Only played this twice, once 6 player and once 3 player (6 player human victory by 1 fuel and morale, 3 player cylon victory first turn reveal)

Our 3 player game was Admiral Adama, Baltar, and Boomer. When the Admiral turned Cylon on turn 1, we were left with very few Executive orders for the rest of the game, compared to the 6 player when it seemed like that was 50% of the actions.

I've looked over the character sheets in more detail now, and though I haven't looked through the crisis cards thoroughly, I would still say the top three characters are*:

Lee "Apollo" Adama: 1) Very flexible skill set. 2) Jump in an alert viper if attack is a big one. 3) No real downside as discarding cards is fairly rare?

Gaius Baltar: 1) Very flexible skill set. 2) Look at that loyalty card. 3) You'll probably know if he's a cylon early?

Karl "Helo" Agathon: 1) Skill sets are common for Crisis Cards. 2) Great two special powers. 3) Down side is start "down" one Crisis Card, but not that bad?

We all agreed that we thought Zarek was the worst, as his downside made him useless when there was no Cylon fleet attacking as others were always in the card drawing territories. This meant all he could do was sow discord by trying to become president or throw people in the brig when no one had much of an idea yet who was loyal.

What are your top 3 and why? And who do you see at the bottom of the heap?

*Yes, yes, everyone has their abilities and drawbacks, and every "great" character could turn out to be a Cylon, which then maybe it hurts more when they do. The idea of this is IF the player stays human, who do you think is the strongest?

I think you're underestimating Zareck. That man is a beast.

That being said, the best three: Lee for skill versitility, then Boomer and Baltar as thier "drawback" gives them a better chance to win the game

Starbuck and Chief are two of the "worst" because their everyday power is so situational.

However, Starbuck pulls ahead in bad catagory because if she's a cylon she's easy to throw in the brig, and if she's not a cylon the cylons can easily throw her in the brig. Basically if you're Starbuck and a Cylon, you have to do a lot of damage fast, then reveal before you're brigged (my recomendation is get shot down in a viper, ask for an executive order so you get back into the fight, then use that action to reveal as a cylon)

I favor Saul Tigh. He has no real drawbacks, but his advantages are awesome. First, you can send to the Brig whoever you want. If it's Starbuck, she practically sends her there herself. Second, whether or not you're a cylon, it's very easy for you to concentrate both the Admiral and President title on your person. This is a whole lot of power to be either used for good or dread.

Who I really dislike is Bill Adama. Sure, if you're human, you can more easily pass crises. But if you're a Cylon, you're frakked, since you inadvertedly help the humans. His disadvantage is highly annoying, too, as it removes any tools of dealing with unrevealed cylon players on your behalf. Is once per game ability... meh. I have yet to see the extreme game-altering-abilities everybody else has.

Or Starbuck is your only pilot and you rely on her to clear out Raiders and protect the civilian ships... only to have her reveal herself to be a Cylon and have the Raiders kill 2 unmanned vipers and 7 civilian ships in one turn....

Wedge1126 said:

Yes, or Starbuck is the only one not in the Brig, two basestars have closed in, the jump prep track gets setback because of a power outage, a crisis comes up for which you don't have the right cards and she reveals herself to be a cylon in order to activate the base stars next round, so she can shoot Galactica a couple of times in the hopes of scoring six critical hits while everybody else has forgotten how you move out of the Brig.

I thought we were talking generalization here?

Mike said:

Truth on the Old Man. However what pushes him over Chief and Starbuck is the fact that he starts as admiral, and no matter if you're human or cylon that's a very powerful role to have as controling jump distance is the key to victory.

EDIT: Also his once per game power is epic out of turn. It lets you dump everything you have on a super crisis, then allows the old man to take it all back and handle the crisisis until it's back to him. great power.

Or it WOULD be if you didn't have to discard at the end of every turn - not only on your own. That way, he can have all those cool cards for only a single round.

Mike said:

You do only discard at the end of your turn, not everybody's.

I just read the rules and stand corrected.

Man, being a human sucks even more than I thought.

Is that errata'd somewhere? Because in my rulebook, it says explitcitly (even in bold font) that you have to discard at the end of every player's turn.

Melonball said:

ROFL.

Mike said:

Sorry. Just having a flashback of a bad (great?) game I recently had. In general, having your only pilot end up being a cylon can be catastrophic. That's why I like Helo. He's got useful skills and can hop in a viper if needed. Plus his re-roll ability is awesome.

The best characters are Sharon and Baltar. They have the highest percentage chance of being on the winning team.

I really think Helo is great when he is human. His power can be a life saver. I am not sure what it would be as a cylon.

Starbuck is amazing. Spend a turn at the start of the game giving a press conference, then go sit in your viper and Consolidate Power / Executive Orders / Launch Scout until the bad guys show up, and blast them with Maximum Firepower. Seriously. She rocks.

Fry said:

My problem is with her draw back. She is VERY vulnerable to being taken out of the sky by the admiral's quarters. Especially if Tigh is in play.

Unfortionaly I haven't played the game yet (got my copy yesterday, yay!), but on a pure emotional level my favorites are Saul and Sharon.

Saul just strikes me as the most human of all the characters in the show. He is allways trying to do the right thing but he has his flavs.

Sharon is... well, HOT

I think Roslyn is a pretty good choice, if you don't want to be activating too many locations... I think having the ability to choose between two crisis cards can definitely come in handy, for both a cylon and non-cylon player, as you don't have to show the other players what the discarded card was

I also think Lee is a good choice, because you get a great range of Skill cards, plus his downside really doesn't matter all that much.

Baltar is also useful, especially in a three player game. I had the opportunity (via a crisis card) to look at one player's loyalty card before the sleeper phase, and then used my once a game ability to look at the other player's skill cards - Very useful for determining who is a cylon and who isn't!

As for the worst character, I think Cheif Tyrol would be my candidate for this... Having a hand limit of 8 isn't all that great, and he's only really useful (from what I've experienced anyway) when Galactica needs repairs.

I'm confused. When I play the ship and vipers always need repaired. Tyrol is important, but he always seems to be a fracking cylon.

I think Lee is one of the best. I am also confused about people saying they don't discard, but any way he is still one of the best hands down.

Roslin is the worst. Her draw back is crippiling. Yeah, Yeah she is president, but so can Baltar or Zerak, and they don't have to lose two cards to activate presidents office, and they don't suck if they lose the presidents title.

Roslin's good, but she's great if she looses the presidents title. This means she can EO the president or anyone else on her turn and save the humans from drawing bad crisis cards.

Best characters (IMO of course):

1. Gaius Baltar. Very versatile. 2 politics, an engineering, and a leadership is good. Being able to draw any extra card is really useful.

2. Lee Adama. Second most versatile. 2 politics/leadership and a tactics is great. Not to mention the nice viper abilities.

Then it is a choice between:

3. Tigh/Admiral Adama. It all depends most on which other characters you are using IMO. Personally though, I prefer Adama over Tigh. Brigging people is generally not something you want to do a lot, and taking the president's title is not all that great either. 1's counting as positive will get you the 3-6 worth in skill cards, and taking cards back into your hand can be a free skill check.

And:

3. Roslin. 3 politics and leadership is great. Picking bthe best of two crisis is excellent too. You just have to make sure she EO's all the time and that she is not a cylon. Its a gamble, but one often worth taking IMO.

I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me how to put Adama's once per game ability to good use. I still think it really sucks - or that I haven't found a good way to apply it, yet. Someone enlighten me?

(I assume you're talking about Bill, not Lee)

Bill's ability is all about trust. If you trust Adama, then the group can drop down a bunch of really high cards, and blow a crisis out of the water, or kill a supercrisis. Then Bill uses his ability to pick up that hand, discards excess, and ends up with a full hand that's got a ton of 3-5 skills in it, which he rolls out over the next handful of crisis cards, reducing the pressure on the table, and generally lets everyone else not worry too much about having to keep their hands strong, so they can play out those cards a little more freely.

Or, (and again, it's trust) get the Presidency over to Bill, he fills up his hand with cards, and then sails through the next several food shortages without sweating.

Of course, if Bill is a cylon, you've just handed him a frakload of power to screw with you.

James

Also, since Adama is not required to ask anyone about this, a major crisis which leaves him with a depleted hand can actually be a benefit.

Generaly I think that Laura Roslin is probably one of the best characters IMHO, especialy when she's on the human faction. OK she lacks the card flexibilitty that other characters possess but she works fantasticaly as a support character. Seen as her drawback forces her to discard cards to activate locations she wants to be using her Executive order and Consolidate power cards instead to boost teammates or give herself more cards.

Her Religious visions grants a real boost as well. It creates the option to avoid bad crisis cards, prevent the activation of certain Cylon units and increase the jump track (depending on the cards drawn of course). Due to her being the highest ranked Political leader she also starts the game as the President which brings advantages as well. She really shines during the crisis phase though due to the amount of Politics cards she can draw. After games Cylon players have always complained that she really throws a spanner in the works by playing Investigative committee against crisis after crisis meaning that their interference has been really limited down to the more unimportant events.

A good example of how well she can work came when I first tried her out. In her first turn she placed an Executive order helping the Galactica to take out the base star that starts off in play. Over the next couple of turns she picked crisis cards that helped increase the jump track while helping to limit any Cylon interference in skill checks. When the Galactica bacame badly damaged she switched back to Executive order to help with repairs.

Kahadras

IMO, Gaius, Lee and Tigh are the strongest characters.

Gaius has pretty decent flexibility for skill draws. His ability to draw a skill when he draws a crisis, combined with a natural draw into Consolidate Power creates a very diverse skill set. The ability to look at a persons Loyalty cards once per game is overrated by some; when accusing someone of being a Cylon after looking, players may think that Gaius is the Cylon and jail him instead. Especially given his two initial loyalty cards. That he also always starts as president in games with three or four players when chosen early is also a plus.

Lee appears bad on the surface, but is saved by by game mechanics and skill sets. Alert Viper Pilot and the CAG action are pretty forgettable abilities, but Lee has a diverse skill set, and part of that diversity involves being able to draw into Consolidate Power. You'll never catch Lee using the Research Lab or Colonial-1's Press Room. His drawback is also unremarkable, and can easily be mitigated if and when it comes up. An oft-overlooked benefit to being Lee is that he's fourth in line for both the presidency and the admiralty, behind the Political Leaders and Military Leaders, respectively. One jailed Admiral, or a President revealed as a Cylon puts power into Lee's hands, which his skill set allows him to easily use.

Tigh suffers from a narrow skillset and a dismal drawback, but has superb abilities to compensate, if you are human or Cylon. Taking the presidency without a skill check is pretty sweet, and can disarm a suspected Cylon player of a lot of power. Care has to be taken when using this ability, some players may see it (rightly) as a Cylon trying to consolidate power. His other ability, which reduces the difficulty of damning anyone to the brig is supremely useful, as the brig is a painful condition to be in, and it can apply to anyone's usage of the Admiral's Quarters.

Most other characters are fairly even, with one exception. Boomer (IMO) is *god-awful*. An inflexible skillset, combined with a brutally awful drawback and mediocre abilities leave Boomer out in the cold as far as usage is concerned. Recon is pretty great if you're a human, but unbelievably awful if you're a Cylon. If you're a human, you can easily avoid the worst crises for the next player, but if you're a Cylon, and you leave a bad crisis on top, you effectively redflag yourself for a full round of players using the Admiral's Quarters to throw you in the brig. As a human, it's not quite as good as Roslin's ability, but as a Cylon it's detrimental to your goals, as players scrutinize your actions. Similarly, unless you use Mysterious Intuition just before you reveal yourself as a Cylon, you are likely going to be choosing the penalties on a skill check and choosing the damaging action on your "You Are a Cylon" card. Of course, Mysterious Intuition is decent when you're human. If that weren't bad enough, during the sleeper agent phase, you're tossed in the brig and dealt an additional loyalty card. Boomer is the only character who is doomed to the brig without player action, and can languish there with player apathy or suspicion. Given that you're more likely to be a Cylon player as Boomer, it hurts to have abilities that are more suited to human use, or that redflag you as a Cylon when 'used'. Barring all that, it seems extra-lousy to be fated to a turn in the brig, regardless of how you used your abilities.