Battlestar Galactica Thread 2: Food is NEVER an Issue.

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General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

This game is amazing, I feel so lucky to have a local group to play with. After about ~20 games our Cylons still always win so we've got a lot of learning to do.

I always felt like the game could be more creative about crisis mechanics. They're the meat of the game in terms of player interaction. Are there any fan-brew crises that get a lot of acclaim?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2011 17:06

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 14:16

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

That's cool. I was just thinking about how creative you could get with them.

For a long time I was trying to think of new crisis mechanics to add. Crises right now fall into two broad classes, 'choose' and 'skill check'. Some are hybrids. Then you have additional elements like the Skill Check Ability icons from Exodus.

I don't really know how far I got with coming up with a new class. I had a lot of dumb ideas.

Eventually I decided a new crisis type would be a bad idea. Skill check crises are important because so many of the game mechanics are built around them - character abilities, cards, abilities that impact the Destiny deck. Adding gimmick crises to the crisis deck dilutes the importance of all these abilities.

I still think there's a fair bit of room for interesting crisis mechanics within the choose/skill check framework. Unless I'm stupid, there's no existing crisis that uses a trust vs. payoff mechanic. For example, you could do: "Current player chooses: something bad happens and current player draws 3 cards OR something bad happens and another player draws 6 cards." This creates tension between
self-interest/security and teamplay/risk.

Or a choice between two sets of consequences on the same skill check, one low risk/low reward, the other high risk/high reward.

Or whatever, I don't know. Maybe these have already been done?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2011 17:57

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Yeah, that example I gave was pretty lovely without specifying exactly what the 'something bad' is. I was driving for a crisis which is bad, but which could be ameliorated with trust if you feel like you can trust.

It's pretty lovely. The more I think about it the more complete the current crisis system feels.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2011 19:08

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Okay, I'm an idiot, I play Exodus but I'm not exactly sure what Consequences are. Is this a term for a basic crisis function I should know? Or are we talking about the little 'if someone plays a Skill Check Ability into this crisis, base stars fire'?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2011 22:07

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Making the consequences random removes an element of strategy, doesn't it? If the crisis has a consequence of 'base stars fire missiles', an unrevealed Cylon can count on that if s/he plays a strength zero card in.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2011 00:50

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Dexanth posted:

And sometimes the DD throws a 0 strength in; BSG is a highly random game in many ways.

Sure, but even then, that's a small chance of a predictable outcome that players can strategize for - can even manipulate if they've got the ability to tweak the Destiny deck. Whereas with a random consequence table it's harder to know what that small chance could trigger.

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Aug 12, 2011

# ¿ Aug 12, 2011 02:11

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I can't find the make changes button to expand them, someone explain how I'm a moron.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 17:57

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

We played a game last night (base + Pegasus + Exodus w/CFB, Kobol) with an almost completely perfect first half, I think the only resource that even dropped was morale (to 7). Boomer revealed in disgust right before the sleeper phase, she was one frustrated Cylon.

(I think it's worth pointing out at this point that I was Dee and I had us running a somewhat controversial strategy: rather than escorting civilians off the board as per CFB rules, we gathered all the civilians in one space area under heavy escort, so we wouldn't have to worry about placing them in unguarded locations.)

Then when we hit the sleeper phase Boomer drew the other Cylon card and made President Tory a Cylon, and Tory used a Quorum card to seize the admiralty. Suddenly Tory the Cylon had the nuclear launch codes and we'd parked every civilian ship on the board in one space area.

I don't think I need to describe the resulting panic. The odds of rolling high enough on the nukes weren't great, but she'd drawn Tactics and Engineering (strategic planning and calculations) and she had a Critical Situation. To make it worse she'd played Accept Prophecy.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2011 04:31

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Lonjon posted:

Not quite.

One of our group's games featured a cylon leader who obviously had the "Join the Colonials" card. He was doing everything he could to help us, and he had done nothing the entire game to arouse suspicion. Us humans were doing pretty well, and it was obvious that we would win at the beginning of the next turn. No crisis card could possibly prevent our victory - all we had to do was push the FTL button and we'd be home free. Hooray!

The crisis we drew said that, if passed, we could choose one player to send to the Brig. Guess what we did?

Man, you guys are assholes.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2011 21:38

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Any speculation on what kind of mechanics will be in that expansion? Or when it'll announce?

It seems like each past expansion has tried to address holes in the game, logically enough. What's left to poke at?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2011 04:58

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Is State of Emergency never a good idea? Even in the early game when Cylons probably don't want to reveal?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2011 04:27

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

It's a net +4 actions (in a 5 player game) if the game is in a state where the Cylons have incentive to remain undercover.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2011 05:15

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Is the PIL-sucks metagame true even in Exodus with Cylon Fleet? Raider management (and not getting shot down by Raiders) has always seemed so critical in our Exodus games.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2011 19:20

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Man they're really late with announcing the expansion this year. I want Daybreak or Revelations or whatever they're going to call it.

It's one of their best selling products, right? They wouldn't pass up the chance for another expansion, would they? :ohdear:

# ¿ Oct 26, 2011 16:38

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

What do people think about leaving the Cylon Attack super crises in the super crisis deck even when playing with the Cylon Fleet Board? Our group loves the CFB but also thinks the super crisis deck needs some extra teeth.

Also, is this a decent house rule: if a base ship can neither launch raiders nor fire missiles, and an activation triggers one of these abilities, the base ship self destructs/jumps out/otherwise removes itself from the game board. This is designed to prevent 'pet base ship' strategies to block the CFB from advancing.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 03:57

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I just got back from an 8-player game, the humans played perfectly and left a trail of shattered baseships and demolished crises all the way from Caprica (even with a Cylon, a Cylon Leader, and a sympathetic Cylon all out to get us in one way or another).

Then one loving ninja centurion boarded us and somehow survived 6+ attacks to march all the way down the track and end the game.

It turned out the loyalty cards had been misdealt and there was one fewer Cylon than intended, too. Man.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2011 16:53

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Some Numbers posted:

Cylon Leader and Sympathetic Cylon are mutually exclusive.

I don't think they are in the (unofficial) 8 player game, which our host got from one of the Fantasy Flight designers at Origin last year. They'd intended to run a seven-person game but one person showed up for the wrong session, so the Fantasy Flight guy suggested using their internal 8-person variant. It boosts all the resources by two and adds a sympathetic Cylon.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2011 02:42

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I played a five player game with my family over Thanksgiving and accidentally made everyone a Cylon at the Sleeper phase. :downs:

We actually made it a fair way after that because everyone was trying to a play a ~deep game~

# ¿ Nov 28, 2011 17:46

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

When you say 'sleeper agent', do you mean 'sympathetic Cylon'?

# ¿ Nov 28, 2011 23:18

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

If activations could be used to return Vipers to the reserves would Apollo's OPG be more viable as a Cylon?

# ¿ Dec 16, 2011 17:16

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I actually thought for the longest time that activations could be used to do that, but I guess not. It seems like it'd be a pretty harmless house rule, right?

# ¿ Dec 16, 2011 18:26

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Ughgughgh I had the most miserable game 4 player game today. The humans played a near-perfect first half and executed the Cylon straight away after sleeper, but the sympathetic Cylon got a 'humans lose' agenda.

The game started going downhill when the Cylon player began making calls to an absent friend to check on rules questions. Due to a couple ambiguous Crisis outcomes that he rules-lawyered, both human players ended up in the brig leaving no one whatsoever to draw crises. :negative:

We figured out that the Sympathetic Cylon had the 'Salvage Their Equipment' agenda and actually managed to lure him back onto Galactica by attempting to leave the brig, making the check Reckless using At All Costs, and then playing By Your Command treachery cards into it - activating raiders to attack Galactica (18 raiders on the board and no civilians

).

Once Galactica was damaged the sympathetic Cylon came back aboard to repair things so he could complete his agenda, and the President arrest-ordered him into the brig with the rest of us, then managed to persuade him into helping the Admiral get out. :downs:

We tried to blackmail him into giving out XOs in exchange for locations repaired, but it was too little too late and we lost on pop at distance 8.

(Rules question I guess: if a Broadcast Location and a By Your Command are both played into a Reckless skill check, in what order are they resolved? Current player's choice? If there are no human players left outside of the brig, who's Admiral? If one human player leaves the Brig, does the admiralty pass to them, or remain with the brigged admiral?)

chrisf posted:

Nope, your turn ends as soon as you are executed.

Is this true for human players too?

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Dec 18, 2011

# ¿ Dec 18, 2011 07:51

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

What's the Goon consensus on the best way to introduce Conflicted Loyalty cards? I really want to use personal goals and Final Five, but only if it doesn't lead to a chance of fewer Cylons.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2011 18:50

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I may be an idiot here as I've given this no thought and it's early in the morning, but to resolve the loyalty card/personal goals issue, couldn't you just build a standard loyalty deck (including personal goals), and then, whenever a personal goal is revealed, shuffle 1 new 'You are Not a Cylon' card from outside the game into the deck and deal a new loyalty card? This would preserve the total number of unrevealed loyalty cards pre-sleeper.

But I guess post-Sleeper it wouldn't do much.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2011 15:32

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Some Numbers posted:

Probably? I would imagine that the rules specify that Cylon Leaders can't get Loyalty cards.

No, that errata allows Cylon Leaders to Infiltrate, because infiltration is unique to Cylon Leaders.

And Sympathetic Cylons, correct?

# ¿ Dec 30, 2011 05:11

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Some Numbers posted:

I think so, yeah, but note that Sympathetic Cylons and Sympathizers are different.

They certainly are.

We played with a Sympathetic Cylon yesterday. It was a fantastic game and everyone had a blast, but I feel kind of bad - I removed 'Join the Colonials' from the agendas but not 'Illusion of Hope'. The humans did shockingly well getting to distance 8 given that there was only one of them left outside the brig and effectively two hostile Cylons running around Galactica.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2011 16:50

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

5 player game tonight, no Cylon Leaders. Humans got to distance 7 with both Cylons revealed, then never even managed to get past the second square on the jump track due to constant Basestar Bridge interference. :psyduck:

After the game I told the humans they should've been playing Strategic Planning cards on the Cylon die rolls - is that legal?

If a crisis failure outcome requires that we 'draw one civilian ship and destroy it' and all civilians are on the board, the Pegasus rules say the current player may choose one ship on the board to destroy. Should this read must?

# ¿ Jan 8, 2012 05:07

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Pander posted:

It happens. One of the first games I ever played ended due to food. So many water/food shortage crises, it was ridiculous. That was pegasus only, though. Has Exodus possibly diluted the food-loss crises?

I always wondered how Exodus remained slanted towards the Cylons even with the increased number of jump markers the humans are drawing. Is the CFB just that powerful?

Did game lengths on average decrease with Exodus?

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jan 9, 2012

# ¿ Jan 9, 2012 16:39

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Interesting. Even with just the CFB we get people whining about how pro-Cylon the game is, though I'm pretty sure it's just because our humans suck.

An unusual situation came up last game and I wanted to ask the thread's expert advice on how I handled it. I was Baltar. Admiral Cain sat to my right and President Roslin to my left.

I was a Cylon from turn 0, but never made it obvious. The game proceeded until, on the turn before Cain's, we jumped to Distance 4. During the Sleeper Phase, I was dealt the second Cylon card. It was Cain's turn next, and she announced her intention to Blind Jump.

I decided to soft reveal by telling Cain that I was about to reveal and make her a Cylon, and therefore she shouldn't jump, since it'd be working against her own interest. There was a lot of debate about whether I even had both Cylon cards ,and ultimately Cain ignored me and jumped anyway. I revealed on my turn and handed off the second Cylon card to President Roslin on my left.

Thinking back I'm not sure the bluff could ever have worked. Cain must have known that I'd only give her the Cylon card if she didn't Blind Jump, to prevent her from doing it later. If she did Blind Jump I'd get a lot more benefit from making Roslin a Cylon. I think I was perhaps too rash in my attempted coercion.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2012 16:47

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I really like your characters and am going to be showing them to my group. I still think Hotdog's OPT seems a little insane, but it takes a lot of actions/XOs to set up.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2012 21:24

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Cocks Cable posted:

I agree with you. As a fix, I will stipulate it only works on a crisis skill check with a difficulty of say 10 or less.

Since he makes the choice after totaling strength, how does Declare Emergency factor into this limit? (Or that engineering card that reduces difficulty?)

# ¿ Jan 12, 2012 15:46

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Cocks Cable posted:

If you don't like a difficulty cap, how about a discard penalty instead? Billy has to discard his entire hand (because he's bleeding out on the floor heh).

I like this a lot.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2012 17:19

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

I hate playing with Cally because soft reveals are my favorite part of the game and a human Cally punishes them so hard. A Cylon Cally is forced to soft reveal by not punishing another Cylon's soft reveal.

Plus even if you're not playing with Cally, sometimes if you soft reveal human players will do things like fail a crisis to get themselves executed and come back as Cally to shoot you.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2012 18:14

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

The OPG doesn't really seem like it can be used to help the humans, aside from maybe executing a soft revealed Cylon?

# ¿ Jan 12, 2012 20:40

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Cocks Cable posted:

Sharon "Athena" Agathon (TAC/1, ENG/TRE/1) Setup: Caprica
Rogue Agent -- You may use the text abilities of Tactics, Engineering, and Treachery Skill Cards regardless of infiltration status.

Hostile Athena with a Critical Situation is gonna be bad loving news in so many ways, especially with Calculations and Strategic Planning tossed in. I guess she probably won't draw that many, at least.

General Battuta fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jan 12, 2012

# ¿ Jan 12, 2012 23:09

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Diplomaticus posted:

In case you aren't watching, Personal Goal Party Rock: Every day I'm shufflin' is one of the best games that I've watched so far on the forums.

What's the etiquette on commenting? Obviously don't give advice or anything substantive to the game, but is it cool to say 'Wow this is great :suspense:

' or something like that?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2012 06:21

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Cocks Cable posted:

Admiral's Feast -- Action: Once per game, decrease Food by 1 and then draw Skill Cards up to your hand limit.

How does this work with regards to the usual draw limitation? Could he draw 10 politics, or does he have to try to maintain a 2/2/1 split?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 18:47

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

Cocks Cable posted:

Strip Them For Parts -- Action: Once per game, draw 3 Civilian Ships and choose 1 to destroy. For each resource point lost, choose one of the following (multiple choices must be different): repair any two locations, gain 1 Nuke token, increase jump prep by 2, or draw 4 Skill Cards (these may come from outside your skill set).

I love it. I'm sure someone with a better understanding of the game will have critique, but this is really interesting.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 22:16

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

chrisf posted:

Since we aren't constrained by character limits to fit on a card, add some cylon options like "Advance the pursuit track by 1" "Place the other two civs on the board" "Send someone to sickbay" etc.

Surely being able to destroy resources to gain card draws is already potent enough for a Cylon?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 22:43

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 14:16

General Battuta: Feb 7, 2011; This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.

chrisf posted:

They have to discard down to 3 on reveal, or everything if executed. Also consider that if you destroy more resources, you'll have to pick something beneficial for the humans, and one or two pop normally isn't all that destructive.

Sure, but you can pick colors that help block brig/airlock checks.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 22:55

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Battlestar Galactica Thread 2: Food is NEVER an Issue.

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