CaptNeo said:

Two minds here in Norway thinking independently both think the look at loyalty card part is excluded, but the act of drawing a ship and destroying it should be included, rules-wise and thematically. You exclude the loyalty card part but the action of destorying is included.

Basically, normally, an Admiral can justify destroying a civilian ship by the chance of looking at a Loyalty card. Just destroying a civilian ship is clearly the act of a "hidden" Cylon, like playing Strategic Planning on a Cylon attack on the humans, which is allowed, but reveals the player as a "hidden" Cylon. I tend to this ruling. Opinions?

I respect the opposite argument, as it is not something that can be cleanly or clearly "won". By the way, it says on the Pegasus Brig "draw and destroy a civilian ship". I assume, and play, that it is a civilian ship on the board, not in reserves.

Dan said:

Nope, that would be the reserves (at least that was my intention). Thematically it does not seem to fit IMHO to limit the Humans from hunting Cylons if there are no civilian ships on the board. And what would destroying a ship from the board represent thematically? The humans would surely not raid any civilian ship in search for Cylons when under attack. I imagined that drawing and destroying a ship from the reserves would be more "symbolic" and if one wants to interpret it, it even makes some sense that militant persecution ultimately destroys civil society (unrests / collateral damage / uncooperative ship captains etc. that result in the effective loss of ressources).

But I'd really like to hear about your intuition about why you play it differently. Could be a fun new perspective for me.

On the original question I tend to agree with the two "Norwegian" minds.

BTW: Today I've bought some 1,5mm thick cardboard to do a high quality exemplar of the expansion. My girlfriend was pretty impressed with the results. Tomorrow when the finish is dry, I'll post some pics on BGG and the forum. I also found that the damage tokens should be rectangular because otherwise they are impossible to cut out in a way they are indistinguishable.

Sorry, need to post anything in order to edit topic

CaptNeo said:

If you don't think thematically it makes sense to draw ships from the board because you are under attack, then why draw from reserves if you are under attack? If you destroy ships that are on the board, at least you can use Communications first to scout out which ships to take. For better or for worse! Having seen the episodes on which Pegasus is based, I could imagine Pegasus doing just about anything to the civilians at any time! I didn't see the ships in reserves as in play. Destroying ships on the board still demoralises and destroys civil society.

According to your interpretation, if there are no ships in the reserves, what do you do then?

As for tokens, small scissors cut round things better. Keep them all you your hand and pick blindly

Dan said:

I think the general idea is that all civilian ships are in the game, but they are only placed on the board when the cylons have targeted them (but of course one would have to ask Konieczka to be sure). So drawing from the reserves is more like Admiral Cains arbitrariness to seize civilian vessels if it suits her agenda. On the other hand I destroying a ship that's already targeted by the Raiders does not seem a natural choice to me.

Of course when the reserves are depleted and there are only civilian ships on the board, the option to draw and destroy a ship would no longer be an option, so the Admiral could no longer chose to use Pegasus' Brig.

But I understand that there is some logic in suggesting that in combination with communications your interpretation of the rule adds some strategic depth. All in all the Brig causes more confusion and special cases than I anticipated. Maybe it's bad design ? Tomorrow, I'll play the expansion with my group and let them give me their thoughts.

Dan said:

I'll just update the tokens in the next release, so the expansion can be more easily manufactured by anyone who simply wants to play it and is not such a huge hobbyist :-). It also helps to distinguish the damage tokens from Pegasus vs Galactica.

CaptNeo said:

No, not bad design. Pegasus must be able to mess with civilian ships. I don't think the Brig is confusing. It hasn't been abused in my experience. What do you suggest? Destroying civilian ships is mean, and so thematic. I just think it should be done on the board so Communication can be used. The hidden Cylons need to be able to do something, which the Pegasus Brig allows. I would like to hear your alternative suggestion, though

So, now I'm back from our first match with the expansion and here is what I have to say.

Five Players: Tyrol (Human), Helo (Admiral/Human), Roslin (Me/President/Cylon from the start), Boomer (Cylon from the beginning), Apollo (Human).

Pegasus served only one big purpose: Making a game significantly longer and thus giving the cylons a shot who would have lost terribly otherwise. The Humans had back luck and drew the only two empty civilian ships. After that, nobody ever used a location on Pegasus. The only advantage that was actively used by the players was the ability to launch Vipers at Pegasus. Most frustrating for us Cylons Pegasus acted as huge meat shield to suck up basestar damage / making the activation of basestars seem pretty unattractive. Most luckily for us Cylons were that we had total deck control although I did not suspect my fellow Cylon to be one until way into the reveal of Pegasus.

The Humans had a lot of luck. They managed to enter the sleeper phase with just three resources down by one. That's when Boomer went into the Brig (which she should not leave being Human for the next six or so rounds). I had the "sent to brig" Cylon and browsed the quorum deck consequently to obtain the other imprisonment card. Then I revealed when I was activated by Executive Order and sent two more players to the brig. Sadly I had to pass along another quorum card "Presidential Amnesty". But shorly after that another player was trapped by Admiral Cain and the reveal of Pegasus and that made the game interesting again. For two complete rounds only one or two human players could move. In the end it was a very close one. The Humans jumped away at a distance of 12 with only one Fuel and no Raptor left to land on an ice moon. So it was pretty much a draw (actually what is the official ruling in this case?).

Bottom line: Pegasus is not attractive enough. Peeking at Loyalty Cards is not a lot of help after the sleeper phase. Rearranging ships can be done more cheaply than a 7 skill check and nobody felt like sacrificing one Skill Card to use Pegasus' boni when fighting the Cylon fleet.

From this game alone I'd say Pegasus need more powerful In-Game capabilities and less "reveal" boni. Also one should consider some punishment for letting Pegasus die. Maybe some more damage tokens with ressources (just like for Galactica) would do the trick. The Humans were pretty unconcerned for Pegasus well-being.

Opinions? Armorken what was your game like?

CaptNeo said:

Not trying to defend Pegasus, but the meat shield is an argument for. The 7 skill check to remove a ship could be good if you don't have Vipers to take out a Heavy raider, or you can do it easier on a skill check. Or if you need to get Civ ships out of an impossible situation. Isn't letting Pegasus take a beating somewhat the theme? Sorry, spoilers. The loyalty cards, what to do. Is the Pegasus Brig the least used? If you don't look at Loyalty cards, then what? I found the Pegasus Brig has two of the themes, Cylon interrogation and destroying Civ ships, even if the two are not directly connected. I have had close games, and not close games. More powerful in game capabilities could be gving better fighting numbers, like lowering the dice needed again to hit, or lower skill check.

Another close game, humans at 10 distance, needing fuel... the next four cards in the destination deck were the easy "1s" that gave a likely extra fuel

Another close game, made it to 11 distance, got broken on population. Up to 9 distance, all numbers were blue, except food at 3, and that was increased by Presidential food rationing

We were at 8 distance and not looking for Pegasus, it was the Cylon who deliberately, with Caprica, went looking for it to lengthen the game. That part of trying to find/avoiding Pegasus was very interesting strategically, with humans avoiding!

Close games, but maybe only one Pegasus win. I like the Pegasus ship, how about to keep it clean, increase resources? 2 fuel, 2 food, 2 morale, 2 ships. A clean "2" rule" Capt Neo, can you make up an alternative Pegasus card like that. My games have been so very close, that I don't know if it needs fixing, but I would like to start with that if anything

Thanks

kk, I'll post one next week for your convinience. I'm currently away from home and don't have the files I need to do it right away.

Of course both the 1 resource two ships Pegasus card, and the 2 resource, 2 ship Pegasus card can be available, and people use them according to desired difficulty, like varying the difficulty on the resources in the basic game

Here it is:

Hi there!

I'm new to BSG (only just got it for my birthday, a week ago) but having played it, my friends and I are in love!

One of the chief complaints of the game is the lack of variety of cards. This had me investigating online for any new fan-made Skill cards etc (unfortunately, no).

As someone who is keen to break in to the gaming industry (check out my Talisman and Marvel Heroes fan expansions), I am an avid fan and supporter of homebrew stuff. This led me to your Pegasus expansion and, having checked it out, I think it's fantastic! I'm really impressed with it! Well done!

I have a couple of suggestions. However, I will stress that I am new to the game and haven't even playtested what you've done, so feel free to disregard anything I might add

When I make a homebrew expansion, I tend to make it as modular as possible, so that anything I add in can be used as much as little of it as needed. I find that this helps in so far as adding new stuff in (such as other homebrew expansions or official stuff). In this way, I am not a big fan of adding "New Caprica" as the new destination for Galatica and the Pegasus. Here's why: the game is ripe for a "New Caprica" expansion, which would change the end game of BSG. So instead of having to get 8 Destination and make a final jump, I would say, as an example, New Caprica would be a Destination Card which you could draw and if you decided to take it, the players get to choose either to continue on their journey or attempt to colonise New Caprica. More on this later, however, perhaps this illustrates my point?

I like what you've tried to with the Power Struggle but I think there is another way to implement it, without the current Admiral having to be in "BSG limbo" . My thoughts are thus (remember, I might be talking out of my ass!):

1. Perhaps there should be a PHILOSOPHY TRACK (for argument's sake) that had 5 spaces, with MILITARY at one extreme and CIVIL at the other. MILITARY represents Cain's aggressive "take the battle to the cylon's" philosophy. CIVIL represents Adama's "get the heck out of dodge and these people to a place to call home" philosophy.

2. Depending on what actions the player's take, the POWER TRACK would go back and forth until it hit either of the two extremes. There would be a PENDULUM counter which measured where the fleet stood in between the two. There would be slightly different effects on the game depending on where this counter was.

For instance, the closer to MILITARY it was, you could take actions to risk civilian ships for bonus resources and so on.

3. When it reached one of the extremes, the philosophy was locked and you gained bonuses and disdavantages. One of the advantages would be ditching the ADMIRAL CAIN Crisis card (which, while it is in play, would effectly "turn off" the Admiral title (and destination would be draw one card, not two and play it). Also, I believe that the Pegasus' full locations etc would not become available until you were "locked in" at either end of the POWER TRACK.

E.g. If locked at Military, you could get resources by defeating baseships but you had to defeat, say, 3 baseships before you can win the game and THEN maybe defeat a special "RESURRECTION SHIP" mission OR if locked at CIVIL, you could risk Raptors and Vipers for Resources but you needed to get that 11 DISTANCE required to complete the game.

All these are just ideas I thought off of the top of my hat. It probably isn't within the scope of what you were looking for but these were the first things which came to mind when I saw your excellent work on Pegasus.

Please don't take this as criticism because I really think you've done a great job! They're just ideas that might be of use to solve some of the issues you've been having.

I'll discuss my ideas for "NEW CAPRICA" in another thread (when I get more time!).

I have been involved in playtesting. It has been fun to be involved. One of the thoughts that goes back and forth is simplicity. Is your civil -military track simple? I think the Pegasus expansion fits into the game as is, your civil-military idea is more radical. Opinions?

Funny, I thought about something like the Philosophy track back on page 1 of this thread:

CaptNeo said:

At the time we decided against that. But I'm open to suggestions. Regarding New Caprica I am quite happy with the state of things right now. However I could imagine another expansion which features a mini game at the beginning of the session that could change the character traits depending on the actions the players take in order to escape the cylon occupation. But I think, that would be a completely new effort.

Ha! I missed that (I did read through all the pages, though, obviously not well enough!).

I don't mean to wade in and seem like I'm bashing what you've done, because it is excellent!

However, my thoughts and reasoning behind it (correct me if I'm wrong):

1. One of the key designs to your expansion has been balancing the Pegasus while keeping it to theme. In the series, they come across the Pegasus, everyone thinks this is great news (two Battlestars, more survivors, whoo hoo!) but then Cain proves to be...well... mental While Adama and friends think that just plain old survival is the key, Cain wants to nuke all the cylons, waging a guerilla war until either the cylons give up/lose/blow up Pegasus/Galactica.

In game terms, the Pegasus immediately provides a morale boost and tactical advantages. That's all covered.

However, you've expressed some dissatisfaction with the implementation of the "Cain Element". Creating a Crisis Card that triggers Pegasus is a good idea, however, some games will not see the Pegasus at all and others might see Pegasus in turn one etc. That's fine if that's the way you want to run it.

Just thinking "outloud" here: if the basic BSG game is "SEASON ONE", you might consider making Pegasus part of a "SEASON TWO" expansion. In that case, I think having "NEW CAPRICA" as a new goal for the S2 expansion (like you have now, only it is a replacement from the get-go). Working toward making BSG either a "Campaign" of playing your first game as "Season One" and then your second game "Season Two".

Actually, I'm going to stop here.

I realise that I'm going completely off-topic and making Pegasus in to something more than you've got, which might end up making it something you don't want!

I am going to go away, think about my "Season Two" idea and, if I may, I'd like to incorporate your Pegasus stuff in to that. But I don't want to step on your toes because at the end of the day, you've worked hard and produced something brilliant!

Hi CaptNeo

I've made a friendship request to you as I'd like to discuss something privately.

Cheers

DTH

Sorry, I did no know about the "friend" functionallity of the forums until dth pointed it out explicitely. I did not mean to be rude. I've caught up with all friend requests from this post.

Used 2 fuel, morale, food and 2 ships for Pegasus, the alternate Pegasus. Pegasus won for the first time. Again, a close game. i will playtest this more and say if it makes better balance. Really having fun with this

I don't believe it, when I see that new official expansion board:

I'm in geek heaven .

you deserve some moral credit for starting the ball rolling. You must be proud too...

CaptNeo said:

Sorry CaptNeo, I'd love to say it was influence by you, but this expansion was designed and being tested before yours was even posted on the interwebs!

They've probably had expansions 1, 2 & 3 already done since the base game was released!

Man, I take some time away from playing and even most of the internet to get my life, job, school in order and move into a new place and what do I see when I get back?! I don't know how to even form an opinion on this matter. There's good and bad to this I guess.

-Kenny