agree about the others but this isn't really too much of a nerfed role compared to D1 IC, is it? As soon as Micro was suspected he claimed IC and boom, instant protection against lynches while we wait for the mod confirmation in D4.

The only way his role doesn't mean lynch immunity is in the unlikely case where we somehow had a Micro wagon form in the last hours before EOD and he was somehow unavailable to claim, so someone hammers to avoid a NoLynch

The only other way he was going to be killed was by drawing one of the NK, same as any D1 IC.

It did make the role less of a bore for Sanscript / Micro to play, but a nerf it was not.

Thanks, i tried to appear calm all the time, knowing it would be seen as someone who is comfortable with the position Town was in. But honestly I was at the edge of my seat ever since Pooka got people to start thinking I was too unlucky and should be more carefully looked at.

No. Given this number of players, I'd say D4 is about as powerful as D1 in this setup.

Thanks. Spur of the moment, but it was do-or-die.

Even a broken clock is right once in a while. Oh but only if it is analog. Broken digital clocks show nothing in their screens and... sorry what was my point again?

can't imagine how that felt ;p


nah, I was very glad that I didn't have a team to let down this game. There was a LOT less pressure.

You had the mod rooting for you.

Mod bias! Like when I sussed the Joegtrial murder squad and you were all "Noooo!" in the chat. You keep making powerful third parties and giving them to Joe.

OH BTW, I've been waiting a long while to congratulate you on not being NK'd during N1 for once

Allow me to explain again, now that this time the game is behind us.

Before I made my claim, I was thinking of the setup. The more power roles revealed themselves, the more obvious it was that all PRs were limited shot in one way or another. Even I had one shot allowing me to be a freaking Vanilla Townie for exactly one night instead of Miller. So by then I connected the dots. A PR claim in this game had to have a limited number of shots and not infinity. A claim that didn't say it was limited was 90% probable to be a fakeclaim. In hindsight, I would have been lynched by that very same logic, but at that time I saw that I was going to be lynched no matter what I did, so I deliberately left the limited shot part out.

The hope was not to give scum (basically you) an indication that all roles had to conform to this pattern. The hope was that you claim you're not a X-shot, and when you did, that was it. Claiming tracker and going for rather disappointing targets was, well, disappointing. A role like you could have done slightly less damage to scum than GameRager's Cop, but put into good use, would be nice clearance. The only thing that kept me from lynching you early is my issue with how trent played the game, but I would have stayed hot on your tail had I been more focused and less tired in general.

...well, that and not locking myself to voting Trent. That was the worst decision I have ever made in Mafia. I stopped scumhunting and instead stuck to a bitter end.

That said, you probably shot yourself in the foot by not only claiming I did nothing, but doing that twice. At that point in time, the only theory that would have gotten me lynched was the Ninja Theory, and it wasn't gaining that hot of a traction, while on your end you picked generally poor choices, didn't bring any satisfying results to the table, and you were still Unlimited Shot Tracker. Had you not "tracked" me again, this miller here would have probably bitten the dust, leaving you just the one last day to off Town.

But hey, your first game of Mafia on GOG (not sure if the first in general), as scum no less, and you made an impressive one man stand for this long of a time. If you had a better fake claim, the game would've been in the bag for you. Thank you for the show and congrats for staying that long!

Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Draco!

new signup thread is there: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/come_play_with_us_signup_thread_for_a_social_deduction_forum_game_setting_the_shining

Regarding this, those PRs that had limited shots were so because logically by definition they can't have unlimited shots. Miller with unlimited Tow-Investigation shots is a vanilla. JOAT is practically always limited shot. Innocent Child has no shots and Neighbouriser was meant to make a Neighbour pair.

The only roles which may or may not have limited shots were Cop, Role Cop and Tracker. Two were Mafia, one was Town. Two had limited shots, one was unlimited. And the shot-limit did not overlap with Town/Mafia allignment.

Attempting to infer a general rule from a known 2-person sample is not really a good practice.

Hi to all!! First of all, thanks to ZFR for preparing and hosting the game, and thank you to everyone participating for making the game interesting and fun. It has been a blast an a rather intensive experience.

Congratulations to all fellow townies. We made it!!!!

Heartfelt thanks also for the encouraging comments to Joppo, gogtrial34987, Micro and ZFR. It has been intense and it was all learning on the job. There were mistakes made, like contributing to Trent's bandwagon or giving Joe a pass (ouch!) to name just two, but hopefully the lessons learned will be remembered. Looking forward to play with you in the future. Hopefully on the same team or, if it needs to be, facing the best of your skill in oppossing camps if luck wants it that way.

Sorry for the late post, RL in the weekend and beyond.

Please feel free to ask or comment on anything related to the game that has or has not been covered below.
_________________________

CONTENTS

* Congrats
* Town
* SK
* Wolf Pack
* Balance
_________________________


#### TOWN ####

@Micro: Will discuss reads and strategies gladly. Some of the reflections have appeared on the game thread, plus the Neighbouro thread and Madam Pomfrey's thread for the last stages of the game. Please ask whatever you feel curious about. By the way, still impressed by the defense you made on Days 1 and 2. Probably no other defense in the whole game has seen so much effort put into int. Congrats for arriving alive to the end of the game as an IC.

@Flocke: Hoping to see you in future games. Can relate to you being overwhelmed on D2 as RL hit here on D4, too. Impressive attention to detail, even if there false positives. A pity that you did not have more time. This is a terrific player in the making. Last but not least, some words were read too late and seen as unfair and taking a personal slant. It was wrong to reply to said words in the heat of the moment, being upset at such huge communication breackdown about a couple jokes, if wry ones (all in for free humour, here, which was even another reason for siding with Agent on D1). The most generous take would have been to realize that said words were constructed by someone making an effort to type lots of text in a difficult position and without really having time to make everything clearer, which might also lead to misinterpretation. Alas, that realization came later. Hopefully we can play again in the future.

@ConsulCaesar: Had you as the SK for so long... :) Your game was seen improving and improving Day by Day from Madam Pomfrey's. Cheers for the days to come as about everyone in Spain is facing a real challenge these days, with more to come.

Have things to say to the rest of Town comrades, but most has already been written in the game thread and Madam Pomfrey's, etc, and this post should find the thread no later than today.

#### SK ####

@Joe: Two questions if you feel like answering: 1) Why did you wait until N2 for your first kill? Waiting to see someone outing themselves as clearly scum so that you could earn vigilante credit?. 2) The confusion on D3 about Yogsloth conceding was because you did not expect the scum team to be that weakened so soon? 3) How did you select your objectives, an which would have been the next ones, had you had the chance to go on?
By the way, congrats for a good fake claim. It was weird enough but plausible enough to pass for real. That and the vigilante claim prevented your demise on D4. Also, you had a very good game from D1 to D3, as seen from here in retrospective. Lastly, nice chart!! It made the best moment in the last week.



#### WOLF PACK ####

First of all, congratulations to each of you. Guys, you sure had some fun. Not only in the game thread, with moments like the scum parade: it was LOL after LOL while skimming through the the Slytherine Communicado thread. The bits about the use of lawn mowers and about flying bakery drew tears.

@Yogsloth: well, now you cannot say you have not met this person anymore ;) It has been a real pleasure. Counting on you to be back soon. Do not disappoint!

@SPF: congrats for being really inscrutable :D to all effects on D1, and for keeping your spirits high in the face of grief, as has been revealed in the Slytherin Communicado. Never intended to frame you for charging on Flocke (oopsy), it was a memory failure. Why? During the N2 notes were written on the Neighbouro channel but there was not much time. Then, on D3 the intention was writing a detailed post about why yogs and you were scummy as hell. The notes required development and adaptation because of you being knocked out during N2. So, no time and writing was time-consuming => no time to check the posts thoroughly, so it was necessary to write everything from memory. On D4 there was time scarcity again, with exhaustion accumulated, and it was paid dearly.

@Joppo: Good Game, sir. First time player and starting as a wolf. Not easy but you managed to pull it out. Hopefully we can play together in the same team in the future.


#### BALANCE ####

Let us make this short.

# Something that most of all might agree on so far #

As seen from here, the veterans in the wolf pack had lots of fun blazing through D1 (especially Yogs, who drew attention since the very beginning) and even more brazenly on D2 (with 1 no-lynch and with one of the most townie players lynched). That was recognized by a number of people, including Joe, GR and Carradice, who performed actions on SPF and Yogsloth. The aftermath of the actions led Yogsloth to think that the game was imbalanced. This conditioned the way in which the team played: it limited the vision and the effort of Yogs and it affected the novice player, Joppo. So much that he made a series of mistakes that could have been avoided, even when he received some solid advice from his fellow players thanks to the peculiar channel they shared.

# Some beliefs and facts #

BELIEF: Members of the scum team assumed that Town had very powerful, probably unlimited, powers.
FACT: They did not notice that, if they had a vanilla scum (a Goon) and a 1-shot investigative power (compulsive but in practice CONTROLLABLE with the night kill), Town would be in the same situation. Actually they had the only unlimited Power in the game. They were facing 1 three-shot investigator (Epic, so they knew whenever an investigation was made) and a compulsive 3-shot JOAT (meaning the shots could not be sandbagged in any way), plus a bodyguard. That was everything on the side of Town that was useful, if memory does not fail.

BELIEF: The unlimited Tracker was nearly worthless.
FACT: The Tracker is less useful for Town, but for Scum, since they already know who is Scum and who is not, the Tracker effectively works as a very effective Power-detector. Plus it was the only unlimited Power in the game.

BELIEF: They were discovered due to Town X-Ray investigative hyperpowers.
FACT: They were discovered due to their own play lines. Even Yogs was investigated by GR because of his scumminess but it was SEPARATELY denounced on the Neighbouro channel and on the game thread at the very beginning of D3, with all the logical artillery available. GR's reveal came as a confirmation. Yogs was caught even without GR's shots. Moreover, GR's two other shots were spent on confirming players that were considered townie with good reason, in order to build a most-cleared base, not on directly hunting scum.

BELIEF: They were targeted by Town powers alone.
FACT: The kill came from a SK. They did not think about that at the time, even if Yogs had mentioned from D1 that a third party was to be expected.

BELIEF: Town had still lots of Powers in reserve in the endgame.
FACT: By D4 Town had no more effective shots left. Town was naked. Plus, there was a SK around.



# Endgame questionable actions with subjective commentary #

1) Trying to have Carradice lynched early. Discussed in the game thread and on Madam Pomfrey's. It was an action so predictable that it was labelled "the mousetrap". Joe started it and Joppo gave it a nudge as well. So far they had done great at being perfectly townie for everyone else (especially Joppo).
OPINION: A less predictable line might have been more useful. Especially since there were viable alternatives (including 3 below).

2) The veterans adviced Joppo to claim Vanilla. He true-claimed his role, Tracker. Maybe because he thought there might be more investigators left and in order to be "valuable" for Town. That forced him to submit results of his investigations, which was the beginning of the end (short term advantage vs medium term doom).
OPINION: Joppo could have claimed Vanilla and avoid looking badly later for that reason.

3) Joppo suspected Joe, who had been forced to claim (and it was a good claim). He thought that it was in his interest to have him lynched since he was not scum.
OPINION: If Joppo had claimed vanilla, he would not have been a thread of any kind for Joe, who might have focused on the most-cleared townie players. He could have bussed him later, both earning Town points and also keeping Town busy for a Day.


4) Joppo investigated Pooka twice, then Agent... In Madam Pomfrey's it has been written why that alone should have granted him the rope inmediately.
OPINION: It might have been a forced move since he had already claimed Tracker. Why in the world he claimed Unlimited? Because Joppo was expecting overwhelming Town powers conjured by Yogs that simply were not there. Especially confirming Pooka as Town was very damaging for him (see numbers below).


5) Joppo did not NK once. Why? Did he think there was still a Town power hiding? (surely it is in the Scum chat but cannot rememer it now).
OPINION: The most solid option is NK all the way, he only made his options worse.

6) With Pooka confirmed and Joe lynched, eventually the chances left for Joppo were just 1:3 (simple straight calculation, not simulation, see Madam Pomfrey's). Still worth trying.
OPINION: He tried, but the weight of the Unlimited Tracker claim demanding results was a serious drag. Still, most ofTown took their own sweet time before suspecting Joppo severely.

# Some hard numbers: #

A simulator was written for fun and helping analysis while at Madam Pomfreys. Then it was modified to accomodate the details of the SK functioning.

On the morning of D4 (see how a SK makes a game swingy, like Lift commented), the chances were something around:
==============================================
Town victories: 52,7%
Mafia victories: 35,6%
Third party victories: 11,5%
==============================================

On the morning of D5 with Pooka CLEARED vs. NOT CLEARED

==============================================
Town victories: 41,7-44,9%
Mafia victories: 37,5-40,0%
Third party victories: 20,8-15,0%
==============================================

Pooka cleared made him a target for both Mafia and the SK, making him a priority and diminishing a little the chance that the SK killed the remaining scum and that the SK received himself a NK.

(Remember that Joppo might have allowed the SK to eliminate cleared Town objectives for him, bussing him later... Consciously deciding when to remove him from the game; this neat move was NOT considered by the simulator and would have increased the chances for the scum team greatly).

OPINION: At the end of the game, after Joppo had Joe lynched, the odds became automatically 1/3 vs 2/3 for Town. Why not lynching another target like Lift, with Joe happy to assist, then NK Micro, then on D6 making the decision of lynching Joe (or maybe allowing him to kill one night more). Joe might have been a safeguard against lynching: whenever he wished, he might have bussed him... He might have provided fake Tracker results about him, etc.

Conclusion: both facts and numbers show how the assumption that the game was imbalanced favouring Town was not true. Moreover, this false assumption lead to making even more mistakes that impaired the chances for the Werewolf team.

He couldn't kill N1. The role was made that way (check admin thread for his exact role restrictions).