What I Played Today: April 25

Battlestar Galactica

Did a bit of dicking around playing various games today, but I also got to hang out with some friends and play one of favorite games, Battlestar Galactica. We were running with half new players, including a couple of people I swore had played with us before.

Anyway, we were off in space, and I get the Cylon card immediately. I had always wanted to win as an unrevealed Cylon, and things go much better for the Cylon if he just played along the first half the game, so I kept my cool, offering as much advice as I can manage, and even letting opportunities to mess something up that would be awesome for me (like wrecking the cylon detector so that nobody could pick at my card) go, so that nobody suspected me of wrongdoing. It helped that half the people weren’t sure how to play, so my advice was all there was to back on.

We were doing pretty well up to the halfway point, time to show the sympathizer who happened to be Baltar. Baltar goes up to the sky and given a sympathetic agenda, and I become president. He gives his other cards to another player, and everyone agrees to brig him immediately, because the math was not in his favor. I use an arrest order to get him to jail, and decide that a guy in jail is a guy wasting everyone’s time, so I work hard to keep him there while I continue to play the others, watching the dials tumble.

The sympathetic Cylon decides to infiltrate and is generally helping, but also helping ruin a lot of skill checks, so I figure I have an ally, but also brig him to keep him under control. The original brigged man decides that he’s had enough and uses his once-a-game to reverse a decision to make it much worse, so I know I’ve got an ally in the brig, and I bide my time until my turn, where I take the admiral’s role and jump us, taking a huge hit to population and making it quite clear that they are boned. After an unsuccessful attempt to throw me out the airlock, a crisis card gives the president an option to either take some treachery cards or burn some civilian ships. Naturally, I burn the ships, and it’s game over, with no revealed Cylons.

I had a really good time, mainly because I had a lot of fun playing the table, and I hope everyone else had fun too. It’s both a tough coop game, as well as the most compelling “discover the traitor” game I’ve ever played. I’m glad I have such easygoing friends who can enjoy playing the game even when it goes tits up, although sometimes it really sucks being kept in the brig for an hour or more. Still, love playing this game.