The next preview will be about the New Caprica board and personally it’s the one I’m most excited about. As seen in last weeks preview its states that there will be “optional revised endgame: the New Caprica board”

Here is a link to a good look at the board,
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/497353?size=original

The New Caprica board offers 6 new locations. We know one of them is called the Detention Center. And there is another yellow caution tap above it. Most likely another sick bay, or medical tent if you will.

The most interesting thing that can be made out is that the Caprica board has a new centurion marker on the bottom. They looks like three of them lead to a picture of a Cylon firing squad. Above that picture looks like a picture of Galactica dropping into New Caprica’s atmosphere, ie saving the day.

So here is how I think New Caprica works.
I think when you get to a certain destination marker the New Caprica board shows it. X amount of players are put onto the new Caprica board and they are stuck there until one of two things happen.

1. The centurion markers get moved in a bad way and the Cylons blow up new Caprica.
2. The centurion markers get moved in some sort of good way and Galactica comes and saves the day, everyone can now leave New Caprica and go back to galactica.

I don’t know how the centurion markers get moved but I think either way it can get moved for good things if the humans are ready for it. There’s a lot of possibilities I haven’t talked about but I want to hear your thoughts.

A few guesses from me...

When the fleet arrives at NC (I'm guessing after distance 6 or 7), the humans must decide who to send down there and who to leave on the ship (at least one character must move to NC).

NC will have its own crisis deck that is drawn from. Once the fleet arrives at NC the "standard" crisis deck is no longer used. (We've already seen some crisis cards that depict events on NC - they have a strange blue symbol in the bottom-right corner where the jump prep icon usually is).

A couple of the locations on NC will allow the humans to increase resources (probably just food and morale).

One of the locations on NC - the one with the skill check that does NOT have the yellow/black stripe around it - looks like it could be the New Caprica Guard. Presumably the NC equivalent of the Admiral's Quarters location, to get people thrown in the Detention Centre. Seeing as treachery counts for positive at that location, then presumably Cylon leaders can walk around NC locations freely and activate them (to try and throw humans in the DC).

The outcome of certain crises will advance the NC "centurion track". Once the centurion reaches the end space, then any human characters in the Detention Centre are executed - they do not receive replacement characters and automatically lose the game. Any characters not in the detention centre are returned to Galactica.

While the action is going on on NC, there is a monster dogfight going on around Galactica. Either as a standard setup, or through the revealing of crisis cards, a frak-load of Cylon ships are set up around Galactica either as soon as it arrives at NC, or once the survivors are off the surface. To end the game, the human players must have everyone (who hasn't been executed) return to Galactica and perform one final jump. The Cylons win by running down resources or destroying Galactica, as usual.

Those are my guesses anyway.

I'm not sure but one of those locations looks like the Pyrimid court that they had weapons stored under. A replacement for the armory perhaps?

Bleached Lizard said:

Actually, I'd lay good odds that it'll be the new distance 8 effect. Instead of needing to make one more jump for the humans to win, you survive the New Caprica board.

I further suspect that instead of a distance 4 sleeper phase, we might get an objective card where the Pegasus shows up at distance 4 and the fleet arrives at New Caprica at distance 8.

Man, I hope some of your guys' predictions are right, cause just reading through this stuff is making me real excited about this!

One thing that I keep seeing people say though that better NOT be true is that new objectives will replace the Sleeper Phase with different stuff. I'm sorry, but no sleeper phase would suck! Having that phase is one of the greatest parts of the game imo & I can't see that phase ever going away. Sure, make some other new stuff happen along WITH a sleeper phase, but don't get rid of it.

I mean, I can't be the only one that feels that way? Everyone knowing from turn 1 which side they are on for good? People like Gaius being able to use his detector ability turn 1 to auto know if someone is safe to send the president & admiral titles to? Yeah, that just doesn't seem nearly as fun.

Bottom line, DON'T GET RID OF THE SLEEPER PHASE PLEASE!

Frak Yeah

1. I’ve read all the arguments for no sleeper agent phase but I’ll put money down that its still there. Here’s why. In order to have no sleep phase they have to change Boomers card, they won’t waste a new character card (another pilot after we have Kat?) to update her. They could update it in the rules but that’s lame and not like them. Furthermore why fix something that isn’t broken. Yes there weren’t any sleepers in seasons 2 or 3 but umm did you see 4? There’s just no reason to get rid of it.

2. Lizard I never thought about those funny looking blue icons for NC. I think they act as Jump icons for the centurion mark at the bottom of the board. I think Von might be on to something with possibly fighting off the centurions markers to prevent the destruction of NC, or the execution of players. Most likely that means that the resistance fights have to keep fighting on the ground to stay alive. Then the Cylons use the NC Police to throw people in the Detention Center (good call).

3. My guess is that NC shows up some time between 4-8. And the people on NC have to keep that Centurion marker down constantly until they get to a certain distance, lets say 2 complete jumps. (i.e. not one 3 destination marker). Or some combination of what Lizard said and what I said. Certainly there is a point when Galactica can show up and save the NC people.

4. I do really like the idea of executing the humans in detention of the centurions get to the end, it is a firing squad picture after all. However killing a player permanently is really not fun, so I doubt they die forever. They probably do get a new character but humans would loose one moral and add more death toll to many characters executed = human lose. So that adds a new tactic even more, a Cylon could convince everyone to execute a human, then try and be the president and get the assassination plot crisis and choose to execute the admire. Then kill another human down on NC with the firing squads. “Send a message that shows the Gloves are coming off.”

GOOD WORK GUYS!!!

BD Flory said:

Corey has stated that the journey to NC is shorter, and that the NC board takes up the "extra time" granted by this, leaving the game approximately the same length.

I think it's also been strongly implied in previews and such that if you're using the Pegasus board, it's in play from the beginning of the game (i.e, the game picks up the story from the time the Pegasus arrives). I agree that the Sleeper Agent phase will probably be gone though, to be replaced with something else (my guess is something to do with the fire fight between Galactica and Pegasus, or the execution of a character - maybe the one holding/having discarded the most treachery cards, or something).

Mattr0polis said:

I'll just say what I always say when someone comes up with this argument: how do you know they won't replace the Sleeper Agent phase with something better? Just because you can't think of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Before Pegasus was announced, people speculated that at some point players would be able to play as the Cylon characters in the show (what are now the Cylon leaders) and the response was that that would be totally crap as you'd know from the beginning who was a Cylon and the best part of the game was the hidden traitor mechanic. Now it's been revealed how Cylon leaders will work and that they will be able to introduce another whole new level of double-dealing, backstabbing and paranoia, and everyone thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread.

So don't worry too much about the Sleeper Agent phase being removed. It may be, or it may not be. But if it is, be sure that whatever replaces it will be just as good if not better. And if you really want to play a game with the Sleeper Agent phase, just play a "season 1" game again! I'm sure they'll be two completely different experiences - one won't completely replace the other.

Vonpenguin said:

Maybe also the location for restoring morale...?

Sorthlador said:

I'd say that everything points towards there no longer being a Sleeper Agent phase... everything except Boomer's card (that's the one blip). Maybe the phase still exists, but it's after distance 1, or something...?

As for the argument of why fix something that isn't broken; you're right - it's not broken. But that's not the issue. The issue is that this game is based on a licence, and so it must stay accurate to the source material. There were no sleepers after Boomer, which has been covered by the base game. The sleepers in season 4 are not even nearly of the same type as Boomer (i.e, not sleepers who woke up and changed to the other side, sabotaging the humans' efforts). You could say that nothing in the base game needed "fixing", but they're still changing a whole bunch of stuff for the expansion anyway - why should the SA phase be any different?

So my main arguments for there no longer being a SA phase are that 1) the one and only sleeper was revealed long before the Pegasus turned up, which has been covered by the base game and 2) the SA phase condition is stated on the Kobol objective, which will presumably be replaced in this expansion. The only blip is Boomer, and even that is something that needs to be rectified in terms of keeping to the source material, as Boomer wasn't on board Galactica any more from way before the Pegasus turned up! So we will need a new Athena card at some point...

Has anyone considered this:

The first preview states that there will be seven new characters. Do you think FFG could be messing with us and that there could also be a few updates of old characters?

BD Flory said:

The sleeper phase still needs to exist in some way. If it doesn't, the Boomer character card becomes unplayable.

Bleached Lizard said:

I suspect that the trip from start until New Caprica is still going to be Distance 8, but that trip will take a shorter time because of certain elements in the expansion. The Engine Room, Helena Cain's Blind Jump ability, and a few of the Crisis cards which include FTL icons all seem to hint in that direction.

I don't know if Boomer will still be playable in the expansion, maybe it's replaced by a "Athena" card?

One thing I think the people that are against a sleeper phase should remember and that’s that the game needs to follow the spirit of the show, not be a faithful recreation. If it was then we wouldn’t have had Helo in the first game we would have had to wait till now for him. Since there are still unknown cylon agents and people that worry about being sleeper cylons in the show at this point it makes sense for there to be a sleeper phase still. If they can replace it with something better, great. But if not there’s nothing wrong with keeping it in to mark the halfway point.

Vonpenguin said:

Okay - I'll accept that. But the next expansion had better do away with it.

Personally I'm hopeing they replace it with a "go crazy because your wife was hurled into the cold blackness of space" mechanic.

Vonpenguin said:

That's at least another couple of expansions away.

I think the Airlock will be more a small box expansion, covering all its greatest "hits".

bioball said:

Total Spoilers Ahead:

Number 1 would have to be Cally. It was such a hit in season 3 and fan demand was so high that they did an encore in season 4

I'm still not sure why anyone would even argue AGAINST a sleeper phase. Why do you hate that part of the game, Bleached Lizard? I'm not making fun, I'm just curious really. To me that is one of the BEST parts.

LOL! I'm not arguing against it 'cos I think it's bad (or even because I hate it) or want it removed or anything like that. I'm just predicting the direction the game is most likely to move in. I like the Sleeper Agent phase just fine. However, I think that keeping that phase isn't appropriate for how the show continued after season 1, and so if we want the game to be an accurate representation of the show, it should go.

Furthermore, if the objective cards included in each expansion (and the one in the base game) are specific to each "season", then the instructions contained on them are likely to change. The timing for the SA phase is on the base game objective card, therefore there is likely to be something different on the NC objective card. That's all - no hating involved. Just logical predictions.

Fair enough. I guess for me, since you likely are going to only pick one objective each time you sit down to play, it seems like certain ones may turn out to be less fun then depending on how they alter the game. I guess my worrying is unmerited at least until this is officially released though. My hope is that every play of this game remains as fun as the ones are now is all.

I'm guess ultimately I'm curious if there will ever be a good way to play ALL the different scenarios combined into one epic game, without messing up the gameplay, etc. Like the Kobol objective, then the New Caprica objective that I'm thinking we'll see this next set, etc. That way you COULD skip certain phases on other objective cards, because playing the "epic long scenario" you will still get to do everything. Dunno if it would be possible or not. Have to see once this comes out.

I'm guessing the easiest way to do what you want is just to play one game of each objective in a row as a sort of campaign. I've already started to come up with preliminary rules on how to do this based on what we know so far and even keep some kind of continuity between each game.

This is for a 5-player game (the most common number we play with), and assuming the third Cylon leader is Leoben:

First game: start with the Kobol objective, no Pegasus.

Each player picks their character for the campaign; no player may pick Helena Cain. Before preparing the loyalty deck, seperate out the four "You Are A Cylon" cards into two piles: one pile with the cards that feature Caprica Six and Leoben Conoy as their image, and the other pile with the cards that feature Boomer and Aaron Doral as their image. Shuffle both piles (if "shuffle" is the most appropriate word for a pile of two cards each) and add one card from each pile to the loyalty deck.

Play as normal until Kobol is reached.

Second game: use New Caprica objective, with Pegasus.

Whichever player was revealed to be Caprica Six or Leoben from the first game must play as that Cylon leader in the second game. Whoever was revealed to be Aaron Doral or Boomer must play as Helena Cain in the second game. All other players retain their characters from the first game.

If the humans lost the first game by centurion boarding party, place a centurion at the start of the boarding party track at the start of the second game.

If the humans lost the first game by Galactica being destroyed, begin the second game by drawing two random Galactica location (not Pegasus or resource) damage tokens and placing them on the relevant locations. Any characters in those locations are sent to sickbay.

If the humans lost the first game by depleted resources, start every resource dial at a -1 penalty for the second game.

If the humans won the first game, start any resource dials that were a 1 or 2 at the end of that game with a -1 penalty for the second game. Any resource dials that were at 3 or 4 are not adjusted. Any resource dials that were at 5 or more get a +1 bonus.

Play as normal to New Caprica.

Wait for next expansion to be released.

OMG THE 3RD PREVIEW IS AWESOME!!1 This is gonna make for an absolutely EPIC endgame!!