This may have been brought up many times before. If so, I apologize.

I have played a couple of games with the expansion. Once with six players and another time with seven. Both games ended the same way. The admiral happened to be a cylon and jumped Galactica as soon as it arrived at New Caprica... causing an instant win for the cylons. Many of the people in my group have voiced that they think that is a bit overpowered... and I agree. If you're a cylon, and you happen to be the admiral, you can play it straight all the way through the game. Why do you need to slowly sabotage the humans whenever you see a chance? There's no point in risking it. You can play on the side of the humans all the way through the game and then play your "I win" card as soon as Galactica arrives at New Caprica. For anyone else playing a cylon, they would have to do what they can to sabotage the humans and risk being caught... that's the way the game is meant to be played. The humans are always supposed to be on the lookout for such behavior. But now the admiral doesn't have to take such risks. So long as he keeps the title through the New Caprica phase, he wins the game. Does anyone else have a problem with this scenario?

One thing I thought might be a good way to counter this is to create a skill check at the time the admiral wants to jump the fleet in the New Caprica phase. The difficulty of the check would depend on the number of civilian ships and human players left behind. I was thinking the difficulty would be 2 for each civilian ship and human. So leaving 5 civilian ships and 2 humans behind would create a 14 difficulty skill check. If the check passes, the jump is carried out. If it fails, there is a mutiny and the admiral is executed.

I want to know what you guys think. Any comments?

It kind of is a major problem. To the point that it's agreed in our games that it's mandatory to brig the admiral until the title gets passed to a confirmed human. Sometimes an airlock or two must be performed for this. The morale loss is much less damage than if a cylon gets the admiralty.

Getting to pick bum destination cards was enough of a boon to cylon admirals. Getting to jump the caprica fleet is a bit much.

Very interesting idea, Champ. And very... thematical, really reminds me of the series. I'll think about it if our games all tend to go to the way Syragar seems to depict (not enough games so far to second that).

But how do you manage to give the card to someone you know is definitely human ? you can't check loyalty cards, so... how ? I think I'm missing something easy, but... I don't own pegasus for long.

As for giving the admiral title to a confirmed human, the only way I can think of is through executions. Executions require the executed player to reveal all of their loyalty cards to confirm they are not a cylon. After the sleeper agent phase, if you execute someone you will know for sure if that player is a cylon or not. If they are human, they'll be forced to play as someone else, but you know that person is human since there are no more loyalty cards to deal out. The problem with this is that you lose morale for executing a human... and you make them drop their entire hand... so it's a heavy setback... but, as GrooveChamp says, it's better than having the admiral jump the fleet and leave everyone stranded.

If you get to distance 5 or 6, there's been no majorly noticeable sabotage, and the admiral's loyalty is unknown, execute them. That'll stop the tactic pretty fast, since using it means that the player has done little ornothing to forward the cylon victory until that point. If you're worried about the morale loss, gain some morale by blowing up basestars first, or play a Preventative Policy first. Or the president can give a Eulogy afterwards.

James McMurray said:

Whoa. Is that a house rule, or have we seriously missed that rule every time we've played?

I don't think blowing up a basestar alone will give you a morale boost. I think one of the new green military leadership cards can be played after a victory that allows you to gain morale based on the results of a die roll. I can't remember the name of the card, but I think the word "victory" is somewhere in the title.

Major Victory (Leadership 1 or 2) - Play after you destroy a basestar or a centurion on the Boarding Party track. Roll a die. If 5 of higher, gain 1 morale. Limit of 1 “Major Victory” card used per turn.

With Strategic Planning + Calculations you're very likely to succeed. If Kat plays it she's guaranteed to gain the morale if she has a 3+ card she can spare.

Though Preventative Policy is definitely the safest bet. If it turns out that the Admiral is a cylon, the PP rolls over into your crisis step and may save you there.

Ah, OK. Thanks! Never seen the card actually played so I wasn't aware of its text.

There's now a ton of options to avoid morale hits, though we don't have Pegasus yet, so I don't know how many new ways there are to lower it. I'm curious to see if they added a bunch of new anti-morale cards as well, or if it's to get people more willing to fire off the odd execution now and then.

The Major Victory card says, "Play after you destroy a basestar or a centurion"... doesn't that mean that you have to be the one who did the damage in order to play the card? That's the way we've been playing it in our group. So someone that doesn't draw greens is not likely to be able to raise morale for destroying a basestar.

Yeah, it has to be the person who plays it that blows up the basestar. And since its the admiral who controls the nukes, he's unlikely to join in on your execution plan. Just one of the reasons Preventative Policy is better.

Indeed. Something that caught my attention while playtesting the game. Simply hide and then give the Fleet an order to take off :/

As soon as we hit the sleeper phase and a cylon(s) has not been identified, there's a good chance the admiral is going to get brigged or executed. When cards come up that allow you to look at one players loyalty card(s), we generally check the admiral's first.

Only downside is if the player checking the card is cylon.

f course you can check him! But it's not a 100% to happen thing.

This was discussed a little while back.

The consensus seemed to be that if there was still an unrevealed cylon at the beginning of the new caprica phase, it would be wise for the humans to execute the admiral, and should the admiral prove human, to choose the character in the highest line of succession for the admiral title.

With this in mind, cylon admirals will rarely stay unrevealed until the new caprica phase: they can do more damage by picking some slow locations early in the game claiming no better alternative, sabotage a few skill checks and then revealing early. This will certainly be more profitable than playing possum until the new caprica phase, only to be executed with nothing to show for it.

Better put your thread in my favorite links in case of, Sinis The day my friends complain about me always winning, sorry, CYLONS winning () (can't help, me big baltar), I'll integrate your houserule.

Hem: After playing even a few more games, the house rule seems really unnecessary. Any cylon admiral has to *know* that he's going to get killed when he steps on New Caprica. It only makes sense to reveal before the new caprica phase. There isn't any function of suspicion or anything here. The Admiral has the power to make the humans lose the game, thusly, execute him if there is a chance he has the desire to do that.

After a few games, you'll find that it regulates itself, and the risk of the execution mechanic makes it simply not worthwhile. We've had two different players try, and each one was executed (one for correct suspicion of sabotage, another for the exact scenario above). However, if it helps your group, by all means, house-rule

Want to REALLY be evil? If you're still a hidden cylon and they execute the admiral who turns out to be human, reveal yourself and pass your loyalty cards to him. They'll have to execute him again

For us we have the opposite problem. We keep using EOs to prep and then launch the civilian ships, and we find that New Caprica actually makes it easier for the humans to win. Even if the ADmiral is a cylon, she might not have the opportunity to do enough damage with an early jump.

GrooveChamp said:

It is a calculated risk to execute the admiral a second time. In a five player game, assuming no Cylon Leaders, the probability of getting both loyalty cards is supremely low (about 0.6% just to have both "You Are A Cylon" cards, I think).

Needless to say, I wouldn't bother and just take the potential loss if an admiral is executed and then handed a second card.

That said, it isn't as if a cylon admiral is a guaranteed autoloss. It depends on whether population has been hit by crises or FTL control (or any means other than civilian ships) or if preventative policy is played, turn order (i.e. is the Admiral the first to go or be EOed after galactica returns)... It's just a crummy situation when it is.

JerusalemJones said:

Yeah, we've been having the same issue. Usually, the humans have nukes to spare, or the Pegasus CIC to deal with the fleet, and then the humans can take their time with launching the ships. But yeah, EO certainly speeds up the ship launching.

Don't mind me, I'm just replying to this thread in the hopes that it will convince the forum software I've read it, so it'll stop showing Sinis's post as new every time I come back here.

Sorry I've been away for a few days. And I'm sorry I created a new thread when one exists for this issue. I tried doing a search on this topic, but nothing came up. I think the search feature on these forums could use some work.

So you're saying the problem will fix itself. I hope it will for our group. It's been a little frustrating. If we see more games end this way, I think I'll suggest our group use a skill check vs mutiny if there are any civies/humans left behind. It would play like a super crisis... you can't use anything that affects skill checks (no Declare Emergency, reckless cards, or character abilities).

The last game I played (my third game with the expansion), the admiral was a cylon AGAIN. Three times in a row! What are the chances? The admiral was executed before he could jump Galactica... so maybe this is the start of the problem fixing itself for our group. I still don't like the idea of executing the admiral when there has been no indication of traitorous intent... but I guess that's just the way it is now. The cylons still won in a surprising way. There was one fuel left on the dial in the New Caprica phase. The cylon occupation forces took out one civie ship... the one that happened to have fuel. LOL

If the admiral survives being airlocked, he was a witch.

If he explosively decompresses, he was innocent.