So a common theme in our first two games of 6 players was for the president to sit on the Colonial One in the President's Office and continually pick up and play Quorum Cards. On the turns of players with a high Leadership, they basically sat around giving the president executive orders. When this happened the president would get two actions and draw upwards of 4 Quorum cards and playing up to 2 of them a turn. Once the entire deck has been drawn, the discards are then shuffled to make a new deck. However, with the entire deck drawn, each time he plays a card, the next time he would draw one he would know what it was going to be allowing for an endless cycling of non "remove from the game" cards.

Example: We take good care of our population during crisis situations, whenever attacked we'd play Authorization of Brutal Force then boosting the roll. 0% chance of loosing a population but killing any three fighters that threaten the fleet. Any survivors were rarely a problem, usually the fighter that were deployed at the beginning of combat were enough. When resources got low we'd bust out Food Rationing and Inspirational Speeching giving a total of +2 Food and +4 Moral. We'd always have Mission Specialists so we'd have a good pick at our destinations.

Here is my problem. The president it too powerful. For players to win they have to constantly cater to their needs. It's obvious to figure if someone is a Cylon if they refuse to make the obvious choice to help, or if the president is a Cylon it's obvious if they aren't playing the right cards because they have them all. So, I hate the Executive Order card. I just sit around playing them whenever I have them, it's suspicious if I'm throwing them away because I draw 2-3 Leadership cards a turn. On the flip side all of our games have come down to the very last Crisis card before Kobol to determine who wins. So far Humans 1, Cylones 1. The game is very balanced but can be boring for some of the players. I was wondering if anyone else had similar situations?

For playgroups that like to abuse the president's office, I suggest making a house rule that limits the president's hand of Quorum cards to 10.

The only problem is the Authorization of Brutal Force card, it should be removed from the game upon use.

Also, you can't draw 4 and play 2. You can either draw 4, draw 3 and play 1, or draw 2 and play 2.

Psiclone said:

This usage of executive order on the President will stop the very game you have a cylon president. In one game, our president was a cylon, and brigged half the crew with an executive order, and then locked up the remaining person with the Admiral's Quarters. It was a short game.

That said, no one in our playgroup gets guff for not helping the President pick up Quorum cards, unless it's after the sleeper phase and all the cylons are acocunted for.

As for boredom, I find that after all the cylons are revealed, the game becomes a little bit more boring. However, puzzling out exactly how one would win can be a great deal of fun

I see it as a situational problem. Yes it can be abused, but I would think it wouldn't be abused until the cylons are known. I often don't use my Executive Orders simply because I don't know who to trust yet.

And sometimes it could be a bad idea for someone to always use Executive Orders on the Prez. What if something more important needs to be done? Kill a Centurion, move a civilian ship, repair a room, FTL the fleet.

How many turns does it take for the President to draw the entire deck? By that time, it may simply be too late to take advantage of the never-ending combo? There are no quorum cards that gain you fuel or population (I don't think) .. and those are often the resources you lose on.

Apparently I can't reply to the forum, either my reply is too long or the forum is broken. I'll try breaking my post down.

Ugh, well I spent half an hour writing my respond and I cant even post it. Even if I break it down into smaller parts. Thank you for your help guys but I'm done with the new message boards. They should have kept the old ones.

This has come up on the board at least twice. To summarize: yes, when it happens it seems all powerful and like you need to stop it. However, having a cylon president screws it up. Also, you have to spend a lot of actions in order to draw the necessary cards to pull it off. Unless you're getting really lucky with crisis cards it'll be hard to justify spending the actions on drawing quorum cards when you have more pertinent problems.