Are you man or machine? Group Let's Play of Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game!

On top, where you left it.

Cool.

My current plan for next turn: Nuke. In case that changes anyone's plans.

Moving to the Armory and using Eng - Repair 1 to fix it.

Then I'm using Pol - Consolidate Power 2 to draw two Tactics cards.

Galactica's back to its rickety self.

Crisis Step

President Baltar! You've been called to CIC to answer for your crimes! These include luring the cylons to the fleet, talking to yourself and just generally being a weird dude.


Requested Resignation

Admiral Chooses

President and Admiral both discard 2 skill cards

OR

President may choose to give the President title to the Admiral, or moves to the Brig location

Basestars Attack

Jump Prep: no


So Admiral Helo, how much do you want to be God-Emperor? Note that this can occur even with the Vice President title in action, because that blocks a legal transfer of power using the Administration location. This just straight-up janks the title from the President (or throws him in the brig).

Chief, since there is no skill check this time, please discard a card (down to 8).

Well. That's unexpected. How would the rest of you feel about a President-Admiral Helo?

Or, if he chooses to go to the Brig, will we let him out?

I don't like the idea of President-Admiral Helo. But that's just me.

Not a big fan of president admiral Helo, I have to admit. Not a big fan at all. As for letting him out of the brig, I'm not sure on that either.

I'd rather not invest all the power in one possible-cylon

Hmmm.

This is tricky. I'm still pretty sure no one's a Cylon yet. But we're guaranteed to have two after the next jump. One of them could be me! Or one of them could be Baltar!

Or any of you!

But in the interest of preserving our last chance for full cooperation before the inevitable betrayal, I'll take the first option. Discarding 2x Pil - Evasive Maneuvers 2.

President Baltar discards Pol - Consolidate Power 1 and Eng - Repair 1

The Admiral takes the high road, and withdraws all accusations, losing face in the process.

Basestar attacks! 6, a hit! Damages... FTL Control! Boomer and Admiral Helo are sent to Sickbay. Such are the downsides of having two players in the same space.

As a sidenote, the only places on Galactica safe from bombardment are the Research Lab, Communications, the Brig, and Sickbay.

Turn 21, Boomer

Character Locations and Current Hand Size
Destiny Deck: 4 cards
Quorum Hand: 2 cards
Boomer: Sickbay, 8 cards
Admiral Helo: Sickbay, 4 cards
President Baltar: Research Lab, 5 cards
Apollo: Aft (in viper), 9 cards
Chief: Armory, 8 cards

Board Status
Galactica: 5/6, FTL Control damaged
Colonial One: Rocking
Civilian Ships: 12/12, 3 in play
Raptors: 4
Vipers: 8/8 (2 in play, 4 in reserves, 2 damaged, 0 destroyed)
Resource Dials: Fuel, Food, Morale, Population: 6, 7, 9, 9
Jump Prep: [start] [X] [X] [-3] [-1] [auto]
Boarding Party: nonexistent
Distance: 3

Ship locations
Bow of Galactica: 4 Raiders
Port-Bow: Civvy
Port-Aft: 1 Unmanned Viper, Civvy
Aft: Basestar, 4 Raiders, 1 Manned Viper (Apollo)
Starboard-Aft: Civvy
Starboard-Bow: Clear


Boomer, what will your Sickbay draw be?

Oh, dear. We're gonna need FTL Control repaired.

Yeah, I'm really regretting that discard.

OR ARE YOU?

I made sure to stockpile some Repairs away if someone has the time to Exec me.

Speaking of, my max hand size was surpassed. Discarding Lea - Executive Order 1.

Drawing Engineering again.

After that, Boomer wanders out to FTL Control in a daze and starts fixing things. How does she know what to fix? Who knows.

Things start whirring, and the Galactica's FTL is back up and running!

-- Boomer uses Repair 2 from her hand to fix the FTL.

FTL is all better, and you can now jump away from the big scary robots.

Crisis Step

Boomer, it is just not your day. First you get blown up by an errant basestar missile, and now there's some type of computer virus coming over the network. It's already breached 3 of your 5 firewalls, and soon NERV will be shut down!


Cylon Virus

Check of 13, Purple and Blue (Tac, Eng)

Pass: No Effect,

Fail: All characters in FTL Control are sent to sickbay, then place 1 Centurion on the Boarding Party Track

Launch Raiders

Jump Prep: no


Contribution Order
Destiny: 2 cards
Helo: 1 card
Baltar: 1 card
Apollo: 0 cards
Chief: 2 cards
Boomer: 1 card

Hmm, should probably do a skill check to avoid a boarding party.

I can contribute two.

I can contribute 1 card.

I can contribute 1 card.

Apollo has nothing to add.

Sorry guys. Comp is acting up today.

I think Chief is contributing two cards.

It really DOES work better as a board game than a show!

So wait, is it actually possible to start the game with no one being a Cylon? I thought there was supposed to be a fixed number based on player count?

Sent Chief his hand so he can make the final decision. If anyone ever needs a hand check, or to ask about strategies, just PM me.

For 5 players, there are two cylons in the Loyalty deck, and 8 Not a Cylon cards. In our case, both Boomer and Baltar draw extra Loyalty cards at different times, so we add in 2 more Not a Cylons. From the 12 card deck, we dole out 6 at the beginning, and 6 at the Sleeper Phase, when the fleet gets to 4 Distance, or halfway to Kobol. I'm not too good with statistics, but it's most likely for one cylon to be in play in the first half (maybe 50%), and both or none the same probability (25%).

For a randomized twelve card deck containing two "You're a Cylon" cards and ten "You're not a Cylon" cards, the probability that all of the first six draws are "not-a-Cylon"s is:

10/12 * 9/11 * 8/10 * 7/9 * 6/8 * 5/7
= (10*9*8*7*6*5) / (12*11*10*9*8*7)
= 6*5 / (12*11)
= 22.7%

And the chance that exactly one person is a Cylon is:

2/12 * 10/11 * 9/10 * 8/9 * 7/8 * 6/7 +
10/12 * 2/11 * 9/10 * 8/9 * 7/8 * 6/7 +
10/12 * 9/11 * 2/10 * 8/9 * 7/8 * 6/7 +
10/12 * 9/11 * 8/10 * 2/9 * 7/8 * 6/7 +
10/12 * 9/11 * 8/10 * 7/9 * 2/8 * 6/7 +
10/12 * 9/11 * 8/10 * 7/9 * 6/8 * 2/7
= 6 * (2*10*9*8*7*6) / (12*11*10*9*8*7)
= 6*2*6 / (12*11)
= 54.5%

And therefore, the chance that both Cylon cards are among the first six draws is:

100% - 54.5% - 22.7%
= 22.8%

Give or take a bit due to rounding error. Yeah, in retrospect the chance that both of the cylon cards are in the first six draws would be exactly equal to the chance that they're both in the last six draws, since those are a perfectly symmetrical pair of events.

Awesome analysis, thanks! I was never good at statistics, just could brute force my way through it.

Aha. For some reason I thought the cards for the first and second half were shuffled separately. Come to think of it, is there a special rule for handling it if someone pulls Cylon on both their loyalty cards? Seems like something that'd really skew the game.

As a Cylon, you can pass any extra Loyalty Cards you have, Cylon or not, to other players after you reveal, if I remember right.

That's a Pegasus rule, but it's a good one so we'll keep it. It helps sow distrust, and makes sure one player doesn't get both Cylon cards.

Chief just confirmed two cards, now just waiting for Boomer to confirm her contribution.