Our game group has played quite a few games and decided about a month ago to take the Pegasus board out for a while to make it harder on humans, and then this last weekend decided to mix things up by adding in the Cylon Fleet board and re-adding Pegasus. We always play with the skill/destination/crisis cards from Pegasus and Exodus, but have (of course) kept the CAG cards out when not using Cylon fleet.

Our experience was an epic fail, and it sort of shocked us. It was the first game ever, I believe, that we actually stopped playing in the middle of a game, and at only 2 distance of movement at that, and said "I hate this, let's stop," and we all agree to it, and we were so disenchanted that we put the game away to do something else for a while.

Getting to the 2 distance was a long slog. In part, this happened because the Cylon was discovered on the first turn. It was Cally, and she shot me (Gaeta), and then we successfully airlocked her afterward. She left the Resurrection Ship and went to the Cylon fleet, then began making the jump track go down and made us put out civvies or raiders repeatedly. So thus began and continued a pattern for the rest of the game until we gave it all up. We put out ships, then we moved them around and escorted them back; we put out cylon ships and then shot cylon ships, then more ships were put out and more cylon ships were shot down. I came back from the dead as Dee and I was given repeated XO to communicate civilians or command vipers. I rarely left those two spots. Someone else (Zarek) shot from Pegasus. A pilot (Apollo) was in space cleaning up whatever remained. This was all the game became. It simply got to be tedious.

I recognize that not every game would go this way: the cylon did not have to reveal that early and did not have to use Cylon Fleet all the time. But I guess I'm asking people generally: Do Cylon fleet games generally go better than this?

Doesn't sound to me like it was an issue with the cylon board but you just had rough luck which can happen with or without the cylon board. It sounds like you had 4 players total, cylon cally, you, apollo and zarek. The cylon can only do the push forward or back ability once a round and that is 50/50 pushing forward or back. That leaves three crisies per round to get jump icons. Not getting them you say, well...that's not the cylon boards fault thats just the luck of the draw. Also that's what the Engine room or launch scouts are for, to ensure you get those icons. After you get 3 icons it's ftl time. If the cylon is getting really lucky and pushing the track back everytime, somebody needs to throw a strategic planning at them to help stop that too. Yeah its hard being human in this game and humans rarely win, (2% win ratio for humans when we play) but it isn't the cylon board alone that does it. In fact the cylon board is one of the few good things to come out of the expansion. Before it the cylon players would be board off their ass with the meager choices of what to do. Now the cylon player actually gets to do something meaningful on their turn instead of just letting the game slowly grind the humans down while they watch.

I agree as the game stands it is WAY misbalanced towards the cylons but the cylon board is actually pretty cool and there are ways around it...beats playing a cylon and just being a game mechanic rather than a player.

Napoleon.

I actually just had another thought too.

At 2 distance the cylon fleet can not really be all that bad considering the start is only 3 raiders and 1 basestar. The only way I can see the fleet growing to near uncontrollable size so quickly is if you were playing with the cylon fleet crisis cards as well as the cylon board.

You do know that in order to use the cylon fleet board you must first take out ALL cylon fleet Crisis cards from the basic crisis deck and the super crisis deck right? If you kept the crisies in as you mention in your post, (that you leave all crisis cards in from pegasus and basic) then THERE is your problem.

Here is another hint too,....Don't destroy ALL the raiders on the main game board. This will prevent the cylon game board from gaining more raider and pushing their track forward from crisies. For instance, at the beginning of the game, shoot down only 2 of the raiders and leave one. When activate raiders comes up then on a crisis, only one raider will shoot, (keep a viper in its hex and some EM in hand) then the cylon fleet won't move and a raider won't be added to it either. After you jump and the board clears yes a cylon ship will be added to the cylon board but just rinse and repeat when the Cylons jump back. You will at most get 3 raiders added to the Cylon board plus maybe 3 more if the cylon player uses the ability to add more raiders. That doesn't sound like a revolving door of infinite ships, even when considering you may get a launch raiders icon here and there.

The fleet board is actually very easy to contend with at early stages of the game the more I think about it. Later it gets crazy but early on its quite managable.

napoleon

I actually just had another thought too.

At 2 distance the cylon fleet can not really be all that bad considering the start is only 3 raiders and 1 basestar. The only way I can see the fleet growing to near uncontrollable size so quickly is if you were playing with the cylon fleet crisis cards as well as the cylon board.

You do know that in order to use the cylon fleet board you must first take out ALL cylon fleet Crisis cards from the basic crisis deck and the super crisis deck right? If you kept the crisies in as you mention in your post, (that you leave all crisis cards in from pegasus and basic) then THERE is your problem.

Here is another hint too,....Don't destroy ALL the raiders on the main game board. This will prevent the cylon game board from gaining more raider and pushing their track forward from crisies. For instance, at the beginning of the game, shoot down only 2 of the raiders and leave one. When activate raiders comes up then on a crisis, only one raider will shoot, (keep a viper in its hex and some EM in hand) then the cylon fleet won't move and a raider won't be added to it either. After you jump and the board clears yes a cylon ship will be added to the cylon board but just rinse and repeat when the Cylons jump back. You will at most get 3 raiders added to the Cylon board plus maybe 3 more if the cylon player uses the ability to add more raiders. That doesn't sound like a revolving door of infinite ships, even when considering you may get a launch raiders icon here and there.

The fleet board is actually very easy to contend with at early stages of the game the more I think about it. Later it gets crazy but early on its quite managable.

napoleon

Just a quick add: no, we did take out the attack cards. If I recall correctly, we started out with one basestar and then another was added because of a crisis card outcome, perhaps a fail or a choice adding a basestar, so we had two. They would pump out raiders that would then stick around either on the main or CF board. It got hairy fast.

napoleonWilson said:

Ya did this...had our rump handded to us first time we played.. short game.

But sometimes luck does ruin the humans chances.. such is the fates of war!!!