First of all, let me say that I and the rest of my playgroup absolutely love Exodus. But a concern is arising for us when I look at the expansion's effect on character variety. On the one hand, a huge plus about Exodus is that every class matters again, instead of just Political and Military Leaders. On the other hand, the gap between characters I'd classify as "haves" and "have-nots" has widened considerably, by my estimation.

Tier 1

• Helena Cain has something to offer the fleet. Players at my table find her very attractive to choose. Whether she stays human or cylon, she's a real power character.
• Tory Foster obviously has something to offer the fleet. Our impression has been that there's just nothing quite like her. She really doesn't need to be president, and we're beginning to feel it's better for the fleet if she isn't, for a variety of reasons. But she's a *monster*.
• Apollo has something to offer the fleet. He's a phenomenal CAG.
• Chief has something to offer the fleet. His card set is great. His OPT and OPG are both strong. He has a lot to give if he stays human, and a lot to take away if he flips.

At least three of these characters are picked very frequently among the first 4 picks. And it's not because we're trying to amass a "dream team"; it's because each is the most attractive option for the individual player currently picking. The dominoes can fall in a different order each time, but by the end, the same ones tend to fall. These are, to my group, the Tier 1 choices of each color.

Then there are the Tier 2 choices. These are characters who can adequately sub for the Tier 1 choices. In many cases they have conditional advantages that might make them stronger on rare occasions, but as a general rule they are weaker.

Tier 2

• William Adama and Felix Gaeta are good Admirals.
• No yellow rivals Tory in power, but it's very common for our table to have two yellows: either Ellen Tigh as a utility character or Baltar / Zarek will trump Tory for the presidency, freeing her to run around drawing infinity blues and purples, effectively making her a "super-Chief."
• Starbuck is a strong CAG. Kat is a fine second pilot, but not a very good CAG, since she shouldn't be in space.
• Cally is an adequate support character.

And then there are the Tier 3 choices. With the increased rigor of Exodus, players at my table perceive these characters as risky choices (maybe it's the absence of a character from the above list for every choice from below that's the risky thing). Either way, these characters are relegated to the dustbin to an even greater extent than they were before.

Tier 3

• Saul Tigh and Helo never see play anymore. The problem with Helo isn't even that he's bad, it's that he's only really good if taken really early. And the 1st or 2nd person picking now has such other attractive options that Helo gets overlooked until the beaters go off the board, and by then he's unattractive.
• Laura Roslin doesn't see much play. Our group loved her pre-Exodus. The problem is she combos poorly with Tory. Do you have no Tory? Or do you pass the presidency to Tory? Or do you just quorum slowly, effectively running a gimped Tory? Those all sound bad.
• Boomer was always weak. Now she has Anders for company in the box.
• Dee really, really should have gotten better with Exodus. But I still feel like she's Tier 3. Her OPG is not good, her card set's a little hinky, and her OPT just kind of looks better than it is. I want to be wrong about her, but we've tried her quite a bit and come to feel that she's not all there.

Anyway, those are our initial impressions. I know all about actual mileage varying for different groups based on different playstyles, and I've no doubt that different players' lists will look different. I wouldn't mind hearing about groups that have drawn significantly different conclusions about individual characters on this list, but I'm even more interested in hearing about groups where Exodus has not had this kind of narrowing effect on character selection. Has anyone felt like it's broadened character selection? If so, how or why?

See, I love diversity in character selection, and I sometimes take an obscure character just to give them a chance (or maybe to be contrary). But by mid-game, I often come to feel I've hurt my and my team's chances of victory by choosing sub-optimally. Whatever my intentions when I take (for the sake of an extreme example) Saul Tigh instead of Helena Cain, when the absence of Blind Jump costs my team a game two hours later, I'm the irresponsible guy. I've come to feel I owe it to whichever team I wind up on to pack a little punch, especially with the increased intensity of Exodus. Your thoughts?

I'd say you pretty much nailed it. My groups only change would be swapping Cain with Helo. Other than that though, I think that is the lineup card.

While I have to agree, your criticism also shows the limit of your thinking. Let me explain...

In my opinion, part of what makes BSG such a great game, is that you can tackle the same overall theme of problems with a different "cast" each time. It's not just about picking a dream team and hoping the right characters flip at the right time. I personally enjoy to see what different players with different attitudes do with different characters and their strengths and weaknesses. It makes each game truly unique.

Yes, I also have my favorite characters...one of them being Apollo because he's so versatile. Nonetheless, I also enjoy playing "lower tier characters" as per your definition. Saul Tigh saw some action in our last game, as did Laura Roslin. And while their weaknesses make them inadequate at times, it truly adds to the whole theme of the game. If a player decides to not do something because of his weakness, that leaves room for accusations. It appears to me that in your group players will act almost the same, regardless of what character they play. And I believe that's somewhat counterproductive. A character's weaknesses as well as his not so super strengths make each and every character unique...and it calls for a unique approach to each character by each player. That's part of the game!

Think about it this way: if you were to play any given game and always use the same approach to deal with any given problem...that not only makes you very predictable, if it applies to the whole group that takes away a lot of the fun BSG has to offer. I think you're losing out on the depth of BSG by the way you play. Try a different approach for one. Play different characters. Use a different technique to deal with the peril.

A little house rule of mine:

I originally introduced this idea to avoid the rather long time it sometimes takes newbies to pick a character. They don't know what to expect (some may never have seen the show, either) and want a character to be prepared...for what they don't know. I've seen character selection take more than ten minutes on more than one occasion. So we introduced a little house rule that, fortunately, also adds some uniqueness to every game.

• We sort all the characters into their respective groups.
• Keeping them face down, we draw one supporter, two military leaders, two political leaders, and two pilots. (If using the Cylon leaders, draw 1-2 of them face down and add them to the pool.) The rest of the characters go back to the box.
• The remaining seven characters are shuffled and each player draws a character face down. The rest we throw face up in the middle of the table to trade.
• At this point each player has a character. Some may be indifferent about their draw, some may like it and some may not. Whoever is unhappy can now trade their character with that of another player (given both agree to the trade) or with one laying face up on the table. Just make sure you have at least one of each type in the group.

The upside is that you have a destinct point to start from with newbies who have never played the game and are not familiar with the show, either. It also reduces the characters available...which makes for rather interesting decisions both during character selection and later in the game. Give it a try and see how it works for you!

napoleonWilson said:

Interesting. I admit it seems like we've been rolling a lot more important dice post-Exodus.

Holy Outlaw said:

Seriously? I'm interested in reading your reasoning on that one.

one of our group likes her, but I'll explain why I am not a fan of boomer. Mainly it's her negative being just too high a cost. Going to the brig is automatically is pretty bad at the midpoint, (especially with exodus and the cylon fleet an everpresent threat). The 2nd round of loyalty has gone out and now the players know that someone at the table isnt what they appear to be. Having boomer in the brig seems to ease tensions and most times people are unwilling to let a player out who has been put in there for free. THis is exacerbated by the fact she gets TWO loyalty cards at the second round.

I know I know, Baltar gets one two and I do believe Baltar to be one of the better presidents, so why would I have a problem with Boomer. The answer comes down to ratio's for me. I would rather get two loyalty cards at the beginning when there is a higher concentration of "you are NOT a cylon". At the second round there is going to be less you are not a cylon cards in play no matter how you look at it, EVEN if by some strange quirk BOTH cylon cards are dealt out in the first round ther will be less you are not's. WHich means the person getting 2 in the second round of seeding loyalty has a greater chance of getting a "you are" since there are fewer you are not's. Knowing this, since it is unlikely that both cylons were dealt out in the beginning, (possible yes, but still unlikely) she is gonna stay in the brig a long time. She just SCREAMS suspicious to other players and usually sits in the klink till either cylons are revealed OR the need is SO great she has to come out and trust she is going to help. Obviously, that moment can sometimes be a long time coming.

I get her everyturn is pretty cool, being able to scout the next crisis for free is a neat trick. and her OPG is also nice. But in our experience, watching players malinger in jail for turns after the second round just doesnt appeal to most of us. We kinda need an all hands on deck and having a player go to jail for free who is naturally under great suspicion already, peoples inclination is to just, "leave her there" and not waste the cards to get her out.

I don't think she is a bad character, she seems pretty balanced, some good abilites that always have a purpose with a pretty major negative. I think it is the meta-game involved with her that relegates her to the box. If you are human you are going to constantly have to be doing stuff to proove loyalty and even then it may not be enough, if you are a cylon then the suspicion is almost gauranteed to fall on you which makes your job harder, people will be watching you VERY carefully either way and a slip up can = a free walk outside.

Napoleon...

Well I can't quite talk about her usefulness POST-Exodus, however, I can talk about her usefulness in Vanilla + Pegasus. I'd say in the Vanilla game she was pretty strong. Her once per turn scouting ability is great for either side, and if you're trying to hit that 8 distance Kobol, you're going to want all the move jump track icons you can get. However, with the Engine Room space on Pegasus, she becomes a little weaker in some sense. Granted, you have to waste your action to use Engine Room and Boomer can do it for free at the end of turn phase, it doesn't seem as powerful. My experience, as I noted in another thread as well (and the above poster noticed) is that once a player is in the Brig, its difficult/risky to get them out. Players have to waste cards that could be spent Passing skill checks and preventing resources (which are already perhaps low, since its half way through the game) trying to get a player out of the Brig. For whatever bizarre reason however, she's almost never a Cylon in our games. 9 out of 10 times, it will always be Baltar, but never her. For some random reason! I still don't think she's bad and can be played pretty beautifully regardless of where her allegiances lie after the Sleeper Phase. I mean, you could always trick teammates to let you out and then totally do something sneaky afterwards She's a fun character IMO.

My reasons would echo what NapoleonWilson already explained, but I'd add and emphasize one more point:

She's the only character in the game that doesn't draw green .

Green is the most frequently appearing color on crisis card skill checks (yes, I know it's 2nd on the list but the list is wrong. There are 51 green, 50 purple, 45 yellow, 23 blue, and 17 red skill checks, as of Exodus). Green also has the most important card in the game, XO, as its baseline "common." Choosing a character who can't draw green and can't even draw yellow to Consolidate Power into green is just begging for trouble. So now the question is, is her one action each turn regularly better than the two actions that could have been taken on an XO? (e.g., XO the president, who draws and plays two quorum cards, Tory gets +4 cards of any color, the fleet gets the effects of 2 quorum actions). It's been my experience that Boomer's one action rarely rivals the 2 best actions of another player.

Holy Outlaw said:

Your analysis overlooks the fact that she effectively gets one action and one superaction (the second being a Launch Scout which doesn't cost a card and can't destroy a raptor) per turn. Given that the superaction would cost two cards (XO, Launch Scout) and her ability costs zero, I think that her inability to draw green cards is more than compensated for. I also think there might be a metagame difference here, as you seem to trust your president more than most folks whom I've played with.

Thanks for explaining the reasoning there, though, it helped me understand where you're coming from.

I'm with Napoleon on Boomer... Its not that I think shes a terrible character but we just don't like landing in the brig for no reason.
Outlaw, I agree with your tier list except that I think Ellen is a tier 1 character. Her weakness is really only that other players can't know you didn't put a Treachery card in a skill check unless they have seen you discard it each turn. She is a great support character for so many people and hands out the XOs left and right when needed. She has the potential to make a mess if she is a Cylon since she can always draw 2 treachery OPT and then reckless the skill check, or steal a title when she has the possibility to do the most damage. Chief really went up with the addition of Exodus, we just didn't use him much before.

I agree that Chief's stock has gone up. And the way Ellen's card set, OPT and OPG are all strong for different reasons depending on whether she's human or cylon definitely makes her very appealing. My listing her at Tier 2 instead of Tier 1 where I used to have her is an indication of just how far I think Tory shifted the curve. Ellen didn't get any weaker, strictly speaking, but all the yellows are a lot weaker by comparison. The way I conceive tiers, putting Ellen on the same tier as Tory would indicate that you gain as much as you lose by taking one over the other. If I can't comfortably say that about two cards of the same color, I relegate one to a lower tier, which is what I did with Ellen. I admit there's a ton of potential in Ellen's abilities though, and I'd also concede she's a character who gets stronger in the hands of stronger players. If I had to create a Tier 1.5 (which is sheer nonsense, of course, since the tier beneath tier 1 should always be tier 2 no matter how far of a step down it is), Ellen would occupy it.

I really like Ellen, but I can certainly see putting her further down the list. My reasoning for this is, when considering "rating" the characters one must look at their intended use. Ellen is a political character which means theoretically she could be the only one thus making her the defacto President. The President does essentially one thing, sit in Presidents office and draw quaram. For Ellen, this TOTALLY kneecaps her everyturn ability. Ellen is a great support president handing cards off and suplamenting other characters but as the President she essentially has no special abilities what-so-ever.

I think when attempting to rate characters one has to look at how well they fill the intended roll, President, Admiral and CAG. Torrie, Baltar even Zarek have abilites that can be of use while President, Ellen can only use it at the cost of leaving her office constantly, (dumping a card anyways to move to Galactica effectivly swallowing up any in hand card boost to herself, since she also has to give a card to someone to draw 2). I think therefore that as neat as she is, her "rating" must fall since her Presidential ability is so underwhelming. Outlaw's positioning her to tier 2 is logical and makes sense.

Napoleon.

Tier-1:

President: Laura Roslin, Drawing 2 crisis cards makes her one of the strongest charcters. And her "liability" is an advantage to the president.

Admiral: Cain, that umplotted jump can save the humans a lot of time & damage.

CAG: Starbucket, Technically Appolo is a better pilot, but Starbuck also draws a blue card each turn, so she can repair the Galactica when there are no civilian ships to protect. And the double action when returning from a fighter can be awesome.

Blue: Cally, shooting some toasters butt off is always good, or the reverse if Cally herself is a toaster.

Tier-2:

President; Ellen Tigh, her 2 extra skill cards are more reliable (every turn) than Tory's. Her "liability" of 1 treachery card can be used to "detect" covert cylons. And she can give high valued cards to Kat if she's in the game.

Admiral: Helo, rerolling nukes is clearly an advantage.

CAG; Kat, Galtica or Pegausus main guns are a big part of the fleets defense. And Kat is the best "Gunner" in the fleet. She is however the worst pilot.

Blue: Chief Tyrol

Tier-3:

President: None, if anyone else tries to become president, "shoot the fraking toaster"

Admiral: Lt.Gatea. he does draw a blue card each turn & can make himself admiral while getting out of the brig.

CAG; Appolo, sure, he's the best pilot, but discarding random cards can hurt a lot. And he's worthless at anything except CAG.

Blue: If your really, seriously desperate, then Baltar might be considered the 3rd best at this. But I'd advise you not to trust any player who chooses Baltar further than you can throw a basestar.

I'm getting the feeling that most of you not only pick their character at the beginning of the game (as per the rules) but you tend to have the same set of characters in every game. I'm also getting the feeling that you rate characters for their abilities rather than their fun factor.

I'm not sure that's what the developers intended. Actually, I'm sure they included so many characters so people choose different characters when they play and not always come back to the same half-dozen usual suspects.

Earlier in this thread I posted a house rule we use to broaden our horizon a little and it really works. Yes, we sometimes decide against a specific character because we think he sucks in comparison to another. But by limiting the roles to choose from we make for very different and very interesting session.

I would like to know what your take is on that.

ronsen_04 said:

Ok, first of all, what do you define as "fun factor?"
In my group we definitely don't have the same characters every game. There are a variety of reasons for this... I'm the only one who ever plays Ellen Tigh; one of my other players is the only one who ever plays Saul Tigh, yet another player is the only one who ever plays Boomer. This probably has something to do with play style. The only character that seems to end up in virtually every game is Cain, possibly because she is guaranteed to be Admiral and we aren't very fond of Roslin so no one picks her much. I don't think anyone will argue that Cain is not a tier-1 character and I imagine most groups use her in most games. Zarek very rarely gets played; I used to pick him sometimes way back in the pre-Pegasus games because he is a sort of "ace-in-the-hole" character, but I never got much use out of his abilities.
I will say that for some reason I am almost always the last player to pick a character (bad dice luck I guess) and I will pick whoever I feel balances the humans out the most. If we are short on yellow draw or lacking pilots, which happens frequently, I will choose Ellen, Baltar, Lee, or Starbuck almost every time.
Personally, I don't like the idea that you proposed because I like to choose my character. It's part of the "fun factor" for us, and getting stuck with a character I don't want to play will make the game less interesting from the very first turn. If I feel like I have played the same characters over and over recently, I just choose someone else. A rarely chosen character that I really like playing is Dee, her draw isn't great but she'll be getting a lot of Launch Scout and that purple card that gives you an extra action instead of a movement (can't remember the card name) which is good if I am a Cylon. She also keeps cards a bit longer than people that are drawing all green, yellow, and purple. She certainly isn't the most powerful character available, but I like playing her, so she's a good choice for me, and she's balanced enough that most players picking after me won't have to choose a character based on my character's strengths and weaknesses.
So while I don't think the way you do it is a bad idea, its just not for us.

I guess I define the "fun-factor" in BSG as the thrill and challenge of getting to the ideal point for your cause with the (sometimes very limited) means available to you. And that goes for both Cylons and humans.

As Rainer Knizia once said: "When playing a game the goal is to win. But it's the goal that's important, not the winning."

I don't mind losing if I had fun in the process. This last weekend we played BSG with a light version of Exodus. It was fun and everyone had a blast even though the end came abrupt and out of left field for the humans. We had just reached distance 8 when Galactica was hit with 6 damage markers within a single round). Everyone specifically voiced that they enjoyed the game very much.

Now, the alternate distribution of characters I offered does not include that players have to stick with their character. There will be characters to trade and if someone really wanted to try out this one particular character, we let him/her. Judging by what people stated in this forum, however, I just got the feeling that people will pick Tier 1 characters over Tier 2 characters almost all the time. Why would anyone settle for a less than perfect character if they had the choice to choose any character they wanted? And that's where I draw the line of what's fun and what's not. My perception is that some characters become more powerful because of a specific situation in the game while others become less powerful in the same situation. And some characters will work fairly well together and become more powerful in the process. And I'm getting the feeling that people don't appreciate or realize this.

XAos said:

Can you explain how having it cost cards to activate locations i an advantage to anyone , much less what makes it such a good thing for the president.

James McMurray said:

Lol, we've been going back and forth about this on several threads here... Xaos argues that she should not be drawing Quorum cards or using the spaces on the board much and should instead be spending her actions to XO. I'm starting to come around on this, but I doubt I will ever be 100% with him/her.

Skowza hsa expressed my opionion accurately. It's based on about 50 games of BSG, about half with Laura and half with some other president.

Initially I tried this strategy just to stop one player who "always" played Baltar, from messing us up as president. But the results shifted way in favour of the humans. Playing Laura becomes an exercise in finding something constructive to do. Other president's just don't have that incentive, with nothing "urgent" to do they get lazy, stop looking for a strong action and draw quorum cards. Laura's strength is she prevents anyone else from doing it. If someone else tries to become president just after the sleeper phase, it's almost certain they have just drawn a "you are a cylon" card. Even when it's a human who replaces Laura, it usually ends badly for the humans.

If your playing with pegasus, there is always something stronger to do than drawing quorum cards. If your playing without Pegasus, There is (very very)rarely no useful action, so drawing a quorum card is only a small loss.

Testing this strategy is easy, play Laura for one game, you don't need to even tell the other -players that your testing an "unorthodox" strategy. As Laura, you will be president & you obviously won't draw quorum cards...

Note: Pre-Exodus, It's requires extreem circumstances for Humans to loose with Laura as President. Exodus is much better balenced.

Whether it's a good strategy or not, I fail to see how being forced to use it at all times or pay a severe penalty is "a good thing".

So it sounds like its being called a benefit even though it's not, because it forces people to not do the things you want them to do? What about when it prevents them from doing things that need to get done: like jump the fleet, shoot at centurions, etc.?

ronsen_04 said:

I almost never see people choosing the same characters, or even the same group of characters, from game to game, and that experience has repeated itself across many different groups of players. I also haven't often seen people choose characters based on how good they think they are, or at least the commentary that people frequently make when choosing a character hasn't reflected anything about power levels.

Keep in mind that anyone posting on these boards is a fairly hardcore (at least!) player of the game; the vast majority of people who play the game don't bother coming here to read or post anything, so anything you read on these boards is likely to have a tendency to skew towards overanalysis.

ronsen_04 said:

A friend of mine proposed a similar idea ( http://blog.tornsignpost.com/2010/12/battlestar-galactica-character.html ), and I'm looking forward to trying it out, but I haven't played BSG since he came up with it.

ronsen_04 said:

On the other hand, I harbor real reservations. When it comes to the fleeting excitement of flipping over that card and not knowing who'll be staring back at you from the other side, what's it really worth? For my money, the tingly feeling of walking into a blind date is a poor trade for the very real possibility you'll wind up stuck spending an evening with someone whose company you won't enjoy. Like Sam Anders, for example, who is a very selfish lover.

In all seriousness though, I think your idea of semi-randomizing the starting lineup is interesting and maybe worth a shot. I know a lot of people on these boards like Arkham Horror, which uses random character selection, and your modification would make this more like that. So I'm okay with the idea, even while I concur with Skowza that I enjoy choosing the team.

And then there was your big question: Are we reducing the fun and variety in the game by taking considerations of relative character value into account? My answer would be a categorical "no." I believe that considering the relative strength of a character when making initial selections is rational and responsible. Doing so reflects a recognition of, and respect for, reality, not a dearth of creativity. The cumulative effect of all this rational behavior is that the starting lineups begin to reflect a homogeneous quality, but I don't think the solution to that is for players to stop behaving rationally.

By way of analogy, if I could pick my starting hand in Texas Hold 'Em, I would very frequently pick A-A because it is the strongest possible hand. I would not always pick it, because there are a variety of factors in poker, as in BSG, that reward dynamic behavior over static behavior. Other hands I would frequently choose would be A-K, K-K, A-Q and occasionally Q-Q or J-J. I might even mix in a low-to-mid pocket pair or a suited runner-runner just to keep opponent's guessing and have a distant shot at stealing a surprise pot. The important point I want to make here though is that, if I could choose my hand in Texas Hold 'Em, I would very rarely, maybe even never, 2-7 off suit. I say this not because I lack the imagination to consider that the flop might come 2-2-7, but because I'm rational enough to take into account all the other possibilities that the table might present for which I'll be unprepared as a result of my poor hand selection.

One could look at the above analogy as an expression of a too-narrow thinking process. I certainly can't argue that in the strictest sense of the word, applying calculations of expected value to decisions is "formulaic." But I can tell you that I could play Hold 'Em for hours, days, weeks at a time, just as I could for BSG.

To be totally honest, I see my approach as an evolution from yours. At some point I outgrew looking for variety in the fleeting, superficial difference between, for example, looking at Saul Tigh's picture all night vs. Helena Cain's. Once I was liberated from looking for trivial distinctions between this game and the last, I began enjoying, *and creating* meaningful ones. There's plenty of variety in all the explosive and unpredictable events that arise from a dynamic board full of real and imagined threats, with an unknown number of hidden enemies seeking to deceive and destroy me. I don't feel I add much to the equation by trying to create superficial variety through making suboptimal choices for no other reason than I chose optimally last time.

Aargh! I tried to edit the above post because of weird formatting and somehow my first paragraph went into the quote box.

I STRONGLY oppose randomization of characters. First of all, I don't like being forced to play characters I don't like. That takes away from my fun. I hate Starbuck and Roslin. I hate Starbuck cause I hated her on the show, I hate Roslin cause I hated her on the Show and I think she is in the race for worst character in the game. Regardless of one of those reasons being simply asthetic and one being more pragmatic, If I don't enjoy playing the character it is infringing on MY having fun playing.

I get the idea behind any game is to have fun. For my group however, in BSG, the humans nearly always get demolished. Humans have not yet one a game since the Exodus expansion. The game itself so slanted to the cylons that despite best efforts it seems that the cylon players dont have to do much to insure a victory. Now,...while playing the game is fun, being constantly crushed almost to the point that it is a for-gone conclusion that you will loose takes alot of fun away. It is still a game, and the goal of any player in a game is to do their utmost to win no matter what point or what the odds are. This I believe starts at game setup including character selection. In some six player games we have had some players pick a military guy in the first 4 picks and then players pick one or 2 more extra military people. That is almost throwing the game in my opinion. Having randomized characters, (you get 2 to pick from)...could very easily lead to a glut of one colour that is quite frankly extraneous. Or it could lead to a set up like, Roslin, Tigh, Anders and Dee. If that is a starting lineup your going to war without bullets. Add to this that at some point the humans are going to be losing 1 or 2 (depending on the game size) characters to the cylons. If the humans loose a lynchpin character it can be devestating.

Fun is the most important part to any game, but it is a game and part of the fun is the chance of winning. If the outcomeis are nearly gauranteed or have to depend on a total cosmic alignment in order to win that takes away from the fun of the game. We see some different faces, there are some good characters that get picked that are not, "THE" starting lineup, but we try to keep it to one per game or else the humans are just giving themselves another handicap.

If all of your group wants to do the randomization thats great, but if even one person doesn't want to they should not be forced to. If you want yours random go for it, nothing is stopping you, but I think for the sake of "fun" all the way around if a player likes choice,...hand over the whole pack of dudes to em.

Napoleon

It is against the rules for three players to all have the same category of character, except support, unless you're playing a 7-player game, in which case if the first and last players both choose the same, then someone in the middle may also have chosen that as well, so long as no one chose support. If you're finding that there are too many military or too many pilots or whatever in your game, I recommend you go back to the rulebooks and review how choosing a character makes that class off-limits for the next few players to pick.