The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
[Battlestar Galactica] - Daybreak expansion hitting stores now!
Posts
I mean, in the original, Caprica Spamming was effective, just, you know, boring.
Twitch Stream
You can cripple the fleet that's on the board and just leave it there. It's not as effective but it's still gaming the system.
Anyway. Daybreak.
* Yay for Motive cards, like them much better than Agendas.
* New Characters... good stuff. Doesn't REALLY obsolete any of the old characters.
* Miracle tokens vs OPG... time will tell. I suspect at the end of the day, I'll prefer the old OPG; mostly because some Pegasus/Exodus characters live and die by their OPG ability. Take Cain for example. 1 blind jump is either well-scouted or desperate escape. 2 blind jumps is significant progress.
* Demetrius/Earth. This feels like a nice filler for those "Well, what do we do now?" after a jump or first 2 turns of the game, where nothing is really at risk. Again though - time will tell.
* Skill cards - nice additions.
* Replacement treachery... considerably nastier, and only a few of the new skill cards from other deck counters these. The issue here, I think, is simple dilution - Base game + Daybreak means a pretty quick cycle of cards, so a decent chance of getting cards that counter treachery. Throwing Pegasus+Exodus skill cards dilutes the pool by not insignificant amount...
* Mutiny cards. Hard one to call before playing, but I parsed them as delayed and rather expensive (action) negative result. So... fail crisis, get treachery or whatever - draw Mutiny. You now have a chance to prevent the negative result (press room), eat it (play the card) or take the risk that it won't happen again (risk brig)
So over the past week or so, I've been doing a little bit of experimental trimming and created an initial trimmed 120-card (+6 CAG cards) crisis deck. Okay, so it's only a trim of 34 cards, but it's a start, and I wanted to keep as many of the 'interesting' cards as possible. In fact, the biggest potential problem with the 120-card trimmed deck is that it may be too 'interesting' - too many cards may deal with Loyalty peeks, Jump Preparation, Treachery, and Mutiny than really intended considering the condensation of the crisis space. Still, I feel like the trim is in a state where it's vaguely presentable.
Trimmed Cards
Admiral Grilled (Current Player Chooses)
Airlock Leak (Skill Check)
Beseiged (Cylon Attack Card)
Blindsided (Cylon Attack Card)
Cylon Accusation (Skill Check)
Cylon Tracking Device (Skill Check)
Cylon Virus (Skill Check)
Domestic Dispute (Skill Check)
Enemy of my Enemy (Current Player Chooses)
Familiar Face (Current Player Chooses)
Food Shortage (President Chooses)
Food Shortage (President Chooses)
Hangar Accident (Skill Check)
Haunted by the Past (Skill Check)
Hera Rescued (Current Player Chooses)
Hidden Explosives (Admiral Chooses)
Hidden Identity (Skill Check)
Low Supplies (Skill Check)
Medical Breakthrough (Skill Check)
One Last Cocktail (Current Player Chooses)
Prisoner Revolt (Skill Check)
Question Procedure (President Chooses)
Requested Resignation (Admiral Chooses)
Rescue Mission (Admiral Chooses, Activate Basestars + Jump Prep version)
Review Galactica's Log (Skill Check)
Riots (Admiral Chooses, Launch Raiders version)
Set a Trap (Current Player Chooses)
Starvation in Dogsville (President Chooses)
The Passage (Current Player Chooses)
Unwelcome Faces (Admiral Chooses)
Water Sabotaged (Current Player Chooses)
Water Shortage (President Chooses, Activate Basestars + Jump Prep version)
Water Shortage (President Chooses, Activate Raiders + Jump Prep version)
Witch Hunt (Skill Check)
Deck Statistics
Deck card counts do not include CAG chooses cards. Cylon Ship activation counts include Cylon Attack Cards.
EDIT:
I don't know. They could definitely scrub and rearrange a lot of expansion mechanics to become core mechanics in a second edition, just like siege engines and ports did in Game of Thrones. I could see the pursuit track being on the main board, and when it fills you up draw a Cylon Attack Card. I could see Executions (and the Airlock) being on the main board. The mutineer/mutiny cards as the flat-out replacement for the Sympathizer, etc.
Demetrius is essential early game and before any cylons reveal. It is practically mandatory first move for extra politics, leadership or tactics. I know I'll start resenting that in a few games, because shoehorn. But otherwise, the early game is flush with cards and most skill checks and even a couple of missions are a breeze. Even if a single cylon reveals early (2nd game), Demetrius is worth it. After crossroads, demetrius is only usable if you're running a mission IMMEDIATELY after drawing new cards. After both Cylons reveal - demetrius is off-limits. If you haven't gotten the 2 distance mission, the game is very hard for humans.
I think the amount of XOs needed for someone on Demetrius Plot early game to find the 2 distance mission is out of whack. The first game we destroyed the Hub and... something inconsequential; so we had to jump the 10 distance the old-fashioned way. We mined the crap out of Tactics with Demetrius, to the point we got 3 Scout for Fuels in the game.
New characters. We got the New Adama, new Baltar and Doc a run. Adama is amazing. XO + activate location is so good it's almost OP. If he's paired with a character that can give him cards (Doc, Ellen or Caprica Six), Adama is the man. First game, Adama won us the game by sitting on the Pegasus engine room, XOing Anders on Demetrius Captain's Cabin, drawing 2 cards, then Adama discarded the 2 cards in Engine room to guarantee a jump.
Assault Raptor. Didn't use. We had Kat (and after an... unfortunate accident with Gaeta - Anders) as pilots and neither used the Assault Raptor. Probably just too much new shit to keep in mind and it slipped. I can definitely see Starbuck LOVING the Assault raptor.
New Treachery. Holy balls is this thing brutal. Next time we're playing, we're going to try out a houserule - that only half of the treachery cards (rounding up) in the skill check are resolved. Since the current player picks the order of skill cards, that should allow for some manipulation by both humans and cylons. The stacking effect of different skill check abilities on treachery is absolutely devastating and not enough ways to mitigate it.
One of the oversights we felt, is how poorly the new treachery interacts with the Cylon Fleet Board. A single Dradis Contact is enough to stop the fleet countdown with easy raiders, and at one point we had 6 civs on AFT because of 'bait', and no escorting. The delayed Cylon fleet meant we jumped just after the Cylons finally caught up. 2 Raiders in base game means 2 shots at Galactica every activation, because no civilians to chase until a Cylon Attack Crisis. With the Cylon Fleet - it's nothing.
Our next game, we're going to replace text on Dradis Contact with "If there is one or more Basestars on the main board, the current player chooses one to launch 2 raiders. If there are no basestars, place 2 raiders on the Cylon Fleet Board using normal rules, but not increasing the pursuit track"; and on Bait with "CAG places a civilian". See how that goes.
Mutiny cards. Honestly, didn't notice a huge effect of these. The amount of brigging that happened in both games was about he same as without Daybreak - couple of people per game went to the brig for reasons other than deliberate action of players. After the 2nd game I think I knew what it was - the Demetrius balances out by giving extra skill cards, which means the usual sacrificial moves of "We can't spend the cards on this crisis - I'll go to the brig" did not happen - we smashed every skill check like this we came across. To be continued, but for now... don't mind it.
Play before cards are added to a skill check. All skill cards are played face up during this skill check (including from the destiny deck).
This is the card om thinking about. When we had this out we first showed everyone the two destiny cards than one player at a time played his/her cards face up. This ofc ment the last player knew excactly what was needed to pass or fail. Rigth or wrong?
IC is officially errataed to not reveal the destiny cards, but otherwise you're correct.
We all thought the game was a blast and most of my friends had on clue what BSG even was but that didnt stop the fun.
In exodus+daybreak, do negative skill checks automatically become reckless, or is that an exodus-only thing?
Are quorum discards public?
I do believe Quorum discards are public information. I don't recall anything about discards going to the bottom of the Quorum deck or anything like that, they just go to a face-up discard pile and all discards are shuffled into a new deck once the Quorum deck is depleted.
Unless you're playing with people with extremely good memories, card counting shouldn't be an issue. I'll be honest, the practice of people going through and playing Rain Man trying to figure out which cards came from whom and which cards from the Destiny Deck turned me off from BSG PbP here.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Works both ways. It's a lot harder to get bad decisions past a live group, too.
That's simple to counter. Run an expanded dd and deal in new cards midway through - almost impossible to card count anything but tre after the first few. I'm doing this in daybreak 2
I hate to say it, but figuring that out is primary way of discovering secret cylons. If the attitute of the humans is "ooh, 3 piloting came out in last 3 crisis when it was negative, but let's move on", they will lose. Written records of things do occasionally help, but in Daybreak Day 1 game that just finished, I only had to refer to prior crisis once - and that was to check my suspicion that Kirindal voted to have himself killed.