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I never saw the human team win and I would like making it a little bit easier for humans to finish the game without losing.

How can I balance that? Is there anywhere a new set of rules that balance the game? Will I be forced to buy an expansion, or can I add/remove easily stuff without ruining the game?

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  • How many games has your group played? Things tend to be more balanced for experienced players.
    – bwarner
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 12:42
  • Well, quite a few, with always 2 cylons present. I am actually experienced, but no matter what, it is still a "feeling" game. If I feel someone did something wrong, I would vote for sending him in brig... But still in very few games would someone end up there! Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 13:42
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    I've played about 3 times, and have never seen the cylons win.
    – GendoIkari
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 14:36

3 Answers 3

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From page 28 of the rulebook:

To make the game easier for the human players, start the game with 2 more of each resource (10 food, 10 fuel, 12 morale, and 14 population).

However, it's worth mentioning that the core game is very balanced, especially with 5 players. The expansions arguably make it more difficult.

It sounds like you're not playing very well, but it's difficult to offer suggestions without knowing more about your group and how they play. You should be analysing everyone's moves and motives and closely inspecting the results of all skill checks. The Cylons should feel pressured to help out at every opportunity, lest they be accused and possibly brigged.

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  • Well I don't know if I understood rules correctly, but as I said the main problems I have when playing as human are: - Each turn a player plays, a crisis card is shown and especially late game every player remains with almost no cards in hand trying to avoid "bad things" - Most of the times resources end - Cylons that end up in Brig nearly always declare themselves and are able to play even more aggressively - President not playing Quorum cards (there is often much better to do) Cylons anyway are not so stupid and won't risk making a skill check fail every time... Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 8:59
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    Are you regularly 'overcooking' skill checks? You should go around the table asking how much everyone can help (without being specific, as per the secrecy rules). Sometimes it's more worthwhile to "auto-fail" skillchecks by everyone electing not to play in and save cards for something more dangerous. 'Investigative Committee' cards (yellow) are useful for making sure you don't hugely over-spending.
    – Daniel Lim
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 9:15
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    Absolutely. Asking how much one can do is a constant in every skill check Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 9:17
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    Yes, but do you regularly overspend? I think this is purely an experience thing. Eventually everyone will get better at weeding out the Cylons and they will find it increasingly difficult to win. Either way, the quote from the rulebook answers your question.
    – Daniel Lim
    Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 9:35
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    That happens maybe once per game. When we are all not sure that we can make it. It's common that we decide to "auto-fail" a crisis Commented Jul 16, 2015 at 9:36
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There is some strategies that can make you human group win. Is hard to fight the cylons in the board game (exactly like the TV show), but not impossible, even without changing the resources markers to a easier scenario. Here some of them:

  • Have a balanced team, including the Support character: try to establish a balanced team, considering the number of players. One Political Leader in the group should be enough. Also, consider always having the Support character in the party. I often play with the Chief and his ability to make an additional Action when using a Repair card is very useful.
  • Use the Quorum Cards: the Colonial One and the Quorum Cards seems to be negligencied in the game, but the Quorum Cards can recover your Morale and enable you to do a lot of things, like passing the Destination choice to another player than the Admiral, send people to Brig without skill check and see another player Loyalty Card. In our group, the President usually stays in the Colonial One President´s Office location drawing Quorum Cards, keeping his hand full of it to be used when necessary.
  • Pay attention to the skill cards played: in a skill check, only two cards from the Destiny Deck are used. So, if you have more than 2 negative skill cards in a check, you may have a Cylon. Watching the skill set of every character in the game can give you a clue if a Cylon is there.
  • Use skill cards abilities: Investigative Committee will force Cylons to help in skill checks. Scientific Research makes all the Engineering Cards counts as positive (did I said to have Tyrol in the game?). Strategic Planning is good for die roll. And so on. Remember to use the abilites of the skill cards, not only using them as numbers to skill checks.
  • Send the Cylons to the Brig: good Cylon is a Brig Cylon. There, they can´t do much harm as they can only use one skill card in the skill checks and his only chance to do something more is revealing themselves. And, if they reveal themselves, they cannot use the I´m a Cylon Loyalty Card ability.
  • Use the once-per-game abilities: make use of the once-per-game abilities of your characters, specially when you are in the final jumps to Earth. Adama ability to recover all the cards of a skill check in his hand is very tricky.
  • Avoid to lose Population: this is the trick. You will lose resources through the game, but avoid losing Population is a good strategy. Population can be risked to jump before you reach the Auto-Jump, emptying the table and speeding up the travel to Earth.
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  • What do you mean "the players were with a bad hand"? Why would a non-Cylon ever play a negative card, even if they have a bad hand?
    – bwarner
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 17:52
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    You must play a card in every skill check. So, if you don´t have positive cards, play a negative card will be your only option. Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 18:22
  • "Play Skills: to the left of the current player (and ending with the current player), each player may play any number of Skill Cards from his hand facedown to the common pile. " I don't see anything about you must play one. That would make the game much more difficult!
    – bwarner
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 18:55
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    0 is a number. And if you have no cards, clearly you have to add 0. If you read strategy guides, many of them talk about not contributing cards at all if you decide you can't pass a crisis. I can't find anything more definitive than that, but if you had to play at least one card, clearly they would've clarified that in the wake of everyone talking about not playing anything. Your variant would be extremely hard for the humans!
    – bwarner
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 20:50
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    @bwarner I agree that 0 is a number, but I assume that playing 0 cards is not playing any card at all. The logic would be: humans cannot avoid participate in crisis, they must deal with them. Cylons, in the other hand, does not need to participate, they´re not part of the fleet anymore (but can impact in a certain degree from "outside"). Running out of cards is just mechanics, and can be used as a tactic of a Unrevelead Cylon to not help in skill checks without suspicion. It can be more harder to humans, but not impossible. I´ll post a question about this. Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 12:11
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In the base game, I would expect a human victory most of the time, so it's possible you're playing badly or wrongly. Is there a standard way you lose? Eg, if you commonly run out of morale, etc - start the wheels higher.

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    This would be better as a comment than an answer. Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 11:52
  • It includes a suggestion which answers the question, hence why I posted it as an answer (as a personal pet peeve, I hate it when people post answers in the comments to my questions, because I can't then accept them. I've even had to resort to copying an pasting them myself as answers)
    – xorsyst
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 11:53
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    While I agree that you have an answer listed here, you have more of a comment then you do an answer. If you have a definite answer, I would strip out the comment part of it and place more of an expanded explanation of the answer. Then, add your comment to the question. However, if your answer is standing on shaky information from the question poster, it will get down voted quickly by others. Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 12:23
  • Anyway, there are 2 standard ways human always die: resources or ship damage (only if no engineers play - that happens rarely considering that we are aware of the disasters without blue cards - ). I also find that it is common that people remain without (or with few) cards in hand Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 13:45
  • Boarding party is another common one
    – xorsyst
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 14:16

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