Humans versus Cylons: Victory Count

By Mindseye, in Battlestar Galactica

I know this was a thread on the old boards.......I had been following it for some time and thought we might continue it here.

In my group, we stand Cylons 6, Humans 0.

It's definitely testament to this game's greatness that no one seems to mind. The humans have been one player's turn from victory when the last food dwindled...they came very close one other time. We've had one game lost before the first jump and another lost with the humans in the brig and a cylon running the ship. Spectacular game!!!!

What is everyone else's Cylon-Human score?

This is, imo, a huge mark in the games favor. That it can remain extremely difficult even after a half a dozen games, yet not discourage the players. Most other co-op games I've played have gotten ridiculously easy after a few games (Shadows over Camelot, LotR). I haven't played the game myself, but I am seriously considering picking up a copy; at the latest at Christmas time.

My group has played 4 games. With one human victory. Twice we have made the jump to 8 and ran out of fuel.

Only one game for me so far and the Cylons won. The humans were at a distance of 7 so they were two jumps away from victory when population and morale were both reduced to zero.

Cylons 1, Humans 0.

We had only human wins so far. The firste game we couldn't finish. The second, one of the cylons was far too stupid and the third was a close call (see Game Report II on this forum). I'm anxious to be a cylon again to wreck some good havoc. ^^

Humans : Cylons = 3: 0

Cylons 1 : Humans : 0 ... but it was soooooooooo close, a single dice roll at the end decided it!

Cylons:1 , Humans: 0....

Cylon President Roslyn had a dream turn though, locked Baltar in the brig, then got a crisis that she flunked to put Adama in the Brig making Cylon suspect Tye Admiral... The last "human" player out of the brig was Boomer , and the fleet jumped to distance 4 at the end of the next turn, which triggered the sleeper phase and sent her to the Brig....

Heap of fun though :D

Awesome......how ironic on the day I restarted this thread.....we had our first human victory.

The humans took two very early jumped and weren't in danger until the very end. Population was a little low, but they avoided any serious cylon attacks. So say we all.

I have played two games so far, and both those games the humans lost utterly before turn 4. It is actually starting to make me wonder whether the humans -can- win in any fashion that isn't pure dumb luck. Everything seems so stacked against the humans that it surely takes a series of perfect rolls and easy Crises to get anywhere.

So far both games the humans got completely wiped out by ungodly amounts of enemy ships, once the Cylons are revealed the humans seem to be unable to complete any skill challange, and overall it severely dampens my experience of the game to the point that I am starting to hate it. I do hope that changes as it is a beautiful game, but I don't feel like playing a game where I stand no chance in winning.

I just wish there was a way to speed up the jumpdrive without having to draw a crisis.

So for now Humans 0: Cylons 2 And I don't see humans ever winning a game that isn't stacked in their favour.

Cylons 22 Humans 3

As the OP stated, this game is amazing...we just played a game with 8 people...obviously only 6 can play the game so two of us just observed and acted as the press corp making blind accusations...it was amazing.

Winning or losing this game is immaterial it's just a blast to play. But make no mistake, it's the Cylons to lose...and if that's not the case, your cylon players should start looking at what they're doing wrong.

I think early games the Cylons often win, becuase you have no real idea how precious the resources are so might pick options not best for the long term benifits of the humans.

For example in our first game the first Cyrsis was "Cylon Detector" ... lose a nuke or something else (cannot remember) .. we picked the other option as we wanted to keep the nukes. In hindsight it might have best to lose the nuke as we lost on resources.

Also there are a lot of players who look after themselves first and the fleet 2nd ... which is an old mentality from old board games.

In our last session we had one Human win and two Cylon wins. All three games were 6 player games. My advice to the human Admirals out there is to make as many 3 point jumps as posible. The only way to survive that I have seen is not to get trapped in a cycle of small jumps.

All Cylon victories here. That's fine though, because every time we've been able to point at one or two instances where if things had gone differently, the humans might have won and so... we try again.

I have only played twice so I can't add too much to the Cylon vs. Human victory count, but I can say that the Humans have won both times. The last game it certainly was not for a lack of effort on the Cylon player, it just turned out that all the Humans really worked well together and just prior to the Cylon player deciding to reveal himself the final jump was made to Kobol and the game was won.

It's interesting to see how it's going for everyone, but keep in mind that there are other factors involved. The amount of table talk allowed is going to affect things. And if you have only a few new players and they end up as the Cylons... or worse, the humans, then that'll skew your results as well.

sir_roz said:

In our last session we had one Human win and two Cylon wins. All three games were 6 player games. My advice to the human Admirals out there is to make as many 3 point jumps as posible. The only way to survive that I have seen is not to get trapped in a cycle of small jumps.

This was very interesting to me. In our first human victory, the fleet jumped twice at the earliest possible moment. (-3) They made very close to the lowest possible number of jumps to win the game.

Mindseye said:

sir_roz said:

In our last session we had one Human win and two Cylon wins. All three games were 6 player games. My advice to the human Admirals out there is to make as many 3 point jumps as posible. The only way to survive that I have seen is not to get trapped in a cycle of small jumps.

This was very interesting to me. In our first human victory, the fleet jumped twice at the earliest possible moment. (-3) They made very close to the lowest possible number of jumps to win the game.

The few human victories we have, are all a result of aggressive jumping via strategic planning, tons of executive orders (especially getting people out of sick bay), and being willing to strategically lose crisis to save cards for the worse one.

However, there is no sure path to victory...

All of the Cylon victories we have are a result of the humans aggressive jumping via strategic planning, tons of executive orders (especially getting people out of sick bay), and being willing to strategically lose crisis to save cards for the worse one.

It doesn't matter what you do...its up to the gods if you make it to Kobol.

PS: FUN FACT: Doing all of this we played 2 different games where the cylons won before the fleet even had the OPTION of jumping the first time...ftl failure and massive assault are a helluva drug.

Cylon: 1 Human: 0

Stupid frakking toasters.

That being said, we had a blast getting our butts kicked, and will be playing again in the future.

-J

As far as I'm aware, in the extended game group, it's something like 4 Cyclon victories, vs 1 Human victory.

In my (1) experience, the Cylons seem to have to reveal on the early side and then start hammering the humans, since the actions in human disguise are simply not that effective compared to after they reveal.

reapersaurus said:

As far as I'm aware, in the extended game group, it's something like 4 Cyclon victories, vs 1 Human victory.

In my (1) experience, the Cylons seem to have to reveal on the early side and then start hammering the humans, since the actions in human disguise are simply not that effective compared to after they reveal.

Slow playing the Cylons is a very viable option. An unrevealed Cylon is often more dangerous than a revealed one because people know who they can trust. Now in a 2 cylon game...having one revealed and the other hidden is love.

That being said, woe to the humans who have 2 or 3 revealed cylon players sitting next to each other. that's all kinds of bad (particularly when centurions are involved)

I would guess that we have played BSG around 8 or 9 times so far. I want to say that the Cylons have won 3 or 4 of those times. Overall, the Cylon players have the best odds in a five-player game, just based on the Human:Cylon ratio. Next best would be a four-player game where they can find a non-obvious way of keeping all of the resources out of the red until the Sleeper Agent phase.

Humans: 1 (very close game)

Cylons: 1 (not even close)

cylons 1, humans 1.

we barely won on the humans win, as it was soooo frigging close, and the cylons had us dominated, running wild aboard galactica.

Humans: 1
Cylons: 0

The only problem we had was the low morale (now alcohol anymore on the ship ;))

I love the fact that it is so hard for the humans to win, that's the way it should be...man i miss the TV show