Last night we had a strange situation.

I've invited 5-6 players to play and mentioned to a few others, to see if they're interested. Well, guess what, EVERYBODY turned up! So there were 8 of us, most of the players never played pegasus before, everybody wanted to be cylon leader, etc.

So we came up with this:

- 4 humans

- 2 cylons

- 1 hostile cylon leader

- 1 sympathetic cylon

Only Baltar OR Boomer, not both of them (actually noone chose them after all...)

Well... The hostile leader playing with cavil got mutual destruction (help the humans win), starbuck (the last player in the first turn) got a you're a cylon.

I was playing cain, admiral.

On the very first turn, Ellen Tigh got to look at someone's loyalty card, (s)he picked Starbuck, and she was found out - but since everybody wanted to do something, nobody bothered to brig Starbuck. All of the first 5 crisises had jump icons, the cylon leader started infiltrating but got sickbayed, so by the time I had my FIRST action as admiral, we've already traveled 2 distances! So, my first action was BLIND JUMP! We traveled 2 more, lost 3 population, sleeper phase. Roslin got sympathetic (she drew join the colonials), ellen got prezd. So came Starbucks first action, she revealed AND GAVE THE OTHER YOU'RE A CYLON CARD TO ME! So there I was, playing a cylon admiral. By the time the turn get back to me, we already jumped once (I chose a 2 distance instead of a distance 3). I had no good idea what to play, so I thought I'd waste an action with launch scout. I drew a Cylon Assault, which I had to shelve in order to avoid being found out! So I drew my actual crisis, and it was Legendary Discovery! Come On!!! So we arrived on NC, with both the leader and the sympathetic infiltrating and just one revealed cylon. By my next turn 4 ships were prepared, I tried to urge galactica back by breeder's, but the others didn't like it (we had like 9 food or something), so I had to prepare one more ship. My crisis was interatmos jump, thus at the end of MY TURN galactica returned. COME ON!! The next player's crisis evacuated one ship, the leader finally stopped infiltrating to get a super crisis (needed for mutual annihilation), the sympathetic went up to repair pegasus (luckyly her crisis didn't evacuate any ship) and I managed to persuade the next player to XO me, to "go up and start shooting with pegasus" - he was in detention, couldn't do that himself. So my action -- JUMP!!

The one evacuated ship had one population. We had 9 remaining. We lost 8 population, 1 morale and 1 food.

But EVERY HUMAN (all 4 of them) was on NC, and since the cylons focused on morale before (even starbuck's reveal was lose one morale) we only had 5 remaining. So the 4 execution brought it down to 0!!! YAAAY!!

The only negative thing about the 8 players game (beside the huge noise and confusion) was that the cylons always run out of skill cards (drawing only 2-3) and had to wait 40 minutes to draw a new one

So it was 4 humans, 2 leaders with "help the humans win", 1 revealed cylon and 1 cylon admiral! And we won. I'm so proud

What do you think? Is it crazy?

I'm starting to not even like 7 player games, because each player has so little influence. Heck, the poor Cylon Leader gets like 7 actions the whole game. At least the Humans and Cylons have allies.

I'm waiting for someone to do a 15 player (or even 17 player!) game.

I think it will be hilarious because there will probably be a few players who only get one or even no turns.

I'm playing a 10 player PBF game on BGG and so far I have only taken 2 turns and Galactica is already at distance 6 and about to jump. I think I will probably only have taken 3 turns by the end of the game.

Huge BSG games are a great example of the "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" principle.

Yeah, we definitely won't be playing 7-8 player games for a while... 5 is optimal

Daver said:

Except for Pegasus games with a Cylon Leader where 4 or 6 is best. Oh my

DCAnderson said:

Why do you think 6 is better than 4? I prefer hostile agenda to sympathetic...

Our group prefers 5 or 6 player games over 3 or 4 player games. The 5/6 player games tend to be more challenging, and thus more fun. Three player games are often too easy for the humans to win, and in a win player game the sympathizer tends to tilt the game too strongly towards the side s/he joins.

Even in a 6 player game where there are 3 on each side there are plenty of chances for the humans to pull out a victory. IN a four player game with only 2 humans, you can get hosed really easily.

My friends and I tried a 7 player game once, it was ok, but I doubt we'll try it again. We prefer either 5 players w/o a Cylon Leader or 6 players w/ a Cylon Leader. When we ever have 4 or less players we generally play a different game.

I've played two six player games of BSG at local gaming conventions, and I've found six to be the optimal number of players. I can never get more than three players to play when I'm not at a convention. In the 6 player game, everyone got to participate quite a bit (except poor human Boomer, who never did get out of the Brig). One time we played without the Sympathizer and once we played with it. The humans lost both times. I was the Cylon Admiral Adama in both games.

All that being said, I have yet to play in a six player game that included the Pegasus expansion. I'm sure Pegasus would change things.

The split between 4 and 6 player games and 5 (and 7) player games for the Cylon Leader's agenda has always seemed odd and arbitrary to me...especially since two of the six "sympathetic" agendas are pro-Cylon and two of the six "hostile" agendas are pro-human.

Have you ever tried to play BSG without the Pegasus in 8 players? I mean 3 Cylons, 1 Sympathizer and 4 Humans. We have a party with friend and we're gonna try. What do you think? (I'm new in this game)

So the humans ruined their game by not checking out or executing you even after the cylon gave you another card.

What a way to lose an 8-player game, but they deserved it. I guess since they hadn't played Pegasus, they can be forgiven.