The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)
- Thread starter AstroLad
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Freakinchair
Member
So my group of friends has been playing alot of BSG lately - amazing game! Are there any others with a similar mechanic of having an unknown "evil" person? Or any good player vs team or team vs team games? Going to order Dominion since it gets talked about alot around these parts but was wondering if there was anything else I should pick up.
Freakinchair said:
Fury of Dracula/Scotland Yard has a co-op mechanic where there is one bad guy and multiple heroes.. but in neither of those games is it a secret who is the baddie.
The expansion to Pandemic similarly has a bioterrorist that goes around the world spreading a 5th disease and he has to be caught, but I've heard iffy things about it's implementation.
That said, Shadows over Camelot is probably most similar to what you are looking for. I did a write up of it last night.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23468035&postcount=795
BomberMouse
Member
AstroLad said:
I haven't played it but isn't the "traitor" in BatHoTH known to the other players? I heard somewhere he even has to go away and read his instructions.
Freakinchair said:
Shadows over Camelot is the most similar game to BSG, but...in my opinion is vastly inferior.
As far as team based games.... most everything is really light party games or card games like Tichu, as trick taking lends itself to partners.
The stuff that isn't that are things like Last Night on Earth or Descent, etc where a team of players is playing against one person.
Personally, I'm DYING for an epic/serious, meaty game with EVEN teams and balance.
Someone make it happen.
After some lurking here (and excessive youtubing) I decided to get galaxy trucker and lost cities on a whim. Let's see how things will pan out this Saturday at the BBQ.
Can't believe I haven't even played Ghost Stories yet. I have been looking forward to it ever since it was gifted to me in March. BSG etc just always snatch away the limelight. :-/
Can't believe I haven't even played Ghost Stories yet. I have been looking forward to it ever since it was gifted to me in March. BSG etc just always snatch away the limelight. :-/
BattleMonkey
Member
StoOgE said:
So much sucked about that game, especially the awful combat system and joke of an end game.
BattleMonkey said:
Plus the manual keeping up of levels for the enemies that were put out there and the manual tracking of XP. Just too much work to be done.
But mechanics and end game aside, the games biggest issue by far was the 20 minutes of dead time between moves where you had very little strategy to go over and basically sat there sucking your thumb. Unless you have a *very* dedicated group, everyone is going to lose interest.
BattleMonkey
Member
BomberMouse said:
Traitor is not revealed till near the end game, it's somewhat random. Most traitor games usually have a person being the traitor from the start and having to work around that, but Betrayal basicaly near end randomly forces a player to become the bad game.
The "gold standard" player-versus-team game is Descent, in which one player takes the role of the Overlord, runnning all the bad guys. He wins if everyone else loses in the role of miscellaneous fantasy heroes. It's not at all a hidden traitor kind of game, though. The Overlord ain't shy.Freakinchair said:
BattleMonkey
Member
Yea never saw Descent as one of those games, always saw it as a dumbed down RPG though... I guess I've always had a more DM approach to the game in that I'm presenting an adventure to players instead of actively trying to win.
BattleMonkey said:
Yeah, there are plenty of games that make one player the DM.
I haven't played Descent, but I know some of those games really rely on the DM to act like a DM and not as a combatant against the player. i.e. their job is to make sure it is a good adventure, not to try and kill everyone as quickly as possible.
BomberMouse said:
For the first "chunk" of Betrayal, there's no traitor. Everyone's working together to explore the mansion, gather up items etc. Then after a set of random conditions are met, you look up the haunt booklet based on the current condition of the board & what event happened... At that point, one player (usually the person who triggered the event) becomes the "traitor", effectively the dungeon master at that point. He/she is supposed to go off & read their mission while the rest of the players read their mission as the win conditions for both sides are secret.
That's the traitor mechanic in Betrayal.
BattleMonkey
Member
Chorazin said:
Not with the expansions. The game is stacked against the players with all the expansion content.
platypotamus
Member
Sweet, looks like I might be getting rid of my Thunderstone. Just got a trade offer on BGG, Ascension for Thunderstone. Assuming the wife doesn't have an issue, I'm totally in favor.
Too bad it was my most wanted for-trade item, thus diminishing my chance of further trade success any time soon
Too bad it was my most wanted for-trade item, thus diminishing my chance of further trade success any time soon
I played my first game of Ascension last night. It's a different, lighter beast for sure. I don't think it's going to replace dominion but it has it's place. Near-instant setup if you've shuffled the center deck at the end of you previous game. And shorter.
The problem we had last night was after an initial monster heavy center row, they all disappeared, making power cards a relative waste. A lot of attacking the cultist, or as has been dubbed in my gaming circle: "punching the monkey".
Also played Innovation last night. I don't think it tops Glory to Rome (same designer) for me, but it's damn close. The back and forth is great, and the game shares an element that's present in almost all of my most loved games: It's hard to tell who's truly in the lead until the very end. I love this tension, and I love that a random card gets pulled from each age for a different, non-face use. So, the one card you may hope to kick some ass with possibly won't be available this game. Stealing points and the action cards from an opponent is incredibly satisfying and not overpowered; through "resources" it's possible that everyone performs a beneficial action, so you really have to weigh your options if it will help someone else more than yourself.
Add this one to your Glory to Rome orders!
The problem we had last night was after an initial monster heavy center row, they all disappeared, making power cards a relative waste. A lot of attacking the cultist, or as has been dubbed in my gaming circle: "punching the monkey".
Also played Innovation last night. I don't think it tops Glory to Rome (same designer) for me, but it's damn close. The back and forth is great, and the game shares an element that's present in almost all of my most loved games: It's hard to tell who's truly in the lead until the very end. I love this tension, and I love that a random card gets pulled from each age for a different, non-face use. So, the one card you may hope to kick some ass with possibly won't be available this game. Stealing points and the action cards from an opponent is incredibly satisfying and not overpowered; through "resources" it's possible that everyone performs a beneficial action, so you really have to weigh your options if it will help someone else more than yourself.
Add this one to your Glory to Rome orders!
platypotamus
Member
Still want to play Glory to Rome really bad. It sounds totally up my alley.
Got forbidden island in today and played a few solo games (stuck at home, only Internet is on phone.... Fucking twc)
In any case, it's an extremely fun game. The mechanics are extremely similar to pandemic, but the game feels very little like it. The island sinking really escalates the game end much differently because of a couple of neat mechanics.
You lay out a grid of tiles in rows of 2, 4, 6, 6, 4, 2 so it makes a rough diamond shape. It's done randomly every time so you wind up with a different board every time. There are two decks of cards. One deck is the "game" deck and the other is the "treasure" deck. These are exactly the same as the two decks of cards in Pandemic. The Treasure deck you draw from at the end of a hand to add to your player deck, the game deck you turn over to reveal which part of the island is going to sink.
The treasure deck gives you cards with pictures of one of the 4 treasures. There are also two special cards (helicopter and sandbag) these allow you to jump anywhere around the board or save part of the island from sinking. Collect 4 of a kind and move to the corresponding part of the map (each treasure has two tiles that you can collect it from) and you get to nab the prize. Collect all 4, get everyone back to the helipad and leave by playing a helicopter special card.
The island sinks in the following way. Draw a card from the game deck, find the corresponding tile and flip it over. draw that same card again from the game deck and you remove it and the tile from the game. That part of the island has sunk. This can either be a nuisance or a game ending moment. If the helipad sinks, you lose. If both treasure locations for an uncollected treasure sinks, you lose. If a player is on a part of the island that sinks, they swim to an adjacent part of the island. If there isn't an adjacent tile, he drowns.. and you lose.
The other hinderance should be familiar to pandemic players. In the treasure deck are 4 waters rise cards. These make you do two things. 1) take the discarded game cards, shuffle them and stick them back on top of the deck. This effectively means you are going to be drawing the cards that have already been drawn. Meaning if a tile is currently turned over, you have a very high chance of sinking it completely. 2) the water level rises.. if this happens 8 times on a normal game (less for a harder game) the game is over. Additionally as the water level rises you have to turn more game cards over each turn.. meaning, more shit will start sinking faster. Very similar to Pandemic mechanics with outbreaks.
Your turn is pretty simple. You get 3 actions (any combination of: move, turn an adjacent tile back over to keep it from sinking, turn in 4 of a kind to get a treasure [only at the correct locations on the island], or hand a card to another player). Once you have done this you draw two treasure cards and then the number of game cards as indicated on the water level (starts at 2, goes up to 5). So you spend your life popping about the island turning tiles over trying to keep it from sinking. Erring on the side of caution with the tiles is critical, especially the helipad. It is better to spend your time saving the island than it is to make a mad dash for a treasure.
The game has a few real things that set it apart from Pandemic. It doesn't have an outbreak mechanic, so you don't have to worry about chain reactions of suckitude destroying you. So that is a bit easier. On the other hand, in Pandemic you don't have to worry about leaving yourself a path back to the helipad. While letting certain parts of the island sink, you can't cut yourself off from a treasure location.. you have to make sure there is a path back to it.
So there is a different mechanic there. Outlying tile pieces that have no bearing on a treasure you still lack are meaningless and you don't need to try and save them. So as the game progresses less and less of the map needs to be saved. Once you have the red treasure, who cares if the red bits sink.
The rules may be extremely similar to pandemic, but it is a very different experience. I really think this is a no brained at 12 bucks for anyone, even if you own pandemic.
edit: Hey, I have internet back so I'm going to add to this a bit.
In any case, it's an extremely fun game. The mechanics are extremely similar to pandemic, but the game feels very little like it. The island sinking really escalates the game end much differently because of a couple of neat mechanics.
You lay out a grid of tiles in rows of 2, 4, 6, 6, 4, 2 so it makes a rough diamond shape. It's done randomly every time so you wind up with a different board every time. There are two decks of cards. One deck is the "game" deck and the other is the "treasure" deck. These are exactly the same as the two decks of cards in Pandemic. The Treasure deck you draw from at the end of a hand to add to your player deck, the game deck you turn over to reveal which part of the island is going to sink.
The treasure deck gives you cards with pictures of one of the 4 treasures. There are also two special cards (helicopter and sandbag) these allow you to jump anywhere around the board or save part of the island from sinking. Collect 4 of a kind and move to the corresponding part of the map (each treasure has two tiles that you can collect it from) and you get to nab the prize. Collect all 4, get everyone back to the helipad and leave by playing a helicopter special card.
The island sinks in the following way. Draw a card from the game deck, find the corresponding tile and flip it over. draw that same card again from the game deck and you remove it and the tile from the game. That part of the island has sunk. This can either be a nuisance or a game ending moment. If the helipad sinks, you lose. If both treasure locations for an uncollected treasure sinks, you lose. If a player is on a part of the island that sinks, they swim to an adjacent part of the island. If there isn't an adjacent tile, he drowns.. and you lose.
The other hinderance should be familiar to pandemic players. In the treasure deck are 4 waters rise cards. These make you do two things. 1) take the discarded game cards, shuffle them and stick them back on top of the deck. This effectively means you are going to be drawing the cards that have already been drawn. Meaning if a tile is currently turned over, you have a very high chance of sinking it completely. 2) the water level rises.. if this happens 8 times on a normal game (less for a harder game) the game is over. Additionally as the water level rises you have to turn more game cards over each turn.. meaning, more shit will start sinking faster. Very similar to Pandemic mechanics with outbreaks.
Your turn is pretty simple. You get 3 actions (any combination of: move, turn an adjacent tile back over to keep it from sinking, turn in 4 of a kind to get a treasure [only at the correct locations on the island], or hand a card to another player). Once you have done this you draw two treasure cards and then the number of game cards as indicated on the water level (starts at 2, goes up to 5). So you spend your life popping about the island turning tiles over trying to keep it from sinking. Erring on the side of caution with the tiles is critical, especially the helipad. It is better to spend your time saving the island than it is to make a mad dash for a treasure.
The game has a few real things that set it apart from Pandemic. It doesn't have an outbreak mechanic, so you don't have to worry about chain reactions of suckitude destroying you. So that is a bit easier. On the other hand, in Pandemic you don't have to worry about leaving yourself a path back to the helipad. While letting certain parts of the island sink, you can't cut yourself off from a treasure location.. you have to make sure there is a path back to it.
So there is a different mechanic there. Outlying tile pieces that have no bearing on a treasure you still lack are meaningless and you don't need to try and save them. So as the game progresses less and less of the map needs to be saved. Once you have the red treasure, who cares if the red bits sink.
The rules may be extremely similar to pandemic, but it is a very different experience. I really think this is a no brained at 12 bucks for anyone, even if you own pandemic.
edit: Hey, I have internet back so I'm going to add to this a bit.
Neverfade said:
I've played it a couple of times & still don't know what to make of it... At times it's so damn random with no real long term strategy apparent & I'm stuck with a handful of cards that are useless for the current icons... But it *feels* like with more plays, I should grok it more. I adore Race for the Galaxy, so I should like it more...
My mate got his production copy & gave me his pre-pro cards, so I guess I"ll get to play it some more to give it a chance.
Last night's game session for a ~4 hour game of Manifest Destiny, an older GMT game. Total chaos with lots of leader bashing throughout the game, with the end result determined by me as kingmaker stuck in second place. Fun
Captain_Spanky
Member
Hey, earlier in the thread I was asked for impressions on the new Space Hulk card game by FFG. After a bit of a delay (some supply and shipping issues I believe) it arrived yesterday. I've played about 5 games now (3 solo and 2 two player) so I'll write a bit about what I think so far.
For what it aims to do I'd say the game is perfect. It's a light, 30 to 60 minute co-op card game. It does exactly that, the components fit in a small box, it's easy to carry, set up and play. As expected from FFG the cards are tip top, with a linen finish and excellent artwork. The rules are a little long winded, but one game quickly shows how simple the game actually is.
Playing the game really impressed me in a number of ways. First the game does a lot with quite a small number of actual bits, managing to be incredibly immersion with a few cards set out on the table. The marines are set out in a central column which really gives a nice visual of the isolated teamwork mechanic the game is going for. The rules state that players can discuss cards in their hand (essentially your available actions for a turn) but cannot show them to other players and each player must, ultimately, select his action alone, placing it face down. So this highlights the isolated cooperation and eliminates any "alpha player" problems that co-op sometimes faces.
The other great thing about the layout is it really highlights the danger. This IS a dangerous game. Marines and genestealers alike die in 1 hit. Marines score 1 kill a turn and only if they roll a skull (a 50/50 chance). The action cards can swing this but those are your base odds. To survive a genestealer attack you have to roll HIGHER than the swarm attacking you (a swarm is a stack of genestealer cards to the left or right of your marine in the column). So visually you have this:
M
GG M GGG
M
And more come at the end of every round. You can see who is about to get torn apart, and, once killed, a group of genestealers will join any surrounding ones growing the hoarde and adding to the danger. In many ways it recreates to the mood of Aliens, bugs coming out the walls, marines being dragged off, shots fired in to the darkness. And all this with a deck of cards. The game is HARD but there's always the feeling that with enough strategy you could make it though. Any game that relies on dice as its main combat mechanic will obviously lead to games where no matter how well you play you cannot win, but with games this exciting and this short sometimes that adds to the fun.
For what it aims to do I'd say the game is perfect. It's a light, 30 to 60 minute co-op card game. It does exactly that, the components fit in a small box, it's easy to carry, set up and play. As expected from FFG the cards are tip top, with a linen finish and excellent artwork. The rules are a little long winded, but one game quickly shows how simple the game actually is.
Playing the game really impressed me in a number of ways. First the game does a lot with quite a small number of actual bits, managing to be incredibly immersion with a few cards set out on the table. The marines are set out in a central column which really gives a nice visual of the isolated teamwork mechanic the game is going for. The rules state that players can discuss cards in their hand (essentially your available actions for a turn) but cannot show them to other players and each player must, ultimately, select his action alone, placing it face down. So this highlights the isolated cooperation and eliminates any "alpha player" problems that co-op sometimes faces.
The other great thing about the layout is it really highlights the danger. This IS a dangerous game. Marines and genestealers alike die in 1 hit. Marines score 1 kill a turn and only if they roll a skull (a 50/50 chance). The action cards can swing this but those are your base odds. To survive a genestealer attack you have to roll HIGHER than the swarm attacking you (a swarm is a stack of genestealer cards to the left or right of your marine in the column). So visually you have this:
M
GG M GGG
M
And more come at the end of every round. You can see who is about to get torn apart, and, once killed, a group of genestealers will join any surrounding ones growing the hoarde and adding to the danger. In many ways it recreates to the mood of Aliens, bugs coming out the walls, marines being dragged off, shots fired in to the darkness. And all this with a deck of cards. The game is HARD but there's always the feeling that with enough strategy you could make it though. Any game that relies on dice as its main combat mechanic will obviously lead to games where no matter how well you play you cannot win, but with games this exciting and this short sometimes that adds to the fun.
So there is now a netflix/gamefly for board games.
The prices are insane, though it makes sense due to shipping.
http://www.boardgameexchange.com/
This looks insanely stupid :lol
The prices are insane, though it makes sense due to shipping.
http://www.boardgameexchange.com/
This looks insanely stupid :lol
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
I have a question about Math Trades on BGG. I'm in one and I'm filling out my want list on that OWLG thing. When I add a game to my want list it asks, "Which game would I trade for XXX?" it then gives me a list of the games I put up on the math trade list. My question is this, should I check all the boxes or just one? Basically I'm wondering if I check all the boxes will I be essentially trade those three games for the one game? Or if checking the boxes means I don't care which game gets traded for whatever game?
Hopes this makes sense.
Hopes this makes sense.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo said:
As long as you listed the games individually it means "I will trade any game for this game". The only way it means "I will trade all my games for this one" is if you list them as a single entry.
If you want to link me to your listings I can double check it.
StoOgE said:
nice impressions. I bought it a while ago but only got to play my first game with my kids yesterday. My 6-year-old freaked out when I was flooding tiles, and we made scary movie music as we did it to build up the tension
especially when the flood deck was exhausted so it was turned over and so previously flooded tiles were now in danger.We did win though - my son had a couple of helicopter lift cards in his hand so he plucked two of us on to fools landing and then immediately off.
Was a lot of fun, and makes a change to have a cooperative game. Especially with the 6-yr-old as she doesn't like to lose
mrklaw said:
I think the game is also streamlined enough that it will be much kid friendlier than Pandemic as well. Pandemic has a lot more fiddlier rules. Like the "can only build a research station if you have the card for that city", "can only exchange a card if both players are on the city being exchanged". and then keeping up with the various diseases and outbreaks. In this one the cards don't serve double duty so there is less to worry about with the card, and the "research stations" come pre-built in in the tiles for finding the various treasures.
There is a lot less to Forbidden Island, but in a lot of ways I think the game end is a lot more tense.. you *are* going to get a lot of waters rise cards and by the end the island is going to be mostly gone.
I had it a bit easy as I had a pilot in my game so every time fools landing started to go, I just flew him over there on a move and flipped it back over. I lost my first game because I didn't reflip fools landing, and pulled a waters rise card and it sank. So I figured out really quickly. If Fool's Landing flips over, someone needs to go flip it back.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
Excellent, I did list the games individually so I should be good. Thanks.StoOgE said:
Thought I would flag for you AH fans out there that this dude is selling some amazing custom-made Chessex dice: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/5573464#5573464
AstroLad said:Thought I would flag for you AH fans out there that this dude is selling some amazing custom-made Chessex dice: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/5573464#5573464
I don't even have AH yet and I'm ordering a set, because those things are beautiful.
Well I knew I had that Province lead and since the piles were almost done I figured hey 15-10 works for me! :lolXater said:
That is the nice thing about this system (compared to BSW) is that it has every single card, including Prosperity (which won't even be out here for weeks still) so you can play around with a lot of different stuff. (I always do random though and usually keep Prosperity out so as to not "spoil" it for myself as much.)
For those going to BGG Con
http://www.funagain.com/control/catalogsearch?category_id=SERIES_10771
If you order off of fun-again games (and use this code: BGGCON2010) you can buy anything at Essen and they will bring it to BGG con so you save on shipping. So if someone just absolutely has to have a game now, you can get it.
http://www.funagain.com/control/catalogsearch?category_id=SERIES_10771
If you order off of fun-again games (and use this code: BGGCON2010) you can buy anything at Essen and they will bring it to BGG con so you save on shipping. So if someone just absolutely has to have a game now, you can get it.
Played a couple of more games of Forbidden Island with my parents last night. I really can't recommend this game enough especially for it's price point. Add it to your next order from CSI or whatever, it is well worth the price of admission. My plan was to get a game of Power Grid in, but the girlfriend called me and wanted me to meet her brother.
So, I wound up at my girlfriend's brother's house late last night. Seems he is a burgeoning board game geek. He owns Bang!, Bohanza and Agricola and said that he has been reading reviews online from people to figure out what to play.. which I took to mean BGG, but I'm a relatively new boyfriend and didn't want to flash too much nerd cred but let him know I had a very nice collection of Euro games if he wanted to play.
We played Bang 4-5 times because there were too many people to play Agricola despite my best attempts to get a game of it in :lol
I hadn't played Bang before. The game has a ton of balance issues with the characters and some cards are simply more useful than others. That said, I see why the game is so popular. It is a very fun party game with some skill to it. Plus drinking beer and saying Italian with a terrible accent and pronunciation with gusto never gets old. Mancato! Additionally putting people in jail and the dynamite card are a lot of fun. Even if there is very little strategy behind the dynamite.
They mentioned another game night in a week or two, so I will probably bring Citadels and possibly Roborally with me... and see if I can add he and his wife to board game nights. If he bought Agricola I have a better shot at getting someone to play RFTG with me
So, I wound up at my girlfriend's brother's house late last night. Seems he is a burgeoning board game geek. He owns Bang!, Bohanza and Agricola and said that he has been reading reviews online from people to figure out what to play.. which I took to mean BGG, but I'm a relatively new boyfriend and didn't want to flash too much nerd cred but let him know I had a very nice collection of Euro games if he wanted to play.
We played Bang 4-5 times because there were too many people to play Agricola despite my best attempts to get a game of it in :lol
I hadn't played Bang before. The game has a ton of balance issues with the characters and some cards are simply more useful than others. That said, I see why the game is so popular. It is a very fun party game with some skill to it. Plus drinking beer and saying Italian with a terrible accent and pronunciation with gusto never gets old. Mancato! Additionally putting people in jail and the dynamite card are a lot of fun. Even if there is very little strategy behind the dynamite.
They mentioned another game night in a week or two, so I will probably bring Citadels and possibly Roborally with me... and see if I can add he and his wife to board game nights. If he bought Agricola I have a better shot at getting someone to play RFTG with me
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
We played Pandemic with the Bio-Terrorist variant last night. It was ok but that game really isn't built for an antagonist. I played the Bio-Terrorist and I felt it was too easy to win. It was interesting to try out but I'm not sure I would actively push for that variant web we play again.
Another Cyclades victory last night. This time I didn't even have to crush my enemies or hear the lamentation of their women. Little they could do. I could have won with Athena or Ares. Not many people can top a 15 bid. Maybe they though I didn't have enough to pay for the offering AND a second philosopher. They were wrong.
BattleMonkey
Member
Yea local store had Death Angel Space Hulk, seems sold out in most online shops and knowing FFG, restocks will take a while.
So, I went out with the girlfriend tonight, and she commented that her brother and I were fast friends :lol
Evidently his board game purchases are very recent (within a month).. so he is just getting into them. I told her I have a lot of similar nerdy board games and she said she enjoys them. So it looks like I might have a new gaming group that will be more apt to play non-entry games.
Evidently his board game purchases are very recent (within a month).. so he is just getting into them. I told her I have a lot of similar nerdy board games and she said she enjoys them. So it looks like I might have a new gaming group that will be more apt to play non-entry games.
Played some Battlestar Galactica (without expansion) last night for the first time. Amazing experience.
The crux of the entire game revolves around trying to figure out who the cylons are; but its a very powerful crux. It also requires a bit of role playing, but it also requires a few straight men to keep things right. People were accusing people left and right... and you can only ever be sure that you're a cylon, or you're not a cylon. Even the guy that enthusiastically works for the human cause you're always a little unsure about, because it would be absolutely devastating if he was a cylon the entire time.
We played with 7 players, giving the humans a significant advantage, but dialled down our stats to compensate.
Game begun quite smoothly. But within a turn or two, I dropped a comment that would prove fateful; one of the players that started the game as a cylon had started to ham it up, sow discord and doubt a bit. I told him; the critic may well be the most likely cylon here. Still, he could've just been that type of guy... i.e. stupid
Nearing the halfway point of the game, and we were still doing extremely well. We'd had a few rough encounters, and the guy I suspected of been a cylon had made a few cylon like moves, such as using the scout card to place a cylon attack card on top (only he knows what the other card is; but he had to top it off with the comment; "The other card was much worse!"). I don't think it had really registered with my other team mates who the cylon was at this point. Most of them were fingering the viper pilot who was simply incompetent.
To make matters worse, I could've thrown him in the brig as the president, but I held back, because no one had really started accusing him; if I had thrown him in the brig without provocation, they would've started suspecting me.
But still no bead on the second and possibly third cylon. But it may just be that they wouldn't be revealed until the second half of the game.
We make the jump past the halfway point; by that time, we've only had a few civilian and morale hits. We're still well in the blue for everything, despite the fact that we started with 3/4 of the total for everything.
Everyone gets a new cylon/not cylon card. I've been sitting pretty as admiral/president for the first half of the game, with at least one challenge on my loyalty (that was passed). But they decide, it's too risky to have a admiral/president, so they decide to move the presidency of me to another. Before they do so, they activate Balthar's special which allows him to look at both loyalty cards; he does so, after we nominate the least conspicuous member of the team so far. The player walks off, quickly checks and sits down and confirms that he's not a cylon. Ok, all good; they pass my presidency off to the guy sitting next to me.... which is important, because now he's holding onto my unused send anyone to jail card.
Also at this point, I get everyone to rally around the obvious cylon. At first they questioned by judgement, but in a matter of moments, the cylon starts to reveal his true colours in an obvious manner. People recall events, and it clicks; of course he's the cylon. We send him the brig after a few nervous moments attempting to figure out whoever is taking critical actions are cylons or not cylons.
Still... at this point in the game there should be three cylons... and so far there's only one cylon. It would behoove the cylons to come out now and start wrecking shit up if possible.
But instead, all we have are seeds of doubt; the new president and the gaius player have been paired; if one is crooked so is the other. But the gaius player had at that point in time been playing loyally. The president had remained inconspicuous. But there was another cylon, because stuff wasn't quite right anymore. We started accusing everyone; everyone was under scrutiny. No one completely trusted the other.
A few more turns passed; we all made smaller mistakes that could be percieved as cylon activity... but the confounding factor is that it only seemed like there was one additional cylon character and not two. Given the way we linked the two players, the actions of one deflected off the other. But still, it was getting late into the game, despite our inability to locate the cylons.
The cylon took action; he attempted to block one of critical plays that would allow for 2 prep moves. At first he made it look like he was helping; he threw in all his blue skill check cards to help us pass the skill check... then activated his ability, rendering the blue useless (bunch of other players had thrown in a lot of blue cards as well).
The penny dropped; but the gaius player? He still insisted he was human. He was loyal. And his actions proved it as such. But the evidence of collusion was too strong. As admiral, I made the decision; at this late point in the game, he was non-essential, even if he had been helpful. We threw him in the brig just to assuage our own doubts.
With two cylon players revealed, we were all hanging out for a third. We all suspected gaius, but he just didn't act it. We soldiered on nonetheless.
Towards the end, during a critical moment; where I was given opportunity as the admiral to choose from three cards the appropriate jump, I mistook the intentions of the group; instead of jumping 3 (which would take us to the last jump), I picked the one with the best flavour text. We still hadn't uncovered the third cylon. Everyone was starting to jump to conclusions; but it was really just a bone-headed move; and luckily I managed to convince everyone as much.
During the final jump, a bit of bad luck and the addition of the cylon's supercrisis helped them create a massive fleet and blow up a few of our population ships. We were down to one... we wouldn't be able to beat the game except by auto-jumping (jumping before an auto-jump kills -1 to -3 population). But the fortuitous ordering of players helped us to overcome that final obstacle (i.e. we managed to move the jump track upto auto jump and win).
But wait. What happened to the third cylon player?
Turned out the ex-new president was holding onto both cylon cards. And what about gaius that did the check on him, granting him the presidency? He was a moron that couldn't read. He just did a quick check; because he saw both identical cards, he simply assumed that they were both 'you're not a cylon' cards and left it at that.
The game takes on a different tack once the cylons are revealed; it becomes a bit more straightforward there... but in the case of this game, it was almost too easy up until the end, due to a lack of cylon threat... which balances out the fun of all the cylon paranoia.
The crux of the entire game revolves around trying to figure out who the cylons are; but its a very powerful crux. It also requires a bit of role playing, but it also requires a few straight men to keep things right. People were accusing people left and right... and you can only ever be sure that you're a cylon, or you're not a cylon. Even the guy that enthusiastically works for the human cause you're always a little unsure about, because it would be absolutely devastating if he was a cylon the entire time.
We played with 7 players, giving the humans a significant advantage, but dialled down our stats to compensate.
Game begun quite smoothly. But within a turn or two, I dropped a comment that would prove fateful; one of the players that started the game as a cylon had started to ham it up, sow discord and doubt a bit. I told him; the critic may well be the most likely cylon here. Still, he could've just been that type of guy... i.e. stupid
Nearing the halfway point of the game, and we were still doing extremely well. We'd had a few rough encounters, and the guy I suspected of been a cylon had made a few cylon like moves, such as using the scout card to place a cylon attack card on top (only he knows what the other card is; but he had to top it off with the comment; "The other card was much worse!"). I don't think it had really registered with my other team mates who the cylon was at this point. Most of them were fingering the viper pilot who was simply incompetent.
To make matters worse, I could've thrown him in the brig as the president, but I held back, because no one had really started accusing him; if I had thrown him in the brig without provocation, they would've started suspecting me.
But still no bead on the second and possibly third cylon. But it may just be that they wouldn't be revealed until the second half of the game.
We make the jump past the halfway point; by that time, we've only had a few civilian and morale hits. We're still well in the blue for everything, despite the fact that we started with 3/4 of the total for everything.
Everyone gets a new cylon/not cylon card. I've been sitting pretty as admiral/president for the first half of the game, with at least one challenge on my loyalty (that was passed). But they decide, it's too risky to have a admiral/president, so they decide to move the presidency of me to another. Before they do so, they activate Balthar's special which allows him to look at both loyalty cards; he does so, after we nominate the least conspicuous member of the team so far. The player walks off, quickly checks and sits down and confirms that he's not a cylon. Ok, all good; they pass my presidency off to the guy sitting next to me.... which is important, because now he's holding onto my unused send anyone to jail card.
Also at this point, I get everyone to rally around the obvious cylon. At first they questioned by judgement, but in a matter of moments, the cylon starts to reveal his true colours in an obvious manner. People recall events, and it clicks; of course he's the cylon. We send him the brig after a few nervous moments attempting to figure out whoever is taking critical actions are cylons or not cylons.
Still... at this point in the game there should be three cylons... and so far there's only one cylon. It would behoove the cylons to come out now and start wrecking shit up if possible.
But instead, all we have are seeds of doubt; the new president and the gaius player have been paired; if one is crooked so is the other. But the gaius player had at that point in time been playing loyally. The president had remained inconspicuous. But there was another cylon, because stuff wasn't quite right anymore. We started accusing everyone; everyone was under scrutiny. No one completely trusted the other.
A few more turns passed; we all made smaller mistakes that could be percieved as cylon activity... but the confounding factor is that it only seemed like there was one additional cylon character and not two. Given the way we linked the two players, the actions of one deflected off the other. But still, it was getting late into the game, despite our inability to locate the cylons.
The cylon took action; he attempted to block one of critical plays that would allow for 2 prep moves. At first he made it look like he was helping; he threw in all his blue skill check cards to help us pass the skill check... then activated his ability, rendering the blue useless (bunch of other players had thrown in a lot of blue cards as well).
The penny dropped; but the gaius player? He still insisted he was human. He was loyal. And his actions proved it as such. But the evidence of collusion was too strong. As admiral, I made the decision; at this late point in the game, he was non-essential, even if he had been helpful. We threw him in the brig just to assuage our own doubts.
With two cylon players revealed, we were all hanging out for a third. We all suspected gaius, but he just didn't act it. We soldiered on nonetheless.
Towards the end, during a critical moment; where I was given opportunity as the admiral to choose from three cards the appropriate jump, I mistook the intentions of the group; instead of jumping 3 (which would take us to the last jump), I picked the one with the best flavour text. We still hadn't uncovered the third cylon. Everyone was starting to jump to conclusions; but it was really just a bone-headed move; and luckily I managed to convince everyone as much.
During the final jump, a bit of bad luck and the addition of the cylon's supercrisis helped them create a massive fleet and blow up a few of our population ships. We were down to one... we wouldn't be able to beat the game except by auto-jumping (jumping before an auto-jump kills -1 to -3 population). But the fortuitous ordering of players helped us to overcome that final obstacle (i.e. we managed to move the jump track upto auto jump and win).
But wait. What happened to the third cylon player?
Turned out the ex-new president was holding onto both cylon cards. And what about gaius that did the check on him, granting him the presidency? He was a moron that couldn't read. He just did a quick check; because he saw both identical cards, he simply assumed that they were both 'you're not a cylon' cards and left it at that.
The game takes on a different tack once the cylons are revealed; it becomes a bit more straightforward there... but in the case of this game, it was almost too easy up until the end, due to a lack of cylon threat... which balances out the fun of all the cylon paranoia.
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