I don't usually congratulate the hosts for the game, but choxorn certainly deserves such an acknowledgement of excellence for this gem.
I had my concerns about the game's balance (it seemed like every townie and his mother could avoid nightkills, or had a protection ability), but seeing it now, I think it was pretty balanced. The mafia had bad luck with the Day One lynch and the RNG (the Trade Federation were all lynched by a grand total sum of ONE vote over the second-place lynch candidate
three ties, and one lynch was by only one vote), but Mergle's excellent play still nearly won them the game, counter-balancing the bad luck. The cult had bad luck (I targeted mechaerik early, mechaerik had atrocious luck with his conversions), but the circumstances in which I was converted provided me with the best alibi out of everyone in the game. The town played neither particularly well, nor particularly poorly; this was not necessarily its fault, considering the town network was led by the mafia and cult for a large part of the game, which in spite of its effectiveness of eliminating mafia and cult for the town still merits mentioning. It's hard to underpower a town, considering that they can always eliminate all opposition through the lynch, even when it's a vanilla town against powerful enemies (see: Zack Mafia IV). The game ended in a nailbiter, regardless, and could very well have swung in favor of any one team, although the town was admittedly the least likely team to win at that point.
~~~~~~~
I would like to give a
to two people:
First,
Mergle played a terrific game.
I didn't seriously suspect him of anything nefarious until the last day, when I pushed for his lynch. At this point, it was obvious, at least to me, that Mergle was the last mafia, due to the following:
- The Dreadnaught killing two nights in a row right after I gave Mergle the orb, when it previously had waited five nights in between kills. (This turned out to be faulty reasoning, but Mergle nonetheless should have realized I would draw this connection. If he killed me instead of Autolycus, I'm certain he would have won the game.)
- The mafia killed Autolycus, who no one except myself, Mergle, and Buddhafish had any reason to believe was anything but a lurker. Thus, the mafia had to be someone who knew Autolycus was the doctor, and I knew I wasn't mafia, and Buddhafish certainly wasn't. Thus, it had to be Mergle.
- The nights the Dreadnaught attacked, Mergle's "scan" results were awfully convenient, as I pointed out in the thread already.
- I was still alive. Mergle probably left me alive because he assumed I trusted him and wouldn't consider turning on him (which was a true assumption, until the last day; this same reasoning was why I didn't kill Mergle at night).
- None of the other living players made any sense as Trade Federation at all.
Keep in mind that no one plays a perfect game (including myself, as I'll elaborate on later); these errors are fairly minor, and some of them Mergle can't be faulted for entirely, or perhaps at all. Furthermore, they would have been inconsequential errors if Mergle had simply killed me. I bet you're going to be killing yourself for that one for awhile.
In short, after a certain point it probably became clear to choxorn that either you or I was going to win the game, barring something bizarre (killing each other at night, Gone 3 the Celt suddenly going rogue, etc.), and you sure gave me a run for my money. You deserved to win the game... I just deserved it even more.*
*If it's not obvious, this is partly in jest. Mergle was dealt a tougher hand of cards than I was. I'm not the one to objectively determine whether he did a better job of playing his cards than I did.
Second,
Ravus_Sol should write an instruction manual on how to be a perfect teammate, because he was the perfect teammate. He did a very good job of looking townie in the thread, demonstrated an impressive level of skill in planning behind the scenes and a remarkable skill for pinning down players' roles and abilities (seriously, he already knew Mergle was the scanner and almost knew as much as I did when I was converted, and I was the leader of the town network and he was just basing it all on speculation from the thread), as well as a willingness to accept a bussing for the good of the team, which admittedly came much faster than either of us were expecting.
~~~~
Some commentary on my actions:
- I "forgot" to use the Peace Moon one day. This was intentional, as it allowed me to delay its use one day so I could use the Peace Moon on Ravus_Sol. This was important, as it showed concrete proof of me straight-up killing a cult member by myself, in a way that the lynch could never quite show. If Mergle had actually scanned Ravus, and gotten a "Cult" result or something similar, I likely would not have been able to do this, as Mergle and BL (who was working with us at this point) would have wanted to lynch Ravus.
- I should not have ordered Autolycus to protect Mergle Night 10, and doing so nearly lost me the game. I originally meant to BCC an order to Mergle for Autolycus to protect Mergle, then immediately after send another PM (not blind copied to Mergle) saying to protect myself instead. I even toyed with the idea of then killing Mergle (who I still thought was town at this point), but decided against it, counting on Mergle staying loyal to me (a correct call). Unfortunately, I forgot to send the additional PM to Autolycus (woops!). This was a pretty significant blunder, as Mergle could have killed me and won the game right there (and sending the additional PM to Autolycus would have prevented my death, even though it would have raised Mergle's eyebrows). Fortunately, Mergle didn't decide to kill me.
- I honestly didn't remember discussing mechaerik in private with Jarrema and Mergle at all, other than maybe saying "he's suspicious" or something similar. I remembered acting on my own suspicions when I attacked mechaerik, and I thought Mergle was trying to legitimize himself by discussing a tracker scan on mechaerik in public (which, when I checked, apparently DID happen). Perhaps my attack of mechaerik was influenced by the tracking scan, and I just don't remember it, but I was intent on attacking him regardless. In retrospect, I think things might have been a lot easier had I not attacked mechaerik, but they could have been a lot harder; it's impossible to tell.
- Interestingly enough, I believe I would have played the game in almost exactly the same way had I never been converted. This is why my behavior appeared consistent after the conversion (as noted by CivCube in the dead QT).
- I lie as little as possible in mafia games (excluding things like "I am town" when I'm really mafia, or claiming I'm the scanner when I'm really relaying someone else's scan results), which means I play in a very different style than someone like Askthepizzaguy, who lies all the time regardless of alignment. I don't like risking being caught in a web of my own lies, so I tell the truth when I can, or when that isn't feasible, stretch the truth or tell the truth in a misleading manner, which I believe is more effective (CivCube noted something similar in the dead QT). If you look at my posts in the thread, and my PMs in private, I didn't lie very much (and neither did Mergle, other than the nights when he was killing people; and even then, they were still true facts, but not as a result of his scan), if at all. Other than saying "I'm not cult," I pretty much tell the truth, including my defense for why I wasn't cult, referencing private conversations, and so forth.
- For whatever reason, this game felt very similar to Pirate Ship Mafia II for me.
~~~~~~~
If Zack is still alive at the end of the game, that's usually either extremely good or bad news for town. Nothing in betweeeeeeen.
The same applies to you, except multiplied by 1000.
Did no one else notice how Zack was happy to kill off people who'd been as good as confirmed innocent early in the game, but kept insisting he was innocent based on a night 2 scan?
This reasoning extremely flawed.
1. As I pointed out many, many times already -- Mergle and Jarrema came up with the idea to kill azzaman, I agreed with it and relayed the order.
2. There was legitimate reason to suspect you were cult. If I were not cult, I would have looked to you as the most likely cultist. Confirmed town early, not on anyone's radar -- perfect conversion target. I'm puzzled why mechaerik converted traius/Ravus rather than you, frankly.
3. As I pointed out many, many times already -- the scan cleared me from being mafia or any third-party. And despite the fact that Mergle turned out to be mafia, it was a legitimate scan. I was cleared of being cult because a) I tried to kill mechaerik, the cult leader, with my limited use vigilante ability, b) I ordered mechaerik killed and roleblocked Nights 5 and 6, meaning he could not have recruited me (as has already been pointed out, johnhughthom, for whatever reason, never actually sent in the order to block mechaerik -- this is why he was quickly killed the next night by the cult, so he couldn't spill any beans; however, there was no way of anyone outside of the cult knowing this, nor was there any reason to suspect it), c) I DID kill a cultist with my limited use vigilante ability, and d) Autolycus protected me Nights 4 and 5, which meant I could not have possibly been recruited on those nights. In conclusion, all of those meant that: 1) I was not the cult leader, 2) As of Night 2, I was town, 3) I could not have been converted on Nights 4 or 5 (and no one could have been converted on Nights 5 and 6, including me, assuming JHT blocked mechaerik), and 4) I could not have been recruited after Night 6 (and neither could anyone else), because the cult leader was dead. That leaves the only possible night for conversion as Night 3, and if you wanted to go with that, you also had to believe that I attacked my cult leader for no apparent reason Day 5, and actually straight-up killed a fellow cult member Day 10.
4. People have an inherent bias when they are the target. It's why OMGUS is even a thing -- whether consciously or subconsciously, (all other things equal) you are always going to think someone voting for you is more likely to be mafia than someone voting for some other guy. To illustrate this, let's use an analogy. Let's say a man is being tried for murdering a four-year-old girl. Who do you think is more likely to think the murderer worthy of the death penalty -- the girl's father, or some random stranger? It's the same concept, and it's why no one takes OMGUS votes/accusations seriously.
'Hey, I'm Palpatine, there's a Cult faction called "The Empire", please don't suspect me!'. -Zack.
"Hey, I'm Jar-Jar Binks, I'm a guilt/innocence scanner, please everyone give me as much attention as possible!" - Takhisis
This is why you should listen to BL way more often. Damn sheeps. Well played Zack, you had them all fooled. Mostly.
The problem was that there was no logical reason to believe that I was cult, as I pointed about in point 3 @ azzaman. Unless someone drew a link to johnhughthom's subsequent murder and said, "Perhaps john never actually roleblocked mechaerik, and that was why he was silenced so quickly," (and even that would seem like grasping at straws) there wasn't any reason to believe I was cult except "he is Palpatine and the cult leader kept talking about how he wanted to be with Palpatine," which is silly, because cult leaders don't tell everyone who their minions are in public. Besides, there were much more logical places to start looking for cult - azzaman, Ravus_Sol, Buddhafish, etc.
And in the end, you didn't vote for me or even try to push my lynch in the later stages of the game, and even worked with me.
tl;dr Just because you were
right, doesn't mean your reasoning was sound.
In fact, that's why I was always confident that I was going to win - there was simply no logical reasoning that led to the conclusion that I was anything but town, due to dumb luck on my part (being scanned as town, and john forgetting to block mechaerik but everyone assuming he did).
EDIT: I would also like to add that when you (and everyone else) were going most vehemently against me, I was still town. I was still town the day Xenoneb was lynched.
I told ya Palpatine had to die. Nobody ever listens.
Did you ever say why? People have never been eager to start a bandwagon against the leader of a town network based on a case presented in one line, unless it contains the word "scan".
