In this course we have been divided into groups and given the task to play three different board games. The assignment we have received is to analyze three games by finding its core system. By playing the game at least 3 times, we should get a better understanding how the game system works for each of these games. This week we have been playing Battlestar Galactica (The Board Game).

Battlestar Galactica is a board game where you cooperate with other players in order to win the game. However you can’t trust all players because some of them might be Cylons and their goal is to sabotage for the players, so that they lose. To play the game requires at least 3-6 players.

Best of Battlestar Galactica

Among the best things about the game where the build-up. When the game starts it´s pretty peaceful but further into the game it becomes more intense the more resources you loses. When we played we knew that at least one person was playing Cylon and that the person trying to sabotage. Because of that we could not trust anyone. This made it difficult to have control over crisis, because we only had a limited amount of cards to use. If you ran out of cards or already played all your good cards it became freely for Cylons to try sabotage as much as possible (Stab us in the back). So you wanted to save your cards to the right moment, the moment when you think Cylons strikes.

Worst of Battlestar Galactica

The worst part of the game is that it does not real matter if things are going well for the moment, because next second could everything change and you are close to losing. Since much of the game is random either by dice roll or which card you get from the pile, it has a big part of how the game will end. An example is when we played it and we had to roll a dice to either pass a crisis or lose resources. Since we only had one resource remaining it meant either pass crisis or the game is lost. We got one less resources and it brought us to the end. We had been playing for over 3 hours and we lost by rolling a dice…

Character Cards

At the beginning of the game each player select a character they want to play. You can choose a charcater from four different groups,(Pilots), (Engineers), (Ploicical leaders) and (Military leaders). Each charcater card has it’s benefits and drawbacks written on the card. The card also tells how many skill cards the player may take and in which color.

Loyalty Cards

After the character’s crads has been selected, card called loyalty cards are divded among all players. Only the owner of the card shall see what it says. The card says either “You are not a cylon” or “You are a cylon”. If a player gets the the cylon card, he will now attempt to sabotage for the other players (Human players) so they lose.

Skill Cards

There are 5 types of skill cards, Red card=Piloting , blue card=Engineering, Yellow card=Politics, Green card=Leadership. Depending on what the character cards says then the player knows how many cards he/she will receive and in which color.

These cards will be used in skill checks and as action on a players turn. Some cards can also be used before or after a skill checks to save or avoid sabotage from cylons.

Crisis Cards

After a players turn a crisis card will be turned up. This cards has a pass or fail condition for the humans. To solve a crises the players invests their skill cards in a so-called skill check. A certain amount of points needed to pass a crisis.

Skill Check

Skill checks are mostly used to handle crisis, but can also be used in other situations . A certain amount of point is needed to pass a skill check . All skill cards on a crisis will be played face down unless otherwise provided. It’s also only certain colors that gives positive points, those colors appears on the crisis card. Other colors gives instead negative points, these colors will cylon try to add to the skill check in order to sabotage for the humans.

A Typical Round

* The player draws skill cards: The amount of skill cards the player should pick up are based on which character they are playing.

* Move to a location: The player moves to a location where he/she can make an action. The player dont need to move if he/she dont want to it.  

*Action: The player has one action each turn. The player can either play a action card from the hand or using ability based on the character card.

*Crisis: End of each players turn a crisis card appears on the board. The players can choose to solve the crises through a skill check or allow it to fail. To fail a skill check comes with a negative output, for example losing resources.

The most interesting system

The most interesting system in the game is the loyalty system. The games social interaction has a great effect on the loyalty system of the game. Since each player gets a loyalty card at the start of the game where you either become Human or Cylon. The player or players which becomes Cylons will try to sabotage and blame other players as Cylons without revealing themselves. It is also important for the Human players to figure out who is playing Cylon, so they can stop him/her. Even through you are playing as a Human it’s not safe to blame other players as Cylons, because it’s a risk that you will be pointed out as Cylon. This makes it interesting because all players need to work together to reveal a Cylon but it’s really difficult because you can’t trust anyone.

Target group

The main target group of the game would be both male and female people who are fans of the original Battlestar Galactica TV-series. I also think people who are interested in politics, sci-Fi and board games in general would play this game. The age group of this game should be around 15+ because it has a big complex system which I think would be too complicated for younger players too catch.

Summary

I really enjoyed plaing the game with my group, but since the game is more focused on Battlestar Galactica fans, it’s not the type of game that i would play on my holidays.

There are many rules in this game, so it was hard to understand exactly everthing. Fortunately we had one member of the group who had played the game before. He was then able to explain the game properly instead of reading that huge rulebook. For those who are new to this game and do not know the rules, it will take some time before you understand all elements in the game.