When a Cylon is hidden, he cannot use all the powerful cylon locations, and he cannot use Super Crisis cards... His ONLY advantage is to participate in skill checks with more than one card.

When a Cylon is revealed, he CAN use all the powerful cylon locations. He can still participate skill checks with one card.

I don't see any incentives from staying hidden other than the skill checks...

Speaking of which, HOW DOES A HUMAN FORCE A CYLON TO REVEAL HIMSELF??? A human may never do that? From what I see, even when humans have found out the cylon (or suspect) all they can do is to send the cylon to the Brig. But as long as the cylon WANTS to stay hidden, no one can do anything about it. The only advantage of finding out the cylon in this case is that from the Brig, a cylon revealing himself will not be able to activate his reveal effect.

Well, I'm very new to the game, but one thing I did notice in favor of staying hidden:

When a Cylon is hidden, he draws a Crisis card just like a normal meatbag. Yeah, this might advance the Jump Prep track but it also activates the Cylon fleet. When you're a revealed Cylon, you have to choose between two separate locations. Do I activate the fleet OR draw Crisis and maybe advance the Jump Prep as a result (at least with the Pegasus expansion, you no longer skip Jump Prep when a Cylon plays a Crisis card).

It should also be noted that a well hidden Cylon is able to toy with the human decision making process; offering colored opinions, misdirecting suspicion and introducing outright misinformation. When you're revealed, on the other hand, you lose any and all ability to inject yourself into the meatbag roundtable.

A human cannot force a Cylon to reveal itself, at least not in the base game. You need Pegasus and the airlock to accomplish that. Blow it out into space, Ripley style. Without the airlock, all you can do is scream and shout that so-and-so is a Cylon and pray the rest of the hoo-man contingent believes you.

Deek said:

This is my favorite part of the game.

Wanderer999 said:

You are focussing on the obvious, or rather the easily quantifiable benefits. Cylon play can be a LOT more subtle. Now the unsubtle play is an option particularly if there is a second cylon for you to help hide and you can have someone reveal early to get onto cylon locations, but it is not the only option. A cylon admiral can make poor jump choices, one or two there and suddenly that fuel . A cylon president can fail to use vital Quorum cards. Any cylon can, if they wish, make vital skill checks fail. They can sow dissent and confusion to make the humans play sub-optimally. The game fundamentally needs the humans to be operating together efficiently for the humans to win. Look at fuel for instance you have to travel 8 distance and then jump again. By the 'average' fuel use of one fuel per distance jumped the default is that Galactica goes 8 runs out of fuel and loses. Admirals are looking through the game for that optimal jump to bring the fuel back under control - thats where a cylon can put in subtle pressure by choosing a dodgy jump, one might be all that is needed especially if there is fuel loss from crises or civilian ships. If if you give yourself away you can cause a lot of problems for the humans as they try and contain you by burning cards in skill checks and so on. I have seen a known cylon sit unrevealed in the Brig running Scout missions on the destination deck and crisis deck completely distract the humans.

It is comparatively easy to play a cylon with an inexperienced group of players as the game goes with you somewhat - it is much harder to play when the humans know what they are doing and are familiar with the game - they spot bad play more easily for one thing.

As to forcing a cylon to reveal, you cannot force it in the base game, but you can make it the best choice for the cylon - thats what the brig is for. In Pegasus you can directly force it with an Execution. As well as this you don;t necessarily want the cylon revealed - a put up for shut up action where they have to make it plain they are a cylon or act human on an important early skill check can tip their hand, or if it fails to force them to assist you. Its all clever psychology.

So going back to my first statement about easily quantifiable benefits in the rules - this game is like chess - there is a set of rules which are pretty simple to pick up - but knowing the rules does not make you a grandmaster, its how you play and use those rules and psych out your opponents that makes the difference between a competent player and a good one.

The accepted tactic of our gaming group seems to always center around a hidden Cylon. In our games we always have two Cylons and there are real advantages to keeping one hidden amoung the humans. The first, and probably most important, fact is that the humans can't afford to relax. They can never entirely rely on somebody as there's the nagging doubt at the back of their mind. It also allows the hidden Cylon player to mess around with the skill challenges a lot more as once they are revealed Cylons have a lot less impact. As has already been mentioned, holding the possition of Admiral or President also provides options to screw with the humans chance of survival.

As I've already said our group is always big enough to contain two Cylons. Our tactical thinking suggests that one Cylon reveals at the start of the second half (unless he is detected in the first half) and that the Cylon to go should always be the one who has the least impact politicaly or militarily. That Cylons job is to play a decent super crisis (which the hidden Cylon can push to fail), control any cylon fleets and generaly make life misrable for the humans. The hidden Cylon player ensures that the Humans can't trust each other and looks for the knock out blow to win the games for the Cylons.

Kahadras

Except the execution mechanic, there is nothing any player can do to force an unrevealed cylon to reveal themselves. Sitting in the brig is a sure way to lose the game, though.

What's the advantage to staying hidden? Picking your battles, for one. You can subtly sabotage a great deal of crises. You can also a lot of negatives into a critical crisis. If your turn is next,and the cylon ships just activated, you could play strategic planning to increase the possibility of injury.

Another important feature is mistrust. By remaining hidden, executive orders are less likely to be passed around. People are a bit more careful about how they plan their turns. There are a lot of reasons to stay hidden, but more than anything, knowing when to reveal is a big deal.

Sinis said:

Just to grab one small point out of your reply there - for me thats a big mistake by the humans - exec orders should generally still go round like flies whether you know the cylons are there or not. It massively improves output and I feel that the cylons getting the opportunity to sabotage you big once is usually outweighed by the bonus of all those extra actions flooding into the game that the cylon has to play nice and human in to stay in cover.

I say usually because obviously if the sabotage in one go is big enough it can cause serious issues - but unless its a game winner I find its usually recoverable and costs less that not playing Exec Orders. I see them as a big 'Put up or shut up' call on unrevealed cylons - and when Im cylon I wish I hadn't made that point to my gaming group

myrm said:

While it's true that executive orders should still be played, the most powerful uses tend to get shied from. For example, executive ordering a president who might be cylon is really dangerous business, because of arrest order.