A printable Terraforming Mars generation log lives or dies on the one claim nobody can prove from a finished board, because the whole game runs on one record nobody keeps: who raised which global parameter, in which generation, and who claimed what before anyone else got there. The game ends with oxygen at 14 percent, temperature at plus 8 degrees, and nine ocean tiles on the board, and by the time the table argues about whether a milestone was claimed or merely earned, the generations have blurred together, the milestones are gone, and nobody remembers whether the third city landed before or after the Gardener claim.
The argument is always about the milestones and the awards, not the board. Everyone at the table agrees the map looks right; what they disagree about is who got there first, because only three milestones can be claimed in the whole game, each costs 8 MegaCredits and an action, and each is worth 5 points, and only three awards can be funded, at 8, 14, and 20 MegaCredits, with first place worth 5 points and second place worth 2. A milestone claimed one generation late is not a smaller milestone, it is no milestone at all, and the game is scored to the point, so the mistake decides the winner.
The worked final line is the part buyers actually check before they trust the sheet. Take a player who finishes with a Terraform Rating of 34, which is 34 points on its own. She took first place in one funded award for 5 points and second place in another for 2 points, so the awards add 7. She claimed one milestone, Gardener, for 5 points. On the board she owns 6 greenery tiles for 6 points, and her two cities sit next to 2 greenery tiles and 1 greenery tile, which is 3 more points, so the board adds 9. Her cards add 11 points. The line reads: Terraform Rating 34, awards 5 plus 2, milestone 5, board 6 plus 2 plus 1, cards 11, a final total of 66 points, and every number on the line can be checked against the board and the claim order.
The counterfactuals are what make the log worth printing rather than scribbling. If her second city had stood alone with no greenery next to it, it would have scored 0 points instead of 1, and the total would have been 65, which is why the sheet records the greenery beside each city rather than just the city, because a city scores one point per adjacent greenery no matter who owns that greenery, and a bare city count gets it wrong. If another player had claimed Gardener first, the milestone would have been gone entirely, not shared, and the total would have been 61, which is why the sheet records the generation of each claim, because milestones are first come, first served. And if the first-place award had been tied, both tied players would have taken 5 points and there would have been no second place at all, so a "second place, 2 points" line written without the tie note would be wrong on its face. A buyer who can see all three lines on one sheet stops arguing about who claimed what, because the sheet shows the claim order, the adjacency, and the tie together.
That is why the sheet sells as a download rather than as a blank score pad. A blank pad records what the board looks like at the end; a worked generation log records the decision the table actually argued about, with the parameter raises, the claims, and the funding all on the same line. Print it, fill one line per generation, and the next time someone says the milestone was theirs, the answer is on the paper, not in anyone's memory.
This is an unofficial fan-made log sheet, not affiliated with or endorsed by FryxGames. Terraforming Mars is a game for 1 to 5 players in which corporations raise oxygen, temperature, and oceans to make Mars habitable.
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