Battlestar Galatica Board Game

Hey all,

I picked this game up Friday and I've been having a blast with over the weekend. It is a find the traitor game where the humans try to find the Cylon(s) in their midst.

Gameplay wise the game is more of a card game than a board game. The majority of the game is centered around the crisis phase of the game wrhere a random event occurs and the players contribute skill cards to try to resolve the crisis. There is a space combat system that makes good use of the board, but the other locations are more abstract since you can move between any of them for the same cost.

The goal for the human players is to reach Kobol, a mythical planet that represents the oldest known world on which humans lived (where the humans found clues as to the location of the last human settlement). The goal of Cylon players is to prevent the humans from reaching their destination. They can do this by depleting any one of the fleets 4 resources, by taking over galatica with a boarding party, or by destroying galatica. The twist is that the players don't know who the Cylon(s) are at the start of the game, and they don't know if they will become a Cylon at the end.

Each player is also assigned a character card at the start of the game. Each character has varying access to the skill decks and it requires a well balanced group to be successful. The characters have one always on special ability, one once per game ability, and a special drawback. These abilities vary in usefulness, but are fairly balanced in terms of the power of their abilities compared to the severity of their drawbacks. All of those special abilities are lost when you become a revealed Cylon. In addition there are two positions that can be held, one player is assigned the presidency and another is assigned the position of admiral. The president gets a special deck of cards to draw and play from, and often gets to make decisions for the fleet during the crisis phase. The admiral gets to decide when to use the nuclear stock pile, occasionaly gets to make decisions in the crisis phase, and decides where the ship jumps to when the jump track fills up.

Human players try to resolve each crisis to the best of their abilities and to evenly distribute the loss of their resources. They also should try to guess the Cylons among them and preemptively place them in the brig where they can do little harm to the rest of the fleet. Hidden Cylons can advance their agenda by slyly avoiding helping out, or out right hindering skill checks during a Crisis. Misdirection and subtle sabotage are your best weapons. A smart Cylon will try to get human players placed in the brig and to keep them there once they are there. Revealed Cylons sadly have limited impact on the game, they get their super crisis which are bigger and meaner than a usual crisis, and can force the cylon fleet to activate. They get to draw far fewer cards and are limited to adding a single card to a check. This doesn't mean that they don't impact the game, but the fun is over for the Cylon once they are found out.

Over all I find that the game is pretty well balanced. Out of the five (!) games I've played since Friday all but one was very close, and that was only because of some dubious decision making by one of the players. That might change as players get better at figuring out peoples tells. I also find that the game has quite a bit of replay value since each game the Cylon changes and it seems each game a new resource becomes the focus point. When the Cylon attack ships actually show up for the party they provide some nice suspense as well.

There are a few minor flaws. The basestars and ships don't show up often enough. Generally they show up right as the fleet is about the jump leaving the pilots with little to do. The game would be a bit more exciting if there was a good chance there would be a base star in play at the start of every jump. Similarly, the Centurion boarding parties are too slow to be a serious threat. People have to spend time dealing with them, or they will take over the ship, but they generally have a dozen or more turns to deal with the problem unless there are two (or more) revealed Cylons. The Sympathizer card is also highly anti climatic if it ends up turning you into a Cylon. The only really nice thing about Revealing (besides as a way of getting out of the brig if you are found out early), is that you get your super Crisis card. Since sympathizers don't get super Crisis cards they are basically dumped on the losing side and get ham stringed.

On the whole the game is just plain fun and can be appreciated even by people who don't watch the show. It is unpredictable enough that hilarious and un expected events can happen. The president / Admiral system is great for adding just a bit more paranoia; what if the people that make the tough decisions are really the enemy? The characters are varied and all of them have interesting game mechanics. I'd say if you want a great game to play with a largish group of people that is both cooperative and competitive give it a shot. I'd say that this is by far my favorite fanatasy flight board game, much better than Arkham Horror or Android in my opinion.

This game is also ripe for an expansion. An alternative or supplementary crisis deck like the ones provided in the Arkham Horror expansions would be great. Additional characters, or advanced versions of the characters would be interesting as well. I would love to play as Doc Cottle, The Lawyer, Duala, Quorum member Lee, Vice President Lee, Post new caprica Tigh, Athena, post new caprica Baltar, post trial Baltar, Geata, One legged Geata, Anderson, Calie, Hotdog, etc. I suppose on a side note, I would totally buy this game again or one very much like it if they adapted it to the Arkham Horror setting.