Looking over my CE parts, one of the first things I noticed was that one side of each planet is almost a solid color while the other appears almost barren... It's been a while and I still can't find much of a reason for this... I'm guessing it's something planned for an expansion but I wonder if anybody knows anything I don't...

Thanks in advance...

At the moment it means nothing. If you like one side over the other, go for it. A friend of mine insists that the different colored side. I prefer the abstract, identical side, myself.

I suspect it is because one side looks cooler and more like a planet and the other side is very clearly that players color. With varying planet patterns, a small table and poor lighting the colored version would help people see who was where. But someone will use it for force fields or other such home brew powers before long. Maybe by Monday.

Also, to state the obvious: having two-sided planets is juicy expansion-bait if FFG has some ideas on the subject.

"Juicy expansion-bait" That's something you don't hear everyday. Wait. Unless you're here. lol

I've been compiling ideas for it here: redamedia.com/warp/altplanet.php

Let me know if you have other ideas... we're going to try out some of them this weekend.

Hey, thanks for posting my idea, wasn't expecting that. Just thought I'd chime in about the planets --- because looking at the pictures of the ones you have up on your link above, it seems to me that they both are not actually planets. The one on the left (mulit-colored) does look like a planet, possibly showing an atmosphere or some sort of land mass, whereas the planet on the right (single-colored) looks more like a star cluster, or maybe a zoomed out picture of a galaxy.

Anyway, just a thought, and I have no idea at the moment at how that could be incorporated but I guess we'll see. By the way, I'd be curious how the playtesting goes on the ideas you have so far.

CAPITALS

At the beginning of the game, each player secretly selects one planet to be his Capital and places a slip of paper under it. When your Capital is the defensive planet, at any time during the alliance phase you may reveal the Capital by flipping over the planet. In any encounter where a revealed Capital is targetted, the owner of the Capital's system may add or subtract from his total the number of players in the game after encounter cards are played but before they are revealed. If a player loses his Capital, he must reveal it whether he had previously or not, and he loses his alien power. In a game with Capitals, you do not lose the use of your power from losing all your home planets.

At the beginning of a multi-power game, declare one of your aliens to own the Capital. All other aliens a player owns retain the use of their power by the normal rules.

It's not really a "two-sided planet" variant, as it could be done with Terrorist paper , but it's at least made easier this way. The variant should add another nervewracking decision: Do I reveal the Capital for the bonus and make it a target for all subsequent attacks? Or can I hold them off without the bonus? The loose timing offers another decision: if you think revealing it will encourage players to ally with you, you can do so before alliances, but if your power has been bothering the other players, you may not want to reveal until after alliances.

I would think this would be best with multi-power games so that the cost isn't too devastating, or else you could (theoretically) end up in a game where after four encounters (by some horrible, horrible luck) everyone is powerless. But it's worth noting that the owner of the Capital's SYSTEM gets the bonus, not the owner of the Capital itself, so this should make regaining your power easier in a single-power game.