French mafia - Almost victorious Town wrongfully lynches SK

[Leonidas]

The officer hurries back to the manor. "Only four Council members left... Hopefully they will come up with a plan soon..." he thinks.

Inside, Macros, Taflinel, MNOWAX and Cephrir are waiting for him.

"And now to the battle plan..." Leonidas begins.

"Wait. The Council is still infiltrated by traitors."

"Really? That is so unfortunate for France" Leonidas mutters slowly, suddenly worried that the country might never rise to the challenge ahead.

"Leonidas" Macros continues. "This is the plane ticket of Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette." Then turning to Cephrir: "I understand that you have good friends in America. More than you have here, actually... So why don't you spend some time there and rethink your life, while we rescue the country from the mess you and your cult put it in?"

"Oh and be sure to leave us your emblem before you go" Macros adds "it might be worth some money, and France needs all the gold it can get for its... rebirth."

With that, Cephrir, a.k.a the Marquis de La Fayette, is escorted outside the manor, and forced to surrender his masonic emblem before boarding his plane to the USA.

[Leonidas]

With La Fayette gone, Leonidas abandoned all hope of seeing France victorious. The path ahead was a dark one, and it seemed he had been appointed to make sure France would walk it...

What a sad role.

Was there all there was to it?

Would he be remembered as a traitor in French history?

The young officer walked back to the Council's room. As he entered, he saw a body on the floor. Apparently MNOWAX, a.k.a. Charles Martel, the hero of the battle of Poitiers, had been shot to death in his absence.



"Well at least you do not have to live and see what is about to happen, great King" Leonidas muttered.

The Aide-de-Camp then turned to Taflinel.

[Leonidas]

"Marechal, me voila." he said. "What is the Council's wish?"

"The Army will march on Paris. We leave tonight." Macros replied.

"WHAT?? A putsch? And what about Prince-Chancellor Von Uber den Linden, Grand Duke of Bihn Lahden?"

"This should be none of your concern. The current situation is the direct result of the government's failures, and General Salan and myself will remedy this at once." Taflinel said.

"But what will the world think? The army sent to resist the Prince-Chancellor turning against its own government...?"

"Again" Taflinel answered with a growing impatience "this is none of your concern."

"It is a matter of hours before their cavalry engages our troops." Leonidas protested.

"Oh really? Why don't you lead some of our cavalry to 'resist' them then? You may take the 11th Cavalry - 800 men, if it's a battle you need."

The Aide-de-Camp's face turned white.

"The 11th Cavalry is, well, XVIIIth Century cavalry... Their Cavalry is Armored Cavalry, Marechal... Tanks."

"Well why not, it has been done before - Russia, 1941, I think. Besides our resources are so scarce..." Taflinel answered with an evil grin.

Leonidas executed a short military salute, and exited the room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I hate arrogant young officers." Taflinel sighed, pouring himself a glass of Vichy mineral water. "So what is your assessment of the situation, General Salan?" he asked Macros.

"The government will be unable to resist us. I have also sent emissaries to the Prince-Chancellor to pave the way to our future cordial relations."

Macros paused, and lighted a cigar.

"As to our insolent Aide-de-Camp, you sent him to his death, Marechal... We can probably even blame France's surrender on his treason." he added with a smile.

"Good, good." Taflinel replied. "You know - this Grand Duke of Bihn Lahden? I believe he is a man of vision. He can help France regain its prestige, and we will fully collaborate with him."

"And we shall have peace." he concluded in a mellow voice.


MAFIA WINS.

Marechal Petain, a.k.a. Taflinel...



and General Salan, a.k.a. Macros...



now rule France.

Congrats to the mafia - this was the worst possible outcome for the Town.

Discuss !

[Dragon Phoenix]

First off: thanks Leonidas for running this, and supplying all this additional scenery (rather than X is dead. Day starts).

Second: well done mes amis.

*hugs macros and Taflinel - and the ghosts of the other dead mafia*
_________________
My photography:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/

[Antrax]

So let me get this straight. In this 20 player game, you had 5 mafia and a serial killer? Or did I overlook something?
Very cool play by DP faking the day kill thing (unless I misunderstood, and he wasn't BSing, which I strongly doubt).
What were Napoleon's powers?
[edit]
And what's a BBC broadcaster townie?
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Dragon Phoenix]

Oh, I was faking it alright. I hoped one of the others could use this to claim role blocker later.
_________________
My photography:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/

[The Great Crep'er]

Well done Leonidas, speaking as strictly as a spectator, the backgorund story was very interesting, you have great detail to the mafia story telling, and I hope we can see it again in perhaps the near future.

Congrats to mafia, I think you played well.

Now, perhaps a...Greek Mafia?
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Potato. Belgium. Eight. Random Lynch # Mafia awaits.

[Macros]

About fucking time!
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oh hello

[Macros]

sorry
I posted that straight away before even reading, obviously well crafted day scenes and a fun game to play in.
Big question, the post directly after pooky by the general, was it pooky or you?
I assumed it was pooky bullshitting as it happened 4 minutes after he suggested using his powers. if not, you were on the ball leon.
Even had he been exiled to elba and come back i think me and taf could easily have swung the vote onto cephir after killing him that night.
Good game my mafia compatriots, considering mag and dp were under the spotlight from the get go.
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oh hello

[Antrax]

Not to go all sour grapes on you, but how is it good play when they're both spotted and lynched, and the reason for the mafia win is the fact they were a QUARTER of the players? Unless I overlooked something (still giving Leo the benefit of the doubt) the game was painfully imbalanced. The town missed 3 lynches and got 4 right, and it still couldn't win. I mean, seriously, does that strike you as a fair game?
_________________
After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Macros]

not to go all sour grapes on you, but I'm afraid you just went all sour grapes on me despite your disclaimer suggesting you wouldn't be.
The town missed three lynches, they suck, by proxy this means you suck, I'm curious, how much do you charge, because round here they usually offer such services for around £15, can you better them?
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oh hello

[Dragon Phoenix]

I'd say the setup favoured the mafia, but not to the extent that it was painfully unbalanced. The town had both a cop, and a role name investigator and a doctor to protect them - as well as 3 masons. The SK is hardly an advantage to the scum (and indeed cost us one of our team).
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My photography:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/

[mith]

Clearly the town should have listened to me more.

[Antrax]

I think any game where the mafia can have a majority in two missed lynches is problematic, at best.
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Courk]

Bah, after all my work.

Thanks for running this. I'm glad I could get in it.

[Amb]

I killed Macros night 1, and Azu saved his unworthy behind.

For the record, once outed as a serial killer I would have remained trying to kill mafia.

[The Great Crep'er]

Wish I could've been a part of it, I try to make my username sound French.

Anyways, this was really better than most mafia games I've read in my entire mafia-reading life.
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Potato. Belgium. Eight. Random Lynch # Mafia awaits.

[MatthewV]

The worst enemy to the mafia is the @#$@ SK. I know as a SK I try to get the scummiest players based by my gut feeling, which is surprisingly effective.

And there were many powerful town roles, the balance easily could have tipped to the town's favor. (true, it didn't start in that direction)

[Leonidas]

Regarding the setup -

The town had:

1 doc
1 cop
1 name investigator
1 vigilante who sent one night choice and killed an innocent
3 masons with powerful individual claims, as well as documented masonic ties
1 BBC broadcaster who could prove his role easily

As a general rule, I consider a game balanced if the town can get away with three screwups, but things get more difficult with four.

3 townie lynches + 1 townie killed by the vig is four screwups.

One Wrath of mod on a townie for failure to contribute is the final mistake, and even then, the town was winning had they not decided to lynch... NAPOLEON. (Who incidentally was fingering Macros).

Seeing how none of the mafia members required a replacement, while townies kept asking for one, I actually came to the conclusion that maybe my game was too biased... in favor of the town.

So overall, I would say the game was quite balanced. And the endgame was, well, a quite classical one: 3 townies vs. 2 mafia.

[Pooky]

what did my marshal ability do?

I don't know about game balance but frankly speaking niether the town nor the mafia deserved to win this one.

The town can't deserve to win after Mnowax hammers me after I use an ability without even waiting to see what it does.
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3-1 against Mith in Fantasy Football.

[Amb]

[Leonidas]

Regarding who deserved to win -

Objectively, mafia deserved to win. Three reasons.

1 - Brilliant play by Macros, who, although fingered by Napoleon, got him lynched during the decisive showdown.

2 - Brilliant play by DP. Guynemer claim: I could almost feel him search my neurons. "So Leo, tell me, whom did you leave out of your setup, who almost made it but was dropped...". He guessed perfectly. Georges Guynemer was the first name on my list of "shortlisted but dropped" role candidates. This, combined with his fake daykill, was excellent play for mafia.

3 - Although their roles were all ineffectual, mad or treacherous leaders in French history, Mafia actually stood their ground in this game. No replacement on the side of mafia, go check how many on the town's side. Yes, sure, there are more townies than mafia, but still, the replacement rates are very different, and it is zero for mafia.

I will post more on roles later.

[Samadhi]

Good game, thanks for fitting me in.

There was some good play by the mafia. However, I disagree with your (1) above. When you only need one of the other three people to vote for someone other than yourself, meanwhile they ALL have to vote for one of you.....that's REALLY not that difficult.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Leonidas]

Hmm, yes, but then you had Napoleon, LaFayette, and Charles Martel on the town's side, with Napoleon claiming cop and going after Macros. There was an attempt to get everyone to claim, but no one insisted on it.

With a mass claim:

- LaFayette was unquestionnable. Strong claim + mason.

- Napoleon could be questionned, just as Macros did. But with the battle set at Austerlitz, two pro-town marshals coming from his army, his ineffective admiral being mafia, and the Serial Killer being identified as a failed version of his uncle, Napoleon had many arguments to prove his allegeance to the town.

- Charles Martel was perhaps a weaker claim, although it could be explained in the context of the game.

At any rate, the logical final dilemma was Taflinel versus MNOWAX after the lynch of Macros.

But it never reached that point and it is the mafia who successfully tricked the town into committing their votes instead of thinking the endgame through.

[Pooky]

Leo, what was my marshal ability supposed to do?

and no Macros did not play brilliantly.

Mnowax screwed up completely.
_________________
3-1 against Mith in Fantasy Football.

[Pooky]

and 2/3 are more luckbased then anything.


It is not through any degree of skill from the mafia that the town just happened to be made of almost entirely slackers/noncontributors.

I mean sure they shot everybody who was contributing at night, but you can't really rachet that up to "skill" on their part.
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3-1 against Mith in Fantasy Football.

[Leonidas]

I can agree with everything you say, but certainly not with this.

[Antrax]

I'm curious: what could pro-town players do to stop the vigilante from killing an innocent the first day? How could they have possibly played better to improve the odds of winning for their side?
That's what strikes me as unfair in this game. The endgame was played terribly by all pro-town players, including Pooky (who, at that point, claimed to have investigated everyone BUT macros, and then suddenly his last ability shows Macros to be scum? I don't know how much control he had over this, but seriously, I'd have been tempted to vote him at that point). However, up to the endgame there wasn't much the town could do better, and still, it lost. You say it lost because of the actions of a vig - that may be, but what could the other 13 players do to stop that? For that matter, let's say they play this game again tomorrow, how can THEY play better to improve THEIR odds of winning, assuming the vig doesn't change his strategy?

Furthermore, you quote participation as a measure of "deserving to win". Why are you surprised that mafia required no replacements, and townies did? Players with a role are always more interested in games than players without.

You endgame analysis is also seriously lacking. LaFayette could be claimed before by the mafia, or counter-claimed by the mafia, or another Marshal claim can be made by the mafia to try and ride the Mason vibe. Each of those three (by the godfather) would very probably cause the game to end in the mafia's favour, because it was already lynch-or-lose at that point.

To summarize, I think the end results of the town's actions (and I mean "in the parts where the town can communicate", a vig is not a part of the town if he's acting at night, alone) were, for most part, positive. Yet after only two missed lynches (again, the only part where a townie can contribute) they reached lynch-or-lose. That, to me, says "bad game design", because honestly, as a townie, I don't see what I could have done better, so the loss feels completely arbitrary and quite unfair, to me.
Just my two cents. If I'm being whiny, I apologise in advance. I remember when the third mafia was lynched I was surprised the game wasn't over, and thought "wow, four mafia and an SK? tough game". To make it five, IMO, is to go completely overboard, as this game, again IMO, clearly demonstrates.
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Leonidas]

[Pooky]

Antrax,

General Cambronne was me.

My role pm was:

You have the following powers:

1 - You have a sharp eye for human qualities and courage, and are not easily fooled in your judgment about people and their capabilities. Every night, you may investigate a player, to assess his/her capabilities as a military leader. As part of the assessment process, you pinch your target's left earlobe. I will PM your assessment to you - in French. All is not always as it seems, but again - it is not easy to fool you.

(The game starts on Day 1, so do not send in a choice before I start the game).

2 - You have the ability to survive one night attack.

3 - Napoleon is fun to play... Please complete the following steps:
* Create a dummy account, with username either "General Cambronne", "Pierre Cambronne", or "General Pierre Cambronne" and password of your choice.
* PM me the username/password information.
* ONCE in the game, you may use that account to say "Merde" to another player - hopefully a powerful foe.

The post should look exactly like this:

Quote:
MERDE Arrow (target name)


Nothing more, nothing less.

You will not know the consequences of your curse immediately, but trust me: if you choose wisely, it may make the difference between victory and defeat for the town.

Again - you may only use the dummy account ONCE, during a day phase, and ONLY to say MERDE to a player.

You win when all the bad ones are removed from the game, and there is still someone around to lead the French Army - hopefully to victory.

Good luck and enjoy the game.

I used my ability because I believed it would prove my innocence beyond any shred of a doubt to the town.

I honestly have no idea why Mnowax would choose to lynch me after I used my ability and I posit that I could not have possibly seen that coming.

I also like you figured we were up against only a lone mafia, so I believed that even if I were to be mislynched, me coming up as Napoleon would surely doom Macros on the following day.
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3-1 against Mith in Fantasy Football.

[Samadhi]

*raises hand*
I thought this was a great game. Your research and descriptions as well as how roles interacted was impressive.

However, 25% mafia is too much. You really needed more town buffers. Your bullet points mainly refer to errors made by individuals, not the town. Mafia should win by their play and town should win by their play, not the mistakes of individuals.
1: Exactly what could have town done to prevent that?
2: ~shrug~ not certain what she did was a mistake per se, but it's still an act by an individual.
3: Why not? My read on pooky was town, but when Courk told me that he was Napoleon (after I was dead), that threw me for a loop because I felt that the Emperor of France would surely be scum.
4. Yeah that was a mistake of 60% of the people at that lynch or die point. It's extremely likely for the mafia to win at that point.
Then there's:
5. "Not lynching three innocents." By my count that makes it a 57% successful lynch rate. That is EXTREMELY good.

I ran some empirical tests (ten million) and if it's 5:15, start on day, the mafia always kills someone not their own, but a day vote is completely random: Town: 5.3711% Mafia: 94.6289%

The underlined is a significant caveat. On the first day (with a day start and deadline decreased voting limits) there is no way a mafia would be lynched. So from this base case you need SIGNIFICANT mitigating factors to over come this distinct mafia advantage. I don't think you had near enough.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Antrax]

In both "avoiding mod kill" and "not killing innocents", you are overlooking the fact the town may have a common goal, but they're not a group. They can't lecture each other, or anything of the sort. What you're basically saying is that if I'm mafia and on the first day post "I am mafia, and here are the names of the other mafia", the mafia as a group played badly and the town played great and deserve to win. People can only be responsible for the actions of other people so much.

[Samadhi]

Oh speaking of surviving one attack. Why did Amb survive a lynch to later kill me, the second to last mason?
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[Leonidas]

The following players had one-shot immunities:

Marechal Petain - mafia Godfather:
- immune to one night kill
- immune to one leadership assessment by Napoleon (because of his Legion d'Honneur)
- immune to one investigation by Jean Moulin (result would be Charlemagne, safe claim)

Napoleon III - Serial Killer:
- immune to one attempt on his life (i.e. lynch or night kill)

Napoleon - Cop
- immune to one night kill

General Cambronne's "Merde", if targeted at the GF or the SK, would bring bad luck and remove all one-shot immunities of the target.

Pooky did target scum, but alas - just a goon.

[Leonidas]

(Surely the strong SK and hard-to-kill cop add to the buffer, Samadhi.)

[Leonidas]

[Dragon Phoenix]

I had forgotten about the day start, which is indeed another factor on the town's side.

Let's just look at the end game: if macros had been lynched due to pooky's investigation (the normal outcome), it would have been an uphill battle for Taf (who could not even kill pooky) and I think town would probably have won (with a third mason claim in addition to Napoleon). In that likely scenario, you can't say that the mafia played badly, and still we would have lost a set-up that several of you maintain is badly skewed to the mafia.
_________________
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/

[Pooky]

*raises hand*

5 scum in a 20 player game is most certainly going to be skewed towards the scum. Especially given the power level of the Godfather role.

One shot immunities to night investigations might as well be full immunity, it's highly unlikely a player is going to investigate the godfather twice.

You can't count on a Serial Killer to balance out an excess of mafia, frankly speaking that's just terrible game design.

In a normal game, if the town has over 50% lynches targetted on nontown aligned players, you would expect the town to win. Not by a little, but handedly win.

This was a game on daystart where town had basically no information to work with on day one and they still managed to get above 50% correct lynches.
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3-1 against Mith in Fantasy Football.

[Leonidas]

[Pooky]

Yes, so in an endgame where the cop survives and also has investigated all living players, then it's relevant.(honestly how often does that happen?)

But before then it's basically a blanket investigation immunity.
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3-1 against Mith in Fantasy Football.