In our first game we had three players but I had the impression it was a bit easy to figure out who the cylon was. I assume the game works better when you have more players. What do you think is the 'ideal' number of players (assuming there is something as an 'ideal' number)?

Imo 7 players is the best number

I could not say I disagree for the 7 players since I never had any game with 7 players, but... I would not want to try pretty soon. I agree 3 is not good. I think 4 or 5 is the best, knowing that with 4 players it is fun to have one cylon, but with 5 you have two and the events are funnier that way BUT the game is definitely longer.

More is better. If you can maximize (6 or 7 based ont eh expansion), then do it. But playing "short" by 1 or 2 isn't bad either.

jhaelen said:

I don't like the three player game personally, I think it reduces the "who's the Cylon" aspect.

I find the seven player game to just take too long. We aim for 5 or 6.

5 players seems to be preferred with the groups I play. 3 is not considered enough, 4 is perfectly acceptable. 6 players is better than 4 but not as good as 5. 7 player does heavily alter the nature of play as the amount of time you are doing things in other people's turn seems to extend rather heavily but it forces you to play a more risk analysis type game. I put it at the same level as 6 player myself - good fun, more than acceptable playability but not as good as 5.

I think 5 is the perfect number for a pre-expansion game or 6 if you want to make it easier for the humans (and play without the sympathizer). With the expansion I'd say 6 is the best number if you want to have a cylon leader. 7 IS doable, but after 5 it starts to get crowded. We played once with 7 and it was kind of messy. By the time it's your turn again you've run out of skill cards so the game actually gets harder for the humans because they have less cards per crisis. So if you want to play with 7 tweak the rules or play with a sympathetic cylon leader and 2 unrevealed cylons.

Anyway, I'll stick with 5-6 as my answer.

So far I've played a fair number of games with 4 and 5 players.

Based on this experience I'd say that the more the merrier, in a 4 player game it's not terribly difficult to find the unrevealed Cylon if he's polluting card draws since by filling the three primary roles some card colours become highly indicative of their source.

Five players is more enjoyable than four and a little longer but you get 2 Cylons for your money minimum and a lot more fun with the deceit, I haven't had a chance to play with six yet (Hopefully will soon!) but I imagine that again is even more fun than five but will eat most of a game night.

If you find your four player games lead to an early cylon discovery then I recommend banning Baltar as an option and instructing people to be careful of how often they decide to pollute skill checks as it's a dead give away.

I prefer 5, or 6 with a cylon leader. I like when there are two cylon hidden, as the intrigue is a little better, but I'm not a fan of the sympathizer/sympathetic cylon mechanics.

7 is fun, but it takes forever between your turns.

Thanks for all the replies!

So, it's as I suspected: more players are better. Apparently, I should go for five or six players (I don't have the expansion yet).

Actually, I'd also like to give credit to the two-player-variant. I know it's not the optimum - but it can still be more fun than you might think. Plus it's really helpful if you've only got your girlfriend/boyfriend around.

In my opinion six or seven players are the best number.

We play seven players without the Pegasus Expansion for this purpouse ee forbid play with Baltar or Sharon. The loyalty cards for this game are 11 non cylon and 3 cylon (5 player -> 2 cylon, 6 players- 2 cylon + simp, 7 players -> 3 cylon).

Five are also a good number for playing but never play with three or four players.

yama said:

Don't totally forbid play with those two - you still have one spare 'You are not a Cylon' card even with 7 players and 3 Cylons in the game - simply stipulate that only one of the two can be selected.

myrm said:

11 non cylon cards + 3 cylon cards = 14 cards.

With 14 cards only can play seven characters with two loyalty cards each. If you choose Baltar or Sharon you need 12 non cylon cards.

Sorry, I write a mistake. I wanted to say ADN instead OR. Later I read too fast your reply. Your right, sorry again.

yama said:

You mean seven players without a Cylon Leader? Never heard about that one, but yeah, I suppose you could do that.

My vote is on five.

Sami K said:

Yes. I live in Spain and the Pegasus Expansion will be available in February. For this reason (usually we are seven) we apply this "house rule". Forbid the two characters with 3 loyalty cards for add one player.

In the rules says " 1 cylon, for three players, 1 cylon and 1 symp. for 4 players, 2 cylon for five, 2 cylon + simp for six..." The logic of the progressión is 3 cylon for seven players, 3 cylon and symp for eight....

We play one time with eight player but was very slow. And many players await theirs turn without cards. With six players the sympatizer player may bored if they play as "half cylon".

In my opinion seven players is the funniest option because all cylon are 100% cylon and they can choose diferents strategies (2 reveled cylons and one hide is very harmful for humans).

It's only my opinion, with five or six the game goes fine but seven is better.

Greetings, and sorry for my poor English.

In my opinion, five seems to be optimal number of players in terms of gameplay... but that doesn't mean I won't play with more. Most of my games have actually consisted of seven or eight players. It's a lot of fun with a big group of people, but your turn doesn't come up very often... and that makes it extremely difficult for some players, particularly pilots.

I have not noticed where adding more players really increases the game time by that much. Crisis cards are what cause the jump track to move forward, and every human draws one crisis card per turn... so the game seems to go at about the same pace regardless of the number of players. The only thing that seems to slow things down are the non-game aspects of having more players... i.e. people having to be away from the table for a few minutes to get a drink refill or a bio break. I guess it might take a little longer to do skill checks because you have more people playing cards in the check... but it doesn't seem to take that much extra time.

With the expansion we never exclude Baltar or Boomer from being played. If we don't have enough "You are not a cylon" cards, we throw in the sympathizer cards and tell everyone to treat them the same as "You are not a cylon" cards. But of course that means you would NEED a cylon leader for an eight player game if you allow Boomer and Baltar. That isn't a problem for my group. We have a few players that like playing as a cylon leader.

My vote is 5 or 6

With 7, too much can happen before your next turn. I recall Galatica passing the halfway mark, I was dealt a "You are a Cylon" card & the hyperdrive fully spun-up to reach New Caprica. All before I could take a single action as a Cylon.

And you might want a book to read while waiting for your next turn.

Yeah, I'd agree with those who said 5. Tried the 2 player version and it just isn't as satisfying as I'd like. 3 or 4 players just make you lose too many abilities when cylons reveal. 5 lets you have a good amount of player abilitys even after the cylons are revealed. Trying out our own version of 3 and 4 player games. Haven't worked out everything yet, but put simply everyone has two characters. They can't be of the same type so both miliarys won't go bad if they become a cylon. Loyalty cards are same as for a regular game of that many people and if one character goes bad then both do. Super Crisis cards are per character not player as are skill cards and turns and such. Can make for some problems like when we figured out the cylon player on the first vote, confirmed it on turn three and spaced him on turh 5 before he even had a chance to reveal himself. But it doesn't frustrate us as much as usually happens when we lose an entire skill set with no back ups.

If you ask me, the best game of BSG I've ever had was seven players with a cylon leader. While I must admit the game took us the better part of two days, that was because we were at a camp with people from my study and other activities took place inbetween. In a way this added another layer to the game as people started to actively scheme people outside of the game and tried to recruit people to their cause or sowed the seeds of rebellion.

The best part of that particular game? It stayed tense to the end. It came down to the final skill check, where I made clear to my as of yet unrevealed partner to simply dump his hand of cards on the check. Little did I know the fellow cylon I was looking for sat next to that player... Still, one card dump later, and atleast 30 hours since the start, the Cylons had won and had disposed of that wortless leader...

For learnign the game or inexperienced players i have to go with 4-5 players. Once you have seven people that know how to play you won't ever want to play with less than seven. The players should definetly have a dozen or so games under their belt though and nominate certain players to do certain aspects of the busy work to keep the game moving. In our group a seven player game is at max a two hour session but than we know every card and we know crisis's by just name alone at this point.