Possible for all players to be human?

By tdunlap311, in Battlestar Galactica

Posted at

I have played the BSG base game once after somebody else skimmed through the rules. Somehow we ended up with all 5 players being human for the entire game (sympathizer card resolution resulted in that player remaining human). We won pretty easily and all felt that the game had been imbalanced and that we probably messed something up that caused there to be no Cylon players.

Despite this, I liked the game very much so I bought it myself and will be playing it again soon. Before I do play again, I'd like to clear up the question of whether it is possible for all players to be human for the entire game. I'll run through a quick 3-player example and see if somebody can tell me where I'm going wrong, because the rulebook says "In each game, there will be at least one Cylon player working against the humans".

  1. For a 3-player game, the loyalty deck would start off with 1 Cylon card and 5 not-a-Cylon cards.
  2. If one of the players is either Baltar or Valerii, then an additional not-a-Cylon card is added to the loyalty deck, so we now have 1 Cylon card and 6 not-a-Cylon cards for 3 players.
  3. The loyalty deck is shuffled and the Cylon card ends up at the bottom.
  4. The top 3 cards are dealt out to the players, 1 each. Since the Cylon card is at the bottom of the deck, all players are human at this point.
  5. During the Sleeper Agent Phase, each player is dealt one more card from the loyalty deck. Since the Cylon card was at the bottom of the deck, then all players are dealt not-a-Cylon cards and are still human. At this point, I'm not seeing anything else in the rules that would cause additional loyalty cards to be dealt out that would cause a player to become Cylon.

In the "Loyalty Cards" section of the rulebook, it says "Later in the game, players receive additional Loyalty Cards (see “Sleeper Agent Phase” on page 19), which increase their chances of being Cylon players." To me, this would leave open the possibility of a player having 3 or more loyalty cards somehow, but I don't understand how that could happen.

I've read through the rulebook at least 4 times and searched this website and others for guidance, but I haven't found anything addressing the issue or even anybody else asking the question. I suspect that I'm simply missing something. Will somebody please set me straight? I think I'm going to love this game but this issue is driving me slightly crazy. Thanks in advance for your help!

Posted at

tdunlap311 said:

I have played the BSG base game once after somebody else skimmed through the rules. Somehow we ended up with all 5 players being human for the entire game (sympathizer card resolution resulted in that player remaining human). We won pretty easily and all felt that the game had been imbalanced and that we probably messed something up that caused there to be no Cylon players.

Despite this, I liked the game very much so I bought it myself and will be playing it again soon. Before I do play again, I'd like to clear up the question of whether it is possible for all players to be human for the entire game. I'll run through a quick 3-player example and see if somebody can tell me where I'm going wrong, because the rulebook says "In each game, there will be at least one Cylon player working against the humans".

  1. For a 3-player game, the loyalty deck would start off with 1 Cylon card and 5 not-a-Cylon cards.
  2. If one of the players is either Baltar or Valerii, then an additional not-a-Cylon card is added to the loyalty deck, so we now have 1 Cylon card and 6 not-a-Cylon cards for 3 players.
  3. The loyalty deck is shuffled and the Cylon card ends up at the bottom.
  4. The top 3 cards are dealt out to the players, 1 each. Since the Cylon card is at the bottom of the deck, all players are human at this point.
  5. During the Sleeper Agent Phase, each player is dealt one more card from the loyalty deck. Since the Cylon card was at the bottom of the deck, then all players are dealt not-a-Cylon cards and are still human. At this point, I'm not seeing anything else in the rules that would cause additional loyalty cards to be dealt out that would cause a player to become Cylon.

In the "Loyalty Cards" section of the rulebook, it says "Later in the game, players receive additional Loyalty Cards (see “Sleeper Agent Phase” on page 19), which increase their chances of being Cylon players." To me, this would leave open the possibility of a player having 3 or more loyalty cards somehow, but I don't understand how that could happen.

I've read through the rulebook at least 4 times and searched this website and others for guidance, but I haven't found anything addressing the issue or even anybody else asking the question. I suspect that I'm simply missing something. Will somebody please set me straight? I think I'm going to love this game but this issue is driving me slightly crazy. Thanks in advance for your help!

You are missing something. The information you are missing is not in the rulebook but on the Character Sheets.

You will find on the Baltar Character sheet (Coward) that he starts the game with 2 Loyalty Cards (instead of 1).
You will find on the Valerii Character sheet (Sleeper Agent) that she is dealt 2 Loyalty Cards (instead of 1).during the Sleeper Agent Phase.

BTW, for the 3 Player game example:
If you start with both Baltar or Valerii then there are 7 "You Are Not a Cylon" cards in the Loyalty deck.
If you start with either Baltar or Valerii then there are 6 "You Are Not a Cylon" cards in the Loyalty deck.
If you start with neither Baltar or Valerii then there are 5 "You Are Not a Cylon" cards in the Loyalty deck.

It is not possible for there to be no Cylon (unless you make a mistake happy.gif ).