A Clash of Kings - A Divided Kingdom

[VP Baltar]

Beat Role PMs! I'll post thoughts once all of that business is out of the way. I will say, however, that Macavitar most certainly was playing to win and don't be whiny because town didn't pull it together at the end.

[VP Baltar]

Also, I give my permission for the Macavitar QT to be posted if Mac wants to.

[VP Baltar]

Yes, big thanks to the mods. I enjoyed the flavor even though I was way in over my head with it. I'll probably check out these books sometime because of your game. Vote counts, prods, etc. were all as well done as can be expected in a large game.

Also, to follow on LynchMePls' point, Mac definitely deserves props. His fakeclaim was a thing of beauty and saved our ass when I was all but certain we would be dead. I'll be nominating him for best fakeclaim later, so check the scummies thread.

[VP Baltar]

I am disappointed in the players of MoI and ML but I wont seek site punishment. I disagree with the mod view but ill leave it to their discretion ,I certainly wouldn't feel remorse tho if something was done.

lol, ok, let's have this debate then. How the hell is it playing to your win con to do something that guarantees you lose the game? What you're suggesting is that we should have both had to kill one another and thus give the town a victory. That makes no sense in terms of playing to your win condition. I understand hating to lose a large game after so much time invested, but it's not ok to justify poor sportsmanship with false righteousness and bad theory.

[VP Baltar]

Mafia is a game of lying when scum....you willfully chose to tie instead of fullwin by backstabbing MoI. Everything leading up to that point is irrelevant.

Since when is lying mandatory? What are you talking about 'everything leading up to that point'?

Essentially what you're saying is that we both had to "backstab" in order to be PTW, which in fact leads to both of us losing. That or, in order for one of us to win, one player would have to not PTW. How does that make any kind of sense? Explain to me how you, in that situation, would have both MoI and us PTW and still have one of us achieve victory?

It has nothing to do with the "integrity of mafia" and everything to do with being bitter about losing. If you can answer the above logically I may reconsider, but I highly doubt that answer is possible.

[VP Baltar]

@Everyone else: The next time I'm a SK, I don't want to fail as much as I did in this game. Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve my play in here as a SK and a player as a whole?

Serial killer is a very hard role to play because you really need to be thinking way way ahead toward endgame much earlier than if you were town or scum. Every kill you make at night needs to be strategic. Additionally, you need to have a really good fake claim ready in advance. Claiming vig as SK is about the oldest trick in the book and it rarely works. In terms of overall, I think you are right that lurking under pressure does you no favors. You have to stay active in the game and always be looking for the next person that you can get lynched who isn't you.

Kudos to the scum for dodging the prisoners dilemma fallacy...

Thanks! I was kinda pro-kill Magna, but Mac made a decent point about proving Prisoner's Dilemma wrong, which was kind of a nice little victory in its own right.

Don't be so fucking dimwitted with me. Your better than that. You know scum are to decieve. Otherwise everygame town would ask simple yes, or no whose scum and whose not..and scum would say "oh ya i am scum"...riiight

Don't make dimwitted statements like "mafia is a game of lying when scum" and I won't reply with dimwitted questions. When playing scum, you do what is necessary to move your game strategically toward a victory. Sometimes that entails lying. Sometimes that entails claiming scum in thread as we did here. It's a mix and you have to decide what strategy is best at a specific moment.

If both of you followed PTW you both would've lost. Yes, this is correct

Thus proving my point that you're being ridiculous. Playing to win means playing to win. Not playing to the idea of winning even though you know that equals losing.

I'M CURIOUS HOW MAC/VP OR MAGNA WOULD HAVE FELT IF THEY GOT BACKSTABBED BY THE OTHER IN THE END.

I think Mac would have been ok with it because he wanted to try to beat prisoner's dilemma. I would have been freaking pissed to have lost after all we survived to get to endgame. Our team had terrible freaking luck and we were just a lowly goon. We were all alone since Day 4 and tracked to a dead body that we escaped because of Mac's fakeclaim. I probably would have been mildly bitter toward Magna at that point.

[VP Baltar]

scum: why'd you leave me alive so long after being confirmed? I was very surprised about that.

You were just low priority for us I guess. Yes, you were confirmed and I agree with you that you were playing a good game, but you weren't really a direct threat to us there for a couple days and we had more strategic fish to fry.

[VP Baltar]

Ok, my final thoughts on the game now after having read everything except for the Kingsguard QT.

1) Setup was ok, imo. I think it was definitely balanced in the town's favor slightly from the start and the cross kills didn't help us any. The hand thing is town sided either way I feel. Scum who gets hand draws unnecessary attention (as Percy did) and town who gets Hand is just dangerous. I guess the best outcome for scum in that situation would be to get a VI to get the hand, but that's pretty much impossible. Stabby stabby was fairly balanced if not unwieldy. Copping obviously helps town regardless. Double lynch helps town regardless. Idk why the other day event wasn't used...seemed like kind of an impromptu decision.

2) This game is a lesson that many large games have repeated before, eliminate your VIs as early as possible because they will lose you the game. Scum are not going to do it for you. SSBF may have been worth keeping around for another day just for this purpose, who knows.

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.

4) I do feel that the game was a bit too heavy on flavor. Had a scum team not had someone who was a flavor expert on their side, it would have been near impossible to survive. I appreciate the atmosphere created by flavor, but imo it should not be a handicap for the uninitiated. Seacore mentioned Percy's SA games. I think those are a good example of something that's flavor heavy, but you don't have to be familiar with it at all to do well. Just a thought for future games.

5) I think I played OK this game. I came in as a favor to MacavityLock because he's a cool guy and I liked his Wire game. I had a lot of pages to read at a time when I was super busy, so I basically did not read the whole game before I started posting. Mac was obviously the flavor expert of our hydra, so I let him do a healthy majority of the posting. What I think I did well was boost Mac's spirits at a time when the Greyjoys were starting to overwhelm us. Even though I wasn't fully up to date with the game, my strategy was basically to come in be very vocal and appear to be busting some heads, which I think worked somewhat well. It got suspicion off of us during those earlier days. I also came back later (I was actually posting much sooner in our hydra QT than I ever posted in thread) and used my earlier stance on Unsight to our benefit. Mina was correct in her assessment that I got away with this because we were a hydra. Honestly, the town should not have allowed it. We really had to flip on Unsight at that point, so I created a fake statement about the arguments Mac and I were having. 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). In terms of what I would change about my play, not too much. I could have been more involved at times than I was, but I was comfortable playing more of a co-pilot role for Mac. Oh, and I wish I would have gotten the Mikujin lynch I wanted .

I think everything else has been pretty much covered. Hopefully I see some of you around again sometime soon.

[VP Baltar]

I dunno, I tend to think knowing the flavour should prove at least some advantage to players? I mean it helped Maclock in that he could provide a fakeclaim really quick, but apart from that most fakeclaims would have been provided anyway with the relevant flavour via us . It does help in claiming and in general I guess i.e picking a role for a character but I thought we threw in enough things to subvert that (Greatjon as BP, Littlefinger as namecop), I don't know if it's something I'd really cut down too much on though. The ice and fire wiki is always there, I'll have more of a think of ways to get around that maybe without it detrimentally affecting the atmosphere of the game.

It could have been the players faults too. There were people really geeking out on the scumhunting for flavor related reasons and I was just lost. It was like,

"OOOOOO, don't you think so-and-so could be a such-and-such!"
"Idk, why don't we lynch who is acting scummy?"
"No effing way, I'm voting because the name they claim doesn't match what I think their role would be based on the book"
"..."

I agree that you don't want to compromise the atmosphere of your game though. Just giving my two pence. When I mod, I intentionally put major differences from the source material so players quickly realize that kind of logic is fail and they should be playing the game of mafia.


And, lol, yes town's definitely do find a way to bone themselves. It's probably because in a large game you are thinking about weeding out the herd for the first few days and the scum are meanwhile plotting their strategy. Larges are so unpredictable in that sense because the game can completely turn on its head around the Day 3 or 4 mark. This is probably why I don't mod larges and I have an epic losing rate in them.


@Thor - It just takes time. I went through the same phase. You have to find that right level of gut/case play that fits you personally. Going too far in the extreme of gut is usually disaster too. I wouldn't feel too bad, as it's just a game and as long as you take something away to improve your play, then it's been useful. I would definitely play with you again in the future.

[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.

[VP Baltar]

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.

Why is it not true? Why shouldn't a hydra be coming to compromises in their QT before they post? There is no reason for a town hydra to have a strong contradiction in its posts, just as there is no reason for any other player to have a strong contradiction in their posts.

[VP Baltar]

I agree that looks like a good path. The problem lies with the switch from lynching CSL (who I have to suspect via PoE) to voting for Mac. It could not be accomplished, IMO, without a STRONG push from diddin and either Thor or Richard. The second I become the driving force behind a Mac lynch attempt is the second he turns on me (at least from my perspective … I thought they knew 100% I was the last Greyjoy going into that day. In hindsight obviously they didn’t). And there was no such strong push coming from anyone for Mac’s lynch that day.

I agree that you didn't have as much of a choice as it appeared from the sidelines. We intentionally boxed you and CSL in a 1v1 because 1) it got attention off of us and 2) if either of you went elsewhere, it made you look MORE like scum. Ironically, we fooled ourselves with our own plan. We were both all but certain you were the last Greyjoy before we boxed the two of you, but then when CSL defected and started looking toward us it made us doubt our read on you because you stayed the course, which is actually what a townie would logically do in that situation. Fooled by our own trickery.

[VP Baltar]

lol

[VP Baltar]

You know, I think the optimal strategy is really to kill off the kingsguard if you're scum in it. Maybe leave one or two members alive for WIFOM purposes, but they seem like very good targets in the early game to eliminate.

[VP Baltar]

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.

Why is it not true? Why shouldn't a hydra be coming to compromises in their QT before they post? There is no reason for a town hydra to have a strong contradiction in its posts, just as there is no reason for any other player to have a strong contradiction in their posts.

Why SHOULD they be coming to compromises before posting all the time? Some of the time sure, but I don't think a portion of non-checking in first posting is that bad.

Ok, not compromising is fine when posting in thread as long as both heads agree to that. You shouldn't be able to say one thing and then have your partner come in three posts later and completely contradict that. That's too scummy to write off as simply anti-town. I see I may have to lynch you soon. =_=

[VP Baltar]

Yes it's scummy. If I'm a single player in thread, I'm not going to be posting multiple reads on the same person. Being a hydra isn't a get out of jail free card for accountability and generally poor play.

[VP Baltar]

Changing your mind for a thought out reason and lolhydra are not the same thing. I don't mind a player changing his or her mind as long as they can logically explain why they did. Changing reads at a whim with little explanation is scummy...you disagree with that?