The most luck-based expansion is in arena, Ridiculous.

[sixfaces]

Agreed - I hadn't even played the expansions that Arena adds as I thought the consensus was they weren't very good!

[andycupid]

I think the Base+TGS or even RvI are preferable to BoW, with reasons pretty much summed up by players above.
Yet, as one of the most popular games here, making the arena mode accessible to non premium users or having to separate ladders may perhaps be beneficial for both parties.

[obsidian_octagon]

I'll be the first to say on this thread that I love playing Brink of War with Takeovers on, and it's my favorite way to play RFTG. But I also love Alien Artifacts and Xeno Invasion.

Perhaps there could be some sort of rotation with the Arena mode to make everyone happy. I think they're doing that with Carcassone, as about half the people wanted no expansions and half wanted all the expansions.

I'd be interest to know what the actual stats are in terms of the most played RFTG expansions on BGA.

[Raeoran]

Agreed. At the very least they could have disabled takeovers. Prestige is a mess but takeovers are the true worst mechanic in my opinion. Base+TGS would be my choice for competitive.

Would you mind expanding on that, re: takeovers? I'm curious because the BGA community seems to be more anti- than pro-takeover, but I've always found them interesting and a number of cards in the first arc lose a lot of utility if they're disabled (which I suppose could be a reason to simply not play the first arc).

[Tanjanica]

Personally, I love the BOW expansion and the added options for combinations, takeovers, strategies, and high-scoring games.

Yes, there's luck involved, but that's been the same since the base game and I can't stand the limited, often repetitive games that come from only using the base card.

I might as well go and play Catan...

[m10rost]

There are several disproportionately strong cards in the expansions 2 and 3:

Interstellar Casus Belli
Pan-Galactic Security Council
Pan-Galactic Affluence
Federation Capital

I'd rather remove these cards from Arena to balance the game.

As to the prestige, it's OK: it's possible to fight against it, especially after removing of the above cards.

[nmego]

Personally, I love the BOW expansion and the added options for combinations, takeovers, strategies, and high-scoring games.

Yes, there's luck involved, but that's been the same since the base game and I can't stand the limited, often repetitive games that come from only using the base card.

It is not like that's the only expansion for the game, there's still AA, XI, TGS and RvI. These are all perfectly good alternatives to BoW which are arguably more competitive (Except probably for XI, I don't have that much experience with it but I still think it is probably less luck-based than BoW)

[tamesizeya]

I think the main problem in BoW is that Prestige Leader gives too much benefit in 2er game.
It just become keep getting prestige then also +1 card and 1VP every round.
(prestige also count as 1VP at the end of the game so it's actually 2VPs)
Suppose there only 7 rounds in a game, and your opponent luckily get prestige at the first round but you don't.
Then you have to get ready for losing 5+ VPs just because you don't get the Prestige Leader back
This is also the reason why some cards are too strong in 2er game.
Such as Pan-Galactic Security Council,Pan-Galactic Affluence,UPLIFT Gene Breeders,etc.
These cards all provide a easy way to gain prestige every round.

The worse is that sometimes these goals appear in the same game:

Maybe you can use the VPx2 action to get the 5VPs goal first.
But if your opponent get the other 2 goals,that is equal to lose 14 VPs(5+3+3VP+3prestige).
With the Prestige Leader bonus,just get prestige then auto get VP chips every round.
Most of the time it is really hard to get the Prestige Leader back in 2er game.
Sometimes you even have no ways to gain prestige whole the game.
I don't think that is really fair :S

Although the Prestige Leader is terrible, but I think the prestige/search action is a good design.
You can use the search action to find the card you want in early round,not just using explore.
Develop cost-3 or consume VPx3 also be useful in the game.

Maybe we can try to remove the Prestige Leader in 2er game to get better game balance.
Then the prestige just become another type VP chip.

Or just don't care about the result of a 10-minutes-finished game,try to win next time.