Part 3 - The Centauri

Again, to repeat:  this column is not intended as a comprehensive review of the entire game, but just a brief overview of the various factions of the Babylon 5 CCG.  By taking this approach, I hope to keep this feature interesting to the casual reader.  I also don't have enough cards yet to know what every single one does, or its impact on play.

The Centauri seem to be a popular choice.  Many of the faces are familiar, and they are Intrigue oriented.  There are always players, particularly in multi-player-type games, who like to wheel-and-deal and backstab, and the Centauri lend themselves well to this.

A Centauri starter deck comes with Londo Mollari and his assistant Vir. Other characters include Adira Tyree, Carn Mollari, Drigo, Lady Morella, and Urza Jaddo, two Agends, and a generic Centauri Captain and Aide. Other characters you can pick up in boosters include a Centauri Telepath, Lady Ladira, Lords Rifa, Valo, and Kiro, Lyndisty, Emperor Turhan and Minister Malachai.

The only major distinction between characters is that the two Ladies are listed as Seerers. This is important for assigning the Prophecy Enhancement, giving the Centauri an advantage there. Any race can recruit the Ladies at extra cost, or use Elric, to use Prophecy but this can be expensive and somewhat limited.

As mentioned above, the Centauri's main strength is Intrigue.  They are no slouches at Diplomacy, either.  A number of their cards, such as Influential Lords, can help them out substantially in both these areas.

Where the Centauri are weak, exceedingly so, is in Leadership.  Urza Jaddo is their only really strong leader.  And if you go with a Shadow strategy, he becomes a liability.  This leaves you reliant on your few other Leader- types, using cards to substitute your Intrigue for Leadership, or otherwise modify your Leadership.  Lord Kiro is the Centauri's best other choice for Leadership.

The Centauri have one Telepath, a Common, and he has a so-so special ability advantage (rotate to look at three cards in opponent's hand, move one to top of their deck).  This is more of a delaying tactic then anything.  Still, unlike the Narn, nothing stops the Centauri from using Latent Telepath to give other characters psionic abilities.  Of course, it won't be better than a 3 unless you use Vorlon Enhancement.  Which may be unlikely - see below.

Centauri fleets are roughly comparable to Earth's military might. However, their leaders are not as good as Earth's, so they need a little help.  More on this below.

Centauri have their homeworld, the standard starting Location (rotate to gain one influence).  Their other locations are Immolan V and Ragesh 3 which both are useful.

The Centauri's major advantage lies in their Intrigue.  There are a number of useful and interesting Intrigue Conflicts out there.  Only Earth comes close to rivaling them Intrigue-wise (although the Minbari come close thanks to the Vorlons).  The problem is that you rarely gain Influence from Intrigue Conflicts.  You can remove characters, incapacitate Locations, increase your Intrigue, decrease other character's attributes, etc.  And you can use Aftermaths to further enhance yourself.  But you're not going to gain Influence easily via Intrigue.  This leaves Military and Diplomacy Conflicts.

Unfortunately, while the Centauri are good at Diplomacy, the Minbari nearly equal them and Earth surpasses them both.  The Centauri's lack of good Leaders leaves them at the mercy of the better Leaders of the Narn and Earth, and the better fleets of the Minbari.

So what are the Centauri to do?  The Minbari have the Vorlons pretty well sewn up, while Earth tends to dominate the Babylon 5-related cards. Just like in the program, this leaves the Shadows.  There are a number of powerful Shadow cards.  Shadow Assault lends itself towards military assaults.  It is relatively easy to gain Shadow Marks (Morden, What Do You Want?, Contact with Shadows).  Just be careful of pushing the Shadows to 20 influence unless you're ready for a Shadow War.

Knowledge is Power is _the_ starting Agenda for Centauri.  This card provides Londo with +2 Intrigue and the ability to gain Influence in Intrigue Conflicts.  Growth in Chaos is a good choice if you go the route of the Shadows.  If you're not afraid of winning via a Major Agenda, Forced Evolution is a good choice as well.  Rise of the Republic gives a bonus to your Military, and you may very well need it, particularly if you avoid using Shadows.

Generally, a mix of Intrigue and Military conflicts, augmented by Shadow- related cards, is the Centauri path to victory.  Their military strength is so-so, but the Shadows can give them some heavy firepower. The Centauri shouldn't ignore Diplomacy, but use it towards deal-making.  They should use Diplomacy primarily as support and sell that support to the highest bidder:  they're not going to win initiating Diplomacy Conflicts.

The Centauri can try pushing for a Shadow War.  Alternately, they can take a less blatant path to victory using their Military, with Intrigue conflicts and Shadow cards as back-up, while avoiding pushing the Shadows to 20 influence.  If another race (typically the Narn) are using Shadows as well, this probably isn't going to happen.  The Centauri's final option is to use the same Military/Intrigue strategy, but ignore Shadow cards.  This leaves them somewhat weaker and reliant on other, more limited cards.

Overall, the Centauri lend themselves to a sneaky, back-stabbing approach. Be ready to do a lot of wheeling and dealing, and figure that you're going to make one enemy along the way.  Get used to the idea, and make sure you remain friendly towards the other two races, and you're set.