Anyone heard any rumors about an expansion? New cards, new characters, anything? I'm hoping for an additional board for the Pegasus...

Quite frankly, I don't know how you can expand this game besides new Skill Cards, Crisis Cards and Character Sheets.

Even with Crisis Cards, I believe the Crisis Deck is balanced already so adding more cards to the mix would probably create more Cylon attacks that would probably cripple the Humans even more, not to mention the amount of jump track/cylon ship activations cards. Adding more cards to the mix will throw off that balance.

I could see them adding another Skill card type for each color. Adding more characters to the mix would be cool too, but honestly, how many season 1 characters can they add? This game is based mostly on season 1 and I can't think of many other characters. Dee or Gaeta to me would be a great addition. They could be a Military Leader with a little engineering (which is a skill the current Military Leaders don't have). Otherwise, any other new edition character wise would just be clones of the characters out there already. If you added Kat, she would basically just be another pilot with an everyday ability that helps in combat, probably making Starbuck obsolete due to her ridiculous weakness. You could also add maybe Cally as another Support character, but even then, it would be a Tyrol clone for the most part.

If you ask me, if they are going to expand the game, they should edit the current characters a bit. Seriously, nobody ever picks Starbuck because of her weakness (especially when Tigh is picked too). She is one of the central characters of the show, and is rarely used in this game. While her weakness cripples her, other characters like Tigh have easily overcome weaknesses. Seriously, if you have one skill card left, discard it? Make it two cards and I might agree. Roslin's weakness also makes her rarely used. Discard one card to activate a location and thats realistic, but seriously, two cards? When you only draw 5 cards each turn and your only other option for skill cards is to activate locations, it pretty much makes using the character very one dimensional and boring. You also have Helo, who has a weakness that is VERY situational. In a 3 or 4 player game, his weakness isn't too bad. Make it a 5 and 6 player game, it does turn into a realistic weakness. However, if he is high in turn order, it doesn't matter. Maybe edit the weakness so that he shows up 5 turns into the game.

I'm afraid that this might be a one and done style of game. If anything, they will probably make up a whole new game that plays out more like RISK and whatnot. I don't know how this style of play can be used later in the series timeline when most of the cylon models are known.

Wow, I disagree with 100% of what you said Spirit_Machine (no offense ). Yes, they could add new skill cards, crisis cards and characters. But there is a ton of other stuff they could add as well.

New Crisis cards would be amazing, especially since as much as we play it, we have seen all the current cards a ton of times. Corey K. is a great game designer and I'm sure if he adds more Crisis Cards he will keep the same ratio of whatever for the same balance.

Also, yeah the base game was mostly season 1 stuff (but not all: Tigh's martial law ability, a few Crisis Cards like 'Loss of a Friend', etc), but that doesn't mean the expansions couldn't add stuff from the other seasons. In fact, it would be pretty sweet if each expansion was based on the next season or something. That opens up a ton of other character possibilities, more Crisis card ideas, and a bunch of other scenarios for new special rules and such. For example, maybe a Pegusus cardboard token like the basestar ones, that gets placed with special rules on a new crisis card or something (I don't think a full new Pegusus board would work Douggold, as this game is called Battlestar Galactica afterall, and should stay centered around that ship imo).

Also, no one in your group picks Starbuck or Roslyn?? Starbuck is amazing once you learn how to use her. She can single handedly take out most of any Cylon fleet, but mostly, she can hop in a Viper every other turn, trigger her special ability, then move inside for 2 actions. Basically like XO-ing herself every other turn. That's pretty good. And Roslyn is even better! Her negative does suck, but looking at 2 Crisis cards and choosing one can break the game wide open, for whichever side you are on.

I agree that Starbuck can be amazing, but it is amazingly difficult to stay out of the brig. Late in the game if the Cylons are revealed, for sure she is probably the best character to have, but before then, what good is fighting off cylon attacks if shes in the Brig?

I still think Roslin's weakness should be shortened to 1 card discard. If Roslin is a Cylon, she is amazing, since its a good excuse not to activate command, armory and whatnot, but for a human character, especially late in the game, its not fun to discard cards and the group gets screwed because you wasted your skill cards to activate locations.

I don't mind these characters having these huge weaknesses if their abilities offset them, which they do. But then you have a character like Tigh. Based on how great his everyday ability is and coupled with the fact that his one-time ability will often give himself the presidency, his weakness isn't really all that harsh. Don't you think that maybe 2 cards would make a little more balance? It might be personal preference, but let's face it, more often than not, Tigh will start as Admiral b/c why pick Adama, who can't send anyone to the Brig, when Tigh can easily send players there. If his drawback was more hurtful, I would have no problem, but discarding one's last card doesn't seem to be all that bad considering all the other power he has.

And I guess you are right about the Crisis Deck. As long as they keep the ratios the same, of course.

I guess it's just part of how you play the characters imo. Like if I'm Starbuck, I'm going to try my best to not do ANYTHING suspicious, and keep doing very good human-like things, like blowing up Raiders. If you do this people shouldn't be brigging you unless an unrevealed Cylon player decided to try and put you in there for no reason. But then the other players should hopefully help fail that skill check.

And Roslyn's skill set means she will have lots of 'Consolidate Power' and 'Executive Orders' cards, so she can replace some of the cards she has to discard, and order others to do the location actions she wants done. I agree that doing the normal President routine that people do of using the President's Office over and over probably isn't the best use of Laura, so you just need to pick and choose when it's worth it to use that location and when it's better to save a few extra skill cards and just draw a quorum card/play a quorum card without the location.

Idk, we have played this game a TON, and I really haven't seen any single character card used less than the others. We do have a general rule that you can't be the same character you were last game, just to help diversify it up. But yeah, all 10 are seen a bunch.

I'd love to see an expansion as well - and I agree it could come in forms like additions from subsequent seasons. I agree that adding anything would change the game's balance, but that doesn't mean it couldn't change in a good way, or still be balanced in a different fashion.

If anything, I'd say the one major drawback I've experienced with the game is that after playing it twenty or thirty times you begin to become very familiar with the cards that come up, and with your options at any given point. It would be nice to see some new content to mix things up a little bit.

For example, I believe the greatest strength of the game is the hidden loyalty system - that's what sparks the most fun, in my mind. I heartily believe that after all the Cylon's are revealed and you know who's on which team that the game loses a key element. I think expanding on that mechanic would be great idea, and by adding the Pegasus, you could do exactly that. You could have three teams instead of two, effectively. In my humble opinion that would be a nice alternative to playing the original game.

EStick said:

x2. Yeah, it would be nice to have a ton more Crisis cards for this very reason. Though don't get me wrong, I am certainly NOT getting bored of the game or anything like that, even with as many plays as we've had with it, I could keep playing this game for YEARS even if there is no expansion. But you do definitely start to get familiar with most of them.

I don't get why some people argue against expansions though. Just like when Twilight Imperium came out with the Shattered Empire expansion, sometimes it's fun to play with all the expansion rules, other times just use some of the expansion rules, and other times use none of the expansion stuff. Just having new options to choose from is always nice, and nothing forces you to use the new stuff when you're playing if you don't want.

Mattr0polis said:

In general I agree, and this is true of A Game of Thrones. However, playing TI without the new Strategy Cards is just not fun.

I also really like the idea of having a Pegasus token a la the basestars. Maybe it comes up on a Destination card, making it somewhat more common than as a Crisis card.

timonkey said:

Ooh, true. I have been trying to work out homeade rules/token for both the Battlestar Pegusus and possibly a Rebel Basestar down the road. Making them trigger off Destination cards is a very decent idea. Though the Galactica certainly had to deal with many a Crisis before they took control of the Pegasus on the show!

I'll keep working on it. Good idea though.

That just sparked an idea. Maybe there's a Pegasus Crisis mini-deck. When Pegasus shows up at the end of every turn, you draw from BOTH the normal crisis deck and the Pegasus deck. The Pegasus deck is all themed with the conflict between the two ships. You pay with extra crises, but you get another battlestar out of it!

If you look at the discussion of "Repair card strategy" you find big concerns that Cylons can quickly suck up the 14 or so Repair cards and make it impossible to repair, while screwing with Galactica with "human fleet" or just bad crisis cards that damage galactica. If it is too easy to exhaust a colour, if it wasn't the intention to make it so easy, if it is too easy, then just some more skill cards, not necessarily different ones. If not, then maybe the starting resources need to be increased

I feel the game could be expanded in several ways:

1 - Just add more characters. Granted they are a little hamstrung based on the show, but more characters makes the game more flexible on replay just like an Akham Horror or Descent or Runebound that has tons of characters.

2 - Add more "You are a Cylon" loyaly cards .. to give variety to those "reveal" actions.

3 - More skill cards. We always felt that two actions per skill deck wasn't enough variety. And some of those are limited use (viper cards, repair cards, etc.). Also in larger games it is possible to hoard a color or two .. we actually have had colors run out as people had full hands of cards.

Playing with the Crisis deck (the key component of this game) would be rough .. you can't simply add things to it without disrupting the balance inthat deck.

Maybe build a "Season 2" or "Season 3" crisis deck that you can use instead of the original .. a deck that either replaces the original one, or that replaces some of it.

Last_Crusader said:

Season decks are a good idea. I won't drop spoilers, but there are a number of awesome developments that could be incorporated into a crisis deck, including a new location (anyone who's seen the end of Season 2, beginning season 3 knows which location I'm talking about).

The core mechanic seems very streamlined, so I'm curious what other skill deck cards could be made? I kind of feel like adding more skill cards would dilute the players' ability to address crises since it would end up depending more on the luck of the draw than on what a character should be capable of. Like, if we're not able to repair vipers because Tyrol keeps drawing unrelated cards.

Adding new things just means you have to keep the ratios in line right now repair has a certain ratio you have to keep that or the balance gets wonky. Any expansion has to be sure not to unbalance the ratios without providing some way to overcome the imballance.

I also think the best way to keep balance with an expansion would be the "Season decks", that actually replace the normal decks, or adds cards,. keeping ratios an percentages...

Arkham Horror does that very well...

I hate this season deck idea. Just give me a ton of Crisis cards from the other seasons and let me mix them all together in one giant pile of awesome.

Also, there is already cards from season 2 included in the base game. 'Loss of a Friend', etc.

Yeah, I dunno, as long as Corey K. keeps like the ratios of stuff equal to what they are now (which I'm sure he will), everything will be perfect. Sure there is the possibility of the deck getting a wierd shuffle every once in a while, but that can happen right now already too.

spirit_machine said:

One main thing to bring up - this isn't the TV show, it's a boardgame, and in that "mindset" ANYONE can be a Cylon. It doesn't matter that in the *show* you know who are and aren't Cylons, as a boardgame, each game is different and that includes the Cylons.

Last_Crusader said:

I agree! I love this game but I was shocked to find that the skill decks only had a couple of actions in them. After playing Arkham and having 100's of different cards in every deck, it was very odd to see 5 decks, each with the same skills. I would drawn a hand and stare at the same pics (other then the skill level) lol - need more different skills.

The fact itself that the Kobol objective card is a card (so easily replacable with an other one) gives the impression for me that some expansion might be in order.

I would see the Pegasus coming on board as a 'helpful basestar' thing, a cardboard marker which can move around and blast Cylon ships and basestars. Or she can work like an elder sign in Arkham Horror: Cylon ships can't appear on the same quadrant the Pegasius currently occupies. If the mechanics is something like 'if your total jump distance is higher than 2 and you draw a crisis card with activate basestar icon then the Pagasus comes up' than you can even use it with the existing crisis card deck.

New characters are good idea, but if the direction will be to make a 'season 2', 'season 3', etc. expansions than a changed version of the existing characters can be introduced, too, taking into consideration what happened with them since the beginning. Go for a one-eyed Tigh!

I just found an interesting variant at BGG, and I think it may work as an expansion...

Specific objetives for each player, and getting points for reaching them.

That way, each player will have to play for his side (human or cylon), and also try to accomplish specific goals. Obviously, this is also done in secret, so this would contribute to the paranoia. If a player just "seems" to behave strange, that could mean he is a cylon, or just trying to reach his objective.

And the point system will also give players a way to tell which player "wins", among the winning side. That is for those player that simply are not happy with "my side won".

I think they could definitely expand the characters. I also like Pegusus idea.

Nagypapi said:

I feel you're right.

It seems likely that, as only 1 1/2 season is covered by the game, they stroke the idea of bringing another objective-like card as "Kobol" into the game. They should be thinking how to increase things and numbers but keep the general feeling and duration of the game.

Also, I'm one of that game owners that felt strange when checked there were only 2 types of action inside each deck. In other games, specially the card-driven games, each card is worth on its own for multiple reasons: if you keep it for another effect, playing it right away, or for checking its value in some kind of test like the skill check in Galactica boardgame. Thus, they're balanced against 3+ uses, and the text is unique for all of them. On the contrary, you would always know that if you draw leadership cards, you only have 2 uses (and the rest of players too): points in the skill checks, and the text, this is, you'll always want to play "executive order". Having only these 2 uses, the text of each card should be more diverse. That's what I think, but also know that Corey K. and playtesters would have noticed this points, so perhaps considered it not so important. But think about that: if you're a character that draws from 2 skill decks, you'll only playing the same 4 actions along the game, with little surprise for the other players. I suppose this maintain the sense of control for humans and cylons so that they can predict and plan ahead. And it keeps the game simple in that field.

But I would be grateful if another expansion gives us more actions, it would spice the game a lot, for sure. Hope Corey K. would think about it!

I said this before, but the post included other points. If the skill decks are expanded, even with good ratios, it makes a Cylon card exhaustion strategy, say against blue or red, more difficult because there are more cards. Do we agree that card exhaustion is too easy, or is it the intent of the game that card exhaustion is a fair tactic and so we have only 20-odd cards in each skill colour?

argente said:

Playtesting proved that too many cards types makes it too difficult to get vital card types. For example repair cards are more than 50% of the deck intentionally, and it would be much easier for the Cylons to withhold repair cards if there were fewer. It also makes the game less overwhelming for new players to know what is coming out of the deck. Reliable card draw and accessable gameplay.

Thanks for playing everyone!

First of all, this is a really great game! I just got it and have been having a blast.

I saw that a couple people have suggested adding the Scar Raider to the game as a hero Cylon. I think that is a really good idea, maybe have it appear 25% of the time raiders are launched. Give it +1 to attack and -2 penalty to "unmanned" Vipers attacking/-1 penalty to piloted vipers.

To balance that, I would add two Viper Mark VIIs. They would start out damaged (so someone would have to repair/rip out all the networking to get them flying) and would only be available to hero pilots (i.e. they can't be "unmanned"). They would also have a +1 to attack and -1 penalty for anything attacking.