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Debate: should you learn a game by reading the rulebook first or diving in?
Last Saturday me and my group spent 45 minutes trying to set up Terraforming Mars because nobody read the rules ahead of time. Halfway through we realized we'd been doing the whole generation phase backwards. So which side are you on - study the book for 20 minutes first, or just learn as you go and expect to screw up?
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hunt.nora1mo ago
Actually Terraforming Mars doesn't have a generation phase, it has rounds and generations are tracked differently. You might have been mixing up the turn order rules from another game. For heavy euros like this one, skimming the rulebook before play prevents that kind of confusion.
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the_mila1mo ago
We had a rough first game of Terraforming Mars too, honestly. The thing that saved us was printing out a quick reference sheet from BoardGameGeek, the one that lists every action and phase on one page. It's way easier than flipping through the rulebook every turn, you know? Having that cheat sheet right there stopped us from mixing up the research phase with the action phase, which we kept doing.
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mark_price8d ago
That's basically how I approach any new hobby or tool now, not just board games. I've found that skimming the manual for 10 minutes before trying something saves at least an hour of fumbling around later, whether it's assembling furniture or learning a new app. The people who just dive in usually end up backtracking more than the few minutes they saved by not reading first.
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