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QUESTION:In general, we are happy with the current Expert Rules. It does take some time
to get used to if you have played the older rules. Most of the resistance to
them seems to come from the players who won extensively under the old rules and
who have trouble adapting or from players who are troubled at a theorectical
level by the face value domination of Titanium by Research (what is not
apparent is the *speed* difference of the Titanium production route due to
Heavy Equipment being present in the first group of cards). Since I often
win with Heavy Equipment/Titanium in the Expert Game (in part by carefully
managing game *tempo*), I can certainly testify that Research doesn't dominate
Titanium in actual play.
ANSWER: I agree, Outpost seems to be easily mutable. I.E., it is very easy for
players to make changes to the game without seriously affecting game
balance. One of the important facets of this is the ability of the
players themselves to make changes to the game. Since there isn't any
map in Outpost, it is very easy to make changes (unlike 1830). Replay
value is another facet of a game. I.E. after playing it 100 times, will
I ever want to play it again. Clearly, the more easily mutable a game is,
the more replay value the game has. Not that a game which has poor
mutability and low replay value cannot be good. Take Britannia for
example. But it is good to have those qualities in a game and Outpost
certainly is very mutable. I don't know how much replay value Outpost is
going to have. BTW, if someone, who has played the basic game extensively but hasn't
really played the Expert game much, talks in a general way about research
being very powerful. That person is talking about the popular stategy of
buying a bunch of Data Libraries early, getting a Scientist (or Lab) and
building lots of New Chemical factories. Building alot of research
factories made no sense in the basic game. I mention this because, in
a recent post, I used this terminology. I shall be more precise in the
future.
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