KotOR Mafia - game thread

[Buddhafish]

The town knew Atpg was scum before he roleclaimed. The network that is.

 

[BSmith1068]

Overall I think this was a good game.

I think the statements about over-reliance on the dark/light scan are not truly indicative of the town success. As you can see from our QT, and in the hundreds of PMs that happened before the QT was established, we did an awful lot of networking and extrapolation to narrow the list of suspected targets down.

Sure we did rely on the scan a lot in the beginning, but as we learned later that scan was not fully accurate. What it did do was allow us to target people for public attention and private communication, which ultimately led to more info than the scan initially provided.

And let’s not forget about the role-blocking. More than half of my blocks were on Sith scum, and resulted in several prevented kills. In the late game the lack of Triumvirate kills was certainly throwing off the role-block results somewhat, but ultimately the other networking and deduction work led to us being fairly certain that we had our man.

For me, the turning point in the game was me stopping the Earthling lynch. It was a gamble, but it paid off quite well, as it allowed the formation of the network between me, Mergle and Earthling, which was the foundation for the strong network that lasted the rest of the game.

We had our challenges too. Our tracker was rather inactive, being replaced once and then WoG’d later in the game – when we really needed another resource to hunt down the remaining Sith.

I don’t think you can put the town victory down to luck and/or an over-reliance on the dark/light scan.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Grabbed a few minutes between nappy changes to skim over the end- and post-game, and to write out some of my thoughts...

I thought it was a decent game by CFC standards, and certainly nowhere near as poor as some seem to be suggesting. The hosting was mostly on the mark; although Takhisis didn't always make things quite as clear as I would have liked, I appreciate that this was a tough job, GMing a complex game not of his own design. Overall, I'm sad I couldn't see it through to the end, and that I couldn't hold on for the win (more on which below), but I very much enjoyed the experience.

What I felt came closest to spoiling the game, however, was the continual moaning from certain quarters, which seemed to have a depressing effect on the overall mood. Complaining about town networks and detectives in a game of this type is just plain silly - anyone who's been around knows exactly how they work, and it was beyond obvious that this was likely to be that kind of game. Had the whining been purely tactical in nature, then it might have been forgivable (though not at all sensible), but that's not the impression I've been left with.

From where I'm sitting, the fact that the later stages weren't nearly as interesting as they might have been was largely down to one of the more inept mafia performances I've seen. Aside from Capo-style games (which barely qualify as mafia imo), I don't ever recall so many villains lining up to show off their scumminess in public as occurred with the pizzaguy lynches, but even by that point I thought that the behaviour of most of the mafia had been pretty damned suspect. Of course, the town's key players deserve much credit both for getting organised in the first place, and for ruthlessly exploiting the mafia's errors throughout.

As for my own rather dramatic change of sides, contrary to my claims at the time it was motivated entirely by strategic concerns, with the nonsense about the dangers of pizza pulling another Capo being nothing more than a ruse to wind him up, to move myself squarely into the innocent camp (making him angry at me worked perfectly on that count), and to mess with the relationship between his remaining teammates and their neutral allies. As I said at the time, I would have felt bad being so brutally manipulative with anybody else, but I know from experience that pizza has no scruples whatsoever about doing this kind of thing himself. The key moment for me was a recognition that the scum were on the verge of collapse, and that by jumping over to the town's side in a very public manner I could make a show of precipitating that collapse myself. I laid the groundwork late in the day of Dumanios' lynch with a couple of hint-heavy PMs to key innocents (Mergle's public deconstruction of pizza's roleclaim was taken almost word-for-word from one such PM), and then made sure to open up full throttle as soon as the next morning came.

In the aftermath of pizza's lynch, taking advantage of my new innocent-friendly credentials, I got Earthling to remove the bounty against me and divert the credits into a bounty against one of my rivals (making it a real pity that JoanK didn't check the bounty board before his fateful attack), and I was able to set up the 20-credit-lightsabre-auction scam with Mergle to complete my personal goal. I had hoped to get a bit more out of the relationships I had begun to develop with key townies, but sadly I never got around to exploiting them as well as I might.

In the end, though, what beat me was BL stealing my money. I should have realised straight away that he was going to keep bleeding me, but it was only after I'd already lost too many credits that I worked out a way of denying him - by putting all of my credits into bounties during the daytime phase. I'm not sure whether working this out earlier would have given me the victory, but between that failure and my inability to come up with some other way of neutralising him, in the end I have to say that he was more deserving of the win.

Right, now I must get back to the babycare. It won't be soon, but hopefully I'll be back for another game some time in the future.

 

[JohannaK]

The bounty was changed after I had sent the order. Because I checked.

 

[Winston Hughes]

The bounty was changed after I had sent the order. Because I checked.

Oh, that's strange. I thought it had been changed before the end of the previous phase. In any case, I do feel sorry for all you bounty hunters - tough roles, given how weapons worked in the game.

 

[topsecret]

Oh, that's strange. I thought it had been changed before the end of the previous phase. In any case, I do feel sorry for all you bounty hunters - tough roles, given how weapons worked in the game.

I couldn't kill anyone.

 

[Buddhafish]

You killed ML right? Well, with G3tC, but you guys split the kill? How did that work?

 

[JohannaK]

I killed someone who had a quite large bounty on his head. Apparently I targeted him the same night another BH did, so we worked together to kill him and the bounty was split.

 

[topsecret]

I killed someone who had a quite large bounty on his head. Apparently I targeted him the same night another BH did, so we worked together to kill him and the bounty was split.

I split ML with 4 credits on his head, so I got 2. Buying a lightsaber was too expensive.

 

[JohannaK]

No, I killed NedimNapoleon, with 7 credits. Dun remember if I got 3 or 4.

 

[topsecret]

No, I killed NedimNapoleon, with 7 credits. Dun remember if I got 3 or 4.

Then somebody else did it.

 

[Zack]

Nice game Takhisis and Arakhor! It was fun to play. Good job by Zack/choxorn/BSmith on the townie end for wiping out most of the Sith. Thanks for letting me join late!

Hey, I tried to initiate you, but you were being so damn paranoid!

I'm kind of amused, looking through the Revanchist QT, at how often my name comes up in something like "Zack needs to die ASAP". I did barely anything this game except puff my chest out and try and trick the mafia into thinking I was more important than I really was, which apparently worked.

Also, town network kicked ass and took names.

 

[Takhisis]

Next themed game, can people make less assumptions about characters if they haven't played the game or watched the film/series? When some guys were talking about G0-T0 seeming suspicious for claiming to be a Republic supporter I was getting kind of antsy. Themes are hints and ignoring hints is a rather terrible strategy.

Well, G0-T0 was meant to be a monkey wrench for everyone else and his VC wasn't Republic or even Town, but just to win the wealth race. He could win with anyone but counted towards the town's victory instead of a Neutral.

Ugh, this game was painfully awful, and not because of the setup or the hosting.

Well done, Takhisis. Could have been wonderful. I mean that much sincerely; I don't fault you.

Thanks for the kind words, pizza and everyone else. We did out best.

Tak, could me and Pizza's plan actually have worked?

What plan?

I kept trying to kill people, but they were almost always my equal or stronger

Oh, that's strange. I thought it had been changed before the end of the previous phase. In any case, I do feel sorry for all you bounty hunters - tough roles, given how weapons worked in the game.

I couldn't kill anyone.

The point was that Bounty hunters were meant to gang up on people, and/or act defensively as well.

I'm kind of amused, looking through the Revanchist QT, at how often my name comes up in something like "Zack needs to die ASAP". I did barely anything this game except puff my chest out and try and trick the mafia into thinking I was more important than I really was, which apparently worked.

Hee hee, Arakhor and I had a good laugh imagining what would happen if you'd been able to join the Revanchists.

 

[Double A]

What plan?

Oh, that figures. Could I have been trained by Pizza or another Sith to ultimately make the game less boring?

 

[Takhisis]

Nooooo. You had to become a Jedi, dcmort93 (Meetra Surik) had to induct you.

 

[Double A]

Gah, I freaking knew, but no one would listen to me.

 

[Zack]

Hee hee, Arakhor and I had a good laugh imagining what would happen if you'd been able to join the Revanchists.

Would have helped them a lot. By that point, I was one of the core members of the town network, had a masonic partner proven innocent, an undisputed claim that I had been scanned light-side (which I posted in the thread but was false IIRC, I forgot that it was choxorn, my masonic partner, who had actually been scanned), and basically no one suspected me of being anything but town. A lot of that was just happenstance, not any skillful maneuver on my part, but whatever.

 

[Backwards Logic]

Havent read all of the role PMs yet, but I really enjoyed the game. I thought I had the win in the bag. Darn you BL!!!

You are a dangerous lurker. Almost more dangerous than when your active. Almost. I really can't tell yet. I'm just really glad we killed you N1 in TF2. A good decision for our team.


EDIT: You slimy, no-good, thief!!!! I made my money the old-fashioned way!!! Oh well. I never actually did place a bounty. People just paid me to place bounties. I kept the money for myself. Thanks Bsmith

Thanks? I might sig something in there!

Next themed game, can people make less assumptions about characters if they haven't played the game or watched the film/series? When some guys were talking about G0-T0 seeming suspicious for claiming to be a Republic supporter I was getting kind of antsy. Themes are hints and ignoring hints is a rather terrible strategy.

I almost made a post to show that I was pro-republic but decided it wasn't necessary. As I understand it, G0-T0 had two main rules: protect the republic but do it within the laws of the republic. When the second rule conflicted with the first rule, he 'broke' and did whatever for the republic. So yea, I was most definitely pro-republic.

In the end, though, what beat me was BL stealing my money. I should have realised straight away that he was going to keep bleeding me, but it was only after I'd already lost too many credits that I worked out a way of denying him - by putting all of my credits into bounties during the daytime phase. I'm not sure whether working this out earlier would have given me the victory, but between that failure and my inability to come up with some other way of neutralising him, in the end I have to say that he was more deserving of the win.

I have to ask, during the actual stealing portion did you suspect it was me, or did you only figure it out once the game ended? I was fairly protective of the details of my scan ability (BSmith will attest to this), as anyone probing for more info could begin to surmise I was the one stealing and thus, become a legitimate threat for anyone neutral. You tactic to bury the money in the noticeboard was quite brilliant, though I wasn't entirely certain if that meant you no longer 'owned' the money. I assumed that it meant that you didn't, and since I had access to the board whenever you pulled the money back I'd just rescan and re-steal from you. By that point I think I was aware that Buddhafish also had a good chunk of change laying around but given the environment I was in at the time didn't want to risk him finding out about me doing the stealing, so I figured I'd only steal from him if I absolutely had to. Once we had the mass WoG'ing of a few players, I kind of knew I had an insurmountable lead by that point and used that as an opening to stop stealing money. If no one was losing money, no one would be looking for the thief, so it seemed like a good play at the time to stop stealing entirely.

Hey, I tried to initiate you, but you were being so damn paranoid!

Again, partially part of the plan all game. Being initiated into the network meant spilling my ability details which meant people possibly figuring out the second portion of my ability (the thefts) and also becoming a network scan target and have them directing who I scan and whatnot. I wanted nothing to do with that, and figured so long as I voted in pro-town interests both sides would leave me alone. It almost worked until the end, but by then it didn't matter; the game was in hand for the townies and I had the game won via the Winston milking from earlier. Me missing a few key vote days (damn work) undoubtedly made things more difficult on my end, eventually resulting in:

That's an impressive textwall from Backwards Logic.

Thanks? It's not often 'impressive' and 'textwall' are used in the same sentence . I figured I'd be under some pressure the next day, so I began crafting that giant thing the day prior. I almost ran out of time to finish it. At the time I really hadn't much time prior to actually figure out who was what, so circumstances forcing me to make that spreadsheet and subsequent post was quite enlightening on my end.

 

[Zack]

Again, partially part of the plan all game. Being initiated into the network meant spilling my ability details which meant people possibly figuring out the second portion of my ability (the thefts) and also becoming a network scan target and have them directing who I scan and whatnot. I wanted nothing to do with that, and figured so long as I voted in pro-town interests both sides would leave me alone. It almost worked until the end, but by then it didn't matter; the game was in hand for the townies and I had the game won via the Winston milking from earlier. Me missing a few key vote days (damn work) undoubtedly made things more difficult on my end, eventually resulting in:

I was almost certain you were a neutral after that exchange. Town and mafia alike jump at the chance to join a town network.

 

[Buddhafish]

You played a good game BL. I just can't believe that I underestimated you. I didn't think you were even in the race for money. I thought that it was Winston vs. me, and Winston has just gotten his money stolen. Stupid me, I didn't bother to think that the thief would have more money than me. Oh well.

Very well hosted game Takhisis. It really helped the gameplay IMO. And thanks to Arakhor for giving me a one-time kill escape ability.