AP and BSG: Fuck shit balls

Unfortunately I know from experience that there is one person worse than an AP-player. That is someone who analyzes every turn of every game to death and still never fucking wins. All that wasted time just so they can make the wrong moves anyways.


I'm still interested in Android. Specifically as I recall another Kevin Wilson game that got a lot of negative press when it came out, but that I think is great to play even without the expansion that allegedly fixes it. So I'll definitely be reading more reviews/comments on it.

I would rather make a knee-jerk, suboptimal, ridiculous move that pays of spectacularly (either for me or against me) than play a slow and steady AP laden optimization game. I always seem to have the most fun making win-big/lose-big plays rather than playing safe and trying to win. Go balls out, have some fun, create some hilarious stories that your game group will still be talking about years from now.

As for Android, I've only played some two player games (which isn't ideal, but works pretty well) and I think it is pretty awesome. Both games have come down to one or two VPs and have been pretty exciting. So far my buddy and I play it pretty fast and loose, without planning out VPs turns in advance or otherwise trying to game the system, and it has been a blast every time we play.

hancock.tom wrote:

I haven't played android yet. I don't like what I have read in reviews, it looks like a lot of needless abstracted mechanics to generated VPs pasted to a deep story driven game. I don't think it looks terrible, but I'm not shelling out the money just yet...

The other main boardie in our club bought it on impulse so I have at least one play lined up for it - but I too am not too impressed by a 'make some VPs game with bugger all to do with a mystery but play some cards to to get your suspect the most naughty points' game. I will do my best to go in with an open mind - especially as I want to get enough people to play the new CE, which may take a bit of convincing due to it being CE and most of the guys being traditional minis/boardgame people.

Gary Sax wrote:

Interesting... do put your Android review on F:AT also.

All my reviews are F:AT exclusives.

Mr Skeletor wrote:
"Am I the only person who hasn't played Android?"
Nope. (The comments here have put me off it entirely.)

Haven't played yet. It's in the post for 2 weeks now...

Bumping this up because I played BSG last night. It was everything I hoped it would be. I was Baltar and it was as human win--we threw the guy who was a Cylon in the brig very early and kept him there the whole game. He spent a while trying to get back out and I almost did let him out but decided against it. The hilarious part was he kept the Presidency the entire game so was drawing quorum cards most of his turns. He should have been tossing people in the brig just to fuck with us but he didn't. Since he was a noob he wasn't quite sure when to reveal which definitely helped us. Starbuck was also a noob and wasn't very effective... I never suspected her at all but then that was because she wasn't doing so much damage as to be obvious.

What's great about the game is that I spent the entire game browbeating my wife (Boomer) and my friend (Admiral Helo) about being a Cylon. I'd say I spent 95% of my debating time suspecting them--and they never had a Cylon card between them. I Cylon detected my wife early because I was almost completely sure she was a Cylon; she wasn't. Helo chose a 1 jump to take us to the human base in the middle of the game and I was sure he was a Cylon for jumping us one; I guess he just wanted the resources at the Anchorage. For the rest of the game I painstakingly scouted the top of the deck with a Raptor. Which led to a classic gaming moment where I looked directly at the admiral and told him "If you do not select the top card, I am sending you to jail with no remorse." It is really useful to be able to pick up a card of any color w/Baltar's skill.

I do have an observation. I've never done this in any game, even ones with a lot of interactions, but being the guy who dominates the conversation at the table develops its own rhythm. It started a little awkward (the first action of the game I declare that my wife is a Cylon with no evidence) but once you get your rap going you can really control the table with more timid players at it. My loyalty was questioned... maybe once and weakly at that even though I was Baltar. If I had been a Cylon they would have been screwed. On the other hand they didn't have much reason to screw me as I was taking a bunch of really helpful and visible steps to save the humans, like when Baltar repaired the Viper Command area right as we were getting swamped, FTL right before we made our final jump as well as providing all the best advice.

With respect to time, it still went a little long. Maybe 3 1/2 hours. But that was with rules explanation and a break for popcorn. So all in all not bad, if a little long. But fun was had by all and I suspect my non-gamer friends who played it will buy the game because they love BSG and really enjoyed the game.

Gary - I take from your commentary that the other noob (Starbuck) was the 2nd cylon since it was a 5p game ? Sounds like they were feeling their way and not sure what really to do - otherwise they would have been hitting the Caprica and Human fleet locations until a decent enough cylon fleet was around, and then use the cylon fleet location to get the civvies. But perhaps your crisis cards were a bit more friendly than we have had in a couple of the games with two cylons - heaps of attack cards with the board filled with cylon ships.
I had a similar experience in my first game when I was the cylon in a 3p game and was brigged before the halfway mark, I was unsure if I could reveal so just whined about not being a cylon and quietly played cards to upset enough skill checks that the fleet eventually ran out of something.

We always suggest to the new players that if you are a cylon and you don't feel like you are doing enough to screw the players, just forget staying secret, openly screw the others for a turn or two, then reveal yourself. Its not bad advice for newbies, who seem to get the idea that remaining a secret cylon is going to win them the game instead of sinking galactica.

Yeah, I mentioned to the table multiple times what the revealed Cylon could do, so everyone knew... but it's just the same until you see it happen. It's part of why I took Baltar. I was hoping I would be the Cylon, since it is a tough thing to put on a noob player. My wife took Boomer for the same reason. It was nice to play 5 player so we didn't have to play w/sympathizer cards.

Shellhead wrote:

Once I discover that I'm playing a game with an AP player, I'm done playing games with him. I will finish out that game, if there is time, but that is the last time I will play with him.

I'm 100% behind you. Android would be brutal with an AP player.

Here my top 5 most hated AP situations:

1. AP in a learning game. It's your first time playing the damn game. Everyone makes mistakes the first time they play the game. Get the fuck over it.

2. AP in Euro games with very little interaction. If there is little interaction by the time it's your turn you should know what you're going to do. Don't act like it's a big surprise (we've been going clock wise the whole game)that it's your turn and we expect you to have decided what to do.

3. Euro game (Age of Steam, Caylus, Agricola) where a player can bid for or take the first player marker. I expect if you just spend $5,000 or a worker to get the first player marker you would have a plan for what to do with your first action.

4. AP in games with few little decisions to be made. There are some games with a choice between A or B (Talisman and some simple Euros). It shouldn't take 20 minutes to figure out what to do.

5. Games like Android or Arkham Horror where there is a million things a player can do on turn but nobody can really figure the best thing to do. Get a clue, kill a monster, go through a gate, I don't care just do something.

KingPut wrote:

5. Games like Android or Arkham Horror where there is a million things a player can do on turn but nobody can really figure the best thing to do. Get a clue, kill a monster, go through a gate, I don't care just do something.

This is really the one I hate. No one can figure out the exact best thing to do -- just do something that seems reasonably good. My group actually has this down pretty well, so a 4-player Arkham game takes about 2 hours or so and Android comes in at about 3 hours.

Looks like BSG is getting a workout. Playing tomorrow night again. I'm tempted to go buy Cosmic Encounter and play a few games of that instead...

Played it again tonight. Another human win, another last die roll human win. Pretty fun. I don't know how all my friends can play such shitty Cylons. I don't get it.

Ok. I know this is broken record territory, we've been here a million times, and this probably belongs in the bitchfest thread. But tonight after my 3rd play I decided to check the TOS forums on BGG, which I hadn't done yet.

How do people play BSG like this? It is like completely baffling to me--this guy isn't a prick or a wanker, really:

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/373960

There are a million threads of this in the forum. So has anyone actually seen a BSG game in play like this in person? With 6 people silent as stone staring at their skill cards, hunched over the board? Maybe at a con or something? This shit is fucking crazy to me. Even in my games with the AP players I bitched about before, it never occurred to me that the problem with the game was that my turn didn't happen often enough. I was busy on other people's turn trying to figure out who was a Cylon (played human 3 straight times).