Bleached Lizard
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Posts posted by Bleached Lizard
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ztilleto said:
Just a little reiteration on the mechanics: They are worth 6 VP when there are three links from the conspiracy into the Haas or Jenteki link on the board... So yeah they were very powerfull, but so are favors when linked up correctly.
Ummm... No. There is no Haas/Jinteki link on the board. The bonus to those tokens comes from a single conspiracy tile (one for each org) that can be placed so that it either connects to the conspiracy or not. There is only one link that leads into each and so multiple links cannot be formed.
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Nope. A player can sacrifice as much as he wants during his turn.
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ztilleto said:
Last game I played the Location tokens were worth 6 points rather than the 3 points normal due to conspiracy,
Just a small, quick correction: that conspiracy piece only changes the value of the Haas/Jinteki tokens from 3 to 4 VPs. 3 to 6 VPs would be silly powerful.
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Hey guys,
I've just uploaded a file to the files section on BGG that contains overlays for each detective's plot, replacing the tiny conditional text with large icons. Any game group who continually finds themselves asking "what do I need to do to give you bad baggage again?", these are for you!
Simply cut out each overlay and place it in a fully transparent card sleeve along with the original plot card. You can then easily pull the card out to read the flavour text and conditions, but replace it and use the overlays for an easy, quick, visible reminder during gameplay.
You can download the file here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/40116
Enjoy!
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I'm afraid I don't know any details, as I wasn't a playtester. The only info I have is one thread that Kevin Wilson replied to on BGG where he stated that the basic rule for how twilight worked (i.e, how the twilight marker moved) in an earlier version of the game was how it appears in my variant, and that it was removed because playtesters felt that it encouraged too much of a feeling of persecution.
You can even observe rules in the current rulebook that are obviously holdovers from the earlier system. I'd take an educated guess that the following rules were required as part of the old system, but with the new system are just part of the "rules bloat" that many people feel about this game:
* The "shift" bonus on the back of conspiracy tiles.
* Allowing characters to light or dark shift as part of fights.
* Allowing cards to be discarded to pay twilight costs.
* Twilight discounts for matching plots.
* Any game text that allows you to increase or decrease the cost of a card.
With the current rule system, all of these rules are unneccessary, as having your twilight marker at any one point on the twilight track is equally beneficial as having it at any other point (the only differentiating factor is the number and type of cards you have in your hand). With the old/variant system, these rules would become much more important, as they are in place to prevent any player from "locking in" as completely light-shifted in order to prevent any dark cards being played on them.
(There are also a couple of Raymond's cards that highlight the old system once being in place - they allow you to manipulate your own/your opponent's twilight track, which with the old system is a big bonus but in the current system is next to useless).
The variant I came up with changes the rules back to something close to what I imagine they were originally like. The only two major changes I've made are to have detectives have their own dark cards drawn when entering seedy locations, and to have detectives light/dark shift when entering seedy/ritzy locations. This is to further prevent the "locking in" that I mentioned earlier.
The variant can be used completely independantly of the others. Enjoy!
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Penagain said:
Like the OP, I've been on the fence about this game... and the comments here seem to be keeping me there. Maybe the best thing to do would be to play it before I buy it (something I RARELY do). I'm sure someone around here has already been lured in by all of the pieces.
But gosh how I love a game with so many pieces.
So I guess my question is this: What other game out there is most like Android?
It seems you're already a fan of it: Arkham Horror.
The only other one I've heard of (but not played) that may be similar is Tales of the Arabian Nights. Apparently the game is pretty much entirely about creating a story, with a heavy "choose your own adventure" element.
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Oversight.
I'm still of the opinion that this game was rushed, and that a third plot of Raymond's was dropped just before release because they couldn't get it to work, or something. The remaining two plots were then stretched out to two weeks to "fill the gap" (as there's not really much reason why Ray's plots should last two weeks rather than the usual one).
There's the same problem with Caprice's "sisters". And the Chairman Hiro favours.
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Skie - check out the Android: The Director's Cut link in my signature below.
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I'm working on an alternate day/turns track that shortens the game by two days (the detectives get to have Saturday off as well). I'll upload it to BGG once it's done and notify here.
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Referee said:
Paul Grogan said:
Omnisiah said:
The only good memory card against ray is the one that should be played at the start of round 1 against him. Move him somewhere and he loses 3 time.
Like, on the moon? Somewhere where it will be hard for him to avoid a fight? hehehe...
Except that he starts off with a dropship pass, so he can immediately move back to the Earth again.
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Check out the link in my signature. There's an entire set of house rules for dark cards that can be used to mitigate their effects somewhat.
EDIT: (Although just remembered that BGG is down for the next eight hours or so, so you'll have to wait).
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4lterego said:
I am really excited about Android but am still not quite ready to plunk down $60 for it.
I know I want it, but I want to feel like it is going to be a good game to play for awhile with my group. After reading all the reviews out there I get the impression that it is very ambitious but doesn't quite reach everything it strives for.
I've read around here, but give me your take - -
Before I start giving my opinion I think I should just state for the record that I'm not a fan of this game in its pure, unaltered state. Anyway, here's my answers/opinions to your questions:
4lterego said:
Is it fun?
It's enjoyable, but what enjoyment there is can be spoiled by what my gaming group consider to be some pretty big gameplay problems:
* A lot of the cards are very heavy-handed in their effects. You can do a lot of work throughout the whole game to achieve something, only to have it all undone by the play of a single card in the last round, making you lose dozens of VPs. I don't care if people say that this is just because you're playing to your character's weaknesses, there are more subtle ways to implement variable character strengths/weaknesses that don't lead to such a negative play experience than the way it was implemented in this game.
* The way the murder works is very random. After a couple of plays you realise that the outcome is determined almost entirely by luck, which can make the whole idea of following up leads seem a bit pointless (which is a shame, because that's one of the main parts of this 3-hour minimum game).
* The way points are allocated is completely disproportionate to the amount of effort needed to put into it. You get 4 points just for completing 5-in-a-row on the conspiracy puzzle (which usually just requires following up a couple of leads in a row), but only get 3 points for getting a Jinteki/Haas token (which requires acquiring two favours of particular types, travelling to a certain location, spending 3 Time to enter that location (unless you earlier acquired a warrant to enter that location for 1 Time instead), then spending 2 Time, the favours and discarding two cards to get the 3VP token). Then at the end of the game players can acquire an insane amount of points - much more than you get from the three main focuses (foci?) of the game: murder, conspiracy and plots - just for saving up favours throughout the game (and being lucky enough to not have a "lose all your favours" card played on you). This again leads to the feeling of many of your actions not having much real meaning.
* The theme doesn't match up to the gameplay *at all*. You never really at any point really feel that you're actually doing the thing that your actions on the board are supposed to represent. The "theme" of the game is entirely contained in the flavour text written on the cards, which is quite extensive (and isn't integrated with the game effect text like it is in Arkham Horror). After a very short time, players (our players, at least) got bored of reading the flavour text out and just went for the gameplay effects, mostly because of the realisation that reading out everything would at least double the play time.
4lterego said:
How long does it take to play with 4-5 players (after the first couple games and everyone is knowledgeable with the rules)?
Our games with three players have taken about 3-4 hours. The amount of time would be directly proportional to the number of players, so you can figure it out from that. I don't see the time going below 2.5 hours for a 3-player game even with thorough knowledge of the rules.
4lterego said:
How is the replay factor?
I have to agree with one of the above posters; although a lot of people proclaim that this game will have high replayability due to the combinations of investigators, murders, plots, events, etc, none of these things really has that much of an effect on the game to make it feel like it is changed significantly. The games we played with the base rules felt pretty similar, even though we used entirely different investigators and different murders.
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Keggy said:
The main problem I see with everyone taking their turn at once it it makes it more difficult to play dark cards. I encourage my friends to try and plot out their turns as fast as possible, even thinking about what theyre gonna do during other peoples turns.
Also, I like the negative evidence counters because it helps keep other people from guessing who your guilty hunch is. Draw a -1 counter, put it on someone that's neither of your hunches; it'll throw the others off a little bit, plus theres a decent chance it's someone elses guilty hunch.
And as for altering the "getting a jump on the case," making it cost 0 time would make it a bit more tempting, but it gets enough action as is. I'd maybe make it a choice between 1 time or 1 trauma.
After playtesting the TIme variant, we found that it actually made it a *lot* easier to play dark cards. This was because each player was only (in general) performing *one* action that would act as a trigger for those cards, so not only was it a lot easier to track, it also encouraged players to declare their actions verbally (i.e, players were more likely to say "I'm just moving here and following up this lead", whereas in the old rules players were less likely to note everything they were doing, as in "I'm moving here, folling up this lead, then discarding a card, then drawing a light card, then...etc, etc, etc").
I incorporated the idea of positive-only evidence tokens into my variant for turning the murder into a true deduction. Check out the link in my signature.
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Check out the link in my sig. Using the variants for the conspiracy along with the one for Days/Turns/Time pretty much eliminates this problem with the conspiracy puzzle. It forces players to be a lot more careful about where and when they place puzzle pieces and makes them more concerned about the actual links and their bonuses rather than the conspiracy tokens and achieving 5-in-a-row.
I'm also thinking of modifying my board to change the bonuses granted by the conspiracy. In all the games we've played so far, a huge number of points have come from players who have racked up favours throughout the game, which seems "off" seeing as it is supposedly not a primary objective (and thematically, favours should be there to be "called in", not hoarded). I'll be changing Mayor Wells so that he grants only a +1VP bonus for each pair of Political and Street favours and changing James Levy for each pair of Society and Corp favours. I decided on these combinations as the other combinations are represented by Jinteki and Haas-Bioroid - Jinteki requires a pair of Corp/Political favours and Haas-Bioroid requires a pair of Street/Society favours.
I believe this would bring the relative desirability of those conspiracy bonuses and major locations in line with each other; you have the potential to gain many points from Mayor Wells and James Levy, but you actually have to make sure there are links to those bonuses. Jinteki and Haas-Bioroid are more reliable, but require a lot more resource expenditure.
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Hi all,
I have just posted a document to the files section on BGG containing a number of variants that are designed to address the disparity between theme and gameplay in Android. These include rules to:
* Turn the murder into a true deductive experience (with a "real" murderer).
* Eliminate the unthematic 5-in-a-row scoring on the conspiracy puzzle.
* Allow each investigator to experience their game "day" concurrently rather than consecutively (and reduce downtime).
* Adjust how dark cards are drawn and played to be more in theme with what is happening on the board.
* Give NPCs more involvement in the unfolding story and allow some characters to "crossover" into another detective's story.
* Plus many more...These variants have been tested and work well, though may obviously be subject to further tweaks after subsequent plays. You can find the link to the file here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/38890
Obviously if you have no problem with the melding of theme and gameplay in this game then these rules are not for you. But hopefully someone will find these ideas of some use to them.
Happy gaming!
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My e-mail and response from Corey:
Corey Konieczka to me, me
show details 6:01 PM (6 hours ago) Reply
No, he may not choose a character that is already in the Brig. I will add this question to the next FAQ.I hope this answers your question!
-Corey Konieczka
Fantasy Flight Games
Design and DevelopmentOn Jan 3, 2009, at 7:50 AM, <bleachedlizard@googlemail.com> <bleachedlizard@googlemail.com> wrote:
Message from:
Chris Davis
E-mail:
bleachedlizard@googlemail.com
Rule Question:
Hi Corey. If a Crisis card instructs the current player/Admiral/President to choose another character to be moved to the Brig, can he choose someone who is already in the Brig even if there are still valid candidates outside the Brig? -
There are some light cards that also get your investigator into a fight, so unless you don't mind a disparity between the light and dark cards, I'd say you should always read the full text out.
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Mike said:
Bleached Lizard said:
Mike said:
Bleached Lizard said:
Just to clarify an earlier answer - you may NOT choose a character who is already in the Brig to be thrown in the Brig.
Says who?
Corey. But apart from that, common sense. The rules say that you may choose a condition on a card that cannot be fulfilled. The rules do NOT say that you can choose to ignore fulfilling a condition if that condition is already satisfied elsewhere.
Sending someone to the Brig is not "a condition that cannot be fulfilled" if there is at least one valid character available outside the Brig.
What condition do I have to fulfill? It simply says "pass this skill check to send a character to the Brig" (or something). Nowhere does it say the character must be outside the Brig.
If you are citing Corey, I'd like to have a direct quote, please.
What says "pass this skill check to send a character to the Brig"? The OP wasn't referencing a specific card - he was just asking that if a Crisis card instructs you to send someone to the Brig, can you choose someone who is already there. The wording you describe would not be used anyway, as no Crisis card uses the phrasing "Pass this skill check to..." (this only appears on location skill checks). All Crisis cards simply have a difficulty with a Pass or Fail condition. In this case, the condition would be phrased something like "The current player chooses a character to move to the "Brig" location" (which, it must be noted, is distinctly different to "The current player MAY choose a character to move to the "Brig" location"). Unfortunately my copy of BSG is at a friend's house at the moment, so I can't check the exact wording on any cards.
Only if there were no valid characters outside the Brig could you ignore this condition. The card does not say "ensure that at least one character is in the "Brig" location - move a character there if necessary". It says "MOVE a character blah, blah, blah". If there is a character available outside the Brig, they must be moved there.
I'm afraid the ruling I'm looking for is buried in the depths of BGGs message boards. I will e-mail Corey and post his response here.
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Mike said:
Bleached Lizard said:
Just to clarify an earlier answer - you may NOT choose a character who is already in the Brig to be thrown in the Brig.
Says who?
Corey. But apart from that, common sense. The rules say that you may choose a condition on a card that cannot be fulfilled. The rules do NOT say that you can choose to ignore fulfilling a condition if that condition is already satisfied elsewhere.
Sending someone to the Brig is not "a condition that cannot be fulfilled" if there is at least one valid character available outside the Brig.
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AnthonyComstock said:
I think we did have some questionable shuffling in our first outing. That's probably behind our question.
Thanks again everyone! Funny to think that the infrequency of the ship attacks ALSO matches the series pacing.
I didn't quite understand the answer to my other question about the civilian ships. After a jump, are they just put where they were at setup? Is the logic that they would jump with you and you should know that. I read my instructions very literally, so I was wondering what put them back on the board, and I haven't seen anything.
Randy
They don't go back on the board. EVERYTHING is removed when the fleet jumps and nothing is replaced. Again, it is only the Cylon Attack cards that cause new civilian ships to be placed.
Note that Cylon Attack cards sometimes also place Vipers.
Go find a Cylon Attack card and have a look at it carefully. Then you should see how they work in relation to the game.
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Just to clarify an earlier answer - you may NOT choose a character who is already in the Brig to be thrown in the Brig.
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AnthonyComstock said:
Thanks!
To clarify then, after we jump and the basestar is removed from the board (because it is classified as a "ship"), the following would occur:
1. NO activate Raiders Icon on a crisis card would come into play because no raiders would exist.
2. NO Launch Raiders icon would come into play because the rules specifically state that "If there are no basestars in play, then nothing happens" (page 22).
I guess because we didn't have many Cylon Crisis cards come into play, it seemed that there was very little cylon ship action for some time.
Randy
Look through the Crisis deck - out of the 70 cards you'll find that 10 of them are Cylon Attack cards. Just make sure that the deck is thoroughly suffled and that the cards are not clumped together (as when you get the game new, all 10 Cylon Attack cards are next to each other in the deck).
Some jumps you won't get any Cylons attacking, other jumps you'll get 2 Cylon attack cards come up (which can be particularly brutal).
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esseray said:
Bleached Lizard said:
When a detective sacrifices evidence (due to his plot card, for instance), does he get to look at the evidence chit first before deciding to discard it or not?
i don't think so, he takes one but don't take a look at it
Why would he take one, then?
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When a detective sacrifices evidence (due to his plot card, for instance), does he get to look at the evidence chit first before deciding to discard it or not?
General events
in Android
Posted
Nhoj said:
Multiple links can be formed. In the same way as to all of the other links - which also have just one path in and out.
The secret is to trace links from each 'side' of the middle conspiracy tile to a final destination. Therefore the maximum no of links is four
Cheers!
Nhoj
You're right - I'm an idiot. Ignore me!