This is exactly what you’d expect from a big box put together by those who came up with the components for Terraforming Mars

that box was $100 + shipping. Insanity.

Glad you reviewed this, Tom! Totally took care of my FOMO. ;)

I got it, im glad I did, but I will never support another stronghold kickstarter again. They had a chance to really make this nice. Even the insert itself, though functional, does not seem custom at all. Add the poor quality control and other issues and you really have an underwhelming product that we paid a very premium price for

The instructions for placing the game components did come with the box on mine. Unfortunately, it was attached to the plastic covering for the box. Just letting you know that how you placed your components were different from the official instructions. Basically, on top of the 1st tile tray held both hex map boards and the rulebooks. The top 2 trays are for your 3D tiles. The 3rd tray held your player boards, expansion boards, prelude cards, and the various cubes minus the original big white cubes. The bottom tray held all your expansion components. I don't own all the expansions (just prelude and the map board) so I used the bottom tray to hold all the original hex tiles from the main game. My biggest issue with the big box is that it is very hard to take out the 3rd tray once it's filled with components. I was disappointed that it did not come with the upgraded player boards nor the domes.

I was sad I missed the Kickstarter. Then, I was glad.

As someone who doesn't have any etsy stuff, it is a nice upgrade. Definitely could be a lot better but whatever, at least I can store all my TM stuff in one place

Great review! Honest as usual!

Totally agree! Anachrony had a great gyide to how to organize everything in the huge mega box. No reason for companies not to theow this in!

I know he had nothing to do with this big box but I can just hear Tom yelling with his fist in the air, "Buonocooooooooore!"

Completely agree. I was underwhelmed. For a deluxe upgrade, it was lackluster. And not having an instruction sheet was maddening!

Overall, the product is competently made and has delivered reasonable value for the content vs. price point. It doesn't really wow (especially compared to other 3rd party, more expensive tiles) but it remains a significant improvement over the base game. The real issues that will make me pause before I ever back a project from Stronghold again: 1] Incomprehensible QC faults from an experienced publisher- promo cards that are different sizes and barely fit the expensive, custom sleeves? Card box insert wrong size? Metal cube packaging (which wasn't their fault entirely)? 2] The poor and unprofessional communication from SHG in the forums. I DO NOT excuse any rude or derogatory comments from backers, but a publisher doesn't have the luxury for talking down to its backers, ever. 3] The "unsolicited refunds" to backers deemed to be "problematic" in their negative commentary- which sets a terrible precedent for KS. Tom Vasel summed it best- I'm glad I ordered it and will have it in my collection, but will be even more glad when fulfillment is all behind me.

ORGANIZATION FIX! Not having an organization guide is annoying and it frustrated me for a few minutes but I just printed off the portion of the original ks page that shows where everything goes. It’s about half way down the page in a section titled “Organization”. I printed out that section and stuck it in the box. I know it’s dumb that they didn’t do it but we can’t fix that side of it. Hope this helps others!

The kickstarter updates have a new layout update. Lays out all the inserts and where it all goes in the box.

Great honest review Tom! Perfect timing after that "Ugly but beautiful inside" video where you all talked about Terraforming Mars and its lackluster game components, and needing to do so many upgrades.

Agree with Tom here, in that I'm glad I have it, but only because it's better than nothing at all. I definitely don't feel like I got my money's worth since it cost $120 (including the fleet ships and first player marker) and that's not even including shipping (which was not cheap to the UK)

I got it but I am sad I didn't get the domes for the cities.

The only original parts I have left are the cards, player cubes and rule book. Everything else has been changed. Also, to bad you didn’t get the cubes. Would’ve loved that video.

I love my TM Big Box. It serves its purpose of holding everything together in one place. It sure did replace the flimsy original box that's for sure. The only thing though is that it's not as portable as before; I cannot be bringing that around everywhere.

I really like TM but I’m quite content only having Prelude and Hellas/Elysium. The game doesn’t need to be any more complicated and it all fits in the original box.

It would be funny if the games that doesn't receive a seal of approval or excellence just get a word at the end, like "Glad" or "Problematic"

I'll wait for a future Kickstarter.

I'm glad I didn't get this one. However, one that I wish did come out would have been a Big Box for Western Legends... They didn't even consider it in their last kickstarter which finished up the series. Hopefully companies will take notes on how to run things better in the future.

I never could have backed this because the price is prohibitive but I'm still glad I didn't. It's a nice idea, as the multitudinous amounts of upgrades on Etsy attest, but poor execution. Heck Even Wingspan which had no insert printed a packing guide on the side of the box, it's not that hard. Also, unrelated, you've come a long way over the years Tom and it's great to see you still going strong. Thank you for all you do for the community.

I must say I received my Big Box the other day, and I'm completely happy with it. I think the box and tiles are beautiful and the insert is well thought out. As mentioned it should have had instructions on how to sort everything into the box, but that's about the only criticism I can levy against them, which isn't much in my books.

I am also wondering if the Robinson Crusoe bigbox will have these same problems

Does the big box include the base game?

anyone know where to get those colonies wood pieces?

Still waiting on my copy here :( The only thing that will bother me are the mismatched sizes on the cards. That is not ok.

The best dice tower judgement ever 🤣

Good accurate review. Manual + no instructions was a downer. Box quality, could have been better. Still glad to own.

What's the difference with the new small box ?

Hi Tom/DT - What's with the display of Bora Bora? A great dice w/p game IMO, but I know Tom is NOT a Stefan Feld fan and I could not see any news that it is being reprinted. Is there any significance to why it's being displayed?

I'm personally delighted with this big box in every way. I think it's really fantastic. Finally I can set the game up quickly, and I think the quality is excellent!

We have all the expansions and new player boards in the original box. It's a tight fit, but it works.

Yeah, I'll stick to the app. Looks better, is way more convenient, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Stronghold doesn't seem to love Terraforming Mars nearly as much as us fans do. The most effort has once again gone into cutting as many corners as they could.

I didn't find any of the flaws pointed out in this video. This might be caused by the fact that our publisher (and translator), Rebel PL, has extremely high quality control. Cards are the same size, the price of the entire box is merely $70 (and free shipping) and it seems to be made from a bit different and more sturdy materials. The instructions on how to put stuff inside is also included. It could be Rebel's or even any Polish publishers' thing since it is considered a premium quality product at such a price. The Polish (fully translated game too) TI4 box has some different items not available in the English version of the game for example. The Polish release of Tortuga 2199 or even TM's sister, Ares Expedition, already possesses the KS promos too. There are even cases when the Polish version of some board games have way better quality than original ones, such as Star Realms.

Me- just glad i didn't have to go searching for other vids on how to put things in. Just following Tom's setup. 😉 I received a damaged box for free for out local games club, would not have bought it otherwise, as you say- the fan made upgrades for this game already seem so much better. But the new cards were great- Also- in the pack I got they were exactly the same size, so you might have got ones that was off on the card-cutter?

I would be ok with this for a more reasonable price, but those cards being a different size, that is a real bummer. Why? How? Why?

Hopefully this review lit a fire under their butts, they just sent the backers a PDF of how to store everything. Still should have been a printed sheet. Excellent review as usual.

They show how to sort things in the box on the Kickstarter campaign

I found directions showing what went where.

I still haven't played my Terraforming Mars set since receiving it all, because I just get frustrated to no end about all the cards and organisation.

Otherwise the Big Box is fine for it's purpose, and I quite like it - but the size difference between new cards and the the old is inexcusable, and drove me nuts. Old cards were already a tight fit for the sleeves I use (Paladin Percival), and now I have to use different sleeves for the ~20 new cards? I'm not going to re-sleeve my old cards because of this. Very frustrating.

Prior to the announcement of this KS, I purchased a 3D printer and took a couple of months to print my own set of tiles. The initial investment cost in time and supply was steep so I was upset at myself when Stronghold announced this KS. Now, I'm glad I did what I did especially seeing this product. It was a much better investment.

Regarding the odd card size, I sleeve all my TM cards and as long as they still fit the standard size sleeves, shouldnt be too big an issue. I definitely want those colonies overlays though as i just bought that expansion. Only missing Venus and Turmoil. Thanks for the heads up Tom. Keep up the great work, good sir.

It looks like the 3d tiles need some shading and highlighting

I agree with these comments. I got mine and Im happy with it. I had my expectations set at the correct level. Still, it really did feel underwhelming. And i couldnt agree more about the sheet that tells you how to put it together. I realize that there are ways to find out how online, but come on....a sheet would of been nice!

$300 for the box in NZ.

Why didn't you just go to the Kickstarter page which has a large organization picture of where to put everything in the box? 😝

The box itself is nice, but the tiles are kind of cheap and crappy compared to my etsy set. The slightly larger cards are ever so slightly too big to fit in standard sleeves, so i had to buy their proprietary ones. Feels like a rip off.

Imagine the backers faces when they find out they can build custom inserts to fit EVERYTHING in the original base game box.

NO INSTRUCTION SHEET??? 🤬

I'm so so glad I didn't get this! So unnecessary and cumbersome! But that the promo cards have different size than the other cards they're supposed to shuffle together with. Crazy! I would be so mad! Stronghold Games and FryxGames and Schwerkraft-Verlag are best to be avoided in the future.

Broken Token has a nice looking crate. Anyone here have it?

Looks a bit low quality for the price tag.

Oh no, the metal cubes weren't just individually wrapped. The individually wrapped cubes were also separated into different colours, each in their own bag. Finally all three of these bags were also in another plastic bag.

I love this game and I had a HUGE problem with the size of the added cards. I Double-sleeved my game. The perfect-fits were already really tight on the old ones. The new ones were terrible to put in them and they bow like crazy so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to take off the perfect fits and just single sleeve my game now. Why the crap did Stronghold just not make the cards the standard size?!...and how do you not cut the additional cards the same size?!

Honestly it's quite ridiculous that the box didn't include instructions on how to put everything. Also the box with the cards is so hard to get out, even with slender fingers. The markers are really terrible. Two of them have the exact same colour and the Venus one is barely recognizable, you can hardly see the V. There's also a smaller box that fits perfectly in one of the holes but I literally have no idea what it's for. I've sleeved all the cards and they fit in the long box so I just have an empty box for no reason whatsoever. All in all, I'd say it's a decent-ish product for someone who hasn't bought any other upgrades. It all fits and it makes the game better looking, but it certainly wasn't worth $100.

Late to the comments here, but what's frustrating about this review is, it is clear Tom didn't participate in the KS. If he had, he would know what everything was for and he'd know that the KS page had the photo instructions for how everything fit in the box,. Additionally, they provided a downloadable PDF of the same. So while he may be reviewing this from more of a retail perspective, some of the complaints would make more sense if he had stated that.

Usually these big boxes should have instructions, but this one had so much extra room that you can fit everything in many different ways. There are several big wells that are empty for me. The different size cards, it seems all new cards are that bigger size. At least my new base game I got with the big box were same size as the protos.

Credit the videos you watched. That's just polite.

Just today (a day after the video) they published the packing guide as a kickstarter update www.kickstarter.com/projects/strongholdgames/terraforming-mars-big-box/posts/3216953

Not sure who was waiting for this at the given price..

I also got this and after receiving it I'm glad I got it, but I will never buy anything from Stronghold games again.

I am rather happy with the box itself and the molds, which does not mean that things could not have been better - but somewhat I feel at the end of the day you have to I integrate you dream scenario with the reality at hand (I mean come on we regularly do it with movies which still entertain us). So having said that I feel like this review is somewhat missing the point. So the box's rating is good to ok with a couple of things one can deal with but is it in the end a deal you should go for? Does Etsy for instance offer you the better deal(s) in the end? As it is not a new game but just component upgrades without a comment in this direction the whole review does not really serve a purpose I feel..... PS if you want to be annoyed with stronghold take their answering of question during the campaign for any company out there THIS IS HOW NOT TO DO IT

how to sort the box is literally on the KS page.....such a baby

TY Tom for the video! Really sorry but for me all those ugly plastic 3D pieces are much more awful that the original hexes I loved! Subjective thing you said? So not for me! But TM is still my #1 Board Game!

great review - I could tell it was painful to admit all the flaws

I HATE kallax monsters. When you've made your game 3 layers of inserts deep and have to pull out a lot of unnecessary stuff in order to get to the necessary stuff, your box should've just been a coffin box. So what they don't fit in a very specific ikea shelf that boardgame reviewers made popular, I wanna open up a lid and grab what I need.

If Tom dropped everything for the introduction like he usually does, I think it'd cause a little earthquake

No, the tiles from the original game ARE better than the "fancy" plastic junk that's in this box. Plastic doesn't mean automatically better. These make the game much cluttered, more difficult to see the board state, and take way more space in general. They also don't look that great.

Anachrony did so much better job with their deluxe box. With proper manual how to sort everything and put it back... I'm always surprised that this big games like Terraforming are so much worse than much smaller ones.

All that hubbub from Stronghold about finally giving us 3D tiles and the box doesn't even come with a proper instructional guide. That pretty much sums up these bloated Kickstarter projects. They attract people with the shiny stuff but don't pay attention to the functionality of the product.

Glad I didn't go all in on the Kickstarter!

Nah I'm happy with my BB and all add-ons, besides there is no rocket science to organize things inside the box, and you can always organize things as you wish, I had just the base game and never played other expansions (I was waiting this bundle) anyway for me is a huge improvement compared to the cheap base game components, surely there is a lot of room for improvement here and some etsy tiles looks better but is way more expensive and with no storage solution, I got it, I'm glad I did and the table presence looks amazing but I understand the complaints of others, maybe my expectations were low and was a nice surprise, as always if you skipped and you are glad it's good and if you got it and don't like it, just sell it, and that's good too

love my big box - seems quite obvious where everything went to me. a unified rulebook would have been nice. kinda expected one but it was never mentioned on the KS. one box instead of 3? SOLD

Barf!

Seems expensive for what you get

This game seems incredibly bloated with all the expansions. I hope in a few years time they release a second edition that comes with Prelude in the base game and better art/components. Only if that happens will I ever consider buying Terraforming Mars.

...or you could buy Race for the Galaxy, which is basically a deck of cards with some tokens and a MUCH better game overall

I'm still surprised they missed the opportunity to make a complete all in one Rulebook for the game. I mean if you are getting this box you more than likely have all the expansions anyway. They could have used it to clean up a few of the rules that are not understood well by new players and had a page for how to put the box together all in one. Those tiles are nice but Tom is being overly generous when he says they are on par with secondary market tiles. Secondary market 3D tiles are light years better. The worst has to be those garbage cardboard player boards that will warp over time. you can get WAY better ones for the same price as they sell them separately in wood. All in all a terrible product IMO.

The Ancient Greek word for "whatever" is "ΟΤΙ ΝΑ'ΝΑΙ".

Whoopie kada doo

Yep, not even a single sheet showing where everything goes. I had to find a video to do it and even that video wasn't a "How to" video. Just lazy.

I'd prefer a deluxe edition with better cards and card art than the big box.

I must be part of the minority that prefers the regular tiles to these toy looking things.

And still misses the most practical upgrade you can get for Terraforming Mars: A card shuffling machine.

Tom seemed really upset he had to figure out how to put things in, even though he benefitted from the freedom of the box to allow his own upgraded components to fit. I love the Box, does everything I wanted from it (be a nice Box). What games that offer Big Box storage solutions do people enjoy? AT LEAST THIS GOT ONE, waiting on you Root, Spirit Island.

This is how it should have been. The quality of the regular copy is an insult to the buyer.

Oh man, no sleeves!

Underwhelming. could have been better, cooler, unique...was my overall feeling as well. The only time I went, "neat", was when I saw how compact the cube holders were. The cities in particular had too similar a mold, it was like they sucked the fun and creativity out of futuristic Martian city design. Just OK in the end.

New title for the video: Tom Vasel's trademark "carelessly toss everything around using only one hand", while reviewing Terraforming Mars Big Box and trying to figure out how to put everything back in the box. Now, jokes apart, I'm really thinking about buying the big box but I just can't find any truly unbiased reviews to check on it. This video didn't really help :/

The illustration on the original kickstarter page shows you where everything goes. Not difficult at all.

Wiat u expected quality from stronghold games ? Rofl ... they havnt made a quality product in terms of art and components ever

That's a lot of bling for one of the ugliest games out there :p

Good game but too slow paced for my taste.

This game must have been cursed to always look ugly

Terraforming Mars is mega ugly.