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I finally figured out why my group's game nights were dragging...

Turns out we were spending 15 minutes per turn on average because no one remembered to read the player aids before the game started. Found a post on BoardGameGeek that said the average game of Terraforming Mars takes 2 hours if everyone knows the rules, but ours was hitting 4 hours easy. Has anyone else tracked how long your group actually takes vs the box estimate?
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seanlee
seanlee17d ago
Yeah that 2 hour estimate is basically a fantasy for most groups. Have you actually tracked how long your turns take by phase, like early game vs late game? Terraforming Mars gets especially brutal in the gen 8+ range when everyone has 10+ cards and multiple production lines going. We found our early turns were like 30 seconds but the final 3 generations were swallowing up 20 minutes each because people kept forgetting their blue card actions. What was the biggest single time sink for your group?
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cooper.phoenix
Oh man @seanlee, we had to ban blue card actions after gen 6 just to keep games under 4 hours lol.
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derekjenkins
derekjenkins14d agoTop Commenter
Nah, slow players are the real problem, not the card actions.
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