First, hello to all fellow players out there!

I unboxed my game yesterday and started with a six player game. I read the manual in advance and we still had to find our way around, dig and try to figure out some of the game mechanics. Some of them we figured as we went along but even so, we're left with some questions that we unfortunately haven't managed to clear up via the game manual. So, I'd appreciate any answer to the dilemmas listed below.

1. Jumping the fleet.

Is this done based on turns? Meaning, on each turn the fleet token advances one slot in the jump preparation track? What can cause an early / forced jump and which are the penalties, besides population loss?

2. Attacking.

Cylon forces. Can a cylon player move or attack with a raider, heavy raider, etc. Or do the cylon ships only attack based on a crisis card?

How do basestars get activated? Does this always happen as a result of a crysis card or can they be activated via the action of a cylon player?

Can a revealead cylon player pilot a Viper or Raptor?

I will have more questions as I'll play more but these, so far are those that give me the biggest head aches.

Thanks in advance!

A

First, not that you played once, if you reread the rules, they will make SO much more sense. Really.

In a previous post, I talked about first time game scenarios, such as playing a co-operative first game to learn the mechanics (No cylon players)

(talking base game here…?)

1. Jumping the fleet.

The fleet marker moves when a crisis card has the "jump icon" (that orange circle in the lower right). roughly 2 out of 3 cards have them. It is pretty much the last step of the turn sequence. Immediately when the token moves to the end of the track, you jump (sometimes called an auto-jump).

You can use the FTL location at the front of the ship when you are 1 or two spaces from the end of the jump track. Those spaces are blue and have a number 1 and 3 respectively. That is how many population you risk. If you use the FTL, you role the dice… if 1-6 you loose that many population.

The FTL is not needed for the auto-jump, even if it is damages, you can auto-jump.

2. Attacking.

Cylon ships are activated by the icon in the lower left of the crisis card. Match the icon to that in the book to see what does what. The most common is "activate raiders", then "activate Heavy Raiders", and then a the battlestar icons "launch raiders" and "launch missle" (forget that name!).

A revealed cylon player moves to the ressurection ship. They can only use action spaced on that ship. They can not use the text on cards, just vote with them, dont have to suffer the negative consequences of crisis cards, have no powers of their character card (we just flip them over) etc.

One of the spaces on the resurrection ship is "Cylon Fleet" and that allows them to "use" the cylon ships.

WIth that in mind, they can not pilot any ship, nor do anything on Galactica or Colonial One.

Hey Mephisto!

Thanks a lot for taking the time and explaining this in detail. The tip about re-reading the manual really makes perfect sense. As I mentioned I still have questions coming in as I remember them. So here's one more. How are loyalty cards rotated, discarded, etc. At one point we found ourselves out of spare loyalty cards so we had to reshuffle most of them and make a new deck.

Again, thanks for your help!

Andrei

MisterMagenta said:

I really hope that you don't mean loyalty cards. I'm not sure why you would be discarding loyalty cards. At the beginning of the game you make a loyal deck with ~2 cards per player. Every in the created deck should be used. Some cards will not be used if you don't have enough players, but those would have never been in the deck to start with.

• For four/six players, you will use the sympathizer card. Set it aside.
• Then select one "You are a Cylon" card for 3 or 4 players, and two for 5 or 6 players.
• Counting the set aside sympathizer card (if present) and the cylon cards, you pick enough "Not a Cylon…" cards to get 2 per player.
• Add one each for Baltar or Boomer if they are present.
• Then shuffle all but the sympathizer card (if present).
• Each player gets one card. If you have Baltar, he gets a second.
• At the sleeper agent phase (distance >=4), everyone gets an additional card. If you have Boomer, she gets a third.
• There should now be zero loyalty cards in the deck.

Having written all that, do you mean skill cards or the destiny deck?

Yea, I am assuming you mean "skill cards" (the color cards use in votes)… yes… when you need to draw a card and the draw stack is empty, you shuffle the discards from that set to make a new draw pile.