With the terraforming of Mars initiated, and several projects already being implemented, the World Government on Earth sees an opportunity to start working on terraforming Venus as well. It is a much more difficult 'task, probably requiring a thousand years. All the more reason to get started now!

Components

• Venus board
• 5 corporation cards
• 49 project cards
• Venus marker
• Hoverlord Milestone tile
• Venuphile Award tile
• Rulebook

The Venus Board

On the Venus board, players are offered a fourth global parameter: the Venus scale! On the cards it is simply referred to as 'Venus'. Because of Venus being a more long-term project, the scale only goes from Venus being 0% to 30% terraformed.

It offers more opportunities to get Terraform Ratings (TR) and bonus steps, and, like other global parameters, it stops giving TR when maxed out.

But the Venus scale is not an end game condition - you still only need temperature, oxygen, and oceans to be maxed out to end the game, meaning that some games will see the Venus scale completed well before the end, while at other times it will hardly be touched at all.

Cards that affect global requirements, such as Adaptation Technology, Special Design, and the corporation Inventrix, also affect Venus requirements.

Bonus steps: When increasing Venus to 8%, you get to draw a card for free. When increasing Venus to 16%, you get an extra TR.

A new standard project, Air Scrapping, allows players to increase the Venus scale one step for 15 M€, gaining a TR as normal.

Additional city areas: The Venus board also features 4 new areas for specific cities placed by project cards in the expansion, similar to Phobos Space Haven and Ganymede Colony on the main game board.

Maxwell Base is located on the hostile surface, while Stratopolis floats high up in the Venusian atmosphere. Luna Metropolis is located on our Moon, while Dawn City is a city on rails, moving in unison with the sunrise on Mercury, always just out of reach of the fiery glare of the Sun.

During setup, the Venus board is placed next to the game board, with a white marker on 0%, at the start of the Venus scale.

New Cards

The various projects in this expansion are represented by 49 new project cards, as well as 5 new corporations to choose from. These are recognized by the blue and white icon at the lower left of the card .

Shuffle these into the respective decks before dealing cards and corporations to the players during setup. Venus Next may be played either with, or without, Corporate Era or any other expansion.

Variant: Let players draw one of the Venus corporations, and one of the other corporations to choose from.

Floaters

Venus Next also introduces a new resource: floaters! Floaters represent hovering infrastructure in the Venusian atmosphere, where the pressure and temperature is similar to that on Earth.

The surface is decidedly more forbidding, with a 90 atm (bar) pressure and temperatures around 450 0C. Floaters are collected on cards and work in the same way as microbes and animals.

Wild Resource

This icon denotes an unspecified resource. See card text for details.

Venus Tag

The Venus tag symbolizes that the project is located on Venus or in its orbit. When a card has this Venus tag it is referred to as a Venus card.

Hoverlord Milestone

A new milestone is introduced: Hoverlord. It works in addition to existing Milestones, so that 3 out of 6 Milestones may be claimed.

To claim Hoverlord, you need a total of at least 7 floater resources on your cards. During setup, place this tile so that it covers the Milestones headline on the game board.

Venuphile Award

This new award also works in addition to existing Awards, so that 3 out of 6 may be funded.

Venuphile Award is a contest for most Venus tags in play. Place this tile so that it covers the Awards headline on the game board.

The Solar Phase: World Government Terraforming

Venus Next introduces a new phase after the production phase each generation: the Solar Phase.

Step 1: Game End Check

Step 1 in the Solar Phase is to check the end game conditions: if temperature, oxygen, and oceans are all maxed out, the game ends and final scoring begins with normal conversion of plants. No further steps in the Solar Phase are executed.

Step 2: World Government Terraforming

Step 2 is called World Government Terraforming. In order to terraform Venus without slowing down the terraforming of Mars, the WG has decided to help out.

The first player (player order hasn't yet shifted) now acts as the WG, and chooses a non-maxed global parameter and increases that track one step, or places an ocean tile. All bonuses goes to the WG, and therefore no TR or other bonuses are given to the first player.

Other cards may be triggered by this though, i.e. Arctic Algae or the new corporation Aphrodite.

Variant: Skip this step for a longer game.

The Solar Phase will be used by other expansions as well, introducing more steps.

Solo Variant

The solo variant uses the Venus cards and the Corporate Era expansion. Your goal is now to max out all four global parameters, including the Venus scale!

You still start at 14 TR and have 14 generations, but you do have the help of the World Government Terraforming during the Solar Phase. This means that you, as first player, always choose what the WG does.

This increases your strategic abilities, which you will need, because Venus requires 15 more steps to terraform, while the WG only helps out with 13 steps (since the 14th generation will skip WG terraforming because of the Game End Check (Solar Phase, step 1)).

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