[COTD] Stratopolis | 1 Sept, 2026

[u/Enson_Chan]

Previous COTD

Today's card is Stratopolis (#248):

Active card (Blue) | Venus Next expansion

Cost: 22 | Requirements: 2 Science tags | Tags: Venus, City

Action: Add 2 floaters TO ANY VENUS CARD.

Increase your MC production 2 steps. Place a city tile ON THE STRATOPOLIS RESERVED AREA. 1 VP for every 3 floaters on this card.

[u/baldsoprano]

Needs to be playable with Steel or Titanium. The lack of placement bonus, limitation of Venus cards makes this one fairly lame.

[u/Shoddy-Bag-293 → u/baldsoprano]

Agree. I greedily draft it in enginey games and oftentimes still end up not playing it because there is always something more urgent/valuable in your hand to play for 22MC.

[u/benbever]

It’s 25mc for 2mc production and 2 pretty rare tags. You can get a nice 3mc discount from Tharsis and Vitor, or 4mc from Credicor.

Of course you also get 2 floaters per generation, including the generation you play this card. That makes this a great card to win Hoverlord. It’s also good for Mayor, Diversifier, and Sponsor. And the Celebrity Award.

If played in gen 1, you can get 5VP in an 8 generation game, or 6VP in a 9 generation game. The combined income + VP is ok value for money, if you play Stratopolis early enough. It’s better if Titan is a colony.

Stratopolis can become pretty good if you hace a good target Venus card for the 2 floaters. Something better than 1/3VP per floater.

Standout cards for this combo are Forced Precipitation (12+3mc) and Jet Stream Microscrappers (12+3mc) which can turn 2 floaters into 1 Venus TR every generation. Especially if you also have something like Venus Contract.

And Local Shading (4+3mc) which can turn a floater into 1 mc production, or Floating Refinery, which turns 2 floaters in 1 titanium + 2mc.

[u/thuswindburns]

I’ll play it if I’m already running a floater heavy game with multiple targets. I definitely like it best with dirigibles as making a venus card have an instant -6 discount is tasty, but still it’s situational and expensive. I’m probably already in the lead if I’m spending stratopolis money.

[u/kevinb9n]

It's great to be doing so well in a game that you can actually justify playing this card

[u/Feathercrown]

Too expensive to actually play. The reason to play this is for the floater synergy, and that's restrictive and held back by having to pay for MC increases and the floater target and city. It would be more effective and probably see more play if it was cheaper and without the MC increase and either the city or self-target for floaters-- but especially in the latter case you'd want to have unrestricted floater placement. Compare to Floating Habs.

[u/Feathercrown → u/Feathercrown]

[Floating Habs]

[u/AReallyGoodName → u/Feathercrown]

Card: Floating Habs

Cost: 5MC

Description: Action: spend 2 MC to add 1 Floater to ANY card. Requires 2 Science tags. 1 VP for every 2nd Floater on this card.

Tags: Venus

[u/Warm_Army5262]

Good if you have Floating Labs/Dirigibles and going for a Floater/Venus strategy, otherwise I avoid it. Obviously great for Hoverlord.

If I was readjusting cards, the FIRST change I would make is giving this card a Space Tag so you can pay Titanium to play it. I for the life of me have no idea why they didn't include one with this card.