A: Quite a few! For those who don’t know what Board Game Arena is, it’s an online platform where one can play our games remotely against other people, either friends or strangers.

All our games are available without the Premium paid membership. Games have to be specially coded and go through an alpha and beta testing phase to get up on BGA, so our whole line isn’t there, but we currently have the following:

Just Desserts
Fluxx 5.0
Star Fluxx
Homeworlds
Get the MacGuffin

(Also, here is someone’s fun list of all of the free games available on BGA, ranked by number of plays.)

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A: The original tins that Andy used when he created the Homeworlds sticker are no longer available, but as of Oct 2023, here are the results of our search for new tins. Note that many of these listings may not be valid after a while. Feel free to let us know if you find that some result is no longer there, or you find some good option we should add. These are almost all US-based listings, but one company is in Canada (at the bottom).

Searching for 8oz flat tins gets you approximately the right size. Note that some specify steel, which is stronger than other options. Smaller quantities are listed lower.

https://www.containerandpackaging.com/products/round-tin/M549
Available as single units.
$1.06 apiece
material: steel

https://www.specialtybottle.com/metal-tin-containers/deep-flat-slipcover/8oz-tnf8
Scroll all the way to the bottom, to below the table of contents. Available as single units.
$1.71 apiece
specific metal not mentioned

https://candorasoap.ca/packaging/tins/flat-tin-set-8-oz.html
Available as single units. Canada
CA$2.75
specific metal not mentioned

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A: Correct: if your only piece in a system is red, and you sacrifice it to attack, you will have no ships left in that system to attack with. Ship/s in some other system/s will have to be the ones attacking.

The same would be true if you sacrificed your only green ship for grows: you will have no ships left in that system which can grow. You will have to choose ship/s in some other system which will use the grow/s gained by the sacrifice.

If someone attempted this with a blue or yellow sacrifice, it would be obvious that there’s nothing left there to change color (in the case of blue) or move (in the case of yellow).

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A: Yes, if you sacrifice a large red ship, you’ll get 3 capture actions which you can take anywhere. But this doesn’t mean you can just capture any 3 ships. It means that, 3 times, you can choose a ship of yours to confer the capture power onto. Imagine those ships simply become red for a moment. Small ships can still only capture other small ships, but larger ships can capture same size or smaller ships.

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…or does it remain only connected to those stars it was connected to at the beginning?

A: Yes, it immediately connects. When half of a binary star is destroyed, the star map changes dramatically, and this can really change the situation. You might even want to move what’s left of your homeworld to another spot on the board, to better show the connections, but be sure to mark the star in some way at that point so you can’t forget which one is your Earth.

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A: These are the star names Andy looked up for the Homeworlds sample games. Andy didn’t have names for Q, W, X, and Y, so Steve Swarner, who originally asked this question, came up with names for those letters in the following list:

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A: The situation whereby there might be two colors meeting the criteria for a Catastrophe is highly theoretical. It’s just not something which happens under normal circumstances. However, should such a situation arise, we would rule that someone can trigger a Catastrophe on just one of the colors if desired. Of course the other color is still… a Catastrophe waiting to happen…

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A: According to John’s original rules, and the ones published in PwP, it’s at the end of your turn. Either through confusion or Andy’s tampering, it changed to any point during your turn, as of how they are in the 3HOUSE booklet and in the newly reformatted PDF and webpage versions.

Except note: SuperDuperGames implements it by the “old” rules, while Looney Labs’ Pyramid Arcade lists the current rules which say you can do this any time during your turn.

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… For example, if I sacrifice a small yellow, can I immediately use that small yellow to become a star system being traveled to with that move?

A: Yes, when you sacrifice a ship, it goes immediately into the Bank, and is available to use as a result of the action. In fact, it’s key to several different important game strategies.

In addition to your example above, where the sacrificed yellow is used immediately as a destination star…

One can also sacrifice a green, return it to the Bank, and (if it’s the smallest available) immediately grow that piece back again.

Less common, but still an option: one could sacrifice a blue, and then use it to turn a ship into the blue piece that’s just been sacrificed.

Red is the only power for which this is not relevant, since sacrifice of a red ship does not use up any pieces from the Bank.

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A: Yes and yes. Though it’s very rare that anyone would choose to pass, it is an option, as is not taking complete results of a sacrifice (for example sacrificing a large yellow, and choosing to only move two ships.)

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…So for two-player Homeworlds it would be three nests of each color, for four-player Homeworlds it would be five nests of each color.

A: That’s an established change to the early versions of the game. In fact, that’s really all that Binary Homeworlds is – playing regular Homeworlds with only two players and the once-new restriction to only 3 stashes.

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…In most cases, this is what someone would do anyway, but there are some cases where starting with a small could be beneficial.

A: It can technically be any size. One way to handicap a stronger player is by making them start with a small ship.

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A: Yes! Here’s a link to the Homeworlds Tutorial.

Also check out Homeworlds Theater, a series of sample games.

And don’t forget all of the other Looney Labs videos!

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…The rules I originally saw had Player A building first, and then Player B taking the first turn, but that’s not how it works on SuperDuperGames.

A: The rules you originally saw must have been in the small booklet 3HOUSE. It had originally been simply Player A build, Player B build, Player A goes first. In the 3HOUSE booklet, Andy changed the rule, because it somehow seemed fairer to him at that time… but it turns out that that makes it possible for Player B to execute a two-turn win (in Chess known as a “Fools Mate”) which is inescapable by Player A, unless they specifically design their homeworld to defend against it (severely limiting their options).

If Player B takes both the second build and the first turn, the Fools Mate goes like this:

Player A builds their homeworld and first ship, and no pieces are red. Ex: b3y1 g3
Player B builds their homeworld to deliberately create a “tiny universe” (in which their homeworlds are a single move apart, instead of three as would be more common for better defense of both systems) and their first ship is red. Ex: y2g2 r3
Player B builds r1
Player A builds g1
Player B moves r3 to Player A’s homeworld
Player A is doomed: Moving away doesn’t help, and even changing their large to a red is futile, since Player B has the drop on them to take over all ships at their homeworld.

ANYHOW, when this fatal flaw was discovered, of course Andy abandoned the “player building second takes the first move” rule, and went back to alternating turns from the build, i.e. Player A builds, Player B builds, Player A takes first turn, and so forth. This should be considered the current correct game beginning sequence. This is how it is executed on SuperDuperGames as well.

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…Each of us kept attacking the same small piece to capture it to our side, and we just kept undoing the previous move. After weeks of analysis, we concluded there was no better move for either of us. Do we just end the game in a stalemate?

A: There is no formal rule barring simply undoing your opponent’s previous move. Sometimes there is some other opportunity to sacrifice a piece somewhere else that could tip things and break the stalemate… but if neither player is willing to change their move, yes, you’ll just have to call it a draw. The good news is that now you get to play another game of Homeworlds!

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