The Best and Worst Game of Battlestar Galactica I've Ever Played

Previous Post about BSG:
http://www.ninveah.com/2010/08/battlestar-galactica-great-game-or-best.html
http://www.ninveah.com/2011/09/i-am-cylon-battlestar-galactica.html
http://www.ninveah.com/2012/10/battlestar-galactica-still-best-game.html
http://www.ninveah.com/2014/02/return-to-galactica.html

Its been a few year since I've sat down and played Battlestar Galactica, over 5 in fact. Its not that my love for the game diminished, its just that a few other games came up to try like Scythe and Game of Thrones, and a return to Twilight Imperium, and my time for sit down and talk game like BSG is limited.

But I got together a crew and made a go of it this past Saturday and it was at once the best and worst game of BSG I've played. Strap yourselves in for a roller coaster of emotions, accusations, paranoia, and surprises.

Setup

Setup

There were five of us playing:
Me as Helena Cain and I was Admiral
Brian as Starbuck
Dave as Giaus Balthar and he was President
Ron as Cat
Chad as Tom Zarek

We were playing the base game with the Pegasus ship, Treachery Deck, and extra characters from the Pegasus expansion. No New Caprica rules, no Cylon leaders, and nothing from Exodus expansion.

Now in the past I've been a Cylon in 6 of 8 games so I was hoping to not be a Cylon again.

Previous Results

But alas it was my destiny to be a Cylon again as the first round of loyalty cards went out. Sigh.

First Half

The game started with a bang with a number of crisis cards adding more Cyclon ships and a general feeling of "oh crap" as players went to the engine room on pegasus to increase the jump counter. I decided to play quiet Cylon for now and it was a good thing as everyone was very on top of the skill checks and it appeared that no other Cylon player was out there trying to sabotage things.

Getting dicey in space.

Fire the main batteries!

Damaged Basestar.

Getting close...

Heavy raider!

Heavy raider with centurions is almost aboard!

We escaped the first major attack without the heavy raiders getting aboard and entered the second phase of the startup: paranoia.

Brian using an action to look at the loyalty card of Chad and declaring him human (thank god it wasn't me!), Chad trying to get the president role from Dave, and me looking at destination cards and trying to avoid the 3 distance ones without making it look suspicious. The skill checks all passed easily as I was trying to keep my Cylon head down and not ramp up the card counting in the checks. I know from experience that much more important checks come later.

Second Half

Things are going frustratingly well for the humans as we reach 4 distance and activate the Sleeper phase of loyalty cards... and I get a second You are a Cylon card.

Well shit.

Things are going so well that I know my best option is to reveal and pass my unrevealed cylon card to someone else to increase the suspicions all around. I need help, and decide on Chad as he's a very good logical thinker with a good poker face and giving it to someone else would only turn heat up on them.

As a revealed Cylon I got to damage Galactica twice, going for the hanger deck to keep Viper pilots on the ship if I could, and the FTL control to prevent any emergency jumps. Then I sat on the resurrection ship collecting a couple Super Crisis cards and play the social game trying to get everyone suspecting everyone else.

Revealed!

More Cylons appear! 

Damaged vipers

Super Crisis Cards,  muhahahahha!

So the humans are still doing ok despite my reveal damage, Chad's wisely playing quiet Cylon trying to deflect and propose that I gave him a You Are a Human card to cover for the other Cylon, and I'm hoping for a chance to frustrate some skill checks while building up my hand of skill cards.

A crisis came up for Dave where he either had to give up the presidency or cause Galactica to loose more resources, so he did and Chad became president. This was some good news for me as Chad is my secret Cylon buddy.

 And then things got weird.

Brian, who became Admiral after I lost it due to revealing myself, looks at the destination cards for a jump and picks one that he says is "the obvious better choice" because its 2 distance, low fuel cost, and oh, hey, makes you pick the Scar crisis card from the deck and play it.

"Oops" he says. "I didn't read that part... is Scar bad?"

Well, I know Brian's a human but I play it up like he's acting very Cylon-ish with his "mistake" while gleefully placing the Scar ship on the board. Scar is a raider but only killed on 7-8 on a D8 (unlike normal raiders on a 3+) and activates twice instead of once.

Scar!

Pegasus expansion crisis.

That's not the weird part. Ron at this point exclaims that he thinks Brian has outed himself and should be put in the brig. That was strange because in all honesty Scar crisis is not debilitating for the humans, but this is Ron's first time playing so I chalked his reaction up to inexperience.

To the brig with Starbuck says Cat!!

Mittfull of skill cards!

But then during the check to put Brian in the brig Ron puts in a LOT of skill cards to ensure it, making him look a little more suspicious. I'm loving this! Chad is under suspicion because I gave him my unrevealed card, Brian is under suspicion and in the Brig because of Scar, and Ron's under suspicion because he went after Brian so hard AND became the Admiral once Brian was brigged!

Poor Dave! He's the only one not under suspicion and doesn't know who to trust.

Scar doing scar things.

Paranoia running super rampant now as Ron is accused of being a Cylon and does not defend himself, instead jokingly... or not... saying "ha ha yeah".

Um what? So as a Cylon I'm loving this, I'm spinning all these things as Ron is the Cylon, or Brian, depending on what's happening, and Chad is playing into this suspicion on Ron as it works so well for us Cylons. Ron is under enough suspicion to be brigged and Admiral passes to .... Chad! Who is also the president!

I control Galactica now.

With Brian and Ron both in the brig and only able to contribute one card each to skill checks, things are getting worrisome for the humans. With Chad's prodding Brian and Dave agree to airlock Ron to prevent him from revealing next turn and getting his super crisis card when he's sent to the Resurrection ship. Chad moves to the airlock to activate it and nominates.... Dave.

Stunned silence.

"I nominate Dave."

Dave groans and says "well played." Brian is still in shock. Ron looks confused. I'm laughing hysterically. Brian asks to Chad desperately "can you explain your reasoning?" obviously hoping for an explanation to make it all make sense.

"Well, Brian, I might be a Cylon..." Chad responds.

I almost died laughing. I'm thinking we got this, two humans in the brig, one about to be airlocked, the Cylon president and admiral.

"Ron," I say through tears of laughter, "are you sure you read your loyalty card right? You acted so much like a Cylon!"

He picks up his two cards, looks at them, and says "yeah, I read them right..." still confused.

Uh oh.

"Ron," I say, not laughing anymore, a terrible realization forming in my head, "do you have a You are a Cylon card?"

"Um, yeah, I do."

Too many Cylons.

Everything falls into place. Ron was not a human player playing poorly, he actually WAS a Cylon. He got the card in the sleeper phase just like I did.

You see, when making the loyalty deck at the start we put in an extra card for the Giaus Balthar character but put in the wrong card, adding an extra "You are a Cylon" instead of "You are human" card. So there was three cards going around and the suspicions against Ron were correct. He wasn't a terrible human player, just an inexperienced Cylon player.

We had a good laugh despite the game being botched. I will forever treasure that broken look on Brian's face and Chad's "Well Brian, I might be a cylon" line delivered in the perfect tone of restrained glee.

As I said at the start, the best and worst game of Battlestar Galactica I've ever played. And I'm not even mad.

Return To Galactica

Its been a while since the gaming group got together for a game of Battlestar Galactic, but this past weekend I was celebrating my 40th birthday with my friends and we broke out the board game once more (along with a host of other activities).

Game #1 - What Cylons?

In the first game there was just four of us: myself, Chad, Dave, and Udit. The beginning started out eventful with the initial attack but then we jumped to safety and didn't much trouble after that. We got to the halfway point and new loyalty cards were distributed...

Since the humans were doing so well, the Cylon Sympathizer card came out and turned Chad into a Cylon, but without a super crisis or ability to control the Cylon ships. Plus it forced him to reveal immediately. It was really lame and I can see why some people don't like to play with that mechanic. The true Cylon was Udit but Dave and I were on to him right away and had him stripped of powers and brigged soon after. We stopped the game there as it was clear there was unlikely to be a challenge to the humans after that.

Humans Win.

Game #2 - In Need Of A Gas Station

The second game was a lot more intense and exciting. There were five of us in this round: me, Chad, and Udit again along with Evan and Brian. Unbeknownst to each other, both Brian and I were Cylons right from the start and both decided to play the long game with few sabotages or obvious traitorous activities.

But the humans ran into trouble early anyways, losing fuel at a precipitous rate and having three Raptors out of four destroyed. Constant attacks and damages kept everyone busy along with the odd failed skill check to indicate Cylons were out and about.

At the halfway point, Chad decided that Evan and Udit (who were President and Admiral respectively) were suspicious and needed to be stripped of powers and sent to the brig. I was forced to pick a side and decided to work with Chad. This caused Evan to be suspicious of me and used his character's special ability to look at all three of my loyalty cards (I got an extra due to being Boomer) and declared me a Cylon. I of course claimed he was the Cylon and was trying to frame me. After a couple of exchanges we both ended up in the brig, with Evan and Udit saying I was a Cylon and Chad unsure but still wary of Evan. Meanwhile, Brian just tried to keep his head down and wait for the best chance to slit their throats.

Ultimately, the initial fuel troubles caught up with the humans and with two jumps left their fuel was near zero and there was very little hope of a reprieve. They surrendered to the Cylons.

Cylons win.

Thoughts:

I would definitely not play a game with the Cylon Sympathizer as is again. It took far too much control out of the player's hand when they went Cylon, forcing them to reveal and not giving them the fun Cylon tools. In fact, I don't know if I would play the game with fewer than five people again. While the second game was far more exciting and engaging, I'm a little sad that Brian and I didn't get to do major damage in the end, the course of events with the fuel shortage doing most of the work for us. Oh well, not every game can be the best game ever.