Terraforming Mars – How to Get “Grand Champion” and “Ultimate Success” Achievements

This guide will be showing you the steps on how to get the sweep-related achievements in Terraforming Mars, the “Grand Champion” and “Ultimate Success” achievements.

Milestones and Rewards

For getting the Grand Champion and Ultimate Success achievements, you must sweep the Milestones and Rewards for both new maps (not at the same time, though that will probably work if you want to try). Unfortunately, you can’t view the lists of Milestone and Rewards you’re aiming for until after you finish picking your Corporation, starting hand, and if applicable Prelude cards. So, here’s the list!

Hellas

Hellas has a special tile for the South Pole – place a non-ocean and pay an extra 6, and you can place an ocean tile. It also has spaces which grant heat as a placement bonus.

Milestones

Diversifier: Possess eight different tags

(There are 10 different tags possible: Space, Building, City, Microbe, Plant, Animal, Earth, Jovian, Science, Energy. Event does not count; Wild (introduced in Prelude) counts as any one type of tag. If the other expansions are implemented, that will expand the list of tags.)

Tactician: Five cards in play which have requirements.

(This can be global requirements – temperature, oceans, oxygen – or other requirements like tag-count and possessing greenery.)

Polar Explorer: Have three owned tiles on the bottom three rows.

(These are the closest to the special pole tile, and this will tend to be achieved quickly from the special tile and the ring of heat bonuses around it.)

Energizer: Have power production of 6+.

Rim Settler: Have 3+ Jovian tags.

Rewards

Cultivator: Most owned greenery tiles on the board

Magnate: Most green cards in play

(These are “automated” cards – non-events without ongoing effects or usable abilities.)

Space Baron: Most Space tags at the end of the game

Excentric: Most resources sitting on your cards at the end of the game

(Resources added but later spent, or removed by other cards, do not help.)

Contractor: Most Building tags at the end of the game

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Elysium

Elysium is the simpler variant map – all the ocean-reserved spaces are in the northern half of the board, and Olympus Mons has a powerful 3-card placement bonus, but it’s not fundamentally different from the original board.

Milestones

Generalist: Have all six types of income 1 higher than base.

(This has different requirements depending on whether you’re playing Corporate Era (where all income starts at 0) or the shorter base game (where all income starts at 1). For Corporate, this requires that all six be at 1+; without Corporate, they must be at 2+. The text of the milestone says ‘have increased’ ‘by at least 1 step’, but if you increased it and then decreased it, that is not eligible.)

Specialist: Have 10+ production of any one type.

Ecologist: Possess 4+ biological tags on your non-event cards; animal, plant, and/or microbe.

(This can be 4 plant, 2 animal and 2 microbe, one of each plus one more, etc. A card with multiple bio tags can count for more than 1.)

Tycoon: Have 15 normal (non-event, non-corporation, non-prelude – blue and/or green) cards in play.

Legend: Have 5 event cards played.

Rewards

Celebrity: Most cards with a base price of 20+

Industrialist: Most (Steel + Energy) at the end of the game

(This is after the final turn of production, just before the last round of Greenery-placing. So the relevant total is banked Steel + Steel income + Energy income.)

Desert Settler: Most tiles in the four map rows in the southern hemisphere

(There are no ocean-reserved tiles along the equator or below it.)

Estate Dealer: Most owned tiles adjacent to ocean tiles

(The ocean tiles can be placed well after the owned tile.)

Benefactor: Highest Terraforming Rating

(Other sources of points do not count.)