When Activating Cylon Ships, usually they are only activated if they are already on the board etc. And under 'Launch Raiders' in the rulebook, it says that, "if there are no basestars in play, then nothing happens." But when I was reading over the "Activate Cylon Basestars" section, I couldn't find a part that says, "if there are no basestars in play, then nothing happens."

So even though the section doesn't specifically state that "nothing happens", does "nothing happen"? Or do I spawn a basestar as if one suddenly stumbled across the fleet and decides to attack it? Or if "nothing happens", then basestars *only* appear/spawn during Cylon Attack Crises', right?

Thanks for the clarifications. I just got this game last night and have been trying it out solo in preparation for the weekend (:

We always play it as if nothing happens. It seems to make the most sense. Every time a basestar appears there’s usually civilians appearing at the same time so it probably would have been in the rules if they spawned.

Yeah, that makes sense even though it doesn't specify it for certain in the rulebooks...

Also, if I have the maximum number of cards (ten) in my hand during my "Receive Skills Step", do I *have* to draw more skill cards? Or can I elect to forego drawing them since I am already at my maximum?

Why would you want to? A fifteen card hand means you can throw more into your skill check and you don’t have to discard until the start of the next player’s turn anyway. It’s overall better to take them. The only disadvantage I see is if you’re Apollo and accidentally throw away a good card.

Maleficus_Sadi said:

Basestars only appear when a card's instruction puts them on the board. The most common are the Cylon Attack crysis cards, but some other crysis cards and destination cards can do it as well.

However if one or more basestars are on board than they launch raiders and heavy raiders if those types are getting activated but there is none on the board.

Vonpenguin said:

Exactly. I like Apollo so I prefer to play him when I can and I was wondering about this scenario. But I couldn't find anything that says I don't have to draw skill cards or saying that I absolutely have to either.

Thanks Nagypapi, I knew about the spawning rule already, they made that clear in the rulebook. But thanks for clarifying that basestars only spawn if a Crysis card forces them to appear (:

Anyone else know if I *have* to draw new skill cards if I am at my maximum hand though?

According to the rulebook, during the receive skills step "The player always draws the cards listed on his character sheet regardless of the number of cards already in his hand."

On the other hand you only have to discard at the end of turn, and until than you might skill checks made by the crysis card or by a location or just burn cards with launch scout, executive order someone, etc. to bring you under your hand limit.

"Yeah, that makes sense even though it doesn't specify it for certain in the rulebooks..."

The rulebook says:

"Activate Cylon Basestars
When a Cylon basestar is activated, the basestar attacks
Galactica. The current player rolls a die for each basestar on
the game board to find out if the attack damages Galactica
(see “Attacking,” on this page). If there are no basestars on
the game board, then nothing happens."

Locutus Zero said:

Wow... this is really strange. I found where you point that out on the online rulebook but I opened to that exact page on my printed one and that entire sentence is not even there. Ah well, I guess that covers it then. Thanks (:

Must have been added in to versions after the one you bought. I know there were differences between the early ones released last year and the ones that hit retail.

I have a related question that came up during our first game:

There are several crysis cards that stay in play. Which parts of the card are repeated every turn? Is it everything or just the second part?

We also weren't quite sure what to do if there were no ships of a certain type available. I guess you simply ignore them then?

The game was a bit odd, apparently because the cards weren't well shuffled. We seemed to get attack after attack...

There are several crysis cards that stay in play. Which parts of the card are repeated every turn? Is it everything or just the second part?

If a card stays in play, it will tell you what its ongoing effect is. Nothing else on the card will be repeated.

We also weren't quite sure what to do if there were no ships of a certain type available. I guess you simply ignore them then?

We've been playing that the current player can choose to pick up tokens and then place the new ones, but that looks like a rule we accidentally ported over from Descent. The rules say that if there are no more cylon tokens of that type, no more can be placed. If there are no vipers in the reserves but there are unmanned vipers in space, you can move one of those to the reserves when you activate the hangar. (p. 28)

The game was a bit odd, apparently because the cards weren't well shuffled. We seemed to get attack after attack...

It happens. We always make sure to shuffle thoroughly, and we still see that situations sometimes. Unless you sort the deck first and then shuffle, probability will make this happen eventually

jhaelen said:

The ship tokens are limited (so don't lose any - or at least ensure you know how many you are supposed to have so you can proxy if need be). If you have totally run out then you do nothing, there's no rearranging to pull more dangerous ones back to a safer position (or vice versa if the current payer is a revealed cylon). If you have less than the needed number then the current player chooses which of the ones printed on the card to fulfill and which to lose.

I looked through the card deck when I frst got my set and the base game has 70 crisis cards and 10 of them are attacks - the attack were all together in a block on one end of the deck - so before the first game that deck needs to be shuffled to oblivion to get them mixed up - I shuffled then fairly well and we still got 3 attacks on the trot in our first game with the set.

Thanks for the answers!

I think before we give it another try I'll first sort out the attack cards and distribute them evenly before shuffling. That should do the trick.

jhaelen said:

Except that a good shuffle will render the point of this moot!

If anything it's important to have the downtime associated with drawing no attack crisis cards, in fact the game is so incredibly Cylon biased that the only time you'll find humans winning is either through sheer luck regarding the deck or by having a terrible brigged and unrevealed Cylon in the fleet

I say let it be, we were brutalised before we had any jumps in one game and spent most of the rest of the game recovering, the humans won that game because the Cylon didn't capitalize on our weaknesses. If you were to get no fleet action cards then you should be concerned but then the cylon player can always reveal and spend the entire game fishing the deck for them!