I played a game where Quorem cards were seeminly abused. During the middle of the game, the President (Baltar) kept getting executive orders and drawing Quorem cards. By late game he had the entire deck in his hand. The ship's pilot was a cylon, so in order to destroy the raideres, the President would receive exectuve order cards and use the "Authorization to use Brutal Force" twice and destroy 6 raiders without even a roll. Since he had ever card in his hand, the only card in the discard pile would be this card and so he would 'shuffle' the deck of one or two "Authoriztion to use Brutal Force" cards and immediately draw and play those cards. This card does have a 25% chance to lose a population, but that roll never came up once. Baltar used this card over 10 times and it really made the game dull and cheesy. The humans entire battle strategy was feed executive orders to the President and have the President destroy all the raiders.

Perhaps a Quorem card hand limit would help this from happening?

Wow. Do you realize what an absolute disaster it would have been if Baltar were a Cylon? Or if a Cylon took over the Presidency (that job changes hands in every game I've played)? I don't see a problem with the Quorum cards at all and if you're group is willing to go out so far on a limb, it's the Cylons job to break that limb.

The cylons were discovered early. I don't think they can do anything to stop the President from getting cards as revealed cylons.

Change the way of playing - in this case the cylons. You can attack Galactica on other fronts than by pure Force. Or gain the presidency and really destroy the humans.

Here's on truth I hold to be self-evident for this game: Every option, every chance and every action you can take can either be positive for the cylons or positive for the humans, depending on your intention.

In this case - make the cylon president and eradicate the last vestiges of Rebellion and restore law and order to the galaxy.

Yea, well, the game really doesn't work out that way sometimes. Cylons can be revealed through no fault of their own.

Two Cylon options in this situation are:

Use the human fleet option, and attack Galactica directly.

Use the Ressurection Ship option and keep swapping Super Crises until you get Bomb on Colonial 1.

Gaius Frakkin Baltar said:

Cylons revealed early = loss for the Cylons. They win by remaining unrevealed. They only revealed when it's a sprint to the finish, and the meandering damage they can do on Galactica is less formidible than the damage they can do with Cylon locations.

As for the president being repeatedly executive ordered, well, there's not much that can be done. You ought to look for a different victory condition (lowering a resource to 0), rather than destroying Civ ships or the Galactica with Cylon fleets.

If the president has been able to draw that much of the quorum deck, even with executive orders, then the humans must be doing really well. That's a lot of actions that would normally be spent dealing with the cylons more directly. If you've been doing this well either the cylons are doing their job, or the humans are playing much better than anyone else on the forums.

SableWyvern said:

These are some good ideas. thank you.

timonkey said:

Our gaming group sees Human victories probably around 60-70% of the time. There is a lot of table talk and the humans work together and advise about what would be the best course of action on any public decision. So if anyone isn't playing ball it becomes apparent immediately. If someone makes a move that is not universally understood as in the humans best interest, then will ussually be thrown in the brig, this has resulted in human players spending serious time in the brig, but it also means our cylon players have to be extra cautious when acting in the cylon's interest. It's very hard for the unrevealed cylons to do their job with this level of table talk.

I've thought about attempting to play the game with more limited table talk.

Sounds like you all need to be craftier cylons. You all should read the "tips for being a cylon" on the official website. Lots of good advice in there such as "Don't try to destroy the humans directly, try to help the humans destroy themselves."

Are you telling me that everyone in your group always thinks alike as to "what is best for the humans"? I find that hard to believe. But if that is true, maybe you should try to find 1 or 2 more people and bring them in. New blood might stir the pot.

stethnorun said:

Yeah, that article is fantastic. I'd have all of your players read it. Here's a link:

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And yeah, I'm not sure how everyone could all agree on decisions. For one you can't trust anyone, especially early, so that right there should be causing some arguments. Our players have lengthy discussions and will sometimes agree on the best course of action, but it's not like everyone agrees on everything. Some decisions, yes it's obvious what the humans should do, but many other times hard decisions need to be made where there is no clear answer.

stethnorun said:

The people I play with don't see a difference between "what is best for the humans" and any other goal if they're human. In our groups, few people want the presidency just because, or if they do, they understand that disrupting the status quo without a reason (i.e. reasonably demonstrable suspicion of a president being a cylon in this case) is itself suspicious activity.

Sinis said:

Don't they even question the trustworthiness of their President though? What if the President is the cylon?

For me, it's like, the fact of the matter is, if I start the game and see my loyalty card is a "not a cylon" card then I know that I 100% can trust myself, and I can't trust anyone else, at least not fully. So when that happens you should be questioning every action that takes place. What actions are people taking, who is bringing up what course of action to take in the first place that others are agreeing/disagreeing with, etc. Someone or multiple someones will be cylons. That's guaranteed. Idk, I just know if I was a human in real circumstances like that I would without a doubt be questioning everything that goes on because humanity and my life depend on it.

And sometimes some people are just wrong about is best for the humans, even if they're a human too!

Mattr0polis said:

Oh they do, but in situations when all the Cylons are accounted for (as in revealed, not merely locked up), we absolutely (ab)use Executive Order. But, really, we don't often load the president's hand with quorum cards. There are often better moves to make.

Bomb on Colonial one is:

15 Strength

Purple, Red, Blue

Pass = no effect

-2 Morale, and all charachters on Colonial One are set to "Sickbay". Keep this card in play. Characters may not move to Colonial One for the rest of the game.

Bomb on Colonial One and the ressurection ship is a good answer to the Quorum cheese.

Authorization of force costs a population. You could only use it twelve times.

There are 3 destinations for Quorum cards.

"bottom of the deck" - Laura Roslin's Skilled Politician once per game skill

"remove from the game" - Inspirational Speech Quorum card

"discard this card"- Inspirational Speech Quorum card

Now read Authorization of Brutal Force. Here's where the cheese is.

"ACTION: Destroy 3 raiders, 1 heavy raider, or 1 centurion. Then roll a die, and if 2 or less, lose 1 population. Then discard this card."

So where the card goes if you roll the three, four, five, six, seven, or eight is ...

unclear and where the cheese lies. Does the card stay in play like a "Special Rule"? I don't think so. None of the Quorum cards have "Special rules" like the Crisis cards. Does the card stay in the President's hand?. I really don't think so. No Skill, Quorum, or Crisis cards stay in hand after you play them. So I believe it returns to the bottom of deck.

In conclusion it's a good tactic. It is the politicians only means to deal with raiders and heavy raiders.

Counter with the Bomb on Colonial one + ressurection ship, or activate base stars.

It gets discarded after you played it however the dice roll turned out. Consider the dice roll and the population costs an additional risk when Authorizing Brutal Force.

It is indeed that case that once discarded Quorum cards may return to the President's hand - which is why the President should always be on YOUR side... whichever side that is.

skyyhopper said:

The card read as follows:

Action: <text>. Then <text>. Then <text>.

As you can clearly see when striping away some of the text the last "then" is it's own sentance hence it is not dependant on what the first "then" does. So the card is discarded regardles of what you roll with the die.

skyyhopper said:

If that were true, I'd be fine with it. The problem is that it only has a 25% chance to cost a population. Statistically speaking, you could use it around 40 times a game.

skyyhopper said:

The deck has already been drawn. The card goes into a 'discard pile' but since only one card is discarded at a time and using the President's office includes drawing and playing; the president will simply draw that card and play it again.

Gaius Frakkin Baltar said:

It actually becomes perfectly safe when combined with Strategic Planning. But really, I don't think it's an issue -- if a human president manages to draw the entire Quorum deck, things are obviously going so well for the humans that they're going to win anyway.

SableWyvern said:

I've definately seen the humans lose even though the President had the whole Quorum Deck. It just wasn't via combat.

Gaius Frakkin Baltar said:

Well then the humans were playing badly, prioritizing Quorum cards over skill cards they could be drawing. Whether or not the humans are doing well, it's very expensive in terms of resources (actions and Executive order) to draw the whole Quorum Deck. If they've spent the time doing it, then they deserve to benefit extremely.