Hi all, I have just played my very first game today using only the base set. Unfortunately, my playgroup disliked the game due to the difficulty and complexity of everything

I just wanted to make sure that it IS possible to have a game where there are more cylons than humans. Or was I playing wrongly somewhere....

Game starts with 5 players. From the rulebook, we added 2 cylons and 8 non-cylons. Then we added no more non-cylons due to no one being Gaius or Sharon. Finally we added the Sympathizer card as required. The cards were shuffled and everyone was dealt 2 Loyalty cards. The extra one Loyalty card was placed in the box, out of the game.

Result: 2 were cylons. 1 was a Sympathizer. 2 were Humans.

Since it was turn one of the game, all resources were blue. This meant that the player with the Sympathizer card would automatically become a Cylon without the ability to use Super Crisis cards or use Cylon Fleet action. (Am I right on this part?)

This ended up with 2 unrevealed cylons messing up all skill checks with various amounts of skill cards, as well as 1 revealed cylon adding his share with one skill card each time. It was almost impossible to win... Then somehow we made it to Distance 4 with ALL resources except Fuel at low red levels. We redrew the Loyalty cards to add to our 2 existing ones, and yet one more became a Cylon. It was 4 against 1... Is there such a thing??? Is luck possible for this to happen? Or did we play wrongly? It was a terrible gaming experience and I am having difficulty convincing my group to give the game a 2nd chance... Pls help me!! I personally enjoyed the game.

Wanderer999 said:

Okie dokie, you've made a bunch of mistakes. In a five player game, there are only ever 2 "You Are A Cylon" cards, and 8 "You Are Not A Cylon" cards. You deal out one to each player now, and then one to each player when the fleet reaches 4 distance (obviously Gaius and Boomer change this a little). The remaining 2 You Are A Cylon cards, 3 You Are Not A Cylons and Sympathizer cards are left outside the game, they are not used.

The Sympathizer is reserved for 4 and 6 player games, and is added *after* initial loyalty cards are dealt. You shouldn't be playing with it in a five player game.

So, yeah, what happened was far from normal. In a 5 player game, there are two cylons, no more, no less. You play with 10 total loyalty cards (two of them are cylons). If Boomer or Gaius is in the game, you add one more You Are Not A Cylon card for each one. All other loyalty cards are not played that game. You deal out one to each player, and save the remainder of that deck for the sleeper phase.

Thank you for your clarifications!!!

But does this mean that it is possible for a game to be 5 Humans FROM START TILL END if Gaius and Boomer were both playing? (10 non-cylon and 2 cylon cards in the entire loyalty deck)

No. Gaius draws 2 cards at the beginning and 1 card at the midway point. Boomer draws 1 card at the beginning and 2 cards at the midway point. So there are no leftovers. After the midway there are ALWAYS 2 cylons in 5 player game.

Wanderer999 said:

No. After the sleeper phase, there will never be any remaining loyalty deck; all cards will have been dealt out if you've played correctly (remember that Gaius gets two loyalty cards at the beginning of the game, and one during the sleeper phase, and Boomer gets one at the beginning of the game, and two at the sleeper phase).

In a six player game, does this mean that there will ALWAYS be 3 cylons against 3 humans?

Wanderer999 said:

No, it means there never will be. The most cylon players there could be in the base game would be two, with a sympathizer also on their team if the humans had all resource dials in the blue once they reached the sleeper phase.

It's probably best to just follow the step-by-step explanation of how to build and distribute the loyalty deck as it's presented in the rulebook.

Kushiel said:

Hi Kushiel, I was actually referring to the Sympathizer as a cylon too.

Check this scenario:

START OF GAME

1) 2 cylon cards + 11 non-cylon cards at the start. (gaius and sharon both in play)

Result: Possibility of NO cylons, 1 or max 2 cylons at this point.

SLEEPER PHASE

2) 2 cylons (if non was drawn) + remaining non-cylon cards + Sympathizer

Result: 100% 2 cylons in game, but if a third player gets the sympathizer card and all resources are blue, the player becomes a THIRD cylon, albeit revealed. Even if the sympathizer is given to a cylon player, the cylon simply uses the resurrection ship and hands off the card to another player, making that new recipient a 3rd cylon.

Doesn't this mean there will always be 3 cylons vs 3 humans?

If you include the sympathizer then generally there will be 3 on each team. However, the resources are not all guaranteed to be in the blue - one in the red and that sympathizer becomes a human side. That happens quite frequently and indeed gets stage-managed by some groups. Furthermore, one player can end up with both Cylon cards - a slow sleeper phase and a rush to Kobol with a 6 player game can mean that the Cylon may not get their cards off in time to make another player a Cylon.

So you will not always have 3 v 3 because 4 v 2 is a very common option, and 5 v 1 is possible.

Wanderer999 said:

No. Circumstances or human players can get a resource dial in the red before the sleeper phase. It's quite easy (and profitable in terms of saving jump icons) to do so by jumping early, for instance. It's advisable for humans to do this.

Additionally, a sympathzier isn't that great as a cylon - can't choose when to reveal, no reveal power, no supercrisis, can't use the Cylon Fleet location. So while it's certainly better for the humans if the sympathzier isn't a cylon, it's not quite three on three, but more like three on 2.5.

Personally, we don't bother with the sympathizer any more. Even with the base set alone, the games we've played with reduced resources rather than the sympathzier mechanic have been much more enjoyable.