I am not a Cylon!

Between a family member in hospital, getting ready for an overseas trip and writing up Cataclysm leveling guides, I've been struggling to level up Jahger through to the level cap of 85. He's currently stalled at 84. I had hopes of doing that final push this last weekend. But the gods had other plans for me...

This weekend I finally had a chance to play the Battlestar Galactica boardgame again. Our game last time was a bit chaotic and overly long as we were all just learning the rules. This time, everyone at least remembered the basics and the two games we played, each about three hours long, were exciting and tense affairs the whole way through.

First game, I played as Commander William Adama, Admiral of the fleet. As Admiral, you get to decide on the fleet's destination each jump, plus get to make command decisions for many of the crises. In the end, with Cylon players on either side of me, and our population about to run out, I was able to make the final jump to Cobol and get a victory for the humans.

Second game, I played as Apollo, the Admiral's son. He's the Galactica's CAG (Commander of the Air Group), and so for the first time I was really involved in the space combat. It was a fun change of pace from the "big picture" decision making that I'd experienced with the President and the Admiral. This time both the President and the Admiral were Cylons. With these two to play after me, our morale about to run out and me out on a Viper in space, I had to use the Executive Orders card to get someone else to make that final jump. Again a victory for the humans!

So three games now, three victories for the humans and me a human each time. Is the game too easy for the humans? It certainly didn't feel like it. Every time we've been about to run out of one of our resources and we felt that if the Cylons' play had been slightly different or with a bit more luck, they'd have won.

What has helped the humans is that every time one of the resources has ended up "in the red" before halfway through the game. This ensures that there is one fewer player on the Cylon side. It's clearly meant to be a balancing mechanism to ensure one side doesn't run away with victory. However, it could lead to some non-intuitive gameplay where the humans want to let one of the resources drop in the early stages. Well there should be plenty more games for us to see if that's a real problem or just us newbies fumbling around for strategies.

A proper review will come as soon as I get a chance to experience the other side of the game. Since it's determined by randomly drawn cards each game, I don't have any control over whether I play as a Cylon or not. For now, I am not a Cylon.

Weekend Gaming

With no rugby to distract me (except for a minor skirmish between South Africa and Ireland), this weekend was full of gaming...

One Weekend's Gaming

First up was Civ 5. During the week I'd been hopelessly trounced playing on Emperor level, so I set out to get some revenge against King level. My random leader was Alexander who excels at early warfare and city state alliances. I never got the early warfare going and I've been keen to win a peaceful game at this level, so I targeted a cultural victory with only 3 cities. Getting the culture required (5 completed social policy trees = 30 social policies) is actually easier with fewer cities - it's just surviving with the resulting financial, scientific and military deficit that's the problem.

Fortunately one of my neighbours was Gandhi who was just as peace-loving as me, but Elizabeth's growing aggressiveness became a problem as she gobbled up all the other civs and city states on the continent. Despite all the deals I could make to appease her, eventually she came for me. I desperately held her off with my inferior military while I picked up the last social policy I needed and started building the Utopia Project. A few well-trained mech infantry and artillery couldn't hold off Elizabeth's swarm of tanks, cavalry and infantry forever and I eventually lost my western-most city, Sparta. With the enemy beating at my gates, I finally finished the Utopia Project in Athens to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Civ 5 - A Desperate Defence

Next I finished the first act of Titan Quest with my battlemage, defeating the Greek Telkine. Despite friends trying to convince me otherwise, I just don't find the gameplay interesting enough to continue on to Act 2. Maybe if those friends were to join me for multiplayer, I'd play on - I can forgive a game for a lot of faults if it provides a fun multiplayer experience.

The action RPG nature of Titan Quest made me realize that what I really wanted was to play a proper tactical, story-based RPG like Dragon Age: Origins. Having finished it twice now, I decided to get the expansion, Awakening, and continue playing with my somewhat evil dwarven rogue. I haven't got very far, having just acquired the first two party members, but I'm already appreciating the less actiony combat compared to Titan Quest.

Before playing any further, I discovered a couple of free games on GOG.com (Good Old Games) including classic adventure game, Beneath a Steel Sky. I've never played it before, but heard good things about it and the blurb on GOG makes it sound similar to the excellent RPG setting of Paranoia.

Of course it's a point-and-click adventure game which are enjoyable while you're successfully solving the puzzles, discovering new locations and characters, but get frustrating as hell when you're stuck. When I've got three other games clamouring for my attention, I'm not going to sit and stare at the screen blankly while trying to guess the author's bizarre way in which putty is to be used. Fortunately while looking for a walkthrough, I discovered a website, Universal Hint System, which provides carefully formulated and staged hints on how to progress for all sorts of games (including Beneath a Steel Sky). I've used the hints 3 times now and it's made playing the game really enjoyable. The story's a bit strange and the humour is hit or miss, but overall it's good enough that I'll finish it.

Beneath a Steel Sky - State of the Art in '94

All this PC gaming was interrupted by a visit from a friend who's been exiled to Cape Town (hopefully temporarily). With her she brought the acclaimed Battlestar Galactica boardgame which occupied much of our Saturday. Despite still learning the rules and it taking an age to finish, we all really enjoyed it. The game is somewhat co-operative in that the players are humans trying to work together to jump the Galactica to Cobol - but the key element that makes the game work is that one (or more depending on numbers) of the players is secretly a human-looking Cylon, a skinjob, working to sabotage their efforts.

I played as Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies who was usurped in a military coup by Saul Tigh. Holding both the Admiral and President titles, I was convinced he was the Cylon, only for Lee "Apollo" Adama to surprise us by revealing his true Cylon nature. The timing of the reveal was bad as we were critically low on all resources and we were lucky to survive the super crisis that followed. We made it to Cobol with all our resources down to just 1 or 2 units left.

I'm looking forward to playing a few more games so that I can give Battlestar Galactica a proper review. In particular, I want to experience playing as a Cylon as I'm sure the game plays very differently. Overall Battlestar Galactica was a great peak in an enjoyable weekend of gaming.