Death to all humans!

[Mark Wightman]

Last night saw our second game of Battlestar Galactica. This time the players were (in they order they chose their character).

Starbuck - Stephen
Col Tigh - Ove
Baltar - Terry
Lee Adama - Dave
Admiral Adama - Agnes
President Roslin - Me

My first loyalty card was a "You are a Cylon", which is a great one to get as the president. I didn't play on the first crisis card (Which was Red/Purple) and when I saw 3 negative cards played I thought excellent another Cylon right from the start. Humanity should be doomed.

And then I couldn't work out who it was. All the early crisis cards threw wave after wave of Cylons at the ship, and the rest of the crew were working at maximum efficiency to hold them off. On spectacular combat saw Lee Adama hold off 7 raiders in a single viper thanks to 5 evasive manoeuvres cards played by Starbuck and Baltar. These cards ruled out those two as Cylons, so I started to believe the other Cylon was either Tigh or Admiral Adama. Eventually we jumped and when we went only one space I thought I'd found my fellow Cylon in the Admiral.

Preparation for the second jump seemed to take an age, but most of the crisis cards were dealt with easily with only minor losses to our resources. The second jump made was a 2, and I started to doubt there was a second Cylon at all.

Preparation for the third jump also seemed to take an age. However the "Devil makes work for idle hands" and the accusations started to fly - then suddenly without warning Colonel Tigh tried to Brig the Admiral, which failed by a healthy margin. I started to suspect he was the Cylon. The third jump was a massive 3, ruling out the Admiral as as Cylon in my mind, and we reached the Sleeper phase with all the dials in the blue. Fuel, Food and Morale were all just in the blue, but Population was 10. The Humans looked to be doing well.

The Sympathiser was Lee Adama and Dave zoomed off to the Cylon fleet to cause mischief. At this point the accusations really started to fly. Starbuck (Stephen) accused Baltar and despite my efforts managed to put him in the Brig. I in turn tried to arrest Starbuck (who I guessed was Human), but I narrowly failed. This confirmed for me that Baltar was the other Cylon. The next Crisis card proved useful to me though and allowed my to Brig Starbuck.

Dave as the Cylon sympathiser gave me his spare loyalty card to cast suspicion on me and things rapidly declined into chaos. I had to give up the Presidency or go to the brig. As I was planning to reveal shortly I gave the Admiral the Presidency - further indicating I was a Cylon. Nobody other than Steve seemed to notice though and throughout all this carnage Tigh and the Admiral continued to work against each other or so it seemed. I thought I needed to get involved and tried to arrest the Admiral to waste some cards and with Tigh's help managed to pull it off. Result!

Then the fourth jump arrived, via an early FTL push and was a 2. One more jump and it would be all over. Sadly for the humans Baltar managed to slip out of the Brig (with my help) and reveal as a Cylon. At this point Morale was the lowest resource at 2, and the humans were still 4 FTL preparation steps from glory.

Terry's super-crisis reduced this to 1 and I managed to finish it off in my turn, without ever revealing I was a Cylon.

Victory for the machines!

Thanks to everybody who played and made it such a good game. Ove and Agnes were especially amusing, their trying to arrest each other seemed to help the Cylons simply by causing massive confusion.

Terry revealed at the end that he only became a Cylon in the second sleeper phase, and that he had "accidentally" played negative cards on the first skill check. The amount of chaos this simple act caused was massive, although it did prevent me from taking much action against the ship until after the first sleeper phase.

[Legionnaire]

To my defense I can only say, what do you expect of an alcoholic (Tigh as a character has that Flaw)? But I suspect that you won't be so lucky next time, Madame President. On the simple assumption that if you pick the President again, you're by default gonna be suspected of being a Toaster, once is a coincidence, twice is not. ;D ;D

Enjoyed the game very much though, but would like to have a second go sometime now that we've familiarised ourselves with the rules, and I might be able to pay more attention to who actually plays what.

The Swede.

[Stephen Mawson]

I think the way the presidents character works means that it's slightly harder to judge whether she is a cylon early on, than for some of the other characters.

Firstly being able to choose between two crisis cards makes it really easy to make things harder for the humans without being obvious about it. You can target crisis towards certain resources, prevent the jump track from advancing, and allow critical cylon ships to move, and it's nearly impossible to tell from another players perspective whether this is deliberate or simply bad luck.

I think it also helps that she starts on Colonial One, whose locations are slightly less useful to the human cause when defending against the Cylons than those on Galactica. Coupled with the fact that she has to discard cards to activate the locations mean she's more restricted in what she can do to help anyway. This makes it easier for a cylon to do nothing much constructive on the grounds of the fact that it's harder for her to do lots early on.

One possible sign might perhaps be not taking the occassional quorum card. But as we've barely seen any of those cards in the two games we've played so far it's difficult to tell whether it's a good strategy to build up a reserve of those cards or not.

[Stephen Mawson]

Given the way this game played out I found it very difficult to determine exactly who was or was not a Cylon for quite a long time.

I was supicious that either Terry or Dave was one right from the first Crisis, due to the negative cards played. But after that I found it hard to make my mind up. Nearly everyone was working well to handle the initial Cylon attacks. The large jump to reach the halfway stage convinced me that the Adama wasn't a Cylon. But at that point while I was sure we had a Cylon I couldn't quite make my mind up whether it was Baltar, Lee or the President.

When Lee revealed himself as a Sympathiser, his reaction to that convinced me that he hadn't been a Cylon. Baltars decision to then attempt to put Adama in the brig, who I was almost certain wasn't a Cylon, convinced me that he was one. I managed to get him sent to the Brig in my turn.

The general chaos that then ensured didn't help in working out who was the other Cylon. I had almost made my mind up that the President was one, but Mark kept me slightly in two minds on that long enough to get around to his own turn. His attempt to put me in the Brig which failed, made me sure he was the other Cylon, unfortunately he then got a Crisis card which enabled him to put me in the Brig. That was fortunate for him as my next action would have been to attempt to lock the President up.

After that things were only going to go down hill, and probably I should have been a bit more vocal in trying to convince Adama and Tigh that the President was a Cylon and that I wasn't.

This game was a lot closer than the first one, and I think that if we play again the human performance should again improve, knowing what to do when makes a big difference, as it only seems to take a handful of sub-optimal turns to make things very difficult for the Galactica.

[Mark Wightman]

The Quorum cards are still a bit of a mystery. Some are quite useful for the humans and some are quite useful for the Cylons.

The problem I saw with collecting them was you could find yourself picking lots up as your actions only for the other side to get to use them if the Presidency switched to someone else. As a Cylon in both games I didn't want that happening, so I simply ignored them. Trying instead to play Consolidate Power cards to get Red/Blue cards, so I could tank skill checks without being rumbled. Although last night I didn't get to do that much.

I think the flaws/abilities of the characters are what make the game. For example: Roslin is a bit rubbish at everything expect being President, but her ability to look at 2 crisis cards is huge for both the humans and cylons. Admiral Adama is quite good, his ability isn't great unless you are a human, and his weakness means that he can't deal with identified (but unrevealed) cylons very well.

I'm not convinced by the Pilots yet. They are vital for the humans, but if you're a Cylon pilot what can you do? People will very quickly smell a rat if you never launch or attack the raiders.

All in all a very enjoyable game. Looking forward to playing it again.

[terrywarden]

Thanks Mark I thoroughly enjoyed the game once I got over the hurdle of the first couple of turns. I think that it is one of those games that it is easier to learn as you play. It seems that my initial mistake of playing the wrong cards on turn one gave you all something to think about. I look forward to another go sometime.

[Stephen Mawson]

Actually I'm not so sure that the Pilots are vital as such.

Provided the Galactica isn't swamped by Raiders, you can protect the transports fairly easily by moving them and holding the raiders up with other Vipers.

The pilots can kill the raiders more easily than the other Vipers, but are no more difficult to shoot down.

Once your out there you have much more limited actions, especially if you have moved several spaces away from the launch bays. Basically being restricted to moving your Viper, attacking raiders and playing cards.

If I was a Cylon pilot I might be tempted to launch outside early and then aggressively move against the largest concentration of raiders, meaning you get shot down and lose a active raider without actually helping the defence any. If you can use up the working Vipers quickly enough it can prevent any of the actual human pilots from launching.

[dave3]

Yes, a very enjoyable game. Far too used to going out and killing type games, so a machiavellian intrigue was fun. I am one who needs to play a game to learn it, and maybe play a few games to formulate worthwile strategies with any competency (or perhapse not...wooden spoon!). But this is a fun game, and I hope to play my part better in future, now I know the rules a little more.
Dave

[joeoe18]

Sounds like you all had a good time. I look forward to having another pop at this whenever the opportunity next presents itself.

One thing which I think works in favour of a Cylon victory is that it's probably more fun to be a Cylon - or at least it requires more effort. I know when I played, as a Cylon from the start, I was constantly concentrating on everything I did: making sure my negative moves couldn't be detected, making sure that anything I did or said could not be construed to make me look evil, making realistic accusations against other players without drawing attention to myself and so on and so on. That heightened level of focus probably means the Cylon will play a little better than his human counterparts.

It's a theory anyway

[neuromancer]

Jan 6, 2009 11:04:49 GMT Legionnaire said:

To my defense I can only say, what do you expect of an alcoholic (Tigh as a character has that Flaw)? But I suspect that you won't be so lucky next time, Madame President. On the simple assumption that if you pick the President again, you're by default gonna be suspected of being a Toaster, once is a coincidence, twice is not. ;D ;D

Enjoyed the game very much though, but would like to have a second go sometime now that we've familiarised ourselves with the rules, and I might be able to pay more attention to who actually plays what.

The Swede.

Dont mess with Laura she loves her some airlock action - i Must wear my Roslin/Airlock 08 T shirt for the next Game

io9.com/353622/vote-roslin