In reading the execution rules (still finishing the rest of them), I stand by the execute one person from jump. 1 morale is an exceptable loss

Melonball said:

Yeah - I'm inclined to agree (at the moment).

I feel a variant coming on...

I think it will still be epic, but i'm pretty confident that anyone who plays balatar will get shot early, and someone is getting airlocked after we've jumped 4.

Melonball said:

How about something more along these lines:

At the beginning of the game prepare a second loyalty deck. I'm thinking for 3 or 4-player games it will just be two cards - one each of "Cylon" and "Not A Cylon" cards, for 5/6-player games it'll be four cards (two of each).

If a Cylon is executed, the rules stay as normal. If a human is executed, instead of the morale loss, the new character takes a new loyalty card from the secondary loyalty deck. If ever a character is executed and there are no more loyalty cards left to take, the humans lose the game.

Adjust numbers as necessary.

I think its wise not to muck with what corey's done.

Melonball said:

True. The universe might explode.

I heard that he shot a man in reno just to watch him die.

Melonball said:

LOL!

Melonball said:

I think many of the new Crisis cards will do the work for you as far as executions go. I don't think people will really need the airlock to help things along.

I think executions will also hurst, not just for morale, but for the nasty Cylon Leader agendas and that losing a character sucks when it has a skill set and ability set the humans really need. Losing Chief Tyrol when Galactica is hurting or when there are a lot of Vipers damaged.will really hurt, for example

Rulebook is up, the penalties for killing a human are -1 morale, and if there are no characters left to pick (i.e. someone went on a killing spree), the humans immediately lose.

My initial reaction is that execution will be the new 'brig'. Generally speaking, my group is not often wrong when taking action against cylons; we will not likely ever lose because we've executed someone. So, we'll do executions, and if we're right, the cylon is really screwed, and if we're wrong, we've got a guaranteed ally (well, guaranteed after the sleeper phase). After all, why brig someone where they can still cause trouble with evasive maneuvers, strategic planning, and character abilities when you can send them to the resurrection ship without the super crisis.

As for killing 'vital' characters like Tyrol in a pinch; we'd only kill them if we strongly suspected them of being cylons in the first place, so it's not likely that tyrol would be trying extra hard to repair galactica.

Can someone give me a reason not to execute someone? You've just proven their loyalty beyond a shadow of a doubt, for the loss of 1 morale. When was the last time you've lost due to morale? At least in the old version, even if you brig someone, you're still not 100% sure until they flip over that "you are a cylon" card. And by executing, if they are a cylon, you deny them their super crisis. I don't see the downside to executing someone just for the hell of it - if human, you lose a morale, and know for sure that they're on your side. If cylon, you force a reveal and take away the super crisis. The only time it wouldn't be good is if morale is already very low, like 1 or 2.

With 14 human characters in the game, I can't see the limitation on # of characters being a factor most of the time. So what's the downside in picking a person at random, and just executing them, especially post-sleeper? For a human player, it seems it would be for the greater good to just go along with the execution, just to prove your loyalty. Baltar and Boomer seem especially at risk. Is there something I'm missing here? Or is that the way the expansion was intended to be played?

BTW - read the rules, and love almost every aspect of the expansion... just not sure about this execution thing!

I strongly suspect that if playing on New Caprica, and there are unrevealed Cylons, it'll be SOP to execute the Admiral and Ellen Tigh, because the Admiral's ability to order the jump and strand everybody on New Caprica means that it'll be impossible to trust even the most apparently trustworthy player.

ninjamatic3000 said:

I'd have thought that morale was one of the likelier ways of losing, though I guess it depends on your politician to pilot ratio. In my experience, it's not infrequently the case that the game ends with the Colonials on one or two morale, since morale loss is such a common potential result from Crises.

One bad thing about executing loyal Humans

Page 10 says that when a Treachery card is discarded by Human players, a Cylon player may immediately play a '"Sabotage" card that will damage Galctica

If a loyal human has a lot of treachery cards, quite possible seeing as they are hard to get rid of, it could hurt the humans badly if the Cylons can play "Sabotage" cards. One can also imagine the tactic of claiming to have a lot of Treachery cards in order to discourage getting airlocked

Dan said:

I honestly think this will help the humans more than hurt them. For instance, let's say your only pilot turned Cylon. now you can kill an extra character to turn them into a pilot and start doing damage. The chief is really a so-so character and is only useful if galactica is getting kicked around. why start as chief when you can start as someone else, than kill to grab chief when you really need him

Katsue said:

I'm 90% sure that in the base game morale is the commodity with the most ways to be depleted. That being said, if you cant spare one morale to kill someone and vet their loyalty so you have a reliable XO target you have bigger problems.

I think the question is how many new crisis cards end in an execution, though really when you think about it, in a 6 player game with a cylon leader, the most morale you can lose via random execution is 3 (anything more is a clear attempt to kill humans), and that seems like a small price to pay for total trust

Ultimately, like the pegasus board section, i think that this mechanic is something that is trying to facilitate speed. Cylons have to play more agressive since after turn 4 the airlocking starts happening

ninjamatic3000 said:

Well, a reason not to execute someone is if they're clearly playing so hard at being human that they're either human or a truly beneficial cylon for the time-being. A second reason is that it spares an unrevealed cylon the action of revealing, but when you weigh that against the super crisis and the loss of their hand, it's kind of a big deal.

Every other aspect of execution is gravy; the person being executed loses their hand, but the humans might spend that many skill cards to bust an innocent out of the brig. If they're a cylon, well, I guess they lose their hand and the humans wont exactly shed any tears.

In any case, Morale is a small price to pay (our group loses that way quite infrequently) and there are four inspirational speeches to make up for it (and there are really easy ways to tweak that roll in the human's favour).

Ultimately, actual gameplay will decide, but I suspect everyone in our group will say "why brig when you can solve the problem permanently".

Upon further review of the rules, I feel a bit better about the execution mechanic. One of the big reasons I didn't like it was because it is so crippling to a Cylon player with the denial of the Super Crisis, with relatively little risk to the humans. On further review, and a tight zoom on the new Cylon locations overlay, I see that with the new Resurrection Ship a Cylon can draw a Super Crisis as an action - so it's not quite as crippling as I thought, it just forces the Cylon to spend an extra turn to get a Super Crisis rather than getting one automatically.

Sinis said:

Agreed, I can't think of why you would ever use the Admiral's Quarters anymore. I can only see the brig coming into play as a result of crises, quorum cards, or a cylon reveal. Maybe if Morale is low and you're not 100% sure about the person, but want to limit their capacity to hurt you just in case? If Morale is high, I'd probably just try to airlock them and be done with it.

It depends on who you're targetting. Cylon Pilots and Presidents should be executed, but for everyone else you're probably better off forcing them to spend the action to reveal. Also, the Admiral's Quarters is in general an easier check (everyone except Boomer has Leadership, plenty of people don't have Politics), which is especially important if it's a solo play.

And of course if Helena Cain is in play there's no reason to use the Airlock.

ninjamatic3000 said:

The brig can still be a decent tool to use on humans. I've seen several games where a human never bothered to get out of the brig because they were too busy XOing people and not drawing crisis cards.

In my group, the brig is rarely used except when it is obvious someone is a cylon, or when a cylon is trying to screw the humans by brigging someone. But I suppose depending on play style some groups might use it more often, playing the odds on Baltar for example. My group's style is that we wait until someone really deserves it before we brig them, and in that case we might as well use the airlock instead. Of course the brig would still come into play through crises, Boomer's negative, etc.

Melonball said:

You know, I've never felt the need to vet someone's loyalty before XOing them. It's more efficient to trust those around you, because honestly you gain more actions out of it than the Cylons will. New Caprica changes the situation because a Cylon Admiral can spend an action to win the game. In games where Cylons stay hidden up to that point, execution becomes an absolute necessity. Plus in the nature of things characters can't be everywhere at once, and you're going to end up XOing people who haven't proven themselves.

A Cylon who intends to reveal really doesn't lose a lot out of being executed, by the way. If a Cylon decides to hang out in the Resurrection Ship to draw a Super-Crisis, then, relative to a Cylon who revealed voluntarily they're only down 4 cards and the effects of the reveal, and they're up the action and the cards the humans spent to execute them. A Cylon who doesn't pick up a Super-Crisis is down 3 cards and up one action. This may well be a better deal for the Cylon.

A Cylon who intends to hang around openly messing things up and wait for their once-per-game ability to win the game for them is another story. That strategy is much weaker now.

Katsue

You definately dont always wait to XO people until they are vetted. But if a human IS vetted, they are a no brainer choice to be admiral and president, and for critical xos.

XOing to a cylon reveal is ******* deadly.