I have played a few times and really do like the game. But I can't wait to see more characters, actions and crisis cards. Fanatasy Flight is the king of quality expansions. What would everybody like to see in future expansions?

So...

rehashing the post from last Forum:

I personally would like to see...

- more variety in skill cards. right now they just really seem to be discarders for crisis cards and the one or other action.

- more characters. Even though the major ones are there, there are a lot I'd love to see: Dee, Felix Gaeta, Admiral Caine, the skinjobs - or varieties of the current ones, like Jesus Baltar, One-Eye-Tigh or President Lee.

- more gameplay. I'd love to see Pegasus prominently figured and with more locations. Maybe add New Caprica, too.

I think the problem with added more different skill cards is that it decreases the chances of having the specific card you want in certain situations. Since you're going to be losing a fair share of them in Crisis resolution it makes it even less likely. Part of what I like about the lack of variety is knowing that most of the time characters with Engineering will have access to a repair card.

Granted perhaps the new cards would then make putting cards towards a skill challange much more of a make or break decision, but it would only serve (in my opinion) to prolong a mechanic that''ll happen almost every turn, that's a lot of added time on a fairly long-ish game. I can see why variety in skill cards is wanted, but I'm not sure how important the current balance is to the game so I'm in no rush to change it.

I would love some more Crisis cards though, especially a Battle card for the raider Scar, maybe launching a more durable Raider that can be controlled by any revealed Cylons in order to ignore the usual Raider activation sequence. Even without a revealed Cylon, he'd still be a thorn in the side with his ability to waste more Viper attacks and still survive and perhaps a positive modifier to his attacks. I'm tempted to make a card up for him myself now .

Regardless I love the game but I think it'll be a little while before an expansion pops up just yet.

I would like to see a variant for having a declared Cylon take the human side (like what happened with Caprica Boomer).

You would need something like a specisal crisis card where the pass causes a revealed Cylon to rejoin the humans as a human player.

I'd love to see (not sure how it would be balanced) the anti-cyclon virus found on the infected base-star....perhaps as a crisis?

Hopw about crisis cards with a high difficulty (15+), a small penalty if failed and a strong (non resource) reward, like removing a random super-crisis card, or restricting the use of the resurrection ship?

Cheers!

Ian

Dewman said:

While I know an expansion is bound to happen, personally I would rather not see one.

The game is so tightly balanced around it's current components that by adding additional components (for instance, quorum cards that grant fuel or population) you throw off the core balance with crisis cards that are already in place.

That being said, i imagine the expansion will build on the CYlons and/or pegasus. As in the later seasons the humans take the fight to the cylons, so there will probably be more ways to hurt the cylons.

However, personally I'd rather see the BSG game stand as is. Then just a release a totally different BSG game that introduces new mechanics. This isn't something like descent where adding more monsters, more treasure, and more characters is just tacking on to the fun times.

This is a game that has been brilliantly balanced in such a way to really give the humans that sense of dread that permiates the show. I've never played a game based on a liscenced property that does as good a job at recreating the feel of the article it's trying to recreate, and I really worry that adding new kool powerz is just going to frak with something that had beautiful simplicity.

Joelist said:

That's what the Cylon sympathizer is.

It's not a human who likes the Cylons. It's a cylon (like boomer) who decided to help the humans...however, because they don't trust her, they brig her at first. It's why Boomers negative replicates the effect of the cylon sympathizer card

You mean Athena?

Mike said:

I stand corrected

Melonball said:

I disagree. The game does seem perfectly balanced at the moment, yes, but I don't think that adding new things is certain to unbalance it. In fact, I strongly suspect that the game has been designed with the expansion mechanics in mind already, as many passages in the rulebook allude to such.

Melonball said:

I tend to agree. I love BSG and would happily buy any further expansions, but the game feels so 'right' at the moment, I'm loathe to mess around with it. Of course, you don't have to use any expansions.

I like the ideas on this thread of future expansion themes. And I like Dewman's thoughts on having a totally different BSG game. Yeah, Pegasus would be good. I'd like to see some Human guerilla action on New Caprica (Gods, I love Tigh).

Maybe FFG could do something similar to War of the Ring expansions; you know, where they release a double sided board (e.g. Rohan on one side and Gondor on the other). Play some of the specific episodes. Like the Resurrection Ship! That was a sweet episode.

Yes! FFG, please release an expansion with a Resurrection Ship board, a New Caprica board and a Pegasus board. I know that 3 maps for a 2 dimensional board, but you'll figure it out, you always do

Bleached Lizard said:

Yes, an expansion doesn't mean that the game will certainly become unbalanced. I just think it's more likely to happen than not.

I have no doubt that FFG is planning on releasing more BSG expansions...but I disagree that the game has been designed to play nice with expansions.

The mechanics of the characters, crisis cards, location cards, board squares, and quorum cards all are designed to play nice with each other in such a tight way that the obvious "Clue Master Detective" additions that you see in most board games ("More suspects, more rooms, more weapons") doesn't work as easily.

You add new skill card powers, all of the initial balance that went into the base game gets thrown out of wack as the game was designed to accommodate each skill set having 2 powers (and as such each characters skill cards were assigned accordingly).

You add new quorum cards that can raise pop and fuel, and the initial balance of fuel and pop being the hardest resources to get back gets thrown out the window.

You add more crisis cards that hit food, pop, and fuel and you throw off the balance of morale being the most likely commodity to lose (as such there are the most inspirational speeches at the presidents ready).

You add more crisis cards you also are skewing the ratio of fleet cards to normal crisis.

So can things be added in such a way to preserve the delicate balance that the game maintains? Yes.

But I think it would be easier to create a new BSG game from whole cloth than it would be than to add to this title without ******* it up.

Besides notion that its rather the rule than the exception to release expansions for (mainly FFG) games were you play against the mechanic, then the simple fact that the objective of the entire game, is released on a card - not in the rules or on the board, but on a card... that for me, hints that in future expansions there will be other objectives in other expansions - then again, I could be wrong and they just felt it was appropiate to make a card... I mean they have that senseless "Current Player" token...

...Idless

Melonball said:

As was already mentioned, nobody is forcing you to use expansions. If you like the balance the way it is right now then simply don't use them in your games. As for the other 99% of us, we look forward to many, many expansions for THIS awesome game, not some other new game that just so happens to also be called BSG. That would be pretty lame, and probably not be nearly as great as this game.

I am pretty sure that I will get whatever expansion there is!

And if it fundamentally changes the game, then I guess both the expansion and vanilla BSG will see some action... thats kinda a plus...

...Idless