That is the question. The last game my friends and I played, I was the first cylon right off the bat. I decided to reveal before the humans had jumped for the first time. I have to say, I don't know if playing the whole game unrevealed is the best strategy, but it was SO much fun. We had a 5 person game going, so there was 1 more cylon roaming around. For me the game stopped involving the cards and the board so much as it became a psychological matter. My comments after each skill check and just the mere act of me placing (or not placing) my one skill card in a check severely messed with their heads. On another note, I found the human fleet location to be pretty weak in comparison to Caprica.

Anyway, your thoughts on revealing early? Has it proved effective for anybody?

We've always assumed that being unrevealed is more advantageous. It's nice to be able to throw more than one card into skill checks. Mostly, I'd imagine being revealed near the beginning of the game and being unrevealed is not terribly different, but there are moments when you can do a lot of serious damage with a human location, or a reveal.

For example, Cylon fleets tend to be not very threatening. Most of the Civilian ships will probably survive until the -1 or auto jump sections on the jump track, damaging vipers is pretty trivial (we never seem to run out). As an unrevealed Cylon, you can merrily jump the ship when the jump track is at -3, for the strong possibility of a significant drop in population. Most of the time, I strongly doubt that the Cylon locations would cause that kind of damage.

The time to reveal is when there's a "situation". Two Cylon fleets have arrived and FTL is low. Reveal to operate those fleets. One or more resources is critically low. Reveal and fish for the right super-crisis (and other crises) to pound on the low resources. Keep in mind also that once you reveal, that's one less person moving the FTL along.

My second game I stayed an unrevealed Cylon forever and it was irritating everyone else including the revealed Cylon. I stand by my decision because I was in the brig with a human and nobody could sort out which of us (maybe neither?) was a Cylon. So I effectively kept a human pinned down with me and kept the humans distracted while the other Cylon went after them. Still, it did make the game take a lot longer with two people not drawing crisis cards so I might not do that again for the sake of brevity.

My revealing cost the Cylons the last game.

I was Admiral Saul Tigh (as always) and a Cylon from the beginning. It was a four player game, and even though my girlfriend knew rightaway I was the traitor, they others wouldn't listen to her. I made sure all resources were in the blue before jumping halfway so the sympathizer switched sides.

Then, my greatest achievement: I managed to lock up both remaining humans in the Brig - and keep them there. At this point, everybody knew I was a Cylon. I myself didn't even hide it any longer. Though even with their Executive Orders, the remaining humans couldn't escape thanks to bad destiny, and clever card play by me and my sympathizer friend. Resources ran low... but then I decided to reveal in order to finish off those pestering humans.

What followed was turns lost to redraw of Supercrisis cards, humans escaping the brig, a passed(!) skill check for the humans on my super crisis, and a very narrow human win with two resources at 1.

Had I not revealed, I could have kept the humans in the Brig, ensuring Cylon victory. But as a revealed Cylon I could only add one card to the checks, not being able to keep them in check[1].

So the answer to the OP: Look at the situation. You don't HAVE to reveal at all during the entire game. And sometimes, with a lot of Raiders out there, it may be prudent to reveal as early as turn two.

[1] Yes, that was a cleverly worded pun.

McRae said:

Depends on the situation, the last game I played I revealed on my first action and wrecked the humans before they made it half way...almost killed them before they jumped once. Other times the cylons won without ever revealing. When you think that revealing will win you the game, thats the best time to do it...more often than not this happens when the fleet is active and there's lots of jumping to go.

It seems to me that, more often than not, its better to be revealed. That means you can imediately pounce with a Super Crisis card when the humans get in some trouble. I also prefer doing definite damage every turn via the Resurrection ship, as opposed to occasional/situational damage when unrevealed. Also, our group has become pretty adept at identifying the cylon very early, so one's unrevealed status won't last long anyway.

I'm saying this as someone who, in 5 games, hasn't yet been either a cylon or a sympathizer.

I just played a three player game and before the sleeper agent phase we had a centurian one step away from ending the game for the two human players. One player was an unrevealed Cylon. If the centurian moved one more and ended the game would the unrevealed cylon win?

Yes. Why wouldn't he win?

It seems with "Human Fleet" and "Caprica" (draw two crisis, discard one), that I can do much more damage as a revealed cylon than an unrevealed one. As an unrevealed one, I can subtract from skill checks (but not too badly lest it become obvious) and maybe sow dissention, but it seems like that is pretty weak compared to attacking galactica, playing a super crisis or a crisis card.

I think the game is the most fun before the reveal, but from a tactical point of view, it doesn't seem worth hiding.

SpaceCowboy850 said:

You should read the guide www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

It can be very worth while to stay hiden, but it does take more "skill" (for lack of a better word) from the player to be effective as an unrevealed cylon, so for a beginer it might be better to reveal early.

I'm eagerly awaiting the time when I'm an unrevealed Cylon, and I can somehow find out who another unrevealed Cylon is and have him find me out as well. I'm thinking that together we can keep everyone in the brig forever!

Mike said:

The humans must have been extremely lucky with destiny to get out of the brig - with the two humans only putting in 1 each and the two cylons 1 each it would be pretty even before destiny came into play. But your mistake seemed to be wasting that turn swapping out your Super Crisis when both cylons should have just drawn two crisis cards and picked the worse since they would probably be automatic fails with both humans restricted to 1 card.

Smuggler said:

If it takes more "skill" there should be more payoff as well. Right now, I could buy it taking more skill, and would make the game more fun, but from an "incentive to win" perspective, an unrevealed cylon seems weaker than a revealed cylon. The more I hurt a skill check, the more I am likely to reveal myself. And by removing myself from the human side, I'm already hurting the skill checks by not contributing, and even contributing negatively. On top of that, as a revealed cylon, I can start making active attacks against the humans versus what must amount to at least meager help while disguised to keep my cover unrevealed.

The idea is that you want to gain the humans trust and help them make bad decisions.

One of the best ways to do that is to get them to take useless actions and constantly losing focus from a designed plan of attack.

Convince them to ignore the centurian for a turn or two while another threat is more significant.

Get them to use skill cards fighting raiders and ultimately fail skill checks. convince them to choose the less attractive options because they can do xyz about it after such as the president can raise moral by Q cards but then divert the presidents attention to not using the Q cards.

Encourage suspicion in those not willing to go along with your plan.

You have a lot more power to get them to do dumb things if they can see you do things that apparently help them.

The most damage ive ever seen done was in a 5 player game with no Cylons before sleeper. Discord between the humans is all the cylons really need. The best betrayal comes from the one that was trusted the most.

Play as a human just an not very smart human.

Ah, interesting. I think that would be very hard to do in my group as several players are hard core min-maxers (to the point of trying to simulate several rounds and calculate probabilities for different actions...ugh!!). But I can see if playing with players that weren't how that would be an effective way to play an unrevealed cylon.

SpaceCowboy850 said:

This type of game isn't for that type of person - this game is more role playing than an efficiency strategy game, and lying to and conning other players is one of the great parts of this game (and it's **** fun too).

There is no right/wrong to this question, as I am sure you are aware

Every game has its own feel...when it's "right" to time your unveiling!

I can't get enough right now...awesome game.