Hydras in mini normals

[Zachrulez]

I've gotten hydras lynched before. It's not impossible.

Granted I was in a hydra for most of them, but I think not doing so as much solo has more to do with encountering fewer hydras.

[kuribo]

A good hydra can be game breaking


A bad hydra can be almost Serene

[mykonian]

In the games I have played with hydras, I have seen a lot of hesitance to lynch a hydra. Because 'what if they are town, that's multiple protown reads!" or something like that. Also depending on who is in the hydra sometimes they get treated as gospel and no one challenges them. If my experience is representative of site meta as a whole, site meta needs to change.

It's harder to put a case on two people as well. One can make up for the other etc. Also, hydra tend to get going slowly, because they have discuss reads etc and come to some kind of consensus. So why not wait a day??? I think your experience is about right. Part of it is also inherent with hydra's. It's not the site meta that's wrong. They try to win within the rules of the game. If the best play is to wait with lynching hydrae, you do.

[FakeGod]

All in favor of banning hydras from this site say

HERCULES

Article From Wikipedia

After slaying the Nemean lion, Eurystheus sent Hercules to slay the Hydra, which Hera had raised just to slay Hercules. Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Hercules covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes. He fired flaming arrows into the Hydra's lair, the spring of Amymone, a deep cave that it only came out of to terrorize neighboring villages. He then confronted the Hydra, wielding a harvesting sickle (according to some early vase-paintings), a sword or his famed club. Ruck and Staples (1994: 170) have pointed out that the chthonic creature's reaction was botanical: upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero. The weakness of the Hydra was that it was invulnerable only if it retained at least one head.

The details of the struggle are explicit in the Bibliotheca (2.5.2): realizing that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Hercules called on his nephew Iolaus for help. His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after each decapitation. Hercules cut off each head and Iolaus cauterized the open stumps. Seeing that Hercules was winning the struggle, Hera sent a large crab to distract him. He crushed it under his mighty foot. The Hydra's one immortal head was cut off with a golden sword given to him by Athena. Hercules placed the head – still alive and writhing – under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius (Kerenyi 1959:144), and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete.

[Katsuki]

Hydras are broken, and are equivalent to masons with only 1 vote.

[BROseidon]

A good hydra can be game breaking


A bad hydra can be almost Serene

lollllllll Serene.

I agree that hydras shouldn't be in mini-normals, though. They generally upgrade the efficacy of a slot in a way that pings to me as non-normal.

[FakeGod]

HERCULES

[Psyche]

I think hydras should be a rarely used PR. In general.

[SpyreX]

While it should be mod fiat as far as I'm actually concerned, if every hydra vanished I would shed no tears. Down with hyrdas, long live the empire.

[FakeGod]

say it with me

HERCULES

[RichardGHP]

Shun the non-believer!

[Kublai Khan]

I think hydras are a horrible addition to mafia. And I'm disappointed that they haven't been banned.

Beyond the usual horribly unnecessarily distracting baggage that hydras bring with them ("My other head flaked so I can't answer why they said that", public intra-head arguments, "I read one of the heads as town, so I'm not lynching them", etc..), they disrupt the very idea of what mafia is about. Mafia is a psychological game where you have to develop the ability to instinctual read people for truthfulness and combine it with analytic reasoning. Having a second person to spitball ideas against is

CHEATING

plain and simple. Plus those that hydra will never get better at mafia because they will never develop skills on their own.

[Magua]

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Psyche]

Mafia is a psychological game where you have to develop the ability to instinctual read people for truthfulness and combine it with analytic reasoning.

Yeah, but howww.

[Zachrulez]

I always get a kick when people complain about the distracting baggage of hydras, and most of the things are things I have refined into hydra scum tells.

Also a mod allowing hydras into a game is explicitly saying it's not cheating.

This thread is meant to be about whether they should be considered normal though.

[Psyche]

Zachrulezzz. Hardcore Hydra Hunter.

[Cheery Dog]

I think we just need to limit the amount of them that can be active at one time. Basically doping people from having 5 coherent ones actor in 5 different games.

Each player should have to complete 5 out so solo games between each play as a hydra.

[N]

What?

[Faraday]

My only problem w/ hydras is uh, I guess when cross hydras result?

So me and N hydra in game X where CheeryGod is also playing, and in game Y I'm hydraing with Cheery God and N is playing, and in Game Z they're hydraing and I'm playing.

I just think it's kind of messy, especially if differing alignments are involved. I don't know if it'll lead to game breaking stuff, but it may lead to you having to be less than honest to a hydra partner? Or things might accidentally carry over.

[Kublai Khan]

Mafia is a psychological game where you have to develop the ability to instinctual read people for truthfulness and combine it with analytic reasoning.

Yeah, but howww.

Just jump in the

woodchipper

deep end of the pool and learn.

I always get a kick when people complain about the distracting baggage of hydras, and most of the things are things I have refined into hydra scum tells.

All those things I mentioned: done by town hydras.

Also a mod allowing hydras into a game is explicitly saying it's not cheating.

It is a sign that the mods involved don't particularly care about the balance of their game.

This thread is meant to be about whether they should be considered normal though.

I'm 100% with you that hydras shouldn't be in normal games. I just want to take it a step further.

[RichardGHP]

It is a sign that the mods involved don't particularly care about the balance of their game.

Seriously?

[Kublai Khan]

It is a sign that the mods involved don't particularly care about the balance of their game.

Seriously?

Yup. I'm ruffling feathers on this one.

[RichardGHP]

Consider mine well ruffled. Well done, sir.

[FakeGod]

KK speaks the truth.

[talah]

FakeGod invariably lies.