CP Mafia 4 - The Unknown Host - Game Over!

[mrkajz44]

Haha - yeah Timbo had me nailed pretty early, but luckily no one really latched on except HG, so I was able to survive for so long.

Looking back, I really wonder if it would have been better for me to get lynched on Day 3. The fact that there were three close votes on me (including that one) kind of outed us as a group at the end of it. If I was just lynched right there, I feel there were little to no ties from me to Peanut or Biz, so maybe we could have done better that way?

All hindsight though, we were at lynch or lose (win!) and very close to winning many times, so I guess what we did came as close to victory as possible without actually winning.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Haha - yeah Timbo had me nailed pretty early, but luckily no one really latched on except HG, so I was able to survive for so long.

Looking back, I really wonder if it would have been better for me to get lynched on Day 3. The fact that there were three close votes on me (including that one) kind of outed us as a group at the end of it. If I was just lynched right there, I feel there were little to no ties from me to Peanut or Biz, so maybe we could have done better that way?

All hindsight though, we were at lynch or lose (win!) and very close to winning many times, so I guess what we did came as close to victory as possible without actually winning.

I think that if Bizaro came in and lynched you pre tie break he would have been very well buried. We'd have found peanut but finding Bizaro would have been very difficult.

[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think that if Bizaro came in and lynched you pre tie break he would have been very well buried. We'd have found peanut but finding Bizaro would have been very difficult.

Yeah I'd like to hear his explanation of what happened there.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think that if Bizaro came in and lynched you pre tie break he would have been very well buried. We'd have found peanut but finding Bizaro would have been very difficult.

In retrospect that's my biggest regret, not lynching mrkajz. I think we probably would have won if I had done that.

My second biggest regret is not sending the spore to puxlut as soon as she revealed. At the time it seemed like a bad idea to lose the spore for a night, but having 2 confirmed townies made it pretty tough as we got closer to the end. We had the town at lynch or lose twice, but with GGG engaging CP Mafia beast mode...

Great game all. I posted the spore progression in the dead thread earlier, but I'll add it here:


Night 0: Oling, didn't turn
Night 1: Girlysports, didn't turn
Night 2: No spore from girly's death
Night 3: SebC, turned
Night 4: Devo22, didn't turn
At this point oling was baiting the agent into checking SebC, so I wasn't feeling particularly good about the randomness aspect of the game...

Night 5: Oling turned
Night 6: Party elephant turned
Night 7: Hockeyguy turned
Night 8: Hockeyguy sent to squiggs, he didn't turn.

Interesting that the spore moved 8 times, with 4 turns and 4 not turned, so exactly 50/50.

[bizaro86]

I just read the turned thread, it looks like oling/party elephant had me pegged as host, but not mrkajz. We thought they knew mrkajz, based on oling switching to defend him when he turned.

I actually think if we could have communicated with the turned we would have won easily, as we could have let them know mrkajz was town and done a better job steering the vote, and potentially pulling the power away from GGG.

Anyway, that was a great game. Biggest thanks go to Mazrim for setting it up. I think this was the best flavour/setup so far, both were exceptional. Congratulations to the town, you guys pulled it off and were perfect when it mattered.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Party Elephant

Yeah I'd like to hear his explanation of what happened there.

Basically it was a tactical error. I was caught up in the "9 lives of mrkajz" that seemed to be playing out, where he almost got lynched over and over. I actually planned to come in and vote starseed for the lynch, but party elephant called me out so aggressively and effectively on my lead up post that I couldn't do that. Plus, I really was having a terrible evening with my son, which probably reduced my ability to make good decisions. (The best lies are mostly true).

In retrospect, being the deciding vote to lynch mrkajz before the deadline might have bought me enough townie cred to stay alive in the endgame and lynch starseed or squiggs instead. Short term thinking on my part cost us big there.

That also locked me into a anti-party elephant posture, which was super not helpful, as there wasn't much to go on.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

In retrospect that's my biggest regret, not lynching mrkajz. I think we probably would have won if I had done that.

Thanks scum-buddy.

But seriously, I can't help but think that way too because everything spiraled out of control after my lynch and flip.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Thanks scum-buddy.

But seriously, I can't help but think that way too because everything spiraled out of control after my lynch and flip.

I know, I know...

If it had been easy I would have done it. With your cardflip the town got a thread, and they used to unravel the whole sweater. It was still close, because that night we got a flip, so they needed to lynch you AND for GGGs investigation to hit, which it did.

[East Coast Flame]

Woo-hoo! Way to go town! I thought for sure we were done-zo. Props to GGG and Squiggs. You guys saved the towns bacon.

Thanks to Maz for another awesome game!

[GGG]

The other piece that got you caught was olings behavior change from well thought out townie to attack mode.

A little softer touch on the squiggs attack and perhaps i dont go Mrkajz who i had as leaning town until i revisited everything with squiggs being town.

[bizaro86]

In the turned thread, oling and party elephant you guys mentioned you already had me pegged as host after you flipped, even before I used the "code word" method to out myself to you. We could have easily had mrkjaz do that, but thought you had him figured already.

What tipped you off that I was host prior to that code word?

[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

In the turned thread, oling and party elephant you guys mentioned you already had me pegged as host after you flipped, even before I used the "code word" method to out myself to you. We could have easily had mrkjaz do that, but thought you had him figured already.

What tipped you off that I was host prior to that code word?

You'd have to ask Oling for that I was just trusting his hunch. But we thought mrkajz was town because everyone who moved off him on day 3 were town as well.

[Mazrim]

Better late than never...?

Here are the night actions: http://pastebin.com/ieSuLXsw

I took quite some time to make this game. I want to always try to mix things up as much as I can between games to keep things fresh, and when Krystal and I arrived at this concept, it fit so well that it came together quickly after that. There were a few other game concepts fleshed out that either didn't balance well, or were just plain boring from a playing perspective. I might try tweaking one of them for a future game.

The theme was always going to be space related, but it wasn't until the recruiting idea came into place that I settled on Gradius. The Gradius theme came out because the ever-present bad guys of the series are able to take control of machines and humanoids alike, and that fit the recruiting scheme for the scum in this game. I've been playing through the series lately (it's really freaking difficult!) and so it was the first thing to come to mind.

Recruiting without a night kill means the game flows very differently than normal...especially in terms of the town getting information. The randomness element of the scum getting new members was intended to offset that. It's unfortunate that there's no way for me to show you all specifically every time I did a coin flip, but I did use random.org, set to a Canadian Loonie and flipped 1 coin each time. I could screenshot it, but it doesn't mean much since I could just flip coins until I got the result I wanted. It's not great to rely on me to be honest, but I have to assume everyone isn't taking these so seriously that they'd try to cheat.

I was impressed the coin flips evened out in the end, but I was worried at first! Also, when I did some test flips before the game started, I flipped 2 coins for the Government Agent a few times and they all ended up having him turned...kinda creepy!

Big thanks to GirlySports for saving my butt when I was swamped at work. I had a lot of trouble keeping up with the thread this game (and writing this post, as you can see), and I would have had trouble providing timely vote counts throughout the game without her. On that note, I don't have much to add this time about what happened during the game itself since I was pretty distant from it and not being able to thoroughly read every post sucked.

It was really unfortunate that I essentially confirmed SebC's alignment when I made an explanation post, and in these cases I really need to stay less specific in the future. There was no need for me to even mention that anyone else had already privately asked me about things.

Anyway, I can't say for sure when the next game will be...maybe in the fall? I feel like things should be calmed down for me work wise to run another one by then. If someone else wants to take a shot at this, I'd be willing to help balance or offer suggestions on a game. Thanks again for playing these games, and I'm glad the overall consensus was that this was a good one.

GAME OVER