Outpost Runaway Leader Issue

The runaway leader issue in Outpost was addressed in the retheming of it in The Scepter of Zavandor. Starting with Era II, the player in first place suffers a +10 penalty to card buys and second place suffers a +5 penalty. Simultaneously, the last place player receives a -10 discount to card buys and the next-to-last player gets a -5 discount. In Era III, the numbers increase to +20/+10 and -20/-10. Obviously this only applies to games with 4+ players. Would be a nice option to add to this implementation.

Such an optional rule would be useful. Thank you for explaining it. I’ve only played a few games of Outpost so far (I really like it!), and I’ve noticed that it’s indeed difficult to catch up to a player with a stronger economy. P.S. What about the discounts held by the leader (in this variant) ? For example, is it possible that, after accounting for a +20 penalty and various discounts (...), the leader ends up with a net discount of -10? I'm asking because I want to play Outpost with my friends live.

That's how it works in Zavandor.