That I purchased the Scepter of Zavandor should shock nobody. I've played Outpost well over fifty times, and only sold my copy when the offers got outrageous. As Jeff Goldsmith declared, "It's Outpost."
By the time I sold Outpost, I had burnt out. If not a runaway leader problem, it had 'fallaway loser' issues. But I hadn't played in years, so I was going to get this.
[Incidentally, Jens Droegenmueller credited James Hlavaty, this is an authorized reworking.]
Overall, I like the changes. Since you have six different characters (with different starting positions), I think replayability improves. The price increases(discounts) for leaders (trailers) don't kick in during the early game, but matter later on. In addition to the auctions and income purchasing, the technology trees ("Paths") can be purchased any time, so you have more options.
I also like how the endgame items ("Sentinels") are always available and not random. A few games of Outpost hinged on whether the first turn of Phase III offered up a 10 pt or 20 pt item.
A few quibbles -- I wish there were parts for two more players. Outpost's ability to play with 8 allowed for awkward numbers. That said, Outpost with 8 would probably be faster than Scepter with 6. Juggling technologies (etc) mean more pauses. That may just be new game slowness. I can't remember how long our first games of Outpost took, perhaps I'm comparing apples to snails. I may buy another deck of cards (if it's cheap) to allow for more players. Of course, I'm wondering how to make additional balanced mages. [For example, a mage that starts on no path ... how much starting money would they need to be balanced? They would presumably have six disks, should the first cost 15?]
I doubt I'll hit fifty plays on this, I play many more titles than in the old days. But I'm happy seeing this old friend, touched up with a bit of plastic surgery.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Scepter of Zavandor Strategy Thoughts
- Scepter of Zavandor
1. Almost no worries about change, making the requirement to count amounts other than total cash/cash > hand size generally unecessary.
2. Make sure to be playing with the right rules set. The original German rules are different from the English, which could be worded better. Some of the translations floating around on BGG are incomplete or incorrect.
3. Also be careful of jumping in too quickly when familiar with Outpost. First time I missed the extra 2 Magic Dust when collecting a Mega, err, Concentrated Energy.
4. I don't think the theme works as well as Outpost, but I got over that pretty quickly.
5. The extra choices of Sceptor can make the game drag more than Outpost. Once people know the game it speeds up to slightly slower than Outpost with the same number of people. I wouldn't recommend playing it with more than 4 with inexperienced players.
I think the calculation thing is outweighed by the number of options people have. In Outpost, you could open an auction (or not), and then internalize. Here you can open an auction, but maybe you want to buy your path advance first because you are bidding on a mirror. But if you lose that mirror auction then yuu would have wanted to do this. Hm decisions decisions. And these decisions are all before you open an auctino. In Outpost, you can see the results, say "Internalize" and then the next player goes.
But, this is all speculation at this point.