Octopus Overlords

Are the character cards online? I didn't see them in the materials linked at the start of this thread, though I may have missed it.

El Guapo wrote:Are the character cards online? I didn't see them in the materials linked at the start of this thread, though I may have missed it.

You can find the character info in a different thread, here:
viewtopic.php?p=1473350#p1473350" target="_blank

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Military Leaders
William Adama
Helena Cain
Karl "Helo" Agathon
Saul Tigh

Pilots
Sharon "Boomer" Valerii - Remus West
Louanne "Kat" Katraine
Lee "Apollo" Adama - Stessier
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace

Political Leaders
Gaius Baltar - Scoop20906
Ellen Tigh
Laura Roslin - Grundebegriff
Tom Zarek

Support Characters
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla
"Chief" Galen Tyrol

Cylon Leaders - Someone must choose 1
"Caprica" Six
Cavil

Alternatively, and I hate to do this, but I can leave out Zurai as a replacement, and play the default 6 player game, which should speed things up in general and make things more balanced, with less down time.

Turtle wrote:Alternatively, and I hate to do this, but I can leave out Zurai as a replacement, and play the default 6 player game, which should speed things up in general and make things more balanced, with less down time.

It would be a shame to leave Zurai out for mere convenience when (a) he wants to play, and (b) there's a known way for him to play.

I agree with Grund.

I'll stay Lee.

So just me, Zurai, and Chaosraven are picking new people?

BSG Characters

Military Leaders
William Adama
Helena Cain
Karl "Helo" Agathon
Saul Tigh

Pilots
Sharon "Boomer" Valerii - Remus West
Louanne "Kat" Katraine
Lee "Apollo" Adama - Stessier
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace

Political Leaders
Gaius Baltar - Scoop20906
Ellen Tigh
Laura Roslin - Grundebegriff
Tom Zarek

Support Characters
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla
"Chief" Galen Tyrol

Cylon Leaders - Someone must choose 1
"Caprica" Six
Cavil

Needs to choose (in order):
1. Chaosraven
2. Zurai
3. El Guapo

So here's how we'll handle this. There are already 2 Pilots, and 2 Political Leaders. Following the character selection rules, that just leaves Military Leaders, Support Characters, and Cylon Leader.

You can only choose a character type from the types that have the fewest players as that type. The exception to this is that you can always choose a support character regardless of that restriction.

Also, because we have 7 players, one player must choose the Cylon Leader, if one isn't chosen then the last player to choose (El Guapo) must choose a Cylon Leader character.

FWIW I'd be happy to play as a Cylon leader - I've never done that before (only having played the base game), so I think it'd be fun to give that a whirl. Of course if Chaosraven or Zurai want to they can go ahead and pick that, but don't worry about "sticking" me with the Cylon Leader role or anything.

Well that's good to hear, I was worried you might get stuck as the Cylon Leader while you were new to the game. You having played will definitely help.

In fairness we need to have military leaders here as well. I can give up Boomer and play one if others do not want those roles (Chaosraven just gave up being one so if he is itching for a different role then we could switch).

Ack! Why wasn't I informed we were starting this up again!

Since you already found replacements, it's no biggie, one of them can take my slot. Some fresh meat should make the game more fun for everyone.

I will be glad to play Cylon Leader, Brother Cavil, if you please.

Sorry Lars. I'll pencil you in for the first slot for whenever we play with the new Exodus expansion early next year. Now that's one expansion that will be interesting, much more for cylon players to do, and lots of NPCs running around the ships with agendas of their own and ways to influence them. Each Human player also has their own agenda as well, and space combat gets an overhaul too.

One question - I'm not sure I get infiltration. Once the Cylon Leader announces that he's infiltrating, won't the humans immediately brig / execute him? Is there anything preventing them from doing that?

El Guapo wrote:One question - I'm not sure I get infiltration. Once the Cylon Leader announces that he's infiltrating, won't the humans immediately brig / execute him? Is there anything preventing them from doing that?

There is nothing to stop humans from brigging/airlocking a Cylon leader except for the idea he/she might actually be working for us. I believe with this number of players the odds of that are reduced though.

Cylon Leaders and Sympathetic Cylons get an agenda card. For them to "Win" they must fulfill the 2 objectives on that card. The first objective is for either the Humans or Cylons to win. The second objective is some particular set of requirements, either play a super crisis card, destroy X number of civilian ships, cause galactica to lose resources, etc...

Often times a Humans Must Win objective is paired with some other objective that requires you to screw over the human players in some very particular way, all the while you still have to convince the humans that you have their interests at heart. Likewise, a Cylons Must Win objective is paired with another objective that requires you to help the humans out at some point, such as keeping their resources above a certain amount, or making sure Galactica doesn't get damaged.

There are actually 2 sets of Agenda cards, Hostile and Sympathetic. In the Hostile deck (the one we'll be using in a 7 player game) only 2 of 6 of the agendas require the humans to win. In the Sympathetic deck, 4 of 6 agendas require humans to win. Depending on the if it's a Hostile or Sympathetic agenda also means how harsh or helpful the second objective is.

There's even an agenda card where the Cylon can be absolutely friendly to humans, and another where your job from the start is to outright do as much damage as possible.

The key is, a Cylon Leader or Sympathizer can both help out a lot, or really hurt humans by having access to all the standard locations on the board, instead of being restricted to the Cylon fleet locations. You could, for example, use the Communications location to move civilian ships towards or away from cylon ships on the board.

Meanwhile, in order to brig or execute you, a player will have to move to that location, putting them out of position for some special things, then the group has to spend cards in skill checks to put you away, checks that any hidden or revealed cylons can oppose. Human players have to suss out what the Agenda is and choose whether it's worth the wasted turns to let him stay aboard.

Anyway, Chaosraven has claimed the Cylon Leader position as Cavil, so you don't have to worry about that. Which leaves Zurai to choose the next character.

I'm going to choose Anastasia "Dee" Dualla for three reasons:

1. I don't want to pick a Military Leader because I'd rather not be Admiral to start with.
2. We're low on Engineering, and she gets some. I know Chief Tyrol has more, but see #3.
3. Her special abilities just seem more generally useful, and her drawback less irritating, than Tyrol.

BSG Characters

Military Leaders
William Adama
Helena Cain
Karl "Helo" Agathon
Saul Tigh

Pilots
Sharon "Boomer" Valerii - Remus West
Louanne "Kat" Katraine
Lee "Apollo" Adama - Stessier
Kara "Starbuck" Thrace

Political Leaders
Gaius Baltar - Scoop20906
Ellen Tigh
Laura Roslin - Grundebegriff
Tom Zarek

Support Characters
Anastasia "Dee" Dualla - Zurai
"Chief" Galen Tyrol

Cylon Leaders
"Caprica" Six
Cavil - Chaosraven

Needs to choose (in order):
1. Chaosraven
2. Zurai
3. El Guapo

Military leader it is, then. I've played Adama already, Cain's abilities don't seem all that great...

So I'll play as Saul Tigh, you frackin' cylons!!!

El Guapo wrote:Military leader it is, then. I've played Adama already, Cain's abilities don't seem all that great...

So I'll play as Saul Tigh, you frackin' cylons!!!

Cain's are actually some of the best in the game, IMO. Being able to force a jump can win the game. Being able to execute people is great fun. Just ask Chaoscylon.

Remus West wrote:

El Guapo wrote:Military leader it is, then. I've played Adama already, Cain's abilities don't seem all that great...

So I'll play as Saul Tigh, you frackin' cylons!!!

Cain's are actually some of the best in the game, IMO. Being able to force a jump can win the game. Being able to execute people is great fun. Just ask Chaoscylon.

That might well be - I haven't played a game with her before. The blind jump just seems incredibly risky - losing two civilian ships AND not being able to choose your destination (which can be bad) could be completely devastating. And I'd prefer to be better able to throw Cylons in jail rather than being able to execute them.

I could see how being a Cylon Cain could be great, though - get to be Admiral for sure, and you can be pretty sure that whoever you execute is going to be human.

Mostly it's just the fact that Tigh is awesome. I wish I could go straight to the eye patch.

It's also quite cool to be a Cylon Roslin.

stessier wrote:It's also quite cool to be a Cylon Roslin.