Archive for the 'Outpost' Category

Outpost is a futuristic economic game set in space which is richer than it may first sound.  The game ends as soon as one player has gained 75 victory points (VPs) or more, and the winner is player with the most VPs at the end of that round.

Player start with some ore mining facilities and a few human colonists to run them.  During the game, players will build new (and usually better) production facilities and will gain technologies and more colonists too.  The golden rule is (apart from one exception) if you don’t have colonists (or robots) to run a production facility, it is not ‘manned’ so does not produce anything and is worth 0 VPs.  Each player has their own player board which shows their current VPs, maximum number of human colonists, and the maximum hand size (cards).

At the start of each round, players draw income cards – one for each staffed production facility.  There are different decks for each type of facility and the cards say how many credits of income they have generated.  For example, the Ore Mining cards are the least valuable with an average value of 3 credits; whereas, the next better facility is Water Production whose cards are worth an average of 7 credits each.  (The best facility’s cards have an average value of 5o credits!)  However, the better facilities cost more to build, and many have restrictions and/or require technologies too.  This is a nice game mechanic as you know roughly what income you’ll get, but there’s still some randomness too.  Read the rest of this entry »