hi,

i noticed, that creating loyalty deck have 1 card more than will be used in the game ... for example

Three Players: Create a seven-card deck consisting of:
1 Card from the “You Are a Cylon” deck
6 Cards from the “You Are Not a Cylon” deck

does the "extra" card goes to someone in sleeper phase or there really is a posibility that no cylon will be in the game ?

Presumably you are using the Exodus expansion with the new loyalty cards if this is the situation you are in? If not, then you should not have any left over cards after the sleeper phase.

With Exodus however, some loyalty cards will be discarded and a new one drawn, or some players may receive additional loyalty cards during play through various effects. When this happens, you add another of the "Not a Cylon" variants to the remaining Loyalty Card, shuffle them, and deal one at random to the player who gets a new card. This means that there will always be one "extra" card unused and means even more uncertainty in the allegiences of the players!

Edit to add: yes, this does mean that you could go the full game without a cylon player in some cases. The idea being that the Final Five and Personal Goal cards should help create enough tension and paranoia that the game still remain tense. As with all three parts of Exodus though, the use of the components is optional, so feel free to use the Loyalty Cards and Deck rules from the original box if that doesn't suit your groups tastes.

Yes, you can go a full game without a cylon. In fact that happened in the last game I played. We still lost.

Does anyone else think maybe Exodus is WAY unbalanced in favor of the Cylons then? The one game we played where the extra card was a Cylon card resulted in a Cylon victory as well, I can't even imagine how bad humans would have lost with another Cylon player. I haven't had a chance to play much Exodus yet, but it seems pretty brutal compared to Pegasus and even compared to the core game where the game was slightly balanced toward a Cylon victory. The Crossroads phase from Ionian Nebula option in particular seems a bit unfair since some players have the option to, for example, hammer away at Morale, while others get the choice to look at someone's loyalty cards at the end of the frakkin' game when it probably doesnt matter...

Skowza said:

My first impression was that Exodus did, in fact, tilt the game too far toward the cylons. In my group, the cylons starting winning handily the second we introduced Exodus, and yes, even sometimes when there was only one cylon player. However, the humans have now won three in a row and four of five in my group. One of those I would categorize as a laugher, and another was won despite a slew of improbable events that benefited the cylons. So now I'm revising my thinking and coming around to the opinion that Exodus and the rules it's introduced aren't the problem.

I now believe that, for my group at least, the reason the cylons were winning so many of the early Exodus games was because we were still following some of the old modalities that really aren't applicable to Exodus. It seems to me that the humans started winning once we adopted these new paradigms:

1) jumping away from cylons < shooting cylons

2) jumping maximum distance each time is more important than it was

3) ship activation icons are equal in importance to jump icons (bury all basestars when launching scout)

4) keep the pursuit and FTL tracks aligned

5) jump icons / FTL / fast jumps are now less important (we'll intentionally wait an extra round or two to put down a basestar or some raiders)

6) the goal is no longer to clear off the map, but to pare down the map (one basestar on the main board is usually a good thing)

There might be one or two I'm neglecting, but I really believe my group turned a corner once it accepted these premises. This may not be true for other groups that are struggling with Exodus. Who knows, maybe humans have just been getting lucky lately around here, but I don't believe that. I know this is all pure anecdote, but I can honestly say I no longer feel like Exodus is an uphill battle for the humans.

I just want to be sure ...

Well we played yesterday so i have some play questions i didnt find in FAQ.

1) One crossroad card says you must discard 2 random skill cards, and you may discard 2 trauma tokens. Does this mean if you dont have enough skill cards you cant discard trauma?

2) There is also 1 crisis that say something like "Admiral and CAG each discards 3 cards". Since the wording of this card is different than in Core game (for example "current player discards 2 cards and president discards 3 cards". I suppose this means if one player has both titles, he discards only 3 cards. In the latter, card instructs two conditions and two consequences. In the first there is only one condition and one consequence - (If you are either CAG or admiral you discard 3 cards. If you have both titles, you still fulfill the condition, but it doesnt matter if you have both titles or just the one ... you discard only 3 cards.) Am I right? Two wording is not precise enough to distinctly distinguish between this two interpretations (unlike core game example the wording is so precise it cant be understood in different way...)

3) Is it OK to play executive order on a character in sickbay/brig so he doesnt receive trauma token at the begining of his turn? As for the rules ... it says "if you start your turn on a location with a trauma token, you have to take it before you proceed to reveive skill step." But if you get XO before your turn, you can walk away and receive no trauma... i think thematically it doesnt make sence ... trauma is mark of a suffering ... it just doesnt seem right that you can avoid it by receiving XO (you still got shot down in viper that is traumatic moment ... how can you avoid it by receiving order to go back to work?) Does anyone asked about it ? In our first game ... nobody received extra trauma token because we always played XO on a player who was there ... now it is two flies with one shot (avoid receiving only 1 card in reveive skill step, and avoid collecting trauma token)

Well, I know we're only five posts in, so is it too early to announce a winner of the "most topics in one thread" award?

Holy Outlaw said:

Its my thread, i do what i want in my threads But reward is fine thanks

Fair enough. I don't have the Exodus components in front of me right now but I'll try offering something once I read the cards you're referencing.

Skowza said:

No, I don't. Mostly because I witnessed the same phenomenon when we originally started playing the base game and then again when we introduced Pegasus. This phenomenon seems to be based on the fact that people tend to stick with what they know: "never change a winning team". That resulted in our group doing what we knew was best and then slowly but surely realized that we needed to adopt a new strategy.

Holy Outlaw said:

I agree! I have witnessed this, too. My group(s) did much better after they figured out where they had gone wrong. Each of the expansions calls for somewhat different strategies. And unless you realize and adjust accordingly, you'll be stomped.

Rasiel said:

My impression would be that it is OK to XO someone out so they don't get the trauma tokens, and this is how we have played it. You can justify it thematically by thinking the player who went to sick bay and didnt stay there until the beginning of their turn was unharmed and just had to be checked out, the viper got shot down but they ejected first, whereas a player who started his/her turn there was injured and spent some time in recovery...

Rasiel said:

1) I don't have the card in front of me, but I think you can discard trauma tokens even if you can't discard skill cards due to not having enough cards. The only reason you wouldn't be able to is if it said "if you do, you may discard trauma tokens" or something to that effect.

2) Huh. I'd send that one to the Rules Questions link. That's a good question.

3) Absolutely. If you are Executive Ordered, it's not your turn. Think of it as a particularly inspired pep talk from the commanding officer.

1) but why does it say "you MAY discard 2 trauma" is there any reason... any at all, one case, something, some situation where you dont want to discard trauma tokens ? Its crossroad phase already ... you cant use it on allies anymore, already used one for crossroads... why is there "MAY" word ? Do you want to keep them, so you would be killed instead of someone else ? doesnt make much sense ...

3) I thought so ... we played it that way too ... but there is little occasions where you can get trauma (aside from sickbay/brig there is only damage basestar, or maybe one or two crisis cards). Its very very rare situation that someone would be put to death, especially when there are also cards that removes trama even in CR phase ... okay than ... but dont like it.

Rasiel said:

If you're revealing your crossroads card early in the phase and holding two or three trauma tokens that are all good, you may not want to reveal them since it could result in your partner being targeted by the rival team's crossroads cards that force the drawing of trauma tokens. Your teammate might be boxed in that case; you might be better off as a decoy.

Holy: That is so unlikely case, that I think happen once per XXX games ...

antherem: did you get the answer for the question ?

Rasiel said:

Yes but think of how awesome the dumbfounded look on your opponents' faces will be when you actually decline to discard any of your three trauma tokens.

We've only played 1.75 Exodus games so far, but it doesn't seem to be balanced in favor of cylons. The first game we used the conflicted loyalties and cylon fleet options, and the humans won handily. The second game we used conflicted loyalties and ionian nebula. We had to stop early and didn't reach the crossroads phase, but the humans were way ahead at distance 6.