It was a Sad Day for Humanity, But I Didn't Care

Because I was a dirty, rotten CYLON!

That's right, Max finally had the opportunity to experience the Battle Star Galactica Board Game, and you guessed, I wasn't exactly being a team player.  At least not playing for the team everyone thought I was.

BSG is a game that I have been wanting to play for a long while now.  About a year ago, we gave a copy to my sister in law for her birthday.  She is a fan of the BSG television series, and at least an occasional game player.  Unfortunately it took a year to get this game out of the box.  I have heard it said that giving the gift of a game that you want to play, is like a wine drinker bringing a bottle of wine as a gift, hoping to get to help drink it.  It is not something you can always count on, but although my motivation may have been slightly self serving, I think everyone had a good time.

Back Story
For anyone who doesn't know the story of BSG, I'll attempt to give you the quick rundown (keep in mind that i didn't watch the show either, so even a non-fan can enjoy the game with this much knowledge).  The story takes place in a world where humanity exists on a set of planets other than earth.  The humans created the some robots called Cylons, and eventualy the robots became self aware.  Unforutnatly when robots become self aware, they tend to stop working for free.  Once this happened there may have been some conflict, I'm not sure, but it's not important.  what is important is to know that the Cylons left the humans, and were never heard from again...(Yeah Right)

Our Adventure Begins
This is were the TV series and our game begin... The Cylons come home, and they're pissed.  Like I said earlier, I don't know if they left on good terms or not, but they certainly aren't happy now.  The Cylons have been off building more ships and better Cylons, and when they attack, the humans are completely unprepared.  The only remaining humans are those who were in space ships at the time of the attack, and those ships rally around a large fighting ship called The Battle Star Galactica.  The Cylons are trying to kill all the remaining humans, while the humans are trying to reach safety(earth).  The fleet of humans can "jump" though space to get away from the Cylons, but eventualy the Cylons find them and attack again.

The Plot Thickens
Remember when I said that the Cylons were building better Cylons? well some of those Cylons look exactly like humans.  In fact some of the Cylons have been living among the humans and didn't even know it, while others are living among the humans trying to cause as much chaos without being discovered.  At any moment the Cylons, who think they are human, could suddenly become aware of their true identety.  The uncertanty of the true aliegence of your friends along with the dynamic strugle for power keeps the situation tense even when you don't have a Cylon Base Star sitting outside your window. Ultimately it is a race, the Humans trying to get to earth, before the Cylons deplete their limited resources.

Let the  Game Begin
One of the things about BSG that really appealed to me was the player interaction.  Think of BSG as Pandemic meets a murder mystery game.  For the most part the game is a cooperative game, with all the players trying to escape the evil Cylons, but at the beginning and the mid point of the game, loyalty cards are handed out.  The loyalty cards will either tell you you are a human, or that you are a Cylon.  The interesting thing about passing out loyalty cards at the mid point, is that someone who has been working hard for the whole game to help the humans, could suddenly find themselves trying to undo everything they had been working for.  I on the other hand was a Cylon right from the start.  The trick to being a Cylon, is causing setbacks, without anyone figuring you out.  If you are suspected, the other players can throw you in the brig, and you become quite useless.

As a Cylon there are several ways that you can cause trouble without drawing attention.  At the end of each player's turn, they draw a crisis card, which has a crisis that needs to be resolved.  Many of these involve performing a skill check.  The skill check will have a number representing the dificulty, and a few colors, wich will represent the skills that help pass the check.  Two unknown cards are drawn, face down, then each player is given the opportunity to play any number of their own face down cards.  This pile is shuffled, and sorted into two plies, one pile of skills that aid, and one pile of skills that hinder.  If the total of the cards that aid minus the hindering cards is greater than the requirement, the check is passed, otherwise something bad is probably going to happen.  This is where a sneaky Cylon can slip some bad cards in, to achieve his objectives.

There are also times when different players are asked to chose two cards and secretly chose one.  This happens when the fleet jumps, and the admiral chooses a destination from two options.  Jumping to a new destination involves a distance and some sort of reaction.  A longer jump, for example, may eat up a bit of flue from your supply.  All the other players are counting on the admiral to pick the right balance of distance and consequence.  If something bad happens they are left wondering if the admiral was stuck with two bad choices, or if perhaps he is a Cylon and discarded a much better card.

Another option is to just plane make poor decisions, and hope you can talk everyone into thinking it was a good idea.  At one point in the game we had Cylon ships flying all around us, shooting at everything in site.  When my turn came around I tried to make repairs on the single damaged room on the ship, which was not even sued to fight off the Cylons.  This basically amounted to unclogging the toiled in the bathroom, while everyone else is trying to put out a fire in the kitchen.  Sure I was using my turn to solve a problem, but I was ignoring a much bigger one in the process.  This tactic is going to be hard to pull off, unless you are a real smooth talker, or if the option you choose is just slightly less useful than the alternative.

In the end, the Cylons ended up over powering the humans, by crushing their moral.  The final blow came just a few turns away from their final jump.  When a competitive game like this ends with the losing teams victory just out of reach, I consider it to be balanced.  However, with this being our first game, it will take some more plays to determine.  Looking back at the game, I can't see a specific turning point, where a single decision could have led to the humans winning.  I think, though, that several small things, could have pushed the outcome in their favor.

Some Final Thoughts
Since this was our first time playing, and there are quite a few rules to learn, I think our group may have missed some of the social aspects that I was looking forward to most.   For example, throughout our game practically nothing was done, about the hidden Cylons.  It was brought up whenever there was some negative cards in the skill check, but there was never any finger pointing.  Therefore no one was ever thrown in the brig, and there was never any contest for the place of president.

In the end I revealed my self as a Cylon, only because I wanted to try out some of those actions.  I didn't get to use it enough to determine a strategy, but it seems to me that I could have caused more trouble as a revealed Cylon.  Since I was never accused of being a Cylon, and I feel that a relieved Cylon does more damage, this leads me to wonder if I was laying too low while on the human ship.

I had been looking forward to this game for a long time, and I hope that we get the chance to play it again before another year passes.  Unfortunately it is a rather long and somewhat involved game, so it does take some dedication to get a game going.

I give this game an 8 out of 10, but warn that it might not see much table time, unless you have the right group.

Chime in, in the comments and tell me your thoughts on this game.