What are your preferred strategies as unrevealed cylons in the various roles, both offices and characters? In many cases, going "uh... yeah... haven't got enogh cards to do anything helpful right now..." may be good enough, but what tactics are there that are both somewhat effective and still leave doubt about your loyalty?

Everyone can slip a (preferably common) bad card into a skill check.

The admiral can obviously pick bad jump targets, especially if the target hasn't been scouted yet.

The president can sit on a pile of good Quorum cards, though he likely won't survive being voted out of office when his successor takes a look at them.

Tactics characters can bury good targets when scouting.

So... what else? How do you find your partner? And how do you deflect suspicions right onto another human?

I tend to play it pretty close to the chest until a good time to reveal comes. Over-voting on a crisis you don't really care about helps a lot since it means you're never lying when you say "I can't help" on the later ones, because your hand is empty. Anything else really depends on the character and what their power is, as I'll want to use it (and hopefully the OPG as devestatingly as possible right before I reveal, preferably via XO

Though if we're ever playing with the Cylon Fleet option and I find out I'm a cylon I'll reveal on the first turn or two because that board looks like fun.

Cifer said:

Or, if the person who did the scouting has a bit of suspicion on them, pick a bad destination and glare at that player. Don't make a big deal of it and go so far as to accuse them of being a cylon, but make sure other people see that you're quietly suspicious of them.

Have you read this article? I found it very informative:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=317

The basic thesis of the article is that it's best to sow as much suspicion as possible but not draw attention to yourself. So if there's an accusation of cylon-ness, support it (regardless of whether or not you think it's true), but don't make any accusations yourself, since accusers draw as much attention as accussees. Similarly, don't suggest poor courses of action, but if someone else does, back them up. Humans are herd animals, and if two people are agreeing on something, it can be tough for the other four to ignore that suggestion. If there are less than four other players, it can be even harder to resist that tendency to groupthink.

Playing with the Cylon Fleet does change this quite a bit, as there's less incentive for staying hidden, as it's quite possible for revealed cylons to do about as much damage as unrevealed ones. If playing with that option and there's a good window to reveal early (and there's enough cylon spacecraft about to make the Cylon Fleet location worth using), it's probably worth it to reveal, especially if there's a second cylon somewhere who can stay hidden to keep suspicion alive.

Generally speaking, I don't do anything to hurt the humans mechanically (like spiking checks) until I'm ready to reveal anyway. it's generally tough to get away with actions that can be tracked mechanically in a group that's paying attention, and keeping the humans suspicious of each other tends to have more payoff than spoiling a single skillcheck.

I don't tend to worry about finding the other cylon, as there's not often much you can do to team up with them which won't make it obvious to humans that you're both cylons. Seemingly acting against someone whom everyone (including yourself) is sure is a cylon is generally smarter if it becomes possible. As an example, during my first play of the game I got the opportunity to look at another player's loyalty card, which outed him as a cylon to me, but even though I was the other cylon I outed him to the group because they already thought he was a toaster. As a result, I was able to hold onto the presidency for almost all of the rest of the game, which ended up giving us the win since I was able to throw down some heavily anti-human quorum cards in the 11th hour.

Though if there are two unrevealed cylons and you can find who they are, you might be able to arrange it so that it doesn't really matter that the humans know. XOing the other guy while he's at the airlock, resistance HQ, or the admiral's quarters can ruin the humans' day. They either spend all of their cards to keep two people safe, save them so they can try to brig one of you, or save them so they can fend off upcoming crisis cards. It's especially painful if the two cylons end up sitting next to each other and can chain their actions to capitalize on spent cards.

Another way to screw the humans is to play as a new group, be a cylon (revealed or unrevealed doesn't matter) and never do anything . The game alone is brutal enough until the players get the hang of being efficient humans.

Thank you for the ideas - especially that "help them make bad decisions" sound great. I'll see how well it works...

Maybe provide an update on how it went for the rest of us to peruse. Thanks!