Battlestar Galactica and why you can't trust me.

Last night some friends and I played the Battlestar Galactica board game from Fantasy Flight Games. One of the guys had played it before, so we received a quick overview of the game. Quick means 5 minutes or less, with most of it explained as we go.

It's a cooperative game, in the vein of Shadows over Camelot, where the game is difficult to win, and there's a possibility that someone is betraying their friends. Except in this case, up to 2 players can be Cylons hidden in the midst of the players...but the players might not even become Cylons until halfway through the game (there is a mandatory trigger).

The mechanics were quick to understand after a complete set of turns for each person. It may be difficult for some players to correctly guess "how much population can we afford to lose" in the first time playing the game. It will probably be difficult for the Cylon player the first time - when do you reveal yourself as a Cylon? Early? Late? Never? It does mean that you should play the second game, just to get your own idea for tempo.

The game is supposed to take 2 hours. I think we took 3-3.5 hours to finish - first time players, distractions from other games going on, and ...it's not going to be 2 hours. I would say that most of the 'fun' is guessing who the Cylon is. In the six-player game, if both Cylons were revealed, we would have played a lot faster. As it was, the second Cylon didn't appear until nearly the end of the first half. (Gaius was dealt both.)

This didn't stop us from accusing other players of being a Cylon, even through there was only one at the table. As I said, this was the fun bit. Can you tell who the bad person is, by what cards they play, or don't play? Even if you don't actually get to see their cards going into the pot? These discussions were the best part of the game, but also took up most of the time. You want to spend less time discussing? I don't think it's going to be much fun then.

In the end, we scraped by with a win. The president turned out to be the second Cylon, but she didn't switch sides early enough to take advantage of her special Cylon card. Early enough being 2 turns around the board. from the end of the game. We even spent 4 "good-guy" turns, knowing she was the Cylon, but none of us having enough cards to put her in the Brig. A last-minute, once-a-game ability stopped Gaius from choosing to fail a card...otherwise we would have run out of Morale and lost the game. (Population, Fuel, and Food were all dangerously low as well, but those were probably managed correctly.)

The mechanics for passing/failing challenges as a group was solid. The theme was excellent. The duration of the game was long - discussions of traitors was the primary 'fun' of the game, but it took a correspondingly more large chunk of time for it. There were rules that weren't well executed in the rulebook/cards, which is sad to see from a professional view. (Nukes, Executive Orders.)

My last comment is for the late Cylon addition in the second half. It sucks if you have no time as the Cylon, and that you have to switch gears in mid-game to play the bad guy. All of the 'trust' issues that the players spend so much time on, in the first half, has to be discarded and begun again...which is painful for everyone.

Is it the perfect cooperative-traitor game? No.
Is it a good one? Certainly.