Ok, so when we play this game, the humans never win. It's always the Cylons and it feels as if the game is stacked in their favor. So, talking to a friends, we thought we need to figure out what other players are doing right where we are going wrong. So does anyone have any good tips or strategies for the humans. We are playing the stock game but we are using some Pegasus rules (Cylon can't draw the same color on his/her turn, Caprica jump stars count, Quarum hand max is 10).

Position yourselves to make maximum use of Executive Order cards. If you draw an EO, play it on another confirmed human that is in a position to make use of it.

Have your President sit on the President's Office and EO them to go through the Quorum deck for useful cards. (Assuming you have Baltar, Ellen or Zarek as Pres. Do not do this as Roslin or you will burn through her skill cards way too quickly and constantly.)

Save nukes for when you really need them. Don't be afraid of throwing out a Strategic Planning card to thin some Raiders out too if possible.

Make the most out of your Once Per Game abilities. Preventative Policy + Zarek's OPG is a free non-Population resource at the cost of his turn.

Don't be afraid to tank skill checks that are not a threat. If you overplay or don't coordinate you'll run out of cards for the skill checks that really matter.

Use investigatice Committee on skill checks. By forcing players to show their cards the players can a) stall or force into a reveal a cylon player and b) avoid overshooting a check. Nothing worse than dropping 20+ points on a skill check (except Standoff with Pegasus).

Whenever you get a chance to look at loyalty cards, Admiral first, then President. These two positions have the most power to destroy Galactica. Learn the truth as soon as you can.

Always pay attention to what cards are thrown into a skill check. If this is the third crisis during this destiny deck where purple has come up against the check, you will know that a person drawing purple (or drew it through another effect) is a cylon.

If you are a human the first ahlf of the game, do not play as if you might become a cylon during sleeper your odds are better that you will stay human.

In truth, the base game is weighted towards a cylon victory. The human players have to play smart or the cylons (and the game itself) can beat them. Pegasus does make the game closer to 50/50, as the reckless cards and the addition of a 4 and 5 point card of each color help out ALOT. And don't despair, as the humans will eventually start winning games unless you always wind up a cylon, then despair because you will not always be on top.

like the other said before, i think, investigative comittee and EO are the most important cards....use it, when it is important.

when playing with new caprica, save population and nukes, will save your ass at the end of the game

try to choose characters which are balanced. (e.g. that you have at least two characters with politics cards in their deck)

never let the admiral become the president- really ineffectiv

and try to use the game text of skill cards in general. this is really a very good and effective way of surviving crisis of every kind....

but, by the way, over 50% of our games were also won by cylons but, and this is a big thumb up for this game, every game ended in a different way. so we never had a game which was too similar to one of the previous games

In our games, cylons are the one who have the game difficult to win, last game i won being a cylon, but it was due to the fact that i convinced humans to fight with each other.

Usually we play too good to make cylon have a clear wictory especially if he gets in the middle of the game.

If on your games humans never win, you play too "i may be a cylon so i have to prepare for that"...

1) If you lose a lot of skill checks it is surely bad discussion while playing the game. You can say if you play a lot or not in the skill check and agree with other players so you dont throw more cards than is neccesary and not too few to dont get the "pass" result. We play that "a lot" means you play cards with a total at least half of the difficulty of the check and "a little" if you play fewer than half the difficulty of a skill check.

2) Try to save "declare emergency" skill card in your hand at all times, to avoid losing resources on skill check when destiny(or cylon player) deck was too nasty. Play it only if you think you cant make the check without its high value.

3) Dont be afraid to brig a player you think is playing poorly. Often it shows if something changed since he got into brig. Other players have to agree to that action of course. So tell aloud if you think someone is doing the wrong action and make others remember that when you want to send him into the brig.

4) EO is sure thing, but strategic planning also helps a lot when rolling the die on crisis event, or jumping the fleet with FTL location, speeches of president and so on. Dont be affraid to play those in this situations.

Rasiel said:

There's a direct cause/effect relationship between these two. The rulebook strongly suggests not encoding numerical values into "a lot" and "a little" for a reason. The way you're playing practically announces how much you're helping towards a skill check.

The human game can be pretty easy if you follow some good tactical and logical rules.

1. Use executive order, pretty much whenever you can. For example, a person parked at Command can fire four times with unpiloted vipers over multiple regions in the field with an executive order. That means an executive order is equivalent to a maximum firepower, but with possibly more mobility. Similarly Weapons Control can devastate basestars in combination with executive orders.

2. Use good locations. Command, President's Office, Weapons Control, and Armory are the best. Press room, and communications are passable. See 1, and executive order.

3. If you're the admiral and a human, and you are in a four or six player classic game, ensure that the sympathizer will be human. Choose destinations that lower fuel into the red; you can recover it later, and it is incredibly difficult for a cylon player to punish you for redlining that resource.

4. Save nukes. Use nukes only when an executive order and a character stationed at a good location will not do the job, *and* there are going to be really bad consequences (like civilian ships being destroyed). That said, executive order and nukes can clear a board in a hurry.

5. Strategic Planning is a very powerful tool. I tend to use them most frequently on FTL control usages at -3, and when attacking Centurions. It is acceptable to play them to adjust Weapons Control rolls, Nukes, or Quorum cards that affect resources that aren't doing so well.

Kushiel said:

rules:

This section is only intended for play groups who have
trouble agreeing on what should and should not be allowed
under the current Secrecy rules.

Secrecy Golden Rule
When in doubt, players may make statements that are “polar
opposites”. This means that players may say if they have a
“high” or “low” strength card, but may not say that they have a
“pretty high”, “kinda low” or even a “medium” strength card.

Skill Checks
When adding cards to skill checks, players are forbidden from
listing what card types, colors or strength they played into (or
plan to play into) the skill check.
They may only share information that follows the “Secrecy
Golden Rule”. Common terminology that players use in this
situation is “a lot” or “a little.” The only instance in which a
player may say that he is adding “a medium amount” to a skill
check is if he plays multiple cards into the check.
Players may also say such statements as “I am playing five
low cards to this skill check”. They may do this because
the number of cards being added to the skill check is open
information.

Its not numerical, its wide-spread. You cant say you are playing "little" if nobody knows what "little" means. Is "1" little? "3"? "6"? Certainly "6" is little if it is 20 difficulty skillcheck, and a lot when it is on "6" difficulty.

If you read the rules above "Im playing 5 low cards" is much more specific - it means you played 6-7 to the skill check, no doubt about it. We forbid saying "medium amount" no matter how many cards you are playing. And finally, its written in the first sentence that these rules should apply only if players dont agree what should/not be allowed under Secrecy rules.

We played in our club too and this type of telling what little and lot means doesnt bother anyone. You can say about this a lot but you never change this in our game, when now about 20 people play with this rules....

I said humans usually wins in our games, but it is not pink park walk. We often ends with cylons one turn (meaning next crisis/player turn mean end to everything) away from victory (Descent style - computer game btw ). Only time when cylons always lose is when revealed too early in the game. We play with Leaders, but usually with 4 players leaders help humans in the late game.

Rasiel said: Its not numerical, its wide-spread. You cant say you are playing "little" if nobody knows what "little" means. Is "1" little? "3"? "6"? Certainly "6" is little if it is 20 difficulty skillcheck, and a lot when it is on "6" difficulty.

You're missing the point, which is that keeping the number ambiguous is the exact purpose of the secrecy rules. Yes, you can say you're helping "a little," even if not everyone agrees with you. If everyone agrees on what "a little" is, you're not maintaining ambiguity, you're half a step away from directly stating how much you're putting into a check.

Rasiel said: We played in our club too and this type of telling what little and lot means doesnt bother anyone. You can say about this a lot but you never change this in our game, when now about 20 people play with this rules....

I'm not trying to get you to change the way that you play. I'm pointing out that, if you play with houserules like this one, your participation in a discussion with people who don't play with those houserules becomes rather pointless, since you're not playing the same game that they are.

Kushiel:

You are wrong, i strongly believe this is not a house rule. Lets say i come home and tell my friends: "Okay, we cant connect little and lot to the difficulty of the skill check, so say "a lot" or "a little" if you feel you play a lot or a little".

Do you think this will change something ? I dont think so... my friends would say "little" and "lot" the same as before. My point is.... you cant forbid players not to play as they were before, and you cant prove if someone violated this rule on purpose. You can prove that someone broke Secrecy rule if he says he play "around 5 strength" but you cant if they still say only "a little" and "a lot" like in "your" games.

So you suggest we have to sold this game because we simply cant play by the official rules ? We dont like house rules and always play only with official rules and/or variants. House rules are like "cheating" for us ... so we can throw away BSG and not to play it again.

I tried to ask FFG directly on this but they have error on their form page

Rasiel said:

On a theoretical check with a difficulty of 10, according to the way you play, you'll say "I'm helping a lot" if you put in at least five. Now, if on a check of ten, if you say, "I'm helping a lot," how can I not know that you've put in at least five points worth of skillcards?

How do you not see the disconnect between that and your agreement that you're not allowed to name the amount you're putting into a check?

Rasiel said:

Absolutely not. That's the opposite of what I wrote in my last message. You should play with whatever rules you and your group agrees on. I'm not saying that your rule for linking numerical numbers to the binary statements the rulebook allows is somehow wrong. I'm just pointing out that, as someone who plays with that rule, your experiences in the game are going to be significantly different than those of people (ie, presumably most of them) who don't play with that rule.

To use an absurdly extreme parallel example, it wouldn't be helpful if I had responded to BigFatChris's plea for help by replying, "In our games, we start all our resource dials at 30, and the humans never lose!" Similarly, your advice on skill checks isn't helpful, because you're playing with a rule that BFC's group almost certainly isn't. That was the reason I pointed out that what you're doing is unique to your group, rather than because I want to change how you play.

tl:dr My message was intended as an attempt to warn BigFatChris that your advice is biased due to your group's houserule, not an attempt to prove that there's anything wrong with your houserule.

This discussion becomes circular. You simply ignore what i wrote and still say the same again and again ...

We dont play with houserules. Houserule is something that can be play with, or play without. My point was, this cant be played without. HR: "humans start with resources on 30" is a houserule, on next game you decide not to play with it and set dials to 8 as usual. What we play, cant be undone, because this does not modify any rule. Its only ambigous description what little and lot means. If we say "you can say you play a lot even if you play 1 into SC", it doesnt change anything(people still be understanding that "a lot" means they help a lot in SC and a little that they only play something to it only to get rid of some cards)->so it cant be house rule.

Tell me how can we play without it and i will believe you its a house rule.

Rasiel:

Because you have an agreed to and codified definition for 'a lot' and 'a little', you're at the very least skirting the secrecy rules. It would be one thing to say "a lot" and think well, this is half the skill check, but it's another thing to, against a difficulty 10 skill check, place a four points worth and say "a little", or put a single skill card with a value of 5 and say "a lot".

In the former case, you're stepping into code land; you've got a very clear definition of what 'a lot' or 'a little' is worth, and a value of 4 falls into 'a little'. Now, your other players cannot know between exactly how much between 1 and 4 you put in (unless you put in four 1s), but they can have a very good idea of the range.

In the latter case, you're outright breaking the rules. 'A lot' is code for half the difficulty. If the difficulty is 10, you've all but told your other players "I put in a 5, so you can verify that, and the cylon player is going to have to cooperate with this scheme, thereby aiding us or revealing himself". This saves human players some cards, but the real problem comes when a cylon player does not want to say 'a lot' or 'a little', and their refusal to play by your rule would be an obvious problem.

As for how you can play without it, my group says 'a lot' or 'a little' on absolute values. We say 'a little' if we put in low values, and 'a lot' if we put in large values. Now, it's not purely absolute, but when a crisis with high difficulty appears, it's not uncommon for more than a couple of people to put in 'a lot', where in your group it'd be pretty rare if more than two people put in 'a lot' because it's a waste and you've got a code to communicate that.

You may want to consider adopting different definitions of 'a little' and 'a lot' to be more based on card values. So, if you put in 1s and 2s, you can say a little, even if you put in three or four, and you say 'a lot' if you put in 4s and 5s. Or 3s on either side. Just don't discuss it with the other players. This maintains secrecy, because there's some wiggle room in the smallest contributions, and one can guess with less accuracy as the number of cards put in increases. If you're thinking to yourself "well, why should we adopt this, instead of what we do? ours is more accurate" you're missing the point; The point is to be less accurate and more uncertain. This is the only with which cylon players can protect themselves against cooperating human players.

Failing that, you could just say how many skill cards you're putting in, and scrap the 'a little' and 'a lot' and the reporting of contribution quality altogether. As it stands, I think your group is breaking secrecy rules.

Rasiel said:

Sinis's post explains my position more eloquently than I can, so you can look to that for an in-depth answer. The short version is that you play without agreeing beforehand on any value range associated with "lot" or "little." I've never had an issue, in the dozen or so groups with whom I've played this game, in letting individual players' intuitions guide them in what counts as a "lot" or a "little."

More importantly for this particular discussion, you're getting hung up on the phrase "houserule" and ignoring why I used the term. Do you agree that your play experience differs significantly with the play experience of someone whose group doesn't agree to assign a value range to "lot" and "little" before play begins?

Sinis:

I dont see your point ... on 10 difficulty you say "little" play three card, so you play 3-7 say "a lot" with three cards and you play 11-14 ... we say "little" and we play 1-4, we say "a lot" and play 5-150 . Whats the difference ? Its still numbers although you can count with some not whole numbers to calculate more accurate result.

Sinis said:

I think you misread my first post ... maybe I wrote it bad (english is not my native langueage)... but "a lot" is not fixed to half the diffuculty ... a lot means "half or more" so in 10 difficulty it is 5-infinite

Rasiel said:

1. My point is that if you play three cards on a 10 difficulty and say "a little", in your system your other players know you've put in 3 or 4. That's too exact. They should not be able to identify exactly how much you put in half the time in that situation. It's just not very secret. That's the difference; when people put in cards, because you have a agreement with your other players, everyone knows what you put in.

2. I didn't misread your first post. I wrote, when you put in a single card worth 5 on a 10 difficulty check and say "a lot", everyone knows that the one card you put in is a 5. You have told them in other words "I have put in a 5." That is strictly forbidden by the rules.

In my suggestion, if you put in 3 cards on a 10 difficulty skill check, the total value is between 3 and 6. The difference lies in the uncertainty, 3 or 4 is much narrower than 3 to 6. Because the difficulty on skill checks tends to be near 10, it is very easy to see how much someone has put in, especially if they say 'a little'.

In your system, if someone says "a little", you can almost always determine a very narrow range of what they put in. If someone puts in 4 cards on a 10 difficulty check and says "a little", you know, for certain, that they have put in four 1s. Don't you see this as problematic? The secrecy rules are in place to prevent the exact reporting of card values. But you and your players have a 'rule' by which you say "a little" and "a lot" which is far too precise. You might as well be naming the values that you put in. Of course the cylons are never going to win in your games. You have a rule (and it is a house rule, considering that it has a particular meaning and all your players obey it) to prevent a cylon player from sabotaging anything, or keeping any skill play secret.

If you can't see the problem with having such a quantitative rule where players can easily identify how much a person has played if they say "a little", I don't think I can really help you with your cylon players losing. If I had to guess, I imagine that when you pass a skill check it is never by more than three, and that whenever a cylon player sabotages a skill check, everyone knows. In most groups, when a player says "a little" or "a lot", there is no rule that they follow; when they say "a little" they mean "a little" qualitatively in terms of card value, skill check difficulty, relative hand value, or some combination of two or three of these factors. You have quantified in a rigid rule exactly what "a little" means, and in cases where a player says "a little" and plays a lot of cards, or "a lot" and plays one or two cards, the values can be determined almost exactly. Your quantitative rule — and it is a rule, make no mistake — allows players to dodge the secrecy rules. But, in fact, you're just using different words to say "four cards with value 1" or "two cards with a value totaling 7-10". Ditch your rule and the game will be more interesting. If you can't ditch your rule because you can't describe anything in terms of quality instead of quantity, I don't think I, or anyone here, can help you.

In my group, the cylon players lose most the time, but not because we have rules that we obey when we say 'a lot' or 'a little'. Frankly just being able to play executive order, strategic planning and investigative committee and efficient use of actions can make the cylon player's game difficult to impossible. At any rate, you're far from the first group who has arrived with some agreed upon principle concerning skill checks that makes the game impossible and potentially unfun for the cylon players. I'm not convinced LikeTheWhirlwind managed to solve his problems either.

But we dont say how many cards are we playing ...

We say only after cards are revealed(and SC resolved), who played how many cards (since it has to be an open information)... well... only if onyone cares who played how many cards...

Rasiel said:

Everyone I've ever played with has been able to observe how many cards have gone into a skill check. It's pretty easy to see how many cards someone is putting into a skill check, even if they don't announce it. And if they try to hide it, it's probably a cylon, yeah? That part of skill checks is not so secret at all, and that you find out after cards are revealed is hardly relevant when it comes to finding sabotaging cylons.

Rasiel said:

Aside from specifically violating how the FAQ says to handle secrecy regarding how many cards people play into a skillcheck, this doesn't change the fact that if two people announce that they're helping a lot, the rest of the table then knows that the check has been passed, unless the destiny cards cause it to fail. That's more specific information than the designers intended for players of the game to know during skill checks.

Hi Rasiel,

Thanks for the question. The secrecy rules suggest using the words "a
lot" and "a little" because they are vague. There should not be a set
definition of what "a lot" or "a little" means.

Of course, since your players have been using the definitions you
described, it may be very difficult to change. There's not much to be
done to alter that, but if your players are enjoying the game, it's
not really a problem.

However, for the sake of following the official rules, if a player
says that he has added "a lot," there is no set amount that he is
claiming to have added to the check.

I hope this was helpful for you. Thanks again,

Tim Uren
Associate Producer
[email protected]

This is an official answer, so ... We play it wrong, and you too According to this, you can say "lot" or "little" and thats it ... nothing more or less ... anyway, i ask my friends if you do something about it or play it like we play before ... everyone enjoyed our games because it always ended that both sides are one step away from victory... and this makes the game fun. If we play like you - cylons won 90 percent of the games ... people may not want to play it.... Maybe we try to say its not bound to any number but i fear it doesnt change anything ...

Rasiel said:

I gave an indeterminate list of what people *might* base their 'a lot' or 'a little' on. If someone in my group says 'a lot', I have no idea whether it's based on the strength of their skill hand, the difficulty of the check, or anything else. It only means "a lot", there is no "set definition" as Tim Uren puts it. In my group, it remains indeterminate because the other players do not know on what the report is based on. Cylons in our games do not win 90% of the time (in fact, they lose perhaps 60-70% of the time). There are more than enough ways that the humans can do well simply by playing smart.

That said, if you're enjoying your games, and their close enough to make it worth playing, don't change how you play on our account. If you and your group are having fun, what we say doesn't really matter.

Well I must say that the group I usualy play with has the opposite problem (until the Pegasus expansion anyway). It's a running joke that I'm a Cylon as I've ended up as one in nearly every game I've played but my mates agree that I can play a good human as well (from time to time). Humans have a big advantage in the early game I find as people tend to play the percentages. They know that there are more humans than Cylons and if they end up as Not a Cylon in the first half of the game then that can encourge them to play as a 'fully' human player even though they could end up as a Cylon half way through the game.

The first priority of the humans should be to make sure the Admiral and the President are human. If they are then suddenly the game is a lot harder for the toasters. Checking loyalty cards is a great way of doing this or keeping an eye on suspicious play. For the admiral it's usualy short, fuel consuming hops which can lead to the fleet running out of fuel (yes I've won the game by doing this a couple of times). For the president it's usualy a lack of Investigative committes during important skill checks. A general 'bad' decision or two can point to a Cylon traitor but beware of starting a witchhunt.

Generaly our group has found that the best tactic for the humans is to stick together. Tracking down a Cylon early on is a great advantage but as soon as the second loyalty card is dealt doubt is removed from everybodies mind. Human players can now focus on winning as a human rather than having the nagging worry that they could end up as a Cylon. Humans can win by sticking tight, keeping those resources as high as possible and wait for the Cylons to make a mistake.

Kahadras

midian said:

Hi there, by the above quote, does this mean that an EO card will allow a player to completely negate the 'draw 1 skill card only' penalty? I had assumed that the player gets to move out of the sickbay with EO and do his stuff, but when its his turn, he still draws 1 skill card only as a penalty of the sickbay effect (regardless of where he is now)

Wanderer999 said:

If you a player can exit a hazardous location before their turn starts, they do not suffer the penalties of that location. So, a person who is freed from the Brig with a Presidential Pardon can contribute more than one skill card to a skill check, freely move about, and draw crisis cards. Only a person who begins their turn in Sickbay suffers the penalties.