From: dave@pce2.scg.hac.com (Dave Fandel)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Outpost first impressions and questions
Date: 11 Dec 92 20:58:47 GMT
Reply-To: dave@pce2.fu.hac.com (Dave Fandel)
Followup-To: rec.games.board
Organization: Huge Aircrash Co.  GSG


I might as well get involved in this thread, seeing as how I introduced 
Josh (irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu) to Outpost and he inflicted it upon 
his Swarthmore friends (that's right you can blame me - I even sold him
his copy)  [side note: My purchase of Outpost from one of the original 
playtesters has led to the purchase of at least 4 other copies by members
of my gaming circle - funny, Talisman had almost the same effect!!] 

First a question of my own:
in one of the responses alange@rahul.net (Andrew Lange) wrote:
> First and most important is to modify one rule - robots.  Limited robots
> makes Titanium-mongering much more difficult.  The suggested rule, as 
> posted several months ago by one of the game designers is:
>	One robot card lets you purchase as many robots as you have people.
>	Two robot cards gives you unlimited robots.
> In my gaming group, we played that each robot card was another 'set' of
> population, so two robot cards let you triple your workforce.

Does this mean double your base of 5?  Or does it mean that if you have
a Nodule and a Robot card you get an effective work force of 16 (8 people
and 8 robots)?  

Actually, my feeling is that the number of robots purchasable in a turn 
should be capped.  This keeps Robot people from doing the massive VP 
purchase (ore plant+robot worker -> 1 VP for ~20 cost) at the end of 
the game.

Josh (irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu) wrote:
> Eiji Hirai (hirai@cc.swarthmore.edu) writes:
> > (2) the lack of any Scientist cards coming up on the rolls, except for 
> > the one Luke snatched. 

> This is a problem for New Chem mongers: you're dependent on science coming
> up. On the other hand, the Ti barons are depending on the 30-point barrier
> being crossed before the New Chem mongers catch up with them in production
> (which they will do eventually), so it works both ways...

Although if you ARE a New Chem monger with those 2+ Data Libraries and the 
first Scientist/Lab purchased, then you DON'T want another one coming up.
(Don't want another New Chem monger outbuying you)

and in the same article Josh (irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu) wrote:
> > Maybe the VP needed should be changed from the piddly 75 to 150.

> We tried this once, and my impression is that we didn't like it, though I
> don't remember why. 

If this was from when I was still playing Outpost, then I seem to recall
we changed from 75 -> 100 VP. The net result was that the game lasted at
most 2 more turns and the same 2 or 3 people (the ones that would have 
been fighting for victory at 75 VP) ended up fighting for the win.

We have also tried an Outpost variation on number of dice.  Instead of 
the progrssion of d4 til 10 VP, d10 til 30 VP, d12 + 1 after, we tried
something like d4 til 10, d6 til 20, d8 til 30, d10 til 40, d12 +1 after.
I don't remember it being a good idea....


A final point.  A month or so ago someone (Bob Rossney? - hope I spelled
that right) referred to Outpost as a potentially good card game struggling
to escape from a book-shelf format.  And there is a great deal of truth
in that statement.  As it stands now Outpost (by TimJim) runs about $30
and contains a board (which is used as a storage place for the various
cards) and a lot of cards.  I personally would have preferred higher 
quality cards (including at least 36 ore min) and replacing the solid
board with a paper layout mat. (Nuclear War style mats)  Then the game 
box could have been reduced and probably the price could have come down
as well.

Has anyone played any of the other TimJim games.  The two I'm interested
in are Time Agents and Fast Food Franchise. 


dave fandel (NewChem monger)
I'm the games part of Chocolate Mint Books and Games
dave@pce2.fu.hac.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.board