Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Diaspora => Topic started by: General Battuta on January 10, 2011, 11:43:56 am
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This game is genius. (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=18&enmi=Battlestar%20Galactica) Work together to solve crises and guide the fleet to Kobol, but some among you are Cylons - could be anyone! Infiltrating Cylons can sabotage crises, make bad decisions as the President or Admiral, nuke civilian ships, fly civilian ships into Raiders, jump the fleet early to leave civilian ships behind to dieeeee, accuse others of being Cylons to cause political infighting, etc. Revealed Cylons can take command of the Raiders and base ships swarming Galactica.
Expansions give you Pegasus, Cylon Leaders, and other cool crap.
I'll do a bigger post once I hit the game this weekend. So far have played a few times, outcomes so far:
1. Humans work together to fight through three jumps. Morale drops due to various decisions; President Baltar promises inspirational speeches to justify use of Morale as a dump resource. Baltar is a Cylon, kills fleet on third jump by making a presidential call to sacrifice morale to save fuel when morale is only at 1. Cylons win due to human morale failure.
2. Humans get swarmed at the beginning, civilian ships die en masse. Emergency jump to get away from Cylon swarm costs even more population. Humans pull together and struggle heroically through two more jumps with population dropping to 3 and then 1. Admiral Adama chooses to jump fleet to a location that causes a drop in 1 population; Adama revealed as a Cylon; Cylons win due to human extinction.
3. No signs of Cylon activity for most of game. One Cylon identified after an un-subtle crisis sabotage and thrown in the brig, forced to suicide and retreat to Resurrection Ship, then starts doing minor damage to Galactica with sabotage. Galactica cornered by base ships at third jump but in good shape, no real worries except for a damaged armory due to Cylon sabotage. Prospects seem good until second Cylon reveals in a flurry of sabotage, taking out weapons control, the hangar deck and FTL control; base ships destroy Galactica 1 turn later with a volley of nukes that does enough damage to push Galactica over the 6-damage-token limit. From ready to dead in five minutes!
4. Political infighting. President Baltar (secretly a Cylon) spends most of the game playing a deep cover game as a loyal human, but begins to panic as Cylon ships fail to turn up. (Little does Baltar know that the meek player handling Boomer is using her scout power to put all the Cylon Attack crisis cards on the bottom of the deck.) Without Cylon ship pressure it falls to sabotage and political means to destroy Humanity, but Cylon Baltar doesn't want to move until he knows who the other Cylon is, and the other Cylon doesn't seem to want to move either. The Admiral pulls a military coup and seizes the Presidency, Lee goes against his father to restore the Presidency to civilian control, and a hotly contested election puts Cylon Baltar back in power. Cylon Baltar then brigs the Admiral, Boomer gets brigged due to her character disadvantage, and Cylon Baltar has a chance to brig someone else to put all the humans in the brig and steer Galactica to its death.
But he's paralyzed. Is Lee the other Cylon, trying to aid him? Is Boomer? Is Tyrol? Could it be the Admiral himself?
He guesses that Boomer is the other Cylon and frees her from the brig. He's wrong. Galactica makes its final jump to Kobol without a single Cylon ship arriving. Humans win, riding on Boomer's insane luck and good use of scouting.
Game #5 coming up.
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I've heard of this before. It does sound like pure genius. Wish I had someone to play it with around here, but alas, BSG isn't halfway as popular here as I'd like it to be. Might just try to press random friends with no BSG knowledge into playing it though, if I get desperate enough :D
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The mechanics are good enough that it has a sizable following amongst people who've never seen the show.
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Ive seen this before.Its one of those rpg card games like pokemon.Unfortunately im not into card games nor are any of my friends so I wouldnt have anyone to play it with even if I did like them. However if they did an online based flash version id probably play it.Its also a bit expensive for a card based game too.
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Ive seen this before.Its one of those rpg card games like pokemon.Unfortunately im not into card games nor are any of my friends so I wouldnt have anyone to play it with even if I did like them. However if they did an online based flash version id probably play it.
No it is not an RPG card game, it is not a card game at all.
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My bad. I saw "includes cards" and assumed card game. So what is it like Risk? I probably would play this game then. If it costed less.
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I've played it, it was a lot of fun - especially when everyone has to vote whether or not to airlock people. :3
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My bad. I saw "includes cards" and assumed card game. So what is it like Risk? I probably would play this game then. If it costed less.
Yeah, it's a board game. You can get a full set for probably $30.
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It's not really like Risk though. It's a board game but it's got a lot more person to person interaction than rolling dice against each other.
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I've heard this is pretty good, but not played it myself.
This is a pretty good writeup about it. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/09/cardboard-children-battlestar-galactica/
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I own the game and both expansions (Pegasus & Exodus). The game is absolutely brilliant. I highly recommend everyone give it a try - you will really enjoy it! And don't let the seemingly steep learning curve derail you - it does seem intimidating at first to learn but it all flows very well and once you get into it, YOU'RE STUCK!
EDIT: The best way to describe the game is a co-operative paranoia game. Cheers!
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New game tomorrow. I will report in! Word is we're using Cylon Fleet and Pegasus options.
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Just got back from a session. Brutal. Was Baltar, wasn't a Cylon, everyone was convinced I was a Cylon. Callie spent the whole game threatening to execute me unless I did her cabbage-reeking dirty work. Dee and Gaeta turned out to be Cylons; Scar and a swarm of raiders killed most of our civilians; human race went extinct as we tried our second emergency jump away from the Raider swarms and failed the population loss roll.
At one point Gaeta (we still thought he was human) was President, Admiral and CAG. He revealed himself right after we figured out he was a Cylon and right before we tried to execute him. Too little, too late.
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Commanding a fleet and handling administrative operations from a fighter cockpit brings a funny image to mind. :lol:
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We were so sure Gaeta was human. The short jump decisions should have tipped us off. But he used his nukes well and seemed trustworthy.
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Maybe you should look out for more 'perfect' behavior in the future. :lol:
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Maybe you should look out for more 'perfect' behavior in the future. :lol:
Never played it, but from the descriptions that's the whole point: make you paranoid and suspicious of anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, don't really know any people I could get into playing this sort of thing.
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'Nother game today. Think I might play Cain.
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'Nother game today. Think I might play Cain.
Would probably be my choice as well :)
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aaahahahaha *sob*
In spite of the best efforts of the Admiral Cain/President Tory power couple the human race went extinct ONE FRAKKING JUMP from Kobol and safety.
i weep and weep and weep
Tomorrow I will post details.
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I don't suppose you can load Baltar into Pegasus bow batteries and shoot him at enemy capital ships?
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we had a play-by-post of the basic game without expansions over at bsgpilots.com one time. went on for ~2 months and ~60 pages and was great fun until our game master vanished.
the one word you can describe this game with is "paranoia".
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How did you guys play online? Everyone buy a board or just the game master?
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I'd actually be interested in doing an online play here on HLP. Unfortunately I suspect it requires a lot of visual resources and photoshop.
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you could try Vassal
http://www.vassalengine.org/
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Yeah, Vassal seems to have it. If anyone ends up making a game I'm definitely up for that; I love paranoia-based games, one example being DEFCON.
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It went fairly well for the first few turns when I did a forum lp of BSG:TBG over on the forums for a book series I read. At least until that cylon convinced them to turn on me just 'cause I was trying to play Zarek realistically... (I don't care if the gm said none of us were cylons! that just shows he was!)
Our playthrough, only the gamerunner had a board, he'd post all relevant info, pm us our hands, and the rest of us made do with PDFs of the rules.
It looks like Vassal already has a BSG module made: http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Battlestar_Galactica:_The_Board_Game
I'd definitely be in for this.
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You were playing Zarek as Zarek and expected everyone to like you?
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I'd actually be interested in doing an online play here on HLP.
Now that I'd like to try.
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You were playing Zarek as Zarek and expected everyone to like you?
So I launched a turn-one coup attempt with no pre-arranged allies... so what? It's only cause 'President' Baltar was probably a cylon.
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ladies and gentlemen, buckle your seatbelts while I deliver this tale of
woe WHOA FRAK
The Rag-Tag Fleet sets out from the ruined colonies under Admiral Helena Cain and President Tory Foster. Our CAG is Louanne Katraine and our fourth member of note is a mysterious priest who buggered in from somewhere going by the name of 'Cavil'. As a Cylon Leader it's unclear to us what Cavil's agenda is and whether he ultimately wants the humans or Cylons to be victorious, which makes him exactly as trustworthy as the rest of us.
Hem hem.
As usual we begin with a Cylon base star off the nose and Raiders inbound. Cain charges in with Pegasus and damages the basestar but return fire knocks out the Pegasus CIC and lands our dear Admiral right in sickbay. Galactica is damaged by further base ship missile fire, crippling the Armory and later the hangar deck. Smashing start, right?
But it's not an omen of things to come. The first half of our game is a monument to human efficiency, with Cain and Tory cooperating to magnificent effect. Cain gives her turns to President Tory, who uses her abilities to leverage skill cards out of Quorum play, building up a repository of engineering ability as well as implementing food policies and inspirational speeches that put our resources above their starting positions. Kat the CAG escorts civilian ships off the board and we stay well ahead of the Cylon force, which is left languishing on the pursuit board. Even Cavil pitches in, using his influence to vanish away a base star that pops in to harass us (presumably he needs it to pimp around sightseeing supernovas and whining about his pale fleshy Dean Stockwell body.)
With this convincing show of trust we realize that Cavil is in the human camp this game. Cavil sets up camp aboard Galactica after infiltrating the Fleet; we're cool with that. We're slightly less than halfway to Kobol at this point, moving quickly, morale and resources high. Cain uses her blind jump ability to keep us charging along and in no time at all we hit the midgame and the sleeper agent phase with our only real worry being depleted fuel reserves.
Immediately after the sleeper agent cards are dealt, a Raptor crash damages Pegasus. Moments later, an enormous Cylon fleet jumps in, surrounding us. Civilian ships are in peril, but we have a response ready. "Cavil!" the admiral orders. "Get to Communications and order those civilians to move under the cover of our Viper patrols!"
Cavil goes to Communications.
Cavil sends the wrong coordinates.
The civilian ships fly away from the Vipers, into the Raider swarm.
We watch them explode with what mildly be termed a general air of distress. Almost half our civilian fleet is gone. From sickbay, Cain orders nuclear release, using both our warheads to take out the two basestars off Galactica's bow. But the Raider swarms still remain, some of them in killing range of our civilians. It's now the CAG's job to get the surviving civilians out of there while we prepare the fleet to jump.
The CAG opens her turn by ordering all of Galactica's Vipers to land. Then she sabotages Galactica's FTL computer, resetting our jump clock. The Raiders massacre another quarter of our civilian fleet.
Kat is a Cylon. Our marines gun her down and send her to the resurrection ship, leaving Cain and Tory the only humans on the Fleet.
With our population and fuel reserves dangerously low our priority is clear: save the remaining civilians. President Tory takes command of Pegasus' main batteries and opens fire on the Raiders, taking out a swathe of them but also killing a civilian ship as collateral damage. Less than 1/5th of the human race now survives.
Moments later Cavil orders his Raiders to engage Pegasus. The swarms are overwhelming and Pegasus, battered by the Raptor crash and earlier damage from the base ships, detonates. The President is sent to sickbay on Galactica.
Pegasus did her job - for the moment our surviving civilians are clear, and with the base stars nuked, and although the surviving raiders are numerous they are spread out and need time to close in. Unfortunately the same can't be said of the Heavy Raiders; two of them crash into the flight pod and unload their Centurions.
From this point on it's down to the wire. The two Cylons - Cavil and Kat - are able to push the Centurions towards the decompression safeties with alarming speed. Our armory is offline and we need to repair it. Tory gets that done. Cain launches Vipers from Galactica CIC to try to help our surviving civilians get off the board, but moments later CIC is hit by Raider fire and she's sickbayed again. We have only two Vipers spaceborne; one of them in position to defend the civilians. Heroically, he holds off four Raiders single-handedly but is shot down by the last one.
A Cylon bomb takes out Colonial One. We're so battered that we make no effort to stop it. The cackling Cylons declare that they did it for the lulz.
But even in the face of human extinction Tory and Cain will not be deterred. We need two more jumps to make it to Kobol. At Cain's urging Tory rushes to CIC and declares an emergency jump. The jump clock was nearly full; we lose only one population (leaving us at one :nervous:) in the process. We're now one jump from safety, and quick use of the Armory manages to handle one of the two Centurion boarding parties.
We had a plan here. It almost worked. We needed a pilot, badly, and Tory volunteered to have herself airlocked so she could come back as another human - if you're executed as a human you get to draw another character, like Starbuck, Lee or Anders. Unfortunately we couldn't pull it off, and in the end we went down a turn later when the colossal Cylon pursuit force caught up with us and wiped out the last of our civilians. Without Pegasus or a CAG or even any Vipers up we didn't have a prayer.
Cavil gleefully revealed his hidden agenda card: Illusion of Hope. Allow the humans to get within two jumps of victory, then annihilate them. Consider it done, Brother Cavil.
In the end we ran out of population because we couldn't effectively screen our civilians. We never got enough Vipers up and never repaired the four damaged Mk. VIIs sitting on our hangar deck (those things are great at civilian escort.) With Centurions one space away from the decompression safeties it was abundantly clear that our problem was not handling Crisis Cards - which Tory's political acumen generally blew away - but stopping bad Cylons from touching poor old Galactica and its various consorts.
Next time we'll learn our lesson. MORE VIPERS. MORE FIREPOWER. It would also help if the CAG were not a Cylon.
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I just downloaded Vassal, the game and Peggy expansion and found a game running online to try and observe how it works in practise. The players in the game were all French which, ordinarily, isn't a problem for me, only they were all talking on Skype so I had little idea what was going on :(
They seemed to be having fun anyway, and I definitely think this could work, but we'd probably need at least one person already familiar with the game to help start us off.
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That can be me. My understanding is that the loyalty cards are intentionally left blank to ensure at least someone owns a copy anyway? Or somesuch?
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they're left blank except for the title text
which makes it impossible to figure out, aside from the writing at the top that says, "YOU ARE A CYLON" or "YOU ARE A CYLON SYMPATHIZER" or "YOU ARE NOT A CYLON"
So it shouldn't be a problem.
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Um so how do the Cylons know what their reveal will do? That's really weird. Maybe you compare the pictures? :wtf:
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Everyone who wants to get involved please install Vassal and the BSG module (including Pegasus, for safety) and read the rules here. (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Battlestar_Galactica/bsg_rulebook_web.pdf)
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Well, first thoughts: Vassal is a bloody mess to work out, but once sorted it works really well, and playing is fun. Also, although there is built-in text chat, setting up some kind of voice chat would really help once we start playing for real rather than just messing around to learn how the Vassal module works.
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Also you should definitely blast BSG soundtracks while playing this game. Helps the mood.
Melvin, Shade and I are playing right now. Made one jump away from light Cylon harassment, to a Tylium moon. No sign of Cylon action aboard the Fleet. Commendation to MelvinLee for taking out two heavy raiders and to Sharon Valerie for being wounded in the line of duty.
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and to Sharon Valerie for being wounded in the line of duty
Twice!
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We managed another jump...to a second Tylium moon, god bless our Admiral. While I appreciate that the moons are good for our fuel reserves I'm worried that we're not making much progress to Kobol as each moon is only span 1.
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Yeah, would like to see some distance on the next jump. Fuel reserves are good now.
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would you have prefered a span of two, with two fuel loss and 1 morale loss to the span of one with a net +1 fuel? Yeah, that's what I thought.
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Oh my, such righteous indignation! :D Nope, as I recall we were all agreed that the 2nd tylium planet was a Good Move (tm), seeing as how we failed the roll on the first.
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Thank you for your support, although I feel obliged to point out that that should be not (tm), but rather, Patent Pending. As soon as the patent office gets back to me, I'll have a legalized trade practice monopoly on Making Good Moves.
It's gonna be a thing. Just wait.
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Soo... when'll you two next have time to continue this? I'm kinda itching just a bit to pick it up again :D
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I should probably work at work today. :(
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Scandalous. Who do they think they are, asking you to actually work for your pay?
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Who's up for a game tonight around 7 EST? Maybe a bit later?
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I should be around by then.
[Edit] Definitely will be around by then.
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I could do 10 EST...
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Not tonight, chaps. I'm going to be spending it with the lady. Sorry.
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Howsabout wednesday evening, say 18:00 or 20:00 est?
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Could probably make that.
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So this thread has turned into an RPG now? In that case heres my contribution.
The U.S.S. Enterprise enters a time warp causing it to travel back in time 150,000 years. Unfortunately it crashes into the Galactica destroying both ships as well as destroying humanity's future. The end.
JK. Now about that vassal engine. Can I play against an A.I opponent? Id like to know before I download it.
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No, there is no AI and the game does not enforce its own rules; it just gives you the board and you play as if the board was physically in front of you.
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No, you need human opponents. Besides, honestly, this game would be no good vs AIs. It's all about human interaction.
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I see that you can play over email and not necessarily in realtime. Thats good for me because most of my friends are long distance and I never know when there online.Ill download it and try it out with one.
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I must say again, for the record, this game is TITS.
I have the game and both expansions in my home and never turn down a chance to play them. It has been a while so I want to get a live game going very soon!
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Vassal has the exodus expansion almostly (which is a word now) worked in! come play!
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Since I'm snowed in and going nowhere, anyone up for a round of vassal boardgame BSG?
Also, 100th post! yay!
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We've played a bunch of games since last time I posted, but tonight we had a really epic one where the humans made it all the way to the last jump with most of our resources in good shape. We were so confident we were going to win that we actually started putting our coats on several times.
Unfortunately, every time we managed to get our jump prep counter up into the 'emergency jump available' slot (to make the final jump), the Cylons would bump it back down with good rolls on the Basestar Bridge location. Several rounds of this turned our irritation into incredulity - we were playing perfectly, using the Pegasus engine room to make sure we kept getting jump clock icons, but Cylon-Adama, Cylon-Kat and Cavil just kept slowing us down. It didn't help that Zarek's character disadvantage prevented him from getting into the engine room to help out.
After a few rounds of this an enormous Cylon fleet jumped in off the pursuit board. Raiders zerged our civilians, then destroyed the crippled Pegasus and took out FTL control on Galactica. We were still trying to pick our jaws up off the floor when Cylon-Adama hit us with his super crisis and zeroed our fuel.
FRAK