Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

Regarding Why Battleship Galaxies "died" - it wasn't just the lack of expansions. I said this before last October and August, so I cut & paste them here for your information:

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

Yeah, I remember your original post, Johngee.

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

Thanks MegaSilver, not only for remembering what I said, but also for being quick enough to NINJA my thought process before I could finish typing it. ~~lol~~

Anyway, the second point I was trying to make B4 I was ninja'ed by MS is this:
. . . I think that the combination of these two factors IN ADDITION to the lack of support and lack of expansions contributed to it's downfall.

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

Yep, that too! ^_^

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

;) This is a bit off topic, but I want to mention that I just got rid of all my "old dust collectors," and have now gone down from 100 board games to about 50. BG went with the rest of them, but I had played all the scenarios and enjoyed them, although only to a limited degree. A good game but not a great one, without more expansions.

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

Hey Chas

Thanks for the recommendations. I've seen "Twilight Imperium" on the shelf at various FLGS and was always intrigued, but not enough to spend that kind of money on another "dust collector" (knowing my local gaming group's likes and dislikes). I'm not familiar with "galactic Emperor," though - a 'lite TI' as you called it. I'll have to check it out on BGG when I get a chance. And I loved your lengthy report on your first "Star Trek Fleet Captains." However you did not even mention "Eclipse" which got a glowing review from Tom Vassal.

Currently I own and/or have played: "Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century," "Star Wars Trilogy: RISK," "Race for the Galaxy with expansions," "Star Wars: X-Wing," and "Leviathans" (which is Steam Punk themed, not exactly outer space based, but it might as well be). How would you compare these in regards to a replacement for "Battleship Galaxies." Or more simply, what is YOUR favorite game in this genre and why?

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

JOHNGEE:

I just posted a list of the 62 board games I saved when I downsized from about 100 recently, on the thread What Board Games Are You Playing? Feel free to take a look and comment or question about any of them.

I did not mention Eclipse because I don't have it and haven't played it. However, I heard that it is more based on economics than fighting. So although it is very popular, it sounds like not my cup of tea. Likewise Race For the Galaxy. At my only GenCon a couple of years back, two enthusiasts tried to teach a pal and me RFTG in the game library. They were real numbers cruncher type of people, and we were both pretty mystefied. Its just not my kind of thing.

I have not played or owned X-Wing or Leviathan.

Buck Rogers is a great game, but takes a long time to play. I have 100 custom event cards I made for it, based on the old Buster Crabbe serials, but rarely get multiplayer groups together any more, even though I have many of these types of games!

Twilight Imperium is probably the best space game ever made. But it requires patience to learn, an entire day to play, and lots of dedicated players. The rules are not complicated, but there are a lot of them, especially with the expansions. Hence Galactic Emperor, which plays in a couple of hours, and includes many factors that TI has (politics, economics, diplomacy, strategy, tactics), except for different alien races--some would like to see some added to GE, but its an old design and it doesn't seem that the author is going to get back to it.

Star Trek Fleet Captains is great to play, but it has many component problems, as noted in my separate thread. Also, after one expansion it seems that it is not being further supported, as the company is busy making money throwing out lots of same scale ships for its silly tactical only game, so people are busy trying to modify some of them for STFC! Well, that's what you get with 'Clix'--nice pieces that you need someone else's rules for (see Superscape). In this case the company hired real game designers and got it right. But I guess they decided it wasn't as profitable as making lots and lots and lots of toys, as is usual for them. Perhaps if they decide to throw some more of the usual pittance back to the game designers, we'll see more races for the game. Perhaps...

So my current favorite space game is Empires of the Void, my first Kickstarter game, although I got it after that phase in my FLGS. You need the expansion which 'fixes' some things, but its free online (Red Raven Games). The designer is also providing more races with their race cards; also free online. This is his first game and he's an artist, so the graphics are nice. Empires of the Void plays in a short time, is lots of fun, and includes tactical battles while building your empire. It give you the choice of quickly conquering neutral planets or taking the longer diplomatic route (you actually get Diplomat ships) to get more benefits from your allies. This concept is great; I first saw it I think in Age of Conan. EOV plays in a couple of hours or so, is not complex, but provides lots of options to win! It doesn't really offer brand new concepts, but combines several beautifully, for example its well thought out tech development tree, which lets you play the same race differently in different games. The pieces are cardboard, not plastic minis, but very nice ones. The board has very large modular hexes, so it is different every game, as are the races in play different each time. There are also Event cards that come out in a different way each time; so replay value is large. And some of them have you rotating a big hex, which changes the board during the game--okay, that's a new one on me, although a minor impact by itself. And the races are different from any you've seen before in the specifics of their special racial abilities.

So there you have it. WARNING: All opinions are subjective, and change over more time and more playing experience! As for 'replacing' BSG; it depends whether or not you mean literally a tactical only game as BSG is. I no longer own any tactical only space games, except for the old Star Wars Spaceship game, which I do have the pieces for. Its not a bad game, but probably no longer available. Its a shame I can't use these older ships for X-Wing, as far as I know.

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You may want to do a little research before getting yourself worked up... :D

Tom Vasal interviewing WizKids at the GAMA Trade Show earlier this year. Skip to 5:17 to get to the relevant portion:

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Btw the freeze frame pic is not Tom Vasel.... ;)

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Awesome news!!! I just played the video for Chas over the phone, and he was very happy.

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

JIM:

Thanks for the great update info. The statement that they are in fact committed to supporting Star Trek Fleet Captains is very exciting! Its been previously speculated that a Deep Space Nine themed expansion such as The Dominion would be next for an expansion if one was to come about. Except for Odo and Quark, all the main characters for this show are not yet included in STFC! I'm very happy about this.

Re: Battleship Galaxies
 

Never said it was. :p