I had the idea today of starting the game on New Caprica, rather than ending there. Then, after the NC phase, the game continues as it did in the original version until 7/8 distance +1 jump.

The Cylon admiral is an issue, so I'm thinking rather than an auto jump, his ability activates a skill check that must be passed to jump away. Something like Green, Purple, Red and the difficulty is equal to the number of civvies still on the surface. Also, I think that some of the civvies shouldn't be on the NC board to begin with, maybe put 8 ships on the board to start (in the show, there were a few ships that jumped away with Galactica when the Cylons first showed up).

I've not tried this yet, but I'd like to hear thoughts.

Sounds good, though I'd probably go ahead and put all of the ships on the board to maintain a similar balance. Putting fewer out there makes it alot easier for the humans to just jump away, especially since most ships are population and most population losses are caused by destroyed ships. Fewer ships in the second half of the game means less defenses you have to be able to mount to protect your population if you get several civvies spawning in a row.

Its definately a fine balance to make. My concern with putting them all down is (a) starting NC at the end of the game you would probably have a few destroyed already and (b) at the end of the game, you know your threshold of Pop you can afford to lose by jumping, where at the beginning of the game you can't say what you're going to lose in the rest of the game.

The good news is you probably won't have to worry about Massive Assault/Lured into a Trap/Fleet Mobilization being stacked onto the stuff on the board.

(a) is true, but those that were destroyed (if any were) have already cost you their resources. They've done their job by endangering the humans, and if they haven't been destroyed they'll still get their chance once NC starts.

(b) I think is balanced by the fact that you'll know what you've lost and thus know what you need to protect the most.

And you'd destroy any chance of the Cylons hiding away during the game. There's no point not to directly oppose the humans right from the start if the start is New Caprica.

It's not a good idea unfortunately. Many times you'd simply lose at the beginning by losing too much, and then you'd have to spend time waiting for the foregone conclusion.

Definitely worth a try, but you loose much flavor since all the crisis' and many skill cars refer to the first two seasons, so they don't make especially much sense after the exodus.

Here's what I've come up with. I'm working on a variant that has event cards triggering after each jump, so the flow of the game is less set (i.e. Pegasus might show up anywhere along in the game, or might not at all if its card isn't drawn). Note that the game will also be slightly longer (9-10 distance + 1 jump most likely), so a lot of the cards have some minorly positive effect to balance that.

So the fleet jumps, the destination is chosen, and then the event card is drawn:

Lay Down Your Burdens

The President may take the following skill check. If not, activate the fail effect.

“Settlement Debate”
Difficulty: 15, Yellow/Green/Brown
Pass: -3 Morale, and the player next in line of succession gains the President title.
Fail: Gain +1 Food and remove all damage tokens from the board. Add the New Caprica board to play and begin the New Caprica phase.

Now, for New Caprica to work in the beginning or middle of the game, there had to be a few tweeks. The main thing I wanted to accomplish was to keep a Cylon admiral from being able to completely screw the humans over in the mid-game (I reduced the number of civilians ships on the board and added the skill check to jump away) and also not force discovery of humans/cylon if left on the surface (move to sickbay/maybe reveal option). Mainly, I wanted it to be challenging, but without ruining the flow of the rest of the game. Here's what I'm planning on running.

New Caprica Phase Changes

At the beginning of the New Caprica phase, roll a die for each (non-destroyed) civilian ship. On a 3-8, place the ship in the “Locked Civilian Ships” stack on the New Caprica board.

The Admiral may choose to jump the fleet away from New Caprica as an action, or any player may activate “FTL Control” to do the same. A skill check must be passed with difficulty equal to the number of civilian ships on the New Caprica board. Green, Purple, and Red count positive for the skill check.

Any humans left on New Caprica when the fleet jumps are placed in Sickbay and must discard their hands. Infiltrating Cylon leaders may instead choose to end their infiltration and move to a Cylon location with no penalty. A player with an unrevealed “You Are A Cylon” card may reveal it instead of going to sickbay. If they do, they pass their remaining loyalty cards to another player, move to a cylon location, draw a Super Crisis and become a revealed cylon player as normal, but do not discard any of their skill cards or activate their “You are a Cylon” card’s ability.

After the fleet jumps away from New Caprica, choose a new destination as normal and continue play. Colonial One locations become accessible after the jump (provided it had not already been destroyed by the “Bomb On Colonial One” Super Crisis Card).

Please let me know if I missed something that causes the game to break, but I'd appreciate also feedback if someone tries to play and let me know how it turns out.

Stefan said:

I can see that from a flavor of the series standpoint, but I think of the game as kind of telling its own story. I mean, Adama could be a Cylon, Cavil could be helping the humans, Starbuck could be Pres-Admiral of the fleet.

Sami K said:

I reject your reality and substitute my own.