I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but every time I read rules related to the sympathizer I get confused, although I think I got it now and would like your confirmation... or stern talking-to.

The sympathizer, if at least one resource is below half, is thrown in the brig, but otherwise will not change loyalty from human to cylon (unless he's already an unrevealed cylon). Once out of the brig they continue to play on the human side. In a 4-player game, for example, the game would thus remain 3 vs 1 humans to cylon.

If all resources are above half then the sympathizer does become a revealed cylon (with the limitations as stated in the rules), thus making the game 2v2.

The part that was getting me confused was why would we throw a sympathizer in the brig, and then why would the sympathizer then continue playing for the side it is NOT sympathizing with?

And how exactly are cylon sympathizers handled? The rules state that the cylon MAY give the sympathizer card to someone else, not MUST. If that's the case then wouldn't the Cylon become "human"? Gah! What purpose would keeping the sympathizer card serve the cylons?

Am I reading too much into this? Is the purpose of the sympathizer card just to potentially add another cylon to the game if the humans are doing "too well?"

Thanks guys, I'm usually pretty spot on about rules, but for whatever reason the wording of the sympathizer rules turns my head around.

You are correct on the rules of the card.

1. If any resource is in the red, the person who receives the sympathizer card goes to the brig, but then is otherwise considered Human.

2. If all resources are still in the blue, then that person becomes a revealed Cylon, but doesn't get a Super Crisis and can't activate the Cylon Fleet location.

As to the reasoning: if option 1, it's because in the show they brig the second Sharon Cylon but later she eventually is allowed out and helps the Humans throughout the rest of the show. So, it's like you are a Cylon sympathizing with the Humans, and helping the Humans win.

If option 2, my guess is that you are supposed to be maybe a Human that sympathizes with the Cylons, and helps the Cylons try to win. That would explain why you can't activate the fleet or get a Super Crisis. (this would kind of be like Baltar in the show to a point). OR you are a Cylon that sympathizes a bit with Humans, aka you feel slightly bad about what is happening to the Humans so you don't want to do the real bad stuff like sending the fleet or Super Crisis stuff, but you are still a Cylon afterall and thus helping the Cylons try to win. (this would be like Caprica Six in the show).

As far as the 'may give the Sympathizer card to someone else', I'm not sure why you would ever not give the card away, but even if you didn't you still would not become Human since your 'You are a Cylon' loyalty card overrules that, and you would not move to the brig because you can't move off of the Cylon locations.

I believe the purpose is indeed just to balance out the game depending on which side is doing better, however like I explained above, it actually does make a lot of sense with some of the characters from the show.

Ahhh, perfectly explained. Thanks! I found the wording obtuse, but that made it clear.

For me .. the sympathizer card is a pretty neat aspect of the game .. if the humans are winning, one of the humans sympathizes with the cylons and jumps on their team .. but isn't truly a cylon so is "gimped" in comparison to the real ones. If the humans are losing, he sympathizes with the cylons, is discovered .. thrown in the brig, but eventually repents and realizes he has to help the humans survive.

I like the mechanic too .. it really can shake up the balance of the game mid-way through. I almost wish there was a way to play with a sympathizer card in a 5 player game.

In early playtesting of the game there originally was a "cylon sympathizer" and a "human sympathizer" card ... having two different types like that was confusing enough. The sympathizer card went through a lot of changes during playtest to keep the cylon deck building simpler and less confusing.

The final result is pretty darn good, though the rule that the sympathizer only helps the cylons if none of the tracks are in the red CAN be worked around. Usually in 6 player games (even if human) I try and let one resource drop to the red just so the sympathizer won't join the cylon team. 4v2 is a lot easier to manage a victory then 3v3.

Last_Crusader said:

I've heard a lot of players say this, but:

1. I'm still not sold that intentionally killing resources is a better alternative than keeping them as high as possible. (and it also looks really suspicious if you are calling for people to blatantly waste them, aka that's CYLON TALK!! ).

2. a lot of people who start the game as a Cylon sometimes will help try to keep resources IN the blue, so that they receive the extra helper, thus cancelling out any resources the Humans try to waste on purpose.

But anyway, really, no matter what strategy the players try to use, the card is still going to balance the game out in the end. Thus the system works.

See, I like the idea of playing as a cylon and being super helpful before the sympathizer phase so you get a teammate. Plus it does help keep them from looking suspicious. Such a great design choice.

Mattr0polis said:

Our group pretty much agrees that taking steps to ensure the Sympathizer is human is a good strategy for humans.

The easiest way to lower a resource into the red is to drop fuel when moving. Barren Planets are the big one. It's not possible to do it with fuel every time, but you can fairly frequently (there are other locations that drop a fair bit of fuel). We don't do it with any other resource intentionally, simply because fuel is pretty safe, but the other resources are not.

Yesterday in a four player game we forced the cylon player to reveal before the Sleeper phase (after I got to look at his loyalty card), and then us humans worked really hard to get a resource in the red so none of us would jump sides. We even deliberatley failed a crisis check that moved the Jump Prep track back a space so we could get Morale -- our lowest resource at the time -- into the red, and barely managed to make it. Still, it was a very close game at the end. Our Morale got dropped to 1, and we needed to advance at least one more jump space to early jump when it became the cylon player's turn. Fortunately he didn't have any ways to drop Morale, and we were able to jump. But it was a close thing.

I know I'm beating a dead horse in these forums on this subject, but I really would like to know the victory count in 6 player games when this strategy is used to drop a resource to red.

Currently, our group only deliberately tried this once and the humans lost. I know that a lot of determining factors must be added to ensure victory such as the jump locations used after the sleeper phase, etc. It just annoys me that this is used as a viable strategy.

Think about it, the show equivalent to this strategy would be Admiral Adama discussing with Col Tigh: "Look Saul, I'm pretty sure these frakkers are on our ship. Do you think it would be a good idea to sabotage our food supplies so maybe one of them might feel bad for us?" One person sabotaging human resources is one thing, but no human group discussion would end with, yeah, lets just throw out perfectly good food.

It just kinda bothers me that humans would use this strategy. The reason for the sympathizer in the first place was to balance out the current game, such as if the humans are getting unlucky with Crisis early on, they get an extra boost at the midway point of the game. On the other hand, if the Cylons need help, the sympathizer helps them.

Can we try to get a good human victory/loss count when this strategy is used? So far, I have 0 wins/1 losses.

Yeah, while the Sympathizer rule might help game balance, it does so at the expense of piercing the veil of the "experience" of the game and letting the ugly skeleton of the "mechanics" shine through. Dropping a resource to red is just ridiculous, and having the game encourage such behavior is poor design. We don't do it. We just follow the same basic human strategy of moving to a distance of 3 and then jumping as far as posssible, giving ANY Cylons and Sympathizers as little time as possible.

spirit_machine said:

Our group also thinks it's kinda cheap, but one thing is that we really get into our roles as Humans (or Cylons, if that is the case), and when someone even suggests something like that we really rip into them, just as Tigh would do to Adama in your example. It may even be a brig-able offense if they are pushing it hard enough. So I guess, if you play more in character it's hard to really justify ever doing that.

As far as it being viable, I really haven't seen it be any more viable than keeping the resources as high as possible and then possibly having two Cylons. Either way that the Sympathizer goes, it balances the game to make it always a very close/exciting ending.