I am waiting for my game to come through the mail. I have never played before. Many say that five is the ideal number. Why? Could you rate the number of players from best to worst?

Thanks.

Basically the game with even numbers (4 & 6) tends to favour the Cylon's a little, where odd numbers (3 & 5) tend to feel fair.

Now, 3 players is fun, but the more players the better. 5 is that magical number where you get a good even and fair game, plus a good size group.

We have found that 4&6 player games work better with the Pegasus Expansion (just the ship) and addresses many of the problems we had in the orignal game with 4/6 players.

So now we can play 4-6 players and always get a good game.

Also, it's best when there's more than one cylon, because it keeps the intrigue going. In a three player game, once the cylon is caught or reveals, the teams are set and it's just a straightforward race to Kobol.

My group's complaint about the sympathizer (and hence about four and six player games) is not that it significantly affects one side or another, but that the mechanic feels forced and artificial, and also that being the sympathizer is completely lame. Finding out that you're a cylon in the sleeper phase is sometimes an uphill battle, but it's fun. Being the sympathizer takes that situation and, in addition, makes your loyalty immediate public knowledge and turns you into a weaker member of your team. It's really not very enjoyable. (But as Scalpel says, the expansion helps with that.)

To answer your question, I would rank the number of players as follows: 5, 3, 6, 4. (These are totally subjective, so YMMV. In particular, some people would probably rather play with six than three, but, despite what I said above, there is some value in the quicker, more intimately paranoid game that you get with three players)

Excellent responses. Thanks!

5 Players seems to be best because the Sympathizer mechanic is awful, and subject to extreme manipulability. Since 5 player games include no sympathizer, these are the most fun (though 6 player games are also quite a bit of fun).

I agree with the consensus opinion above. Five players is the best by a fair margin. Because I have found the presence of two full cylons to be a hallmark of top notch BSG, I feel pretty strongly that six players is your next best bet. After that you have significant drop off. Personally, I prefer four players to three but I am aware of the balance issues that some of the above posters have mentioned in defense of three player games. Hope this has been helpful! Have fun!

Our local BSG playgroup consists of enough players that we rarely play with less than 5 and mostly with 6 or 7 players (using the 7 player variant from Pegasus). One of the things that we've done in 4 and 6 player games is to shuffle the Sympathizer and Symapthetic cylon cards and pull one at random. This went a long way towards stopping the humans trying to meta the game and have at least one resource in the Red when the fleet jumps to sleeper phase.

Another option that we have done a few times in 4 and 6 player games is the "Super Secret Cylon" where we take both sympathier cards, one You Are Not a Cylon and one random (chosen blindly) You Are a Cylon card, shuffle, draw one, and place in the deck for the sleeper phase. This REALLY can ratchet up the paranoia, as the players can find themselves in a game without a sympathizer and have to wonder is there a third cylon hidden on the ship, or not.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that 5 players is best. But I will say that 5 players is the minimum for the most fun the game can be.

I agree with what Jerusalem had to say, 5 is the minimum for the best game, but I really like a 6 player game as well. The old sympathizer mechanic was really bad, but the sympathetic cylon fixes that for us and I've actually seen more sympathetic cylon wins than cylon leader wins. We've played a lot of 6 and 7 player and the 3 and 4 player games seem a bit lacking to me as a result; some of the game mechanics are very different with 3 and 4 players and the brig becomes a much bigger issue. Cylon leaders also seem a bit OPed in the 5 player game, if they get a human-friendly agenda it becomes very difficult for the sole cylon to win. 7 player makes for an even greater degree of paranoia than 3 but also slows the game way down and runs you out of cards a lot faster. We also hate New Caprica and still play the original win conditions with everything else from the expansion. I would rank the number of players as follows:
base game: 5, 4 or 6, 3
with expansion: 5 or 6, 4, 7, 3

5 or 6 are the best number of players.

With 7 there is simply too much happening between your own turns.

I can recall a couple of 7 player games where I had a turn while Galatica was at distance -3. Before my next turn, galatica had jumped to distance-5. I drew a "you are a cylon". And Galatica compleatly spun-up it's drive & jumped to new caprica, before I had a single turn as a cylon.

If you refer to game without expansion, then 4 and 6 player game is not very good, usually the one who gets sympatizer gets bored. It really isnt much good. 3 game was always very best since the game was very quick and fun. But with BSG, more players = more fun

With expansion we play with cylon leader always, and so we dont play it with 3 players anymore(we like playing cylon leader ), but any number of players fits. Only a 7 player variant is a little too much i think.

Thanks for all the great information. Does anybody play with New Caprica? It seems like many just bypass it.

Wow, I didn't expect such dislike for the sympathizer! My group has never had a problem with it, but I absolutely refuse to play any less than 4 players.. and even then i'm iffy about playing 4 player. I've never had an issue with sympathizer, probably because we always play with the expansion at this point and those extra hidden missions are a ton of fun.

My group tends to skip new caprica, just not that fun. Pretty simple (and if you look around a hidden cylon admiral can really frak things up. Although if someone is still hidden as general as cylon that late in the game something is wrong.)

We just picked up the game a few months ago. So far we've played four games of four players and one of three. I have to agree with most everyone else on the irritation with the Sympathizers, but we found that the Cylon Location overlay from Pegasus actually helped make that aspect of the game more fun and interesting in our last game. Hopefully one of these days we'll be able to convince our other friends to play so we can get at least a five or six player game going.
-J-

The Old Man said:

We didn't care for New Caprica because it totally changed the way humans protect resources. If humans only have to go 7 distance instead of 8, fuel becomes very expendable; there is an overabundance of it, and if you really need more you can always take a 1 distance jump with a recover fuel option. Population also becomes expendable; there is no need to worry about 4 civilian ships getting destroyed on the way to New Caprica since you will probably be leaving at least 3 or 4 behind anyway, so just let them die on the way and you’re still evacuating the same number of ships before the Admiral orders the final jump. I don’t think I can recall a time as a human player when we’ve lost a game through Food loss… which means the game mechanics changed from “protect all 4 resources (or 3 and who cares about food loss)” to “protect MORALE!!! and don’t lose more than 5 civies on the way to New Caprica.” Finally, the Admiral has too much power on New Caprica, he or she just decides when the game ends and that’s that. Also, I think many people object to the lack of options both cylons and humans have on New Caprica… the board is simply too small.

5 has always felt best to me, 2 cylons, no messing about with sympathisers (or adjusting to play without) and a solid number of players. I'm currently reluctant to play with 3 due to a couple of bad games, where one player sat on the other 2 in the brig, and neither of them could do anything.

So for me the preferred number would be 5, 6, 4, 7, 3 (I would volunteer to play Cylon Leader in a 7 player game rather than play 3 - not that the choice is ever likely to come up!)