ANDROID! Can I play it solo?

By Ironhead76, in Android

Hi,

I have a problem. Not much time, I love the setting of this game

and no friend who will play this game in the near future.

So, can somebody tell me if there is any way to play this game solitaire?

Thanx a million! gran_risa.gif

The competitive nature of the game makes it impossible/senseless to play it alone.

Playing Android solo would basically require you to come up with a "system" to work against, something that would probably be almost as difficult as designing an entirely new game... because that's pretty much what you'd be doing.

Solo play might be fun for a schyzofrenic person... otherwise I guess it is impossible

For this one, Solo and Two player seem pretty pointless, due to the competitive nature of the game. I do hesistate to say that the designers failed in this regard, as it was never promised in this manner.

I suspect if you drew skipped the Hunch Cards, and drew the evidence randomly, you might be able to play solo or two player. Unfortunately I can't think of any way to handle the plot baggage decently. Maybe doing a random toss of the baggage tokens would allow you to randomize the good/bad baggage that you play. The downside to this is that it adds a fair amount of chance to the game. It may not be rolling the dice chance, but still, I don't think it would be as much fun as playing with three+ people. The game would end up becoming a game where you just tried to get as many tokens in play as possible and hoping that chance will fall to your side.

Heck, now that I think about it...why dump hunch cards. You'd just have to come up with a system that forces you to play evidence on multiple suspects..oh darnit..look what you got me doing.

Here's a handful of ideas:

Whenever you draw a Dark Card, you play it on yourself immediately. You light shift as normal, and the effect happens to you. If the card matches your plot, you shift one less space (so a card that has a cost of 2 will only shift you for 1). The card is played even if you cannot shift for it (in that case, you just completely light shift and then do what the card says). This gives you a way to light shift to play light cards, as well as makes the game a bit of a challenge.

For suspects, play with 3 out and some of each evidence in each file for that suspect, without looking at it, at the start of the game (not sure how much evidence). Your hunch has to be at least 5 "points" more guilty than the second highest to score.

Those are just some ideas I came up with, from looking at the rules. While this is probably not very entertaining, it does give you a way to test-run the game and make sure you understand the rules before teaching it to someone else.

Thank you all for the answers!

Now there are solorules for Battlestar.

Must try this one!

just find two more players...

azuredarkness said:

just find two more players...

That is often easier said than done.

Ironhead76 said:

Thank you all for the answers!

Now there are solorules for Battlestar.

Must try this one!

The difference is, though, that BSG is to some degree a cooperative game, and the Cylon player's actions are somewhat scripted. Android isn't like this at all - it is a completely competative game.

LinkN said:

Here's a handful of ideas:

Whenever you draw a Dark Card, you play it on yourself immediately. You light shift as normal, and the effect happens to you. If the card matches your plot, you shift one less space (so a card that has a cost of 2 will only shift you for 1). The card is played even if you cannot shift for it (in that case, you just completely light shift and then do what the card says). This gives you a way to light shift to play light cards, as well as makes the game a bit of a challenge.

For suspects, play with 3 out and some of each evidence in each file for that suspect, without looking at it, at the start of the game (not sure how much evidence). Your hunch has to be at least 5 "points" more guilty than the second highest to score.

Those are just some ideas I came up with, from looking at the rules. While this is probably not very entertaining, it does give you a way to test-run the game and make sure you understand the rules before teaching it to someone else.

I like that instant dark card play rule. I have played this solo once to familiarize myself with the rules and it was beneficial in that respect. I am planning to play one more time solo to figure out if this game can be played solo well enough. I can say the game plays well 2 player though, and it is much more interesting too having that competitor present. I would argue also to set a point limit that must be reached at end if you do choose to play solo.

Oh yeah: the question I have for that dark card variant for solo play is will it work better if it fits more like "if you landed here during your turn" or "if you spent a favor token of this type this turn." Otherwise you either discard or draw yourself something that does work for extra challenge.

Playing with no discretion of what triggers the dark card could thematically makes no sense, but if you did trigger something during your turn, then it works great. It should work best if you keep discarding til you find the first dark card that effects you too, adding to the unpredictability and challenge.

I've played 2players and it works fine... Solo would require dramatic changes though.

" It's like banging a tennis ball against a brick wall, which can be fun. It can be fun, but it's not a game. What you want is a partner to return the ball."

- Noah Levenstein