Well, I just looked at the PDF of Exodus rules and was pretty surprised to see no errata of Helena Cain. Seems to me like that would have been the place to do it. It just seems weird. Execution's been fixed and I like that a lot, but Blind Jump is still so wrong ...

It must be play groups, because Cain has not really been that much of an advantage four my group at all. But then again, our Cylons are brutal, winning most of their games. Rarely do the humans win around here.

Holy Outlaw said:

Is it fixed? I assume you're referring to the fact that, previously, if you executed a character they were guaranteed to be replaced by a non-cylon. The change being, you now add extra loyalty cards into the deck and draw them.

This is definitely an improvement, as it means no incentive to randomly execute people before turn 4. After turn 4 it still means your new character is guaranteed not to be a cylon.

Maybe that's enough... I know it might unbalance the game but I can't help feeling it would make more sense to create a secondary loyalty deck using (say) two "YANAC" cards and one "YAAC" card, which you draw from when executed, adding a new "YANAC" card after each draw so there's always three in the deck. That would mean there was always uncertainty about replacement characters' loyalty, even in the second half of the game. And it would make execution of humans even less desirable - you might end up increasing the number of cylons!

Cardinalsin said:

Read the Exodus rules again - this is exactly what they *did* change it to (except that it's a deck of two cards rather than three cards).

Yeah, in fact it might even be a bad idea to execute after sleeper, as the last You Are A Cylon card might be in that deck, and drawn after the execution.

As far any Errata, I wouldn't expect to see it in a expansion specific rulebook but rather in an updated FAQ. We'll likely see one by March, depending on any issues players have with the new expansion.

Bleached Lizard said:

Ah, was confused by the fact that the key rule change is in the construction of the loyalty deck (one more card than previously). So, unless you know who any cylons are for sure, there's a risk you execute a human who then draws a brand new cylon player.

That comes with a pretty major downside though, if I'm reading it right: in three- and four-player games, there's a 1-in-7 or 1-in-9 chance to get no cylon at all even after the sleeper phase; while in a five- or six-player game there's a 2-in-11 or 2-in-13 chance to get only one cylon.

One could argue the above frequencies are very small, but:

1. When those numbers come up, I think the game will be significantly diminished, especially for the smaller games with no cylon, and

2. It's those same probabilities which are being relied on to make execution a bad bet even during the sleeper phase. So if you think those chances are small then you probably think execution hasn't really been fixed.

Am I misreading the rules in some way?

Incidentally, my group would never go randomly executing people just to gain the advantage of knowing they are human, so the fix isn't required for us; which only makes the above problem more frustrating. I guess we probably won't use it, unless you guys know of some other benefit of using it?

The thing is, those rules are meant to be used with the conflicting loyalties rules which add human agendas and final five loyalty cards. The fact that humans have to hurt themselves and act suspisiously will increase tension, hopefully more than a missing cylon will detract from it.

Cardinalsin said:

Wait, I'm confused. Isn't it a 1-in-11 or 1-in-13, assuming no executions? So in other words, there's a 91% chance of two cylons in a five and a 92.5% chance of two cylons in a six player game, and the odds go up with every execution (a Sleeper execution has a full 50% chance of adding in the final cylon). Now I don't think there's any doubt that suspicion within the fleet will lead to some suboptimal play and mitigate at least some of the cylons' missing firepower in those games where there's only one cylon, but it's a really valid concern to ask whether it'll be enough to afford the one cylon player a chance at victory in those games.

As of now, my thinking is that if the fleet succeeds at identifying the lone cylon on these rare occasions and they hold off on executing anyone and take the huge gamble that this is one of those rare games, and they're right, well they deserve to win. If the group's that good, then the cylons might as well consider it an advantageous trade to sacrifice 8% of games (or so) in exchange for the increased obfuscation and diversion offered in the other 92% of games wherein they can point to the possibility of only one cylon to sew seeds of doubt and generally make mischief. We'll see how it plays out at the gaming table, but my early impression is that it sounds just perfect, both for game balance and for the added layers of intrigue.

Holy Outlaw said:

You're right, those odds are based on no executions. After all, the assumption has to be that (if the fix worked) human players will only execute a character they are pretty confident is a cylon, as opposed to merely doing it willy-nilly on the off-chance.

Personally I'm not sure it will have that effect, because of the aforementioned percentages being the exact same as the chance a random execution will lead to a new cylon being added to the game. But let's say that it does.

In that case, in the 8% or so of games where there is only one cylon, things can go two ways: (1) an execution occurs, in which case either the players executed a human and are penalised by having a 50% chance of a new cylon joining the game, or they executed a cylon and gain the usual benefits, which is all fine; (2) no execution occurs, in which case the sole cylon has to win the game on their own.

As you say, in the abstract the second case is fine as a pay-off for enhanced game play, but those 8% of games are potentially not much fun for the sole cylon player.

Also - don't forget that for the smaller games, there's a chance of no cylons at all. That probably means the humans win easily, because although they may waste some of their resources on paranoia, it's pretty unlikely that will be worse than what would have happened if there was a cylon player. Again, this spoils the point of the game.

Like you, I'll reserve judgement but I think I'll at least experiment with *not* having the extra loyalty card, but simply adding an extra YAAC and an extra YANAC card after sleeper cards have been dealt. This would have the same gameplay benefits without risking some games being far too easy; and after all, if the players execute a human it seems reasonable that they should carry the risk of not merely having as many cylons as they originally expected to have (one for a 3-4 player game, two for a 5-6 player game), but actually having *more* cylons than they were expecting.

Vonpenguin said:

That's only one option out of three for the expansion, and I guess you'd want to use the updated rules even if you weren't using the expansion (e.g. if you were playing new caprica, or some such). Besides which, if the game is balanced with two cylons plus all that stuff, it's unlikely to be well balanced with only one cylon plus all that stuff.

I do see what you're saying, though personally I would assume that having one extra cylon player would create a *lot* more pain than a little bit of confusion over conflicted loyalties etc. After all, a cylon player is (once revealed, and sometimes even before that) contributing negatively to skill checks, making bad stuff happen more frequently, and so on.

Each completed personal objective card is likely to uncover another cylon card. Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't. It possible that a player who wants to be a cylon can keep trying to complete personal goals (if they keep drawing them) until they uncover a cylon card.

Cardinalsin said:

Yes, this is a real concern. The fix you describe of using the original loyalty deck and then a new 2-card deck at sleeper might very well be a better idea for small games. Still, I think I'll toggle off all my house rules for the first few games with Exodus and just see how it plays out. Your concerns about games with too few cylons seem justified though. I'm sure anxious to see these new rules in action ...

There are a couple of things that mitigate your concerns. First, as people have pointed out, people who complete personal goals will be drawing new cardsand since the goals and final five cards make the game harder for the humans, this slight potential handicap for the cylons doesn't seem a unbalancing as you think. More importantly, though, the game has more ways to execute people. Remember, exodus lacks the airlock, cain and resistance hq (the primary ways of executing in pegasus). Now we have tokens, more crises, allies and the like to create executions. So the odds of never getting that last cylon card are pretty lowthough, yes, over the long term it will happen.

Exodus isn't guaranteed to lack an airlock... after all you can play Exodus with Pegasus expansion (just cant us both end destinations)