by Ranior
Ah, I am not alone!I too believe Terra Mystica is better than Gaia Project, but the nearly universal opinion has seemed to be the reverse. Glad to see other dissenters like me are out there.
I've recently written way more about my opinion on this than anyone really wanted in another thread. But if you want to read mini-essays go here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/28869020#28869020
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/28881287#28881287
I'll try to do a very quick summary here though: I prefer Terra Mystica because of three main factors: Aesthetics, Interaction, and "Simplicity"
I prefer how Terra Mystica looks. I love the chunky wooden buildings. I think the game does a much better job of presenting information than Gaia.
Terra Mystica feels much tighter and more interactive. My opponents are more likely to mess me up and seriously mess me up in TM. Between fighting for cult tracks to fighting for key hexes to key power actions, everything in Gaia is diluted--the cults are not zero sum, the hexes can be reached in so many ways it's harder to seriously impact anyone, and there are so many once per round actions available there's less focus on any of them. (Oh and the favor tiles too, although I've always been of the opinion Terra Mystica might be a more interesting game if there were 5 copies of the 1 and 2 cult step favor tiles).
Finally, while Terra Mystica isn't simple, I find new players can learn it and really start to grok it. There's something wonderfully brilliant about the way information is presented about the game state of Terra Mystica that you can really dive into it fairly quickly and start to hit that flow where you just are thinking about the consequences of your actions instead of just trying to figure out what you can do. Gaia I find is harder to that in. There's a lot more going on that you have to look at and consider, it's not as cleanly presented, there are confusing rules to grasp, etc. Much more of my thinking time is just determining what I and my opponents can do, and less on thinking about what those moves will actually mean.
Essentially my key complaint is that Gaia Project has more of everything and in the process has become this bloated beast of a game. Essentially there is ever more to consider on your turn, ever more subsystems to grapple with, ever more options and ever more starting variability, but I'm ill convinced it actually makes the game better. I've never paused while playing Terra Mystica and thought "Geez, I don't have enough possibilities on this turn, I really wish there was more to consider". Instead every turn is already full of tense decisions and tight player interaction. Gaia manages to partially lose the tension and adds more moves to consider, but I don't think it actually achieves in making those decisions more interesting. I doubt it is much deeper if it is at all, and I have serious doubts that it is balanced better. (I believe that the even more variable set up is likely a curse to helping alleviate balance concerns or the 1st player problem) It's still good at all player counts and better if you're playing solo or 2 players often. But for 3-5 I'd much rather play Terra Mystica.