For this game of Battlestar Galactica, we have five players.

Little Man chooses to play Baltar. This seems to be his favorite character or something.

Mike chooses Adama. Therefore he is the admiral.

I decide that it would be fun to play Starbuck, since I haven’t played a pilot yet.

Jose picks Boomer, which up until this point he always does.

Jesus picks Tyrol.

That means that Baltar is president, since no one picked Roslin.

We deal out the loyalty cards. We’re playing with both characters who are more likely to be cylons. Everyone takes a look at his loyalty card.

I am a cylon. Won’t this be fun! Starbuck the cylon.

We begin playing. I have no real plan at this point. I decide that at first, I will just help with everything until I see what starts to go south. I dutifully jump into a Viper and go out to destroy raiders. I play maximum firepower and destroy four in one attack. Look how great I am at killing cylons! I am quite the hero. Go me.

Crisis cards come up, and I either help out or abstain. When I help, it’s amazing. Look, we pass every crisis skill check! And we got rid of those pesky cylons. I guess no one’s a cylon yet! Everyone is pleased. It’s wonderful when there’s no cylon among the humans yet, isn’t it? How lucky we are.

Well, when we get to a turn of Jesus’, he gets a crisis card that allows the current player to throw someone in the brig after the skill check. Everyone expects that he will simply not do so. But he does! He picks Mike, and says that Mike has to go to the brig! I say, are you joking, or are you for real. He laughs and says, yes, to the brig.

What the hell are you doing that for, Mike says. Because he’s a cylon, of course, I say. You can’t blame cylons for throwing the admiral in the brig.

But here’s the thing. Mike says, you know, I bet Jesus isn’t even a cylon. He’s never played before. I think he’s just throwing me in the brig for fun. Jesus, if you’re just throwing me in the brig for fun, I can’t believe that, man. But Jesus just laughs.

Do you know what happens in this situation? Adama goes to the brig. Given the characters we’re using, that means that I become admiral.

Oh, well, people say. At least the admiral is him, and he’s obviously not a cylon.

At this point, I believe Mike was correct and that Jesus threw him in the brig just to be hilarious. It will turn out that this is true. I am the only cylon. And I am admiral.

Baltar makes a little noise about what if I am a cylon. That’s a good one, I say — Baltar says what if someone else is a cylon. Funny stuff. You’re the one who got two cards at the beginning of the game instead of one. But no one takes this seriously — there is no cylon, and we’re all in good hands. No one has ever tried to sabotage a skill check. There is no cylon!

It’s time to jump! I get to look at the two jump cards. Man, these are terrible, I say. Oh, well, I’ll just pick this one. I put down a card with 2 distance and 2 fuel loss. No one pays much attention. Oh, yes, this is how I will kill you. I will kill you with your own jumps. You will lose fuel, and your precious Earth will come too late. You will die without power in the icy cold of space. Don’t worry — I will lead you. I will be with you.

More crises come and go. Eventually, we draw one that says that the admiral may make himself president.

Well, I know I’m not a cylon, I say, and who knows about Baltar? The presidency is certainly safer in my hands than in his. At least, from my perspective of knowing I’m not a cylon. This is what I tell them.

They believe it.

And I am president.

President Admiral Cylon.

Little Man is displeased at losing the presidency. He doesn’t put up much of a fight, though — I actually wonder for a moment if he isn’t another cylon. But he isn’t. He says aloud that the quorum cards he had sucked anyway. Good. Let everyone forget about them.

I continue my gambit. I help with absolutely everything. Oh, except one little thing — when it comes time to jump again, I once again say that both of the jump cards suck. I choose one that gives us 3 distance but costs us 3 fuel. The fuel is looking a little thin!

And still no one questions this. They’re not that interested my process of choosing the jump cards. They’re more anticipating the new loyalty cards.

The loyalty cards are dealt out. Boomer goes to the brig. One of them must be another cylon now! Surely now I am not alone.

A few turns go by. Everything is in pretty good shape. No cylons flying around, no damage — oh, but another crisis that does something to fuel. The fuel is actually at 2!

Excellent. With the next jump, Galactica, I kill you. I kill you all.

Suddenly, Little Man announces that he is a cylon! Why does he do this? Is he afraid that everything is going too well for Galactica? Does he not see that Galactica’s doom is written in the stars? I’m not sure. But he announces now that he is a cylon.

His loyalty card allows him to choose someone to go to the brig. He chooses me! I am so very heroic, and amazing, the amazing President Admiral Starbuck, slayer of raiders, that he fears me tremendously. Under my leadership, everything in Galactica is going swimmingly. There’s a centurion aboard, but don’t worry, we’ll kill it. I’m even helping to try to do this. Everything is in great shape.

Oh, except fuel.

I think for just a split second. I can go along with the gambit. I can say, oh well, how like a cylon to throw the admiral in the brig. That’s the way it goes. I guess as a human, that’s what I get!

But — Boomer is in the brig. If Little Man throws Mike in the brig, then it will be Mike’s turn next, and he’ll never get out of the brig. Not with me keeping him in. No sir. And then I throw Tyrol in the brig, and all the humans are in the brig! It would be glorious! All the humans in the brig, and Galactica on a collision course with a black hole, me cackling madly at the helm! The most fiendish cylon master plan ever conceived!

Furthermore, if he does throw me in the brig, then Mike becomes admiral again, and who will steer us on a course into hell? Not him. He’ll pick a jump card that actually conserves fuel. He’ll save us.

I can’t let this happen. It’s too great if he brigs Mike, and too much of a missed opportunity if he brigs me. I have to go for it.

He says, I’m going to throw you in the brig, and so I say, don’t! I AM THE OTHER CYLON!

He doesn’t believe me! For a moment, maybe the others don’t, either. For a moment, it’s me as a human just trying to mess with Little Man.

He doesn’t believe me. I am the other cylon! Don’t you see? I have been gutting fuel with every jump! Look at the beauty of my master plan. The very action that takes Galactica to Earth and wins it the game has been killing it all along!

I can tell, Mike now knows that it’s true. He looks at the distance cards and it’s like, oh my god. He has been. He has been a cylon from the get-go.

But Little Man, stubborn in his youth, contrary in his boyhood, doesn’t believe me! He’s so afraid that I might be a human tricking him, so afraid of looking bad if he believes me when I’m lying, that he does not recognize the voice of his cylon brother. I go in the brig.

Well, it’s Mike’s turn, and he is admiral, and he laughs, and says, that was unreal. Little Man, I can’t believe you didn’t believe Starbuck. It’s so obvious now that he’s the other cylon.

Now, Little Man sees it. Why didn’t I believe you, he says.

On my turn, in the brig, I reveal myself. My loyalty card sucked anyway. I appear on the resurrection ship. I give the quorum cards to Adama, who is now president.

Remember how Little Man had complained earlier that the quorum cards were useless? Mike does not really read them when he receives them. Excellent.

Jose tries to get out of the brig still, and then not much happens on Tyrol’s turn. The centurion advances! They don’t kill the centurion. It’s only two steps away …

On Little Man’s cylon turn, I tell him to activate the centurion. Mike will have to try to kill it, I say, and he will not roll high enough, and we will win the game on my turn. I say this out loud. The centurion moves ever closer. One step away!

It’s Mike’s turn.

He uses his turn to go to the armory to try to kill the centurion, dutifully rolling the die as I told him he would have to do. He misses!

On my turn, I activate the centurion.

Galactica, hope of the last humans, is destroyed!

Oh, wait, Little Man says. Mike, I think one of those quorum cards actually kills a centurion!

WHAT? Mike tears through the quorum cards. One does! I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!

I did, I say.

The stars laugh at the dying humans.

———-

Epilogue: It was not quite the perfect masterstroke. Almost, but not quite. If my cylon brother had believed me. Or if he had kept quiet and remained unrevealed. If then, the humans would have died at the bewildering turn of a jump card, sealing their doom. They would have believed they were alive until the very last second, and only then known that they were dead. Also, the humans helped me by giving me the admiralty in a moment of not really trying to win. Even so. I fooled them from the very beginning. They put all their trust in my hands, willingly. And ultimately, I did kill them.

What more can one of the 12 cylon models want, then the trust of a human?

There is knowing how to play Dungeon Twister, and there is being good at Dungeon Twister. And between the two lies a vast space.

If you’ve played Dungeon Twister many times, and you are teaching someone how to play, and you do not play with a handicap, you are a criminal. We’ll just say that at the outset. When we play Dungeon Twister, we normally play with a handicap. We normally play with the maximum handicap, actually, which means playing with only five characters and without the “5″ and “6″ combat cards. Is this because we’re so awesome? Probably not. It’s mostly because in this game, experience matters. In Dungeon Twister, the bewildered noob gets destroyed.

If you’ve never played Dungeon Twister, what the hell are you waiting for? Don’t you want to get pulverized?

On the off chance that we know anything about how to play this game, we thought we’d share what we know. So here’s what we know about Dungeon Twister. We’re not going to talk about any expansions right now. Just the base set. We’re also not going to teach you the rules here. You might figure them out from context. You’re smart like that.

Supermen

In this game, you get X actions a turn where X is the action card you played. You can divide those actions up among a bunch of characters, or you can concentrate them among a few characters. If you divide your actions up among a bunch of characters, then what you have is a bunch of mediocre dudes. If you concentrate your actions among a few characters, then what you have is a team of supermen who fly, shoot fireballs and generally amaze any citizen.

You want the latter, of course.

Most of the time, you should be working with a few of your characters, and that’s all. There should be plenty of turns where most of your dudes sit around. Maybe even on the starting line. Guys on your starting line are hard to kill. Positioned correctly behind a wall, they’re impossible to kill because the opponent would have to escape to attack them. A few of your guys are in the dungeon doing all the work. They are owning. If you give a character four actions, he can go from 12 to 20 spaces. He can go from six to 10 spaces, get something, and get back to where he was. A Thief with four actions can move five, unlock a portcullis, grab something just beyond it and get back, and then relock it. A warrior with four actions can move nine spaces and attack. Anyone with only one action would have to already be where he needs to be to do anything. And that hardly ever happens. You understand? Fewer guys do more things.

The characters in the best position to own are the Thief and the Wizard. These are your supermen.

The Wizard? He flies. And he can use the fireball wand. The fireball wand is amazing. You need to understand that right now. You might have thought that only little kids like fireballs and that grownups use swords or something like that. Wrong. The fireball wand is awesome. You want both fireball wands, really. We’ll talk about why later. Barring the ability to get both of them, you want one of them. Being able to fly, the Wizard should be able to get to the fireball wand most of the time. That is, unless you let the opponent get it. How do you stop the opponent from getting it? By putting it near your starting line, of course. We always start with our Wizard on the starting line and the fireball wand very near him.

Now, the Thief is our second superman. In the base set, there is nowhere she cannot go. She does everything. She runs fast, she opens portcullises, she crosses traps, she helps others cross traps — she is miraculous. If she’s not Superman, she’s Wonder Woman. Think about it. If someone’s job is simply to go get an item, who better than the fastest character? No one, that’s who. In pure movement terms, she’s the most efficient use of actions. She fights OK, too. She always goes on our starting line. She and the Wizard are our tag team of death. If he can’t get to the wand, she can get it for him. Reveal the tile with the wand right away. Start the Thief and the Wizard near that tile. Get in there and get that wand.

The Wizard and the Thief together are a good attacking force conventionally as well. The Thief can run up on someone and the Wizard can fly over him to the other side. You’re attacking with three power instead of two. The Wizard can do this with anyone, of course. But the Thief is fast enough to make this happen more often.

Once you know certain characters are important, you have to protect them. Keep your new superheroes away from the enemy. Gauge the enemy distance. Literally count how many actions it takes someone to attack your Wizard. Do it.

Escaping

The object of the game is to escape the dungeon, right? Wrong.

Escaping is overrated.

We’ll tell you that right now. Most people overrate escaping. If you escape a character and don’t win, then that victory point was worse than worthless. When you escape a character, then you’re down a character. The game is self-balancing that way. If you escape a guy, now you’re playing with seven characters. Escaping is great if it finishes the game and you get that fifth victory point. Then escaping is terrific. But at the beginning, escaping just isn’t that great.

Certain guys exist to escape. That’s true. The Goblin obviously is supposed to escape. That’s OK. But too many times have we seen someone rush a character to the exit, like the Thief, and then be pleased with himself that he got a victory point. And then lose.

Meanwhile, when you kill an enemy character, you also get a point — and the other player’s force is weaker instead of stronger. Get it? Escape, get a point and weaken your team; kill, get a point and strengthen your team.

So we’re looking for kills. Especially at the outset. Kill, kill, kill.

If you can kill two dudes, then two escapes and a treasure become victory. Three kills and two escapes becomes victory. Kills make escapes better. Escapes don’t make kills easier. The Wizard, the Thief and the Wall-Walker are hard to stop from escaping. If you can get to a position where their escape means you win, because you have so many victory points from kills, then it’s really hard to stop you from winning. You sort of already won. In order to get to that position, you need to kill dudes. Not escape your guys. If you can escape the Goblin, OK. If you can escape the Wall-Walker with the treasure, then alright. But don’t go zooming your Thief across the board with the potion of speed, getting your first victory point and then feeling awesome. Wrong.

Kills

So then we want kills. We’ll tell you: Play without your “5″ and “6″ combat cards a bunch i.e. with a handicap. See how that works out for you. Do that a whole lot, and you will learn how to get kills where you wouldn’t have gotten them before.

Your combat cards have value relative to your opponent’s combat cards. Here’s how to look at a combat card. Possessing a “6″ card means that you can guarantee a kill when you have more strength than the opponent. Possessing a “5″ means that you can guarantee a kill when you have two more strength than the opponent. Et cetera. Each card is simply a guarantee of a kill at a given strength level.

You can view combat as being about guessing which card the opponent will play at any given moment. But that’s not how we view it. Combat is about placing the correct strength of guys next to an opponent’s guy. Then you win the combat. That’s it. Psychology? Doesn’t have to matter if you have a guarantee. We’ll take the guarantee every time.

Therefore, getting kills is about movement. It’s really that simple. Get the position and then get the kill. If you’re in the right place, then you kill the opponent’s dude. If the opponent moves to the wrong place, then you kill the opponent’s dude again.

Once you understand this, then you realize that the rope and the speed potion are killing tools. The speed potion is ridiculous. You should know this. Keep it close at hand. The speed potion, like the wand, is another object that we like to start very close to our own start line. With the potion, a character can take eight actions. Five actions from you, minus one to drink the potion, but then plus four from the potion itself. Eight. Even a Warrior can move pretty far with seven actions — then he attacks.

When you attack, there can be a little subgame. You can play your “6″ or “5″ or whatever it is that guarantees a win. The opponent may know you’re going to do this. So then he plays his “0.” Now you’re down a “6″ and he isn’t. Knowing this in advance, you start thinking that you should maybe play a lesser card. Sure, your “5″ guarantees a win, but if the opponent’s going to play his “0″ — hey, you could play your “0″ too! You’ll still win!

This thinking should be reserved for exceptionally rare occasions. Most of the time, it’s a bad idea. We usually go ahead and take the guarantee. Why? Because a kill reduces the opponent’s team. Sure, we’re down a card, but he’s down a man and we have a victory point. It’s a good trade. It’s a better trade than trading away a guarantee on a bet.

You might be scared that the opponent will then have an edge and that this edge will come back to haunt you. But the game isn’t played to the last man. It’s five points and that’s all. Win two fights with guarantees, and now you’re looking at victory upon just three escapes. Or two escapes and a treasure. “Card superiority” isn’t going to help your opponent when he realizes that now he’s got to stop your fast characters just from moving.

There’s more. Even when you’re down cards, you can make it not matter. If your highest card is your “4″ while your opponent’s is still his “6,” then your “4″ guarantees a kill in combat when your opponent’s dudes have three less strength than you. Three? That’s a lot. What, your Troll does all the attacking? No. There’s group combat. The speed potion and the awesome mobility of some of your characters can make for some group combats where you have that amazing three-point advantage. You can get two or three guys next to an opponent’s guy. Do it. If you spent your “6″ and your “5,” and the oh-so-clever opponent used his “0″ each time, but then you can get a three-point advantage because of group combat, your “4″ might as well say “infinity.” What is that now, three kills? Saving cards is starting to look really useless for your opponent.

And then, here is where that wand comes in. You can spend every combat card. If you have the wand, and you have your Wizard, that’s another kill waiting to happen. That is, if you have the wand. Get it. It might as well have “victory point” stamped on the side if you use it.

Attack like a jerk!

OK, now remember all that stuff we said about attacking with a guarantee? We meant every word. However, there’s a detail.

If you have a guaranteed win, then you have a guaranteed tie as long as you’re not missing any of your intermediate cards. That’s just logic. If your “6″ guarantees a win, then your “5″ guarantees a tie.

When you’re attacking and you have several actions remaining afterward, one move we like to pull is to just guarantee the tie on the first attack. Suppose you have a one-point advantage. In this situation, a “6″ is an auto-win while a “5″ is an auto-tie. If you have a few extra actions remaining, then just drop your “5.” The opponent would have to play his “6″ just to tie it. If he does, you laugh. Then you attack again. You play your “4.” The opponent would have to play his “5″ just to tie it. Et cetera. Repeat. You eat up the opponent’s highest cards. We call this “attacking like a jerk.” It’s hilarious. If you keep this up, you’ll get down to playing your “3,” and then you still have another “3.” But he doesn’t have another “4.”

If the opponent never does bite and plays his “0,” from the outset, then you got to keep your “6.” Or whatever number was the guaranteed win. You see? Guaranteeing the tie can be good enough if you have actions remaining to still switch to guaranteeing the kill. It’s still a guarantee, and the opponent might play badly.

Position

One of the best uses for the wand is to use it to kill the opponent’s Troll. This is really good. Some noobs like to try to put the Troll really far forward. They think, you can’t kill him unless you get the fireball wand. Well guess what? You will have the fireball wand. You’re going to start with it near the starting line.

If the opponent puts discs on a tile near your starting line, what you want to do is reveal that tile with more than your “2″ action card. You want to reveal that tile with enough actions to place any enemy character on that tile where you can kill him; and then you kill him. This same turn. OK, technically you wound him and kill him later. If that character is the Troll, then hey, you’re going to need that wand. The opponent may get to place your wand, but you were smart and listened to us. Your Thief and/or Wizard will simply go grab it. Then you give the wand to the Wizard. Then he kills the Troll.

If you’re going first and the opponent has put discs on a tile right by your starting line, reveal the other tile. Don’t reveal the one with the opponent’s discs on it. Not right away. Wait until you’re allowed to play a high enough action card to kill whatever characters those discs are. The “3″ action card might be enough. But it might not. Hold out for your “4″ if you can.

However, don’t let the opponent reveal that tile. Reveal it yourself if you have to. If you won’t have enough actions to kill the enemy character or characters, put them on the tile in dumb places.

Be smart. If you don’t want your revealed items on tiles put in stupid, out-of-the way places, then put your own revealed characters in those stupid places. The opponent will then have to put the items away from those characters — and therefore near your other characters. You can reunite your characters later.

Have you figured out the reverse of all this? We hope so. Don’t put your Troll forward, trying to be a smartass. Don’t put any character of yours on any tile that you can’t possibly reveal. In other words, the tiles near the opponent’s starting line. We don’t want to hear about that one time that it worked and it was so awesome and blah blah blah. Opponents are as smart as we are. They know the fireball wand is crucial, so they will have it. And they will place your Troll, and then they will blast him.

We like to put the Troll near our own starting line. If the opponent is actually dumb enough to put a character on one of the tiles near our starting line, and then we reveal the Troll at the same time, guess what? The opponent’s character gets a sample of group combat sandwiched between our Troll and someone else. Say, our Warrior. Seven strength vs. two strength, how’s that for a hard lesson.

Another nice trick is to place the Wall-Walker on one of the tiles near the starting line, reveal that tile, place the Wall-Walker on the edge near another unrevealed tile, and then reveal that one. You can form a chain. You should know this already, probably. The reason we like to do it with the Wall-Walker is because she can go get any item in much the same way the Thief can. It’s nice to snatch an item from what should have been neutral territory and bring it back to your own side, safe and sound.

The rest of the characters

The other characters are pretty easy to use because their uses are self-evident.

Cleric – His job is to be next to someone else. Put the Cleric behind the Warrior in a narrow hall. You now have “Troll-on-a-Budget.” The Warrior gets resurrected over and over as you play your “0″ combat card, or whatever combat card you feel like playing. This isn’t anything we focus on. It just happens sometimes. No matter what, the Cleric’s job is to be near others and stay safe from harm. Keep him back. You can actually bring a wounded character back to him if you screw up somehow.

Goblin – He’s looking for an escape. Don’t be a smart guy and put him too far forward. Just keep him where you can watch for an opportunity. If the “5″ action card suddenly gets him out, OK. Of course, we’d rather kill an enemy character with that “5″ action card.

Mekanork – This guy is overrated. The fact is, what he does, any character can do. It just takes them longer. So he can turn a room the wrong way? Any character can turn a room the wrong way by turning it the right way three times. So the Mekanork is just faster than everyone else at turning rooms. One good situation with him is if you can use him to keep messing up a tile near the opponent’s side. If the opponent has to keep turning the tile back, it’s hilarious. Other than corner cases like that, the Mekanork is not that special. When we play with a handicap, he’s the first guy we play without.

Warrior – Three movement sure isn’t five, is it? The Warrior is a backup plan. He’s a poor Thief, but he can be one where portcullises are concerned. He’s a good attacker but he’s slow. What you want to do with him is use him to back up your defense, with the threat of group combat, or with the threat of using the speed potion to make him suddenly scary. We like to get the potion of speed near him or on him and then wait for a chance to strike.

Ignoring what we just told you

One thing you can do is ignore everything we just said. Then what you do is, you escape your Thief right away, because she’s so fast and mobile. Then you escape your Wizard, because he flies over pits and enemies. Put your Goblin really far forward, so that he gets killed. Then lose some combats because you tried to outguess your opponent when it comes to combat cards. Then lose the game.

But hey, you got the first two victory points, right? That’s what matters.

Continuing our fun with the Strange Eons freeware, here is our Tsabo Tavoc herald for the board game Arkham Horror. This herald requires a special monster token. Take a mask or spawn monster not in the current game and use it in the monster cup as a proxy. You’ve proxied things before, right?

Continuing our fun with the freeware Strange Eons, here is our take on a Gix herald for the Arkham Horror board game.

Ever play Arkham Horror? Arkham Horror is a kickass board game where the players have to cooperate to stop a terrifying godlike being, the “ancient one,” from appearing and consuming everybody. Using freeware called Strange Eons, you can make your own Arkham Horror ancient ones, characters, monsters and so on. Here is our take on a Yawgmoth ancient one.

Strange Eons can be found here.

One of the goodies that comes in the new Race for the Galaxy expansion, Gathering Storm, is a rules set for a solitaire game against a robot player. Cool beans! Or, nuts and bolts! Space is cold and merciless already. Why not play a space game against a berserk robot foe that wants to dissect you to see how you work?

The robot player gets a start world, just like you. It has a “credit track” and an “economy track.” It uses the credit track to pay for its developments and planets and uses the economy track to get victory points when it consumes.

Here’s how it works. You pick your two actions (have to play advanced game here) and then you roll two dice for the robot’s two actions.  Some of the die faces have stages, but some of them have asterisks. Those asterisks mean that the robot copies you. The final die faces have little robots on them. Those mean that the robot takes a special default action that depends upon which start world the robot is playing. New Sparta likes to settle. Ancient Race, a new start world, likes to consume/trade. Old Earth, and we’ll talk about this in a minute, likes to consume/double VPs.

You follow the little icons on the robot sheet to see what happens to the robot during the chosen stages. If the robot chose the stage, then it gets to use its top row of icons. If only you chose the stage, then the robot has to use the lesser bottom row. The robot doesn’t pay for developments and planets the way your or I do. It either pays with its credit track, or in some cases, doesn’t have to pay at all.

Here’s an example. When the robot explores, it draws a card and advances its credit track by one. If only you explore, then the robot just draws a card. When the robot settles, it draws three cards — then it mills all its cards into the discard pile until it gets to a nonmilitary planet, and if it gets to one, it plays it for free. But when you choose settle and the robot doesn’t, it only draws two, and it has to spend one credit to play a planet.

If the robot consume/trades, then it scores VPs equal to its economy, which starts at zero. No worries so far. It also advances its credit by two. If the robot produces, it advances its economy by one. If the robot consume/double VPs, then it scores VPs equal to double its economy, and also advances its economy by one.

Here’s where it gets retarded. Every time the robot consume/double VPs, it scores VPs depending on its economy track and then also advances its economy by one. Even if nobody ever produces and nobody ever settles — even if all everyone ever did was consume — the robot’s economy gets bigger and bigger just by consume/double VPing. And the economy track is what determines how many VPs consuming is worth. So how often does the robot consume/double VP? Well, if the robot is any old planet, then it does this 1/6 of the time. (That’s assuming that its not copying you. If you also consume/double VP, then the asterisk on that die can copy you.)

But if the robot is Old Earth, where rapists come from, then the default action is consume/double VP. More precisely, it switches to that mid-game. Now the robot is consume/double VPing fully 1/2 of the time. This is because of the robot “default” symbols on the die faces. And that’s not considering whether it copies you — if you’re also trying to consume/double VP, then the probability goes up again. In no time flat, the robot is consume/double VPing for 10 VPs a shot. And it doesn’t have to produce or settle windfall worlds to do this. The robot can consume/double VP several times in a row even if nobody is producing anything.

Can you grow your economy just by consume/double VPing over and over? Probably not. But Sparky can, smiling and bleeping the whole time.

There’s another neat robot trick. The robot has one or more “phantom” six-drop developments it gets to play. If you choose the easy version of the game, the robot gets one chip worth six VPs. It plays this on develop if its credit is high enough. If you play on hard, the robot gets three chips worth nine VPs each. Again, it plays them on develop when it can. We’ve seen it drop one of these second-turn with absolutely no problem. Turn one? Consume/trade, raise credit to three. Turn two, develop, play six-point development chip. Hey, I’m a robot, I have eight VPs already. You came here in a Hyundai. Stupid human.

We began playing against the robot with the random matchup, determined by drawing from the deck, of Ancient Race versus Old Earth. Lucky us, because we may have stumbled upon the most heinous exercise in galactic futility imaginable. Sure, sure, you might have illusions that you’ll play brilliantly. Here’s the thing — you only play with 24 VP chips, just as you would if you played against a human. Those 24 VP chips? The robot takes those things in seconds. And then the game is over. We’ve seen the Old Earth robot drop its six-drop development chip, take the majority of the VP chips and end the game without it playing a single planet or development. Seriously. The robot has 20-plus VPs without ever successfully developing or settling a single card.

That may be an extreme case. But we tried reversing it. We played Old Earth, and we let the robot be Ancient Race. There. Take that, stupid robot. The frakking toaster still consume/double VPed a bunch of times and still beat us with it! But barely this time.

Maybe we just suck. But the robot ends up smoking the cigarette.

Epilogue: We finally did beat it with a healthy margin, 41-30, using Separatist Colony against Ancient Race. We kept exploring, developing and settling over and over, never once producing or consuming. We’re still terrified of those robots from Earth, though.