Mafia 60: Face-to-Face - Game over!

[Thesp]

You should have heard the names that Glork and Patrick were calling you on AIM, thinking that you were going to vote Patrick today. They couldn't believe that you would think that Patrick would have killed Glork; and neither could I.

Turns out you didn't think that at all.

I kept checking the thread title, just assuming that anytime it'd say, "Game Over, Mafia Wins". I also thought it was amusing that the scum killed Glork over a

confirmed innocent

because he thought he'd have a better chance that way (and was probably right). Wow. (I was also saying some of those things to myself and kristocker. I was planning on saying

Vote: Mgm as The Mole

afterwards, and the like! I'd almost thought the

worst

thing for us was that Mgm was confirmed innocent!) I'm glad you made the right decision in the end.

Wow. Just wow. Well done, scum, to elude us for so long.

Also, awesome job, Glork, and many thanks for your mid-game re-read (and PBPA) that got you thinking CDB was probably scum. (I still think PBPA's are overrated, but maybe a little less so now. ) Nicely done as well, Patrick, particularly on D5, where because of how you played I began to feel much more comfortable about you (as did almost everyone), which helped us towards the win. (On that note, MrBuddyLee did indeed make it very difficult for us that day as well, with his excellent effort/play, then his erratic vote on CES which might have steered it all towards himself, which would have made things much more difficult for us!)

I'd be curious to hear from the scum on two things, if you're so inclined: 1) why did you choose each of the people for the nightkills? and 2) what did you think about the balance in this game? (I've heard it suggested that the town is very overpowered in this game, do you think that to be the case?)

On top of it all, a big thanks to Mr Stoofer for running one of the most enjoyable online games I've ever played in. Your effort is much appreciated.

See? That no lynch wasn't so bad after all...

I thought it was fairly evident (as apparently everyone else did as well) that MBL was the last scum, regardless of the no-lynch.

[Battle Mage]

wow good work guys! A great result!
I'm only disappointed that i only got to play for 1 day. I don't think i played badly-i feel i provided some good analysis, and i was correct with my number 1 suspicion (CES). On the other hand, MBL was way off my scumdar, so well done to him.

BM

[Patrick]

Mgm, when did this ploy start exactly? Did you think MBL was scum when you started day 6, or only later on? At the start of day 7, you could have just revealed what you were doing (the sad thing is I was fleetingly tempted to vote for you to make you the fall guy, but I decided if there was just a 1% chance of convincing you I had to carry on).

Overall, the setup probably favours the town. I think you could reasonably run it with only 12 players, 3 scum, 3 poweroles.

Well done to Thesp and Glork especially, who were the most accurate in picking out scum. I enjoyed the game on the whole, though I didn't really see scum until they were shoved under my nose. Obviously, the lesson is to listen to Thesp more, unless he's attacking me. I think MBL did very well as scum, and I agree that his day 5 analysis made him look more town. Even on day 6, when I had seen Glork as town all game, MBL still managed to keep some doubts in the corner of my mind. I felt like I had to psych myself up just to place a second vote on him.

Awesome game guys, and thanks to Mr Stoofer for his modding, which was very efficient. I would definitely play in a similar game again.

[Mr Stoofer]

I'd be curious to hear from the scum on two things, if you're so inclined: 1) why did you choose each of the people for the nightkills? and 2) what did you think about the balance in this game? (I've heard it suggested that the town is very overpowered in this game, do you think that to be the case?)

As to 1, the Mafia conducted their nighttalk on a chat forum, which could be linked to, but I won't do that without the Mafia's permission.

As to 2, I'm surprised anyone thinks it is very overpowered. I certainly think it was balanced. I felt pretty good that the game got down to a 3-person endgame: that's a decent indication that the game was balanced.

[Battle Mage]

yeh i think Patrick has a point about the setup. we were ok here because the Mafia were all competent players (although actually, so was virtually everyone) and they managed to survive really well. However if you ran this setup again, you might want to give the town less power roles, or the scum an additional member.

BM

[Patrick]

Fritzler was a Cop

N1: Investigated Thesp - Innocent. His original choice was "Protect MBL", until I suggested he re-read his role PM.
N2: Investigated Adele - Dead.
N3: Investigated Ether - Innocent. But he died that night.

On reflection the choice to investigate the claimed cop on night 2 seems odd.

[Thesp]

Fritzler was a Cop

N1: Investigated Thesp - Innocent. His original choice was "Protect MBL", until I suggested he re-read his role PM.
N2: Investigated Adele - Dead.
N3: Investigated Ether - Innocent. But he died that night.

On reflection the choice to investigate the claimed cop on night 2 seems odd.

No kidding. Cops rarely (if ever) survive to the endgame - no need for the cop investigation there.

[MrBuddyLee]

For the record, I saw that coming Major style points to Mgm!

Thanks for the game, Stoof, and to everyone who gave it such rich texture. I've seen the game as pretty much unwinnable since suspicions were expressed start of D5, but quitting was never an option.

The first three nightkills were dictated to us by gamestate. For the record, I thought Glork was the cop and that's why I did what I did D3. CES correctly nailed Fritz. I believe CES chose to nail CTD/Ether the next night for his correctness of suspicions, and I chose to kill Thesp N5 primarily because he was a confirmed innocent. Glork died last night for his insolence.

This game would have been balanced without two confirmable, sane cops. Town played not so well D1-D2, scum played above average, and yet the game was still leaning town D3. Four mis-daykills, a misvig and two no-lynches and town still won, but if it was unbalanced a little that just gave scum more incentive to perform.

I didn't think Fritz would have investigated Glork!

I'll always remember this game fondly, thanks guys. Winning would have been nice icing, but meh, it was fun just watching you guys run in circles a bit.

[Nightfall]

*Glad I backed MGM earlier on*

[Mgm]

I think Stoofer deserves a Scummie nomination for most enjoyable game. We all enjoyed it and he should be awarded.

[Mgm]

For the record, I saw that coming Major style points to Mgm!

If you saw it coming, why didn't you prevent it from happening? I guess the idea of having Glork and Patrick was even less appealing.

[Glork]

Thesp: Lengthy, literal post-by-post analyses are *VERY* rare from me. The only other time I've done something that in-depth was in Kingmaker 1, and it helped me find no less than

three

scums that day as well as one additional scum about a day later. Roughly equivalent to a Pooky Guarantee (or Promise or whatever it is), it's the kind of play that I will *only* make as pro-town for the remainder of my mafia career -- sortof a trump card, if you will, for the rare game in which I feel A) I need to make that kind of analysis to get my head straight; and B) I want everyone to know that I'm innocent. To be honest, I think it takes a very very certain kind of eye to conduct that kind of re-read and get meaningful results. And note that, other than noticing FritzCop, ThespTown, and CDBscum, I barely pegged CES as "possible scum," and I still had MBL on my "Probably Town" list.
(As a sidenote: One of the reasons that you would never see that kind of analysis from me as scum is that, even if I made a thorough re-read, I probably wouldn't post my findings in that manner. As I said several times in-thread, I would just hide my findings and use them to guide my upcoming kills.)

I am absolutely

floored

that Fritz didn't investigate me. A botched interpretation for sure, but also a mistake that, in retrospect, I am very glad we all made. I never for a moment considered that Fritz would investigate Adele, but her death that night is the obvious explanation as to why Fritz never hinted strongly towards anybody else.



Now.... the big surprise. Mgm definitely had me going the whole time on the last day, and at the end of the previous day. I was literally tearing at my hair, and when Mgm said he was planning on hammering Patrick, I (normally a *VERY* nonviolent person) nearly broke my dresser. I think I called Mgm an idiot no less than a hundred times over the next several hours. I really honestly couldn't believe that anybody could be that bad at Mafia. And, much to my pleasant surprise, you aren't. <3

I'm also glad to see that MBL was scum because I was pretty sure, between Jelly (that was the previous game taht I couldn't remember at the time), Moses in Egypt, and this game, that I had a reasonable meta against him. Though MBL managed to provide one counterexample, I was pretty entrenched in my own belief that my analysis was right. Now I'm curious to see how MBL's play evolves from here.

I agree with MBL's assessment that, if the setup hadn't happened to include two guaranteed sane Cops, it would have been much more balanced. I think, if I were to run a setup like this, I would choose at most one of each power role (other than the mason-pair, obviously).

[CrashTextDummie]

As to 1, the Mafia conducted their nighttalk on a chat forum, which could be linked to, but I won't do that without the Mafia's permission.

I, for one, would be interested in seeing that.

[MrBuddyLee]

MBL: You knew I was capable of making a 180 turn and switch my vote to someone else. Why the heck did you keep me alive? Were you really convinced I'd lynch Patrick when it came down to it?

No, I thought you'd lynch me. But I was positive Glork and Patrick would lynch me, those friggin mules. The only other alternative was to kill Patrick, which would have been a pure WIFOM play that didn't appeal to me.

CES, can you think of a way we could have upped our chances of winning this?

[MrBuddyLee]

One manner in which I believe MBLscum tries to keep suspicions off of him is by simply staying away from the chic mislynch of the day.

MBL's tendency as scum is to shy away from a big mislynch, and to join a wagon on scum as soon as possible once the scales have been tipped.

Now I'm curious to see how MBL's play evolves from here.

I love the essence of this "metagame"--it distills to: "If MBL is accurately hunting scum, he's scum. If he's mislynching like a banshee, he's town."

[Mr Stoofer]

Actually that's a decent way to catch lots of people, me included. I got lynched in Open 6: Nightless for it.

[Mgm]

Mgm, when did this ploy start exactly? Did you think MBL was scum when you started day 6, or only later on? At the start of day 7, you could have just revealed what you were doing (the sad thing is I was fleetingly tempted to vote for you to make you the fall guy, but I decided if there was just a 1% chance of convincing you I had to carry on).

While I initially didn't believe MBL would lynch CES, I eventually came to the conclusion that MBL was quite capable of a gambit and with CES as suspected as he was, not lynching him would have outed them both. (I still had all my suspicions of MBL in the back of my head) With CES dead Thesp was as confirmed as I was at the start of day, so day 6 I wondered why I was left alive. A lot of what Patrick said made me suspicious of him but MBL's suspicion of Glork was highly suspect too, so I had two candidates and I didn't want to end the game without being certain. This eventually led to my no lynch idea mid-day. I would continue to act stubborn to convince the remaining scum to pick a particular nightkill scenario.
I relied on planting the idea that I couldn't be budged.
1. MBL had the choice of killing me (and be lynched by Glork and Patrick) or kill Glork and rely on me to make the wrong decision. Like MBL, I discounted the idea that he'd go for killing Patrick. It would've been too much of a longshot. So basically killing Glork was the only appealing choice.
2. Patrick could pick between killing me and lynching MBL (Glork seemed quite sure), or kill Glork and risk his own death. Again killing MBL was not a serious contender option.

So basically, whatever choice the scum would make give me the clincher info so I could place my vote with 99% certainty. The posibility of gambits is what made me prolong Patrick's suffering. I wanted to read some posts to make absolutely sure both of them fell for my plan. Sorry about that, Patrick.

So in short: I still suspected MBL day 6, but it was the final nightkill that clinched it for me.

[MrBuddyLee]

So if I'd have killed Patrick instead...

[Mgm]

If you killed Patrick instead, you'd have given me a lot of extra work.
I would've gone through Fritzler's posts with a fine tooth comb and you'd have had to pray I find something. I think you'd had a better chance if you killed Glork earlier and now it turns out having me around probably wasn't a good idea either, you can't rely on me to be consistently wrong with my decisions. I thought my sway on CES showed that.

Can you elaborate on the day that CES got lynched? What was your train of thought that led to that decision and what were you planning to do after he was dead? Was there ever a suggestion to kill you instead of CES? Did I ever made the hit list?

[Glork]

One manner in which I believe MBLscum tries to keep suspicions off of him is by simply staying away from the chic mislynch of the day.

MBL's tendency as scum is to shy away from a big mislynch, and to join a wagon on scum as soon as possible once the scales have been tipped.

Now I'm curious to see how MBL's play evolves from here.

I love the essence of this "metagame"--it distills to: "If MBL is accurately hunting scum, he's scum. If he's mislynching like a banshee, he's town."

No, it's more "If MBL is trying to avoid being traced on the chic/pouplar mislynches, then he's scum." Of course, usually that appears all fine and dandy and protown in the early portions of the game. It makes for some late-game hardships (as Stoof can no doubt tell you in Open 6: Nightless).

[Thesp]

I love the essence of this "metagame"--it distills to: "If MBL is accurately hunting scum, he's scum. If he's mislynching like a banshee, he's town."

Actually that's a decent way to catch lots of people, me included. I got lynched in Open 6: Nightless for it.

I apparently have the

opposite

meta. =P

[Fritzler]

guys i screwed this game up

i don't remember why i investigated adel, but when day came i realized it was retarded

thanks for picking up my slack mgm

[Mgm]

Thanks to you we didn't lynch Glork.
I don't think you screwed up.

[MrBuddyLee]

Can you elaborate on the day that CES got lynched? What was your train of thought that led to that decision and what were you planning to do after he was dead? Was there ever a suggestion to kill you instead of CES? Did I ever made the hit list?

We agreed to bus each other to start the day because it was nearly certain that one of us was going down, and unless we distanced, we'd fall like dominos. I was pretty sure it'd be CES but I actually made a few subtle efforts here and there to get myself lynched instead in ways that would make CES look better. I posted something along the lines of "all three scum were doing such and such" implying that I knew who the scum were, and at one point posted a slip that implied I knew CES was town. No one picked up on them, sadly.

We couldn't kill you, Mgm, because people thought you were the godfather. Once CES died, I had to get either Glork or Patrick lynched to win. Thesp saw them both as extremely protown and showed no sign of wavering. Glork saw Patrick as very protown and Patrick saw Glork as very protown. Fools. They gave me no choice but to leave you alive--you were the only person who didn't have their mind made up about my needed lynches.

[MrBuddyLee]

Thanks for trying to protect me, Fritz, I got your back.