although you can treat “wild” tagged cards as anyone you want. Good for combos! Your strength comes from your Action, which gives you 2 MC for each party that has one of your delegates in. This can get you a ton of money, but reduces your chance to take over any given party. Septum Tribus relies on you knowing the Turmoil mechanics; play it carefully!

5. Utopia Invest (Turmoil)

Utopia Invest might be from Turmoil, but this thing is a resource monster! You start with 40 MC and 1 production in steel and titanium. Great start for people looking to work with resources early in their game plan. For your Action, you can reduce your Production by 1 to gain 4 of that specific resource. If you need that one final push to gain enough resources to construct something, this action is really, really good! But, remember that you’ll be losing 1 production on that resource forever! Is what you’re building worth losing that production?

This corp is a novel. You start with 54 MC and get to draw 1 Science card for free. A bit of hand control never hurt anybody. What is slightly more impressive is its Effect. Whenever a Microbe is played, a disease is introduced here and you lose 4 MC. Then, whenever you play a Science Card, you gain 1 TR step and remove 1 disease. If there are no diseases, you can instead gain 3 TR steps and turn the card face-down, losing its benefits. Pretty crazy card! Very open-ended start with a lot of TR gain, if played correctly. It’s one of the few corporations that gives you points towards your win condition straight-up. Timing that +3 TR is key!

3. Tharsis Republic (Base)

The republic starts with 40 MC and already has 1 City Tile down. Pretty stellar start already! Cities are already superb resources for VP and TR. However, Tharsis pushes this forwards a bit; you gain 1 MC production for any city on the map, and you gain 3 MC for every city you place! This includes your first city. An insane start that will snowball hard into the late game.

2. Point Luna (Prelude)

This corporation begins with 1 titanium production and 38 MC. Not a bad start! Decent flexibility and good resource. However, what is crazy is that every single time you play an Earth tag, you get to draw a card. This can lead to a ton of redrawing, keeping your hand full and ensuring you spend your resources on the right things. Just make sure you have the MC to keep playing cards, and you’ll find yourself with a lot of actions and solutions!

1. Poseidon (Colonies)

Poseidon takes our pick for number 1, due mostly to its great all-round win rates, but also because of its rather potent effect. You start with 45 MC and 1 colony. This means you have a trading post and some good setup for the future, as well as enough MC to make some big early plays. Then, you can keep scaling up; whenever a Colony is placed, you get 1 MC production, including the one you start with. That’s a lot of MC over the course of a standard Colony game. Your corporation will be well-funded in the future, and enemies will be hesitant to start their own colonies for fear of empowering you!

Wrapping Up The Corporation List

Like we said at the start of this list, this is drawn from statistics from people who play and upload their content. There are 40 corporations, and they are all reasonable in most levels of play. Feel free to pick what you want and learn this fantastic game!

Terraforming Mars Corporations Ranked