A Clash of Kings - A Divided Kingdom

[MagnaofIllusion]

Now that I have had a modicum of sleep here are my thoughts on the game –

I think the role balance was probably slightly in favor of Town, if anything. Once Benmage flipped Jailkeep I was shocked to read Miku’s crumb regarding Axel visiting Locke. I did not expect a Doctor in the set-up. Town was pretty stacked with usable PRs. And just from a randomness standpoint the fact that only one PR went to a low performer (CMAR as BP) didn’t help matters. There were very few mislynch targets with PRs so Nightkill selection was at a premium.

I’ve been wondering about Budja’s role since Day 2 and having now seen how it worked I would say that it is a great role. The turn of events was unfortunate that said player ended up suiciding.

Oh and I was the person who stabbed Mina. I wanted her dead or incapacitated way back on Day 2 (and with good reason it seems ).

Important elements that shaped the game –

1. SSBF’s cross-kills early in the game – Town was absolutely helped by having two scum killed Nights 1 and 2.
2. Percy’s Hand role – In hindsight I should have pushed onto another logical candidate. I think it painted Percy with a bigger target that resulted in Locke’s investigation.
3. The decision to NK xvart – I regret this most of any of the night moves we made. We knew xvart was on Locke. It would have been much better for Miku to claim he watched xvart to Locke and for us to push for a lynch on the basis of xvart being a scum role-blocker. Nightkilling either Mina or Cow would have been a much better choice, IMO.
4. CSL’s quickhammer on Axel – Prevented a Doc claim (which may or may not have been believed) and allowed us to kill Locke free and clear that night. Horrible for Town.
5. Miku’s NK – If you haven’t read the Greyjoy QT I was really counting on Miku being the best shot at an outright Greyjoy victory. This kill really devesated my moral for a bit and unfortunately stuck Mac and I in a bad PoE scenario.

Things I wanted to look at in retrospect –

Stuff I said in the QT that was either right on target or dead wrong

1. Post 9 – I called Xvart, Maclock and Dripperth as potentially dangerous players in a mutli-scum environment. Hey, two out of three isn’t bad.
2. Post 31 – “Just talking outside the box - should perhaps I make the kill and have Raivann claim to be RBed? If we go that route we can make a kill we fully support. It's of course risky but might serve us better long term. Thoughts?” - I wish I had pushed for this harder. We would have likely sent a kill on xvart, Mac or Mina (all opposing Scum or Town PRs) had we not been beholden to the Kingsguard.
3. Post 98 – “Our kill is more complicated. I don't think we can really afford to Lannister hunt at all. A kill on a strong Town player is required. My top thoughts for the target are - Benmage, Cow, Thor.” – Three for three on calling non-Lannisters (although Cow was a gimmie ).
4. Post 110 – “4. Most likely Lannisters (IMO) - Mina, Mac, diddin.”

Again – it was a great game IMO, bumps and all

This should also serve as my official pre-in for the sequal!!! /in

[Percy]

The better I get at Mafia the more I realize how little I know.

QFT, right there.

And the WIFOM paralysis is familiar to me as well. Don't worry, I think of mafia like a 70/30 thing - there is rarely good reason to be more than 70% sure someone is scum, and sometimes your luck is bad, but good players do better more often.

I can understand why knowing flavour should be an advantage in some games, but usually there is more than one "flavour expert" in each game, and they keep each other in check. It's more an issue for fakeclaiming scum, as we saw in this game. I (personally, in a very biased fashion) would have preferred for the cop to not be a namecop, as I would have been able to work around a cop guilty much better than a namecop disparity...

(Also, Melisandre is a

terrible

fakeclaim! )

Thanks to Faraday and Seacore for a great game. It is one of my favourites.

[Percy]

Oh, and I was just asked what I would have done in MoI's position, and I thought I'd copy my response here, for relevance.

"Oh man, that's so hard. I tried to think about it, and my head exploded.

See, I like VP Baltar and MacavityLock, I've got a lot of respect for them as players. And for some reason I think this should influence my decision!

But trying to be objective, I think I would have gone along with the plan. If they did defect, I could at least console myself with the knowledge that the town lost.

It's a hair's breadth worth of difference between the choices, though. Oh man."

I'm glad it worked out the way it did. The alternatives (all three) are all worse, from my perspective.

[xvart]

3. The decision to NK xvart – I regret this most of any of the night moves we made. We knew xvart was on Locke. It would have been much better for Miku to claim he watched xvart to Locke and for us to push for a lynch on the basis of xvart being a scum role-blocker. Nightkilling either Mina or Cow would have been a much better choice, IMO.

I was "upset" about my NK, not because I'm selfish or anything, but because of the amount of confirmed or mostly confirmed townies and how the numbers were increasing in town's favor for eventual PoE. I thought the Greyjoy's possibly really blew it for either team to become victorious by not killing someone in the confirmed category. I believe we discussed in the Lion's Den about targets we would like to kill or would be better kills that night, but had to go for some of the obvtown to avoid problems in the future. When I got my pm telling me I sent a response to the mods ranting about how stupid the Greyjoy's were. Although I do recognize that it was getting to a point in the game where it was becoming a dangerous balancing act between scum possibly identifying each other and town identifying most likely scum (regardless of faction) through PoE.

Also, I mentioned this in the Dead QT and I don't think anyone responded (or at least I didn't notice) but I would like to hear thoughts on the balance between the Greyjoy's and Lannisters with the Watcher/RBer difference in team makeup. I personally would have rather have a watcher than a RBer because the watcher role is so much more aggressive in terms of overplay. Maybe watcher is just more conducive to my playstyle, but I'm curious what others think about this. The Greyjoy's caught two of us (Macavitar and me) with the watcher, and even if alignment wasn't obvious by the watch we still got busted.

xvart.

[Faraday]

I think watcher's more powerful yeah, on the other hand Lannisters probably got slightly stronger fake claimn characters (Caetlyn;s a POV character) and there's at least the posibillity of Tyrion being town in a flavour bastard game, whereas the Greyjoys are all pretty close apart from Theon (but um, he's a prick so). In hindsight I probably would have given scum a tracker instead of a watcher, and given the town a weak info role (reporter) and taken out the doc. Still eh, there's always room to improve for next time. Appreciate all the feedback too.

And Mellisandre's cool though Percy...that's gotta be taken into consideration (plus the fact she helps kill a Greyjoy and Lannister means she's obviously not one of them)

[VP Baltar]

. Post 9 – I called Xvart, Maclock and Dripperth as potentially dangerous players in a mutli-scum environment. Hey, two out of three isn’t bad.

This was hilarious.

5. Miku’s NK – If you haven’t read the Greyjoy QT I was really counting on Miku being the best shot at an outright Greyjoy victory. This kill really devesated my moral for a bit and unfortunately stuck Mac and I in a bad PoE scenario.

How do you think we felt when you iced xvart? He was in a decent position with the town thanks to that dana bus. Meanwhile, we were basically camping at the gallows for the rest of the game. I guess it all worked out.

@ Percy - I couldn't have killed you in that situation if you were there. I would have felt terrible.

[Faraday]

Also Pre-ins for ASOS can be PM'd now if ya want, I know seacore said we're not taking them yet but shhh he'll never know Also thanks to seacore for co-modding this thing, thank fuck for him or the game could have suffered a lack of mod attention or never got off the ground, there were a few times it was hard to keep up with everything but we managed really well.

[ReaperCharlie]

This sounds like it was a pretty epic game, with a pretty epic ending.

I feel very sorry that I have no knowledge of the flavor.

But I liked how Magna and Macavitar played the final night.

<3 all around.

[Mina]

Every time I try to reply to this thread, I get cross-posted ten times!

Oh and i thought mina might appreciate this Herodotus quote; "Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one's share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen."

Thanks. <_<

nth-ing everyone who thinks both the set-up and the flavour were fantastic. I remember the thrill I felt when I got my Kingsguard PM and realized just how many twists and secrets this game had. Overall, it might have been somewhat in favour of the town (I think so many protective roles were redundant), but with 9/26 baddies and three kills a night, it could have gone either way.

That said, I think this was probably the absolute shittiest I've ever felt about a Mafia game. I'm still not entirely over it. It's also annoying that I worked my ass off on the last day trying to figure stuff out, when I had ended my other games and finally had the time I'd wanted all along to devote to this, and it was all to the detriment of my faction. Pretty much every time I made a post this game, it ended up indirectly helping the scum. So Faraday, maybe I should have a bit

less

confidence.

I'd already mentioned this in the graveyard thread, but there were key moments at which I was soooo close to voting for Macavitar or Magna, or ending the day, but I wanted just a bit more time to be 100% sure. And then people would be complimenting me, instead of booking the next plane ticket to Montreal so they could dismember me limb from limb. On the last day, I'd finally made up my mind to vote Macavitar after Unsight's recent posts came off as townish, started explaining my reasoning...and then had to get off the computer unexpectedly. And then when I finally got back on, at about an hour before the deadline, Richard had already hammered.

And I really don't know what the hell was wrong with me. I was getting way too stressed out about a simple decision, to the point that I needed to walk away from the game at some times just to clear my head. I was terrified about making a vote that would swing things if I was wrong.

Something that was making me hesitate to vote Mac, but that I couldn't mention in the thread, was that I was banking on one more tracking result. So I figured that even if we mislynched from the Greyjoy pool that day, I could track one of Magna or CSL and then 100% guarantee that we lynched a Greyjoy. Since Mac couldn't be a Greyjoy and would almost certainly be lynched in LYLO even if we left him alive today, it couldn't hurt to go for the Greyjoys--because a Mac mislynch would mean we'd still have too many leads in both the Lannister and Greyjoy pools. (In retrospect, that logic makes ZERO sense, because leaving Mac for LYLO would just mean we guarantee a loss to the Lannisters if Mac was town.)

Goddamn Magna ruining that plan. *shakes fist in impotent rage*

Congratulations to the scum, both of whom pulled off miracles to get out of a tight situation. Reading the hydra QT impressed me with how much effort Mac put into his claim (although goddamn it, it actually occurred to me that you were deliberately taking your time with that fake fakeclaim just to say, "see, SEE? I could have NEVER come up with such an awesome fakeclaim in so little time.") In spite of my nitpicking in the graveyard thread, I think this was a fair way of resolving the conflict. I think Seacore made a good point that since Mac and MoI had the power to affect the outcome, they technically "won" more than the town did.

But I'm still disappointed that not everyone died. That would have been the most fitting ending ever to

A Clash of Kings

Mafia, particularly since town wins when all the players in the game of thrones are dead.

Also, maybe I was a little biased, since a totally out-of-left-field town win would have turned a painful and humiliating loss that lay on my head into an entertaining story.

I don't have much of a problem with the whole "playing to win" thing. I'd predicted this would happen, because a draw feels pretty much the same as a win. Mind you, it's a little deflating that both scum teams were willing to do something that would technically harm their own win chances purely because they were so horrified by the idea of those icky stupid and incompetent town players getting a win.

[MacavityLock]

Some of my favorite posts from the game:

There were 4 people who jumped off of the Raiv wagon, thus making it substantially less viable a day before deadline: Miku, Rifka, Percy, and dana. There has got to be scum in there.

Hey look, early Day 2 I caught two Greyjoys! (And a Lannister!)

Yes, my fake claim is Innocent Aligned with the Town win condition as per the mod's first post.

Hee hee. I think I may have to sig this.

Smart players get scum role PMs too, damn it!

May have to sig this too.

Oh, by the way, if you're pretty certain about CSL-not-scum, your choice for a lynch is obvious: Magna is the only other player remaining who could be Greyjoy.

Oh, holy crap. CSL, this goes for you too. If you're not scum, why aren't you voting for Magna, the only possible Greyjoy remaining? Why are you Lannister hunting? Is it because you are in fact Greyjoy?

Pulled this out of my ass to avoid the noose on Day 6.

[hasdgfas]

4. CSL’s quickhammer on Axel – Prevented a Doc claim (which may or may not have been believed) and allowed us to kill Locke free and clear that night. Horrible for Town.

I agree completely. And I was actually thinking just before the quickhammer that doctor made a ton of sense with his play, was about to unvote him, and then saw the quickhammer. Too many times that sort of thing happened in this game, I was just a little too slow.

[MagnaofIllusion]

I agree completely. And I was actually thinking just before the quickhammer that doctor made a ton of sense with his play, was about to unvote him, and then saw the quickhammer. Too many times that sort of thing happened in this game, I was just a little too slow.

The lesson this sort of situation teaches is - never have your vote parked on someone you would regret voting for if the flip goes bad. Quicklynches can and do happen.

[hasdgfas]

I agree completely. And I was actually thinking just before the quickhammer that doctor made a ton of sense with his play, was about to unvote him, and then saw the quickhammer. Too many times that sort of thing happened in this game, I was just a little too slow.

The lesson this sort of situation teaches is - never have your vote parked on someone you would regret voting for if the flip goes bad. Quicklynches can and do happen.

Yeah, well, the last time I had checked the site, I would have been happy with it. I didn't get a chance to get back to MS until the quickhammer happened.

[CSL]

Lesson Learned: Never EVER self-hammer again.

[Seacore]

I personally think the flavour worked well. The two scum teams had warnings that there was a namecop out there, both godfathers had it suggested in their role PMs, so that doesn't bother me too much.

One point of flavour that I wish we didn't do was the kill flavour. I don't think I'll ever use kill flavour again, it's far too helpful to town.

As for the roles, I don't think the town was stacked too heavily. Between the jailkeeper and the doc, only one protection actually came into play, and that ended up protecting one godfather from the other scum team. The only other time protection came into play was when scum were trying to guess where the protection would sit, which was why some really tempting NK targets didn't get targeted. In a large theme game, I don't think two protection roles is over powered, the number game makes it too unlikely.

And Mina said above, three kills a night. Actually, Day 2 could potentially have started with 20 players, that's 6 dead. Granted, the day vig would have to have shot, and Renly would have needed to be lynched (but that almost happened).

[SpyreX]

Thanks to SpyreX for modding, he made the set-up less...killy death die, yes SPYREX made it less bloddthirsty. I know rit?

I forgot about that. Yes,

I

had to be the voice of reason to keep this from being another Castamere up ins.

[Mina]

Too many times that sort of thing happened in this game, I was just a little too slow.

You know, this game has given me the impression that we're too much alike.

I don't know if you should take that as a compliment.

[hasdgfas]

Too many times that sort of thing happened in this game, I was just a little too slow.

You know, this game has given me the impression that we're too much alike.

I don't know if you should take that as a compliment.

heh. I'm not taking it as an insult, as I was quite impressed with your play.

[Mina]

<3 Cow. I'm still not sure if I played well or poorly, judging by the...um, mixed reviews I've been getting.

You know, I'd be interested in hearing if any unspoiled spectators were swayed by Mac's pleas at any point, or if they were banging their heads against the wall in disgust the whole time.

But anyway, general

wall-posting

comments (I'm going to format this as multiple posts, because this is long even for me):

Seacore, I actually tracked

Drippereth

on N2, not Cow. The latter was my original target, but then I changed my mind.

Also, just a question. How did the godfather role work with no alignment cop? Was it just a red herring? Would Locke have got a fake result (for example, danakillsu as Brynden Tully)?

Both scumteams played very well (with a couple of exceptions who shall remain unnamed). BTW, I'm a bit surprised they didn't have daytalk. I'd thought Percy and Mikujin hopping on Raivann's wagon like that was a coordinated bus.

People have already lauded Mac and Magna, but I'll give some credit to Percy, whose outstanding play on the first couple of days was overshadowed by them. The fact that he was elected the towniest player in the game should tell you something. (By the way, Percy, just out of curiosity, did you ever really suspect me, or were you just trying to damage my town cred?) xvart also played a great game, although accidental busses are cheating, damn it. Scum often outperformed the town in the scumhunting department. Credit to VPBaltar catching Mikujin, Mac catching Magna, and Percy catching dana. Mikujin did well for a newer player, particularly with his ruthless distancing.

The town had its moments of competence (special mention goes to Locke, LynchMePls, julienvonwolfe, Thor earlier on, Drippereth on D1, Cow at points, and Benmage when he started playing) as well as lots of luck. Unsight, Rifka, and diddin had good reads, even if they failed to look townish. But yeah, some players being apathetic and inconsistent and looking more like scum than the actual scum didn't help. It's annoying that a scumteam is as strong as its most valuable player, but a town is as weak as its weakest members. I wish more people realized that the most important thing a vanilla townie can do to help the town (at least as helpful as having your vote in the right place) is to LOOK TOWN.

As for me, leaving aside the Epic Tracking Fail, I think my only successes this game (other than mostly being read as town) were voting Raivann on D1, tracking a killer on N4, and

finally

realizing who the last two scum were when it was painfully obvious (but not having enough confidence to actually vote for them). During the middle of the game, my reads were miles off target, and I didn't call people on stuff that rang alarm bells because of multi-game overload. And of course, I think I averaged about five humiliating statements a day along the lines of "How dare you pick on poor innocent Percy and Mikujin, who are definitely not Greyjoys" and "danakillsu just seems so

genuine

."

[Mina]

(As an afterthought, maybe my plan to have Cow claim my tracking results also counts as a success, even though it didn't work out.)

=======================================================

3) Mina and Thor, you guys played fairly well overall, but just lost your way at the end there. It happens and I wouldn't feel too bad about it. Both of you were considerable threats throughout the game and probably would have been NK'ed sooner had various other role related priorities popped up for either team. I dont' need to talk about lynching tracked results and all of that business.

You know, I was actually trying NOT to be nightkilled.

I was a bit surprised at seeing how close I was at various points to being killed when I wasn't attacking any scum and was getting some negative attention. Too bad no one tried, because apparently Axelrod protected me N1 and N2 <3.

But yeah, that's the story of my Mafia career. "Looks like a threat" =/= "actual threat." I told people I was much better at looking town than at catching scum, but nooooo, they just accused me of AtE-ing.

Mina, apparently I live to make you nervous, whether you're scum and think I'm SK, or this. Please please don't quit even if you are exhausted after this game; I really do enjoy playing with/against you. Also, I loved the fake claim request, some of the most fun I've ever had in a game was coming up with it.

<3

I swear, you are like my evil nemesis. You complete me! And yes, I have a tinfoil hat superglued to my head.

As an aside, I still can't believe that your

fake

fake claim resulted in two people unvoting you. I was like...um, WTF, guys, you noticed he said it was fake, right? If anything, it made me want to lynch you more, because it was too good.

[Mina]

To everyone (mainly Locke) who kept saying that I was playing for the draw Day 5 and 6 - that's incorrect. I was playing to get to endgame. I need Mac to survive those days to narrow down the Town enough to get to 4 or 3 players left.

I'm not slighting your play (you did pull off a miracle), and I don't think you'd have been able to justify a switch to Mac in-thread anyway, but I disagree that this was the best strategy.

On

Day Five

, you needed Mac alive. But on Day Six, town didn't have any more mislynches. Macavitar had outlived his useful lynch. Lynch Mac, kill diddin, and you're down to a four player MYLO. Either lynch CSL for the win (using the argument that there's no need to go to night with two confirmed players alive) or go to night and kill Richard. The only risk is if Thor wonders why he's alive instead of Richard.

Your strategy meant banking on Mac not crosskilling you AND convincing the surviving townie to play against his win con just because he liked you better. You could have got a win instead of a draw.

I feel a little slighted that I didn't get more credit for getting Mac off the hook when he was tracked.

Oh, do you really need to hear us tell you that you played a great game? You know it.

BTW, just curious about something. How much of your vote count and partnership analysis was sincere, and how much fake? I see you mention thinking I was a Lannister in the QT. Also, was your idea to look at the early dana mob for Greyjoys instead of the early SSBF mob unconsciously inspired by Percy, born of the knowledge that Mikujin was evil, or just a coincidence?

I do think you started looking like you were pushing an agenda over the last couple of days, but you were stuck in a situation where you had to say that 2 + 2 = 5. And hey, you got away with it.

I think I helped divert Thor and make Mina question herself with my arguments that it was 'logical' and

drawing some of the heat to myself.

Wait, that was your plan?

AAAAAAAAAAAH, GODDAMN YOU.

I'D BE LIKE, YEAH, WE SHOULD PROBABLY LYNCH MACAVITAR...BUT WAIT, I NEVER MADE THAT CASE ON MAGNA THAT HE KEPT PESTERING ME ABOUT. HOLD OFF ENDING THE DAY UNTIL I GET AROUND TO DOING THAT. AND MAYBE I SHOULD VOTE MAGNA BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH MAC

COULD

BE NON-LANNISTER, MAGNA DOESN'T KNOW THIS, SO HIS REFUSING TO CONSIDER HIS GUILT MIGHT BE SCUMMIER THAN MAC'S BEHAVIOUR...

And then I ended up not voting for either of you because I couldn't make up my mind in time.

YOU MANIPULATIVE FIEND, I HATE YOU. *bawws*

Plus personally I will get satisfaction (nothing personal Mina, but you are too much a pain in the asss for me) in offering Mina.

I will get my revenge for this one day.

5. Miku’s NK – If you haven’t read the Greyjoy QT I was really counting on Miku being the best shot at an outright Greyjoy victory. This kill really devesated my moral for a bit and unfortunately stuck Mac and I in a bad PoE scenario.

No offence, but you guys totally deserved that one. Because seriously. Speaking as a townie, I wanted to beat him with a blunt object at the beginning of the day, because I knew he was a goner. He was just so blatantly a watcher. If you claim watcher, you will be nightkilled. No way around it. Had there only been one scumteam alive, I'd have suspected him for it (because only scum would have a motivation for telegraphing their role like that)...but instead I just died a little inside.

I'm a bit surprised at how willing all the scum were to put themselves out there as strong scumhunters and threats in a multi-scum environment. Actually, on the site I usually play (which is actually a forum devoted to

A Song of Ice and Fire

!), there's something known as Cerwyn's Bible. Since games are alted, it's easier to break with your usual meta, though.

[Seacore]

Also, just a question. How did the godfather role work with no alignment cop? Was it just a red herring? Would Locke have got a fake result (for example, danakillsu as Brynden Tully)?

Yep, 'Godfathers' would be investigated as their fake claim.

[Ellibereth]

For future reference, a hydra that contradicts itself needs to be lynched asap. They are probably lying scum or VIs (and I hope I'm not considered the latter too much).

I don't think this is true at all.

[xvart]

For future reference, a hydra that contradicts itself needs to be lynched asap. They are probably lying scum or VIs (and I hope I'm not considered the latter too much).

I don't think this is true at all.

While I wouldn't take it so literally, I don't think people should let hydras off the hook on contradictory posts/thoughts. It is just toooo convenient of a claim and if the team is playing together it shouldn't happen in the first place.

xvart.

[hasdgfas]

I wish more people realized that the most important thing a vanilla townie can do to help the town (at least as helpful as having your vote in the right place) is to LOOK TOWN.

false. the best thing a VT can do is hunt scum while not caring if they look town. that's why i had moments that looked really scummy. because i didn't care about looking town.