Thank you! Thank you! I read BT's email about how morale can take a dump at crossroads, and thought that the best to look to. Lots of chances. Lots of luck. I tried to spike a few other checks, but the humans kept over playing the checks, nobody noticed my -1 or -2 points played.

I do laugh at the IC thing. At one point BT was asking for interrupts, and pointing out that I had it, and I was like "why would I do that? I want to spike the damn thing! Conditional order, if it helps the humans, pass!". And we only had 2 or 3 IC's, I want to say. As a hidden Cylon, they really do keep the spikes away. Well worth the card. Of course, then was the challenge of looking at who had cards, and what draws they had, to try and avoid playing the IC in a check for fear of "hey, who had the IC and didn't play it as an interrupt".

Yep, my big worry with saving an IC or SP or whatever is needing to wait to actually play it in a check without suspicion. Usually I have to wait a full round so I could have conceivably drawn it on my next turn.

This was the first game with the Ionian Nebula. No one got eliminated, which is what usually happens. Eliminations are uncommon (though not freakishly uncommon). However, avoiding those eliminations pushes people in particular directions. They turn up in locations they would otherwise have passed over, which reduces the efficiency of the crew.

The NPCs themselves can be good or bad, but since most people visiting NPCs want to ditch bad trauma, NPCs wind up being Antagonistic more often than Benevolent. (Incidentally, another tip for the sharp-eyed that Baltar wasn't what he appeared to be is that the NPCs he placed turned out to be Benevolent. He was perfectly happy to hold onto his Antagonistic trauma.)

In my experience, the main thing the Ionian Nebula adds to the game is more chaos. The NPCs and Crossroads cards make it harder to keep everything under control. In theory, that can benefit either side; but in practice, it's the Cylons that typically do better out of the greater unpredictability. On boardgamegeek, it makes a huge difference whether the Ionian Nebula is included. The Cylons have a 35% success rate in Exodus without the Nebula (over 17 games), but their win rate with the Nebula is a hefty 72%.

What did the players think of the Ionian Nebula?

It added two big twists. I was apprehensive at first. But as I slowly grew to understand it, I liked it. I'd like another crack at it, to see if I learned it all.

I'm kinda surprised that nobody posted anything about the Xbox One. Granted, it is rather underwhelming at the moment. Lot's of "might do this" type of thing. And rather ugly.

:: cross post with tech ::

I'm still in love with the PS3. Or Skyrim at least. (spoilers)

Soon after I first met Paarthurnax I headed back to Esbern and Delphine to tell them all about him but "OMGWTF Dragon!" was not one of my dialogue options.

So I forgot all about it until I headed to the peace council and they're all "you hid this from us; you have to kill Paarthurnax or we'll never help you again!" and of course "guys let's discuss this" is not a dialogue option.

I am so torn! I always wanted a dragon as a best friend (and also I own him) but I don't want to fuck up what could be a pivotal plot point. So I'm just going to do side quests for a while while I think about it.

I have zero interest in the Xbox One at the moment. Too many downsides (internet connection required, install of games required and those games becoming tied to a specific account, no backwards compatibility, even for XBLA games, no clear answer on how used games are going to work) and not enough positives for me right now.

I agree. I think it's a bad step. I want the BluRay, but not that bad. I'd also like it to be quieter (fan noise). But, if none of my old games are going to work, and I can't buy used games, I might as well buy a PlayStation, if I want the BlueRay that bad.

I have both a PS3 and a 360 and the former rarely gets used as more than a blu-ray player.

My only real issues with the 360 are hardware-related (heat, noise, reliability-I've had two of them die, though one was covered by a replacement plan, and I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I wasn't exactly running them into the ground.) I have lot more games for it (including a bunch of XBLA games), I prefer the interface, I vastly prefer the online experience (even if I don't use it much) and I love being able to use it as media extender for my HTPC.

And it sounds like MS is planning on improving on all that (and I certainly hope they'll take better care with the hardware this time around.) They're just doing a lot of other stuff that I'm not happy about.

I finally finished Arkham City about a week ago and I'm trying to finish up the side missions now. I don't see myself bothering with all the Riddler trophies though, the sheer number is just ridiculous. (And the game actually lampshades it by having random thugs comment on the green question marks all over the city.)

Last night though, I overheard a thug asking "Wait, did they ever actually explain what was up with The Island?" which made me laugh a bit even though I stopped watching Lost after season 2.