BSG

What's our policy on sidebar conversations? Like, if I want to discuss something with one of the other players but not all? Doable? Include billytea on the email? (which is like cc:ing God)...or not kosher?

I'm leaning toward the population hit. Apollo makes a good point about Morale being replaceable, but this is only our second turn, and facing another basestar this soon does not give me a warm fuzzy. If we don't kill it right away, we risk more raiders, Heavy raiders, damage to the Galactica, and ADDITIONAL basestars from subsequent crisis cards.

Also, -2 Population leaves us 10 away from losing, where -1 Morale leaves us 8 away from losing.

BSG

As President, I am completely against anything that puts another Basestar off our front quarter. If we have to abandon people to escape another battle this soon, then eff 'em. They should have stuck closer to the fleet, like I tell them to do every week in my Presidential wireless address.

BSG

If we don't kill it right away, we risk more raiders, Heavy raiders, damage to the Galactica, and ADDITIONAL basestars from subsequent crisis cards.

::Channel Helo:: Roger that, Admiral McClellan -- preserve our military resources whatever the cost to our strategic objectives. After all, President Airlock has given us full top cover to "eff" those civilians, and Gods know they are just slowing us down. ::/Helo::

I don't wanna be the guy who says, "Hey, if we choose battle we might win!" and then we go on to suffer heavy losses.

I do wanna be the guy who says, "Hey if we choose battle, we might win!" and then we go on to an amazing victory.

The MEH decrees RISK a poor and uninteresting game because you are right -- there is nothing else you would do. Leaving aside the sheer randomness of the combat system, whining in RISK is amplified because losing positions get established very quickly, it is very difficult to engineer come-back wins without poor play by someone else (which usually elicits accusations of game-throwing), and there is only one possible route to victory.

RISK was the boardgame that always ended badly in college where my friends were too competitive. A few bad rolls and pissed offness ensued. My favorite boardgame was Junta (if anyone has heard of that one). It went well with my high school friends who didn't take double crossing personally, NSM with my college friends who did take the double dealing a bit personally.

My favorite boardgame was Junta (if anyone has heard of that one).

I played Junta exactly twice, and really enjoyed it. I would love to find a copy and give it a try again.

I loved that the manual emphasized that you should "cheat" as much as possible.

Yes, Junta was very effective at getting the players to act like they were (or wanted to be) in charge of a banana republic.

And Jess, I'll fire up a couple of Conquer Club games shortly.

I have played Junta a couple of times (first in high school and more recently in Greece) and I agree it is fun -- the assassinations, the double-dealing, the graft. Good times, good times. My only quibble is the mini war game that I felt was a bit grafted onto the structure of the game. It certainly captured the flavor of a banana republic environment, but I think I would have prefered a more abstract (and quicker) mechanic -- maybe a card play system, or a vote system. Our Junta games usually ran 5 to 6 hours, which is certainly outer edge for my tolerance for any one game.

Still, for its time Junta was really pretty unique and very forward leaning. Between that and Dune we whiled away many an hour.