BSG (Admiral Tigh)

Well yes. Would the population hit cause defeat?

If not, I say PUSH THE BUTTON.

Do eeeeeet.

BSG (Admiral Tigh)

Mr President? Have you made a decision?

Amazon FireTV

So the last several days I've been playing games on my FireTV. I'm rather surprised how much fun that little box is! Amazon had a sale on some games, that look to have been out awhile, but new to me. The Bards Tale and Table Top Racing. Both, rather fun. And Amazon made money on the deal in the long run, since I purchased their controller. It might not be the high graphics of an xbox, but, it's still a lot of fun, and certainly wasted more hours than I'd care to admit. Not as sophisticated as a Wii. But a better than playing on the iPad. Not sure if you can do 2 player games on it. I would think, on a business trip, or family vacation, it would be real easy to pack the little hockey pucked unit and controller, and connect to any TV. Not sure if you need internet to play the games.

If not for the Flex Alert today, I'd continue with my Bards Tale quest. Ive just left the second tower, for those who have played it. Instead, off to the cheap-o movie theater, and finally catch the Avengers.

BSG

I have now heard from the President. Let's end the suspense.

Move: FTL Control (discard Trust Instincts 0)
Action: Push the Button

Helo plays a Strategic Planning 4 on the die roll:

Die roll: 3 + 2 = 5. Fail! Population falls by 3! But that still leaves 2 in the tank. So to speak.

That's the end of the game. Did the humans make it? Well, all resources are still positive; but let's check for any unresolved Personal Goals. And we do have one. Your own President, it turns out, is Selfish. Fuel drops by 1! So, at game end, resources are:

Fuel: 1
Food: 4
Morale: 3
Population: 2

HUMANS WIN!

BSG

End-of-game summary:

Round 10.3 - Apollo

Locations and Hands
Tigh: Sickbay; 10 cards, 0 miracle tokens, 1 mutiny card
Helo: Sector 4; 7 cards, 1 miracle token, 2 mutiny cards
Apollo: FTL Control; 12 cards, 0 miracle tokens, 1 mutiny card
Baltar: Caprica; 4 cards, 0 miracle tokens, 0 mutiny cards

Main Board Sectors
Sector 1: Empty
Sector 2: Empty
Sector 3: Empty
Sector 4: Helo
Sector 5: Empty
Sector 6: Empty

Resources
Fuel: 1
Food: 4
Morale: 3
Population: 2

Viper Reserves: 6
Damaged Vipers: 0
Raptors: 3
Assault Raptors: 0
Boarding Party: 0

Other
Nukes: 0
Jump Track: 0 (Red)
Distance Travelled: Earth
Galactica Damage: Admiral's Quarters, Command, Pegasus

BSG (Baltron)

1 FUEL?? AAARGGHH SO CLOSE.

Good game, humans, though you didn't use Research Lab enough.

BSG (Admiral Tigh)

Good game! Wow. One fuel left! That would have sucked, considering there was at least one chance to roll for more fuel that I passed on. I did try and go for the longest jump for least fuel, including one that was an attack card, if I recall correctly.

BSG (Team Human)

That victory snuck up on me. I don't feel like I made any big mistakes but I don't feel like I helped a lot with winning.

BSG

Congratulations humans - third victory in a row. Commiserations lone Cylon. I'd have more to say, but I don't really remember much about the earlier stages. This is easily the longest game we've had so far, running for almost seven months. I think ita passing away kind of knocked the wind out of everyone, and it never really got its groove back afterwards.

Nonetheless, the pace we were managing really isn't viable. I've lost track of the number of times I had to send a 24-hour reminder. (That's supposed to be the outside limit on putting in orders, not a signal that discussion time is over.) Even taking out the hiatus Jan-Feb hiatus, the average turn took over four days to complete. Especially with only four players, that's extremely slow.

I've been wondering what's the best thing to do with it. I could start imposing harsher penalties - if orders aren't in on time, the player will take a forced pass or something like that but the problem is that such a rule will penalise the humans more than the Cylons. (And indeed may create perverse incentives for hidden Cylons.) There are pretty obvious difficulties with me imputing orders.

Next time I run a BSG game, I'm going to simplify it by taking out some expansions - just base game and Daybreak. However, I'm wondering if people are just played out on BSG right now. Here's another option: I've been thinking about maybe running a different game next - namely, Race for the Galaxy. Four-player game, I manage the rules and resolution of play, as per BSG.

Quick summary of Race for the Galaxy. It's a card game. Each player is trying to build a layout that will net them the most victory points. Each turn has a selection of five phases; but only those phases chosen by at least one of the players gets resolved in each turn. Depending on the phases selected, players can draw cards, add cards to the layout, produce goods on particular cards in their layout and/or consume such goods for victory points. Cards in one's layout provide various abilities, bonuses and discounts for different phases. There are a number of different strategies that players can adopt to pursue victory.

So. Who wants to play BSG again? And who would like to try out Race for the Galaxy?