Wow! What an absolutely stunning game. I have to say, Robert, for your first hosting experience ever and for anyone's hosting experience regardless of how experienced they could be, this was very impressive. I agree that you have a gift; your writing, as I've always known it to be, was very outstanding. I do agree with timmer that your game turned out to be balanced, a fact I did wonder about at times. It is insane when you think about it, baddie teams with 6, something as crazy as the Magna Beam, all the possible civvie BTSC, many unconventional and risky items, but it all seemed to work out somehow. Props to you. What a game. This will go down as one of my all-time favorite mafia games, I'm sure of it.
Now I have so much to say here, I hope I don't forget anything! I'm sure I'll forget something that was in my mind at some point throughout the game that I wanted to say at endgame.
Flyin' High, I thank you so incredibly for saving me on Night 1. There's a funny story about that. BWT and I were at the Meshuggah concert at the time and I was already loving this game so much. I really wanted to be able to snag that shield but I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to be. When I saw that LT ended up winning it decisively and I was in second, in addition to how I went after He-Man and how all of the Day 0 and Day 1 discussion went, I had that sinking feeling in my chest that I was going to die. I seriously thought I was a goner. BWT used his phone to check for me and it said MovingPictures07 in the poll title (the post was not up quite yet when we had checked) and so I was like, "I died, didn't I?" and David just gave me this look... my heart sunk. I couldn't believe it. Damn! I was so upset. After the opening act was over, we checked again, only to find the actual post was up... and that I survived! Man, that was one of the best moments I ever had in a mafia game, I was so thrilled. I had no idea how I survived, but I figured it had to be because Stratos took the big risk and protected me or something. I would have never thought that was you and never considered you to be that role!
This game I tried my absolute hardest of any game ever to take everything anyone has ever said about me regarding my civvie behavior v. baddie behavior in games and really put on my best face for this one. It seems like it worked! I even had Daisy 100% fooled and she usually can pick me up pretty well. This game COMPLETELY CONSUMED me. I have no idea how many hours upon hours I spent in BTSC scheming everything, and even while I was busy studying CPA or spending time elsewhere, I was thinking about this game. I was so proud of my performance this game, so the fact that I didn't walk away with a winners' banner at first was very disappointing to me, but I got over it, and I was rooting for my team all the way. I took some very risky moves this game which did not pay off. If even half of them had, I am convinced The Horde would have won this game. Big time.
First off, I decided I absolutely had to defend Snow Dog. That was a risky move, but as his name came up throughout the game, I thought it best to defend him because I thought I could argue away suspicion of him for quite some time using the fact that I knew him argument. It sort of helped that I honestly thought Snowie would behave that way if he had not had BTSC. That was what I told him from the very beginning. He said he wouldn't post all of his thoughts at one point, and I said, No. I told him, go for it, post every single thing, act as though I am not here and no one else is here and you are playing this game absolutely solo. That is your mission, you have to convince everyone of that throughout the game, and you can't do that if you can't first convince yourself. He also mentioned he was going to vote for me on Day 1, I said go for it. Just in case I ever had him throw me under the bus, I wanted him to be clear. He was my ace in the hole, I wanted him to last a while, especially because I decided he could throw me under the bus at will.
Second off, I decided I needed a sacrifice, and I quickly realized it needed to be BWT. Firstly, I suspect BWT often in games, and I thought it would be weird if I had defended him in this one. Second, I told him from the beginning that Rox was eyeing him and he was flip flopping hard, so I really wanted to lead the lynch on him and gain some civvie cred. I then thought, with the acquisition of the Magna Beam, we could seriously cause some chaos and confusion, and I was hoping we could get in a lynch on Day 3 where we could frame a civvie for being baddie by having the Magna Beam freak out and flip the lynch downwards one, taking the focus off of BWT for another day or two, and then I could lead the lynch against him. That failed when Skeletor forced me to vote DH on Day 3, something which frustrated me greatly, as it ruined my plan.
Okay, let's see... now, NKs. Here was my strategy here. As big of a threat Snake Mountain was, they seemed to be taking care of themselves on that front, and I so desperately wanted to get rid of Man-E-Faces because he could be a HUGE problem later, especially for me, as I wanted to take the crusading, very active civvie role to the absolute max, but in doing so I played a very risky game where people were likely to target me with night actions. Speaking of which, I was insanely paranoid that Snake Mountain would try and NK me again at any moment. It was driving me nuts and I was sincerely hoping to see another shield poll, eventually realizing that it was being passed amongst the civvies behind the scenes. Anyway, yes! As to whom we decided to NK... well, I told everyone in BTSC that the mission should be firstly to rid ourselves of Mekaneck. Because the longer we keep him around, the more civvie BTSC we'll have to combat, and that could be very difficult as the game progresses. At the time, I thought LT was in the green civvie BTSC group with Man-E-Faces, so that was the reasoning behind killing Aces on Night 2. I didn't even think that the night poll would affect that kill until it showed unsuccessful, and then I was kicking myself for that one.
On Night 4, I really desperately wanted to get rid of Mekaneck, who I was after Aces, was thinking could be DH. II wasn't sure about DH being Mekaneck, I also thought he could be Man-E-Faces. But then! This was a bizarre twist in the way I had everyone pegged as roles. But as Robert explained, we got to control DH's night actions and votes via the Slime Pit. Robert told us to submit 0, 1, or 2 names, which made me think he had to be one of the roles that submitted one or two names, so then I got rid of him as Mekaneck or Man-E-Faces and I was convinced he was Buzz-Off. This threw me off of DFaraday's trail and really kind of screwed up my pegging of civvies for quite some time.
I absolutely knew Russtifinko was a civvie from the start. I thought we could maybe get him lynched after his behavior during the BWT lynch on Day 4, but Night 4 was a very interesting night. I had a grocery list of possible candidates to kill, but I told everyone that with a few recent posts, I was beginning to wonder if Russtifinko was Man-E-Faces. The post where Russ said something about "Nice job, Man-E-Faces!" and then said with 100% confidence that Daisy was bad, that's what got me. I thought, he is very likely Man-E-Faces, especially now that it's not DH. I know Russ really well and the fact that he said nothing else this game with confidence and then is so confident that Daisy was baddie, it made sense. So that's why I killed him.
We killed AATB on Night 6 based on the fact that I was thinking he was Mekaneck. Whoops! Sorry about that, Snake Mountain. I so desperately wanted to find Mekaneck that I went through FH, AATB, DFaraday, LT, Aces again, and so many other people's posts from the start to see if their thoughts changed as the game went on, i.e., if they suddenly thought someone was good when they hadn't before. Now here's what got me. I thought for sure LT and Vomps had BTSC from the way Vomps was acting, so I had them pegged as two of the green civvie BTSC trio roles. AATB questioned Vomps's vote big time, and then the next day period, he was all like, it's OK, I understand now. That's what pushed it over the edge for me and I decided to kill him over anyone else. I thought maybe he had recently picked up LT as a BTSCmate.
It killed me later on in the game to realize I had the groups of BTSC backwards! I thought BF, juliets, and indiglo were the pink ones, with FH a possible fourth, and then the LT group as the green group, because for some reason it seemed like the people gaining BTSC with LT was growing throughout the game. It wasn't until shortly before DFaraday's flip as Mekaneck did I start to wonder if I was wrong, and then his reveal made me wonder I had everything backwards. Which was NOT good because I was trying to play the role of the civvie here, so I was hoping to prove myself.
The Snow Dog lynch. Man, I had so much riding on that one. The reason I reacted the way I did there, guys, was because we had used the Magna Beam the night before so it would automatically shift 1 person down. The very fact that Snow Dog could have been lynched, when his name was being thrown around, scared the hell out of me. Because if Snow Dog was lynched, then SE would have been lynched instead, a teammate of ours who currently was under NO suspicion, and it would have simultaneously made Snow Dog look baddie. Then he would have likely been lynched the following day. Then who was defending Snow Dog big time earlier in the game and also was leaning perhaps civvie on SE? This guy. I thought, oh god, it's going to be a lynch of three Horde right in a row, including myself. I could NOT have that happen. So I took a huge gambit risk and desperately wanted to get someone other than Snowie lynched. I was totally coming up with all of that out of my ass. Knowing how powerful some of our technology actually was, I thought it might work. Snow Dog disagreed with me. He told me to throw him under the bus from the beginning, but I ignored him and told him I had this. The worst part was I was forced AGAIN by Skeletor, this time to vote DFaraday.
By this time, we also had the Horde Trooper, which could cancel out two player's votes. And I knew Stinkor's vote had an effect of -4 from the fact that Snowie was Stinkored. I was hoping all the numbers worked out perfectly. It's why I didn't have Snow Dog vote for himself for security, was for DFaraday to get the most votes, thereby lynching the one beneath him. Two civvies out in one fell swoop! I told myself. Of course, I thought DFaraday was a lone civvie at the time, so I thought I could get doubt cast on him perhaps. But still, we could have at least kept Snow Dog alive longer. Nope. There was civvie vote manipulation I was unaware of. As soon as Snowie flipped, I knew it meant two things. 1. The civvies had vote manipulation. 2. My Magna Beam didn't work. At that time, I knew my giant gambit had failed, and I thought it would be silly for me to keep arguing it. My heart sank. I went ahead and outed myself. I knew DP would protect me from my first lynch, so there was one. I thought I could also use the Magna Beam to take an approach similar to timmer, to make you guys think I was near unlynchable, all the while being outed and taking attention away from uncovering my other teammates. It did work.
I think my biggest folly in this game was being tricked into keeping my entire team alive as much as possible. My strategy up until like Day 5 or 6 was more so to have most of my teammates readily available for me to throw them under the bus, but also keep them out of the spotlight without making it obvious, and it worked. But then I started thinking. We had the Magna Beam. We had the Horde Trooper which could cancel out two votes. I made my sacrifice of BWT. If we could just keep all 5 of us until the point where there are about 15 players left alive, especially if we team up with Skeletor, who I KNEW was reywaS because we had SE leech him, then we could definitively control this game. So that was my new plan. And the fact that Snow Dog could have been lynched on that day where we used the Magna Beam threw a HUGE wrench in my plan, so I told myself I had to make sure that didn't happen. I was in damage control mode from the day thereafter onward.
Now, as to my strategy as Hordak. I thought, sure, it'd be nice to get an extra kills of civvies, but my chance of that extra kill was only 20%. I was very curious was the powerful technology was, so I decided to gun for that, with Grizzlor (Snow Dog)'s assistance, thereby giving me 49% chance every time. We were successful! And we got the Magna Beam out of it, a piece of intense lynch manipulation. I thought, damn, we need to keep doing this. So I continued to gun for powerful technology every night. We then got the Slime Pit, the Horde Trooper, and towards the end there we also got something which allowed me to target two players with my extra kill instead of one, something I didn't get to use or think about at all because I was in damage control mode at that point and just trying to screw with everyone as much as possible with my outed baddieness and the Magna Beam.
Now... backing up... as to the lynch of He-Man... Snow Dog and I came up with the plan to send BF a message using DP's secret power trying to incriminate He-Man because we had recently discovered He-Man was Tri-Klops from SE's leech power (right after we discovered reywaS was Skeletor). I thought, wow, He-Man is playing an intense game, so let's get rid of him, anything to keep attention off of us for a day or two. I thought, using the Magna Beam while getting Dom or He-Man lynched would be GREAT because it would effectively save us for the next four lynches or so. You guys would lynch Dom, for example, it moves down, you think Dom is bad. You lynch Dom the second day, he flips whatever. Then you lynch He-Man, we use Magna Beam again, it moves down. Then He-Man gets lynched the following day. That was the plan. But BF's staff was what was causing our Magna Beam not to work here with He-Man and then again with Snow Dog, something which irritated me. I figured it was either LT, BF, or timmer's doing. But anyway! We manufactured that message to BF that He-Man was Skeletor, thinking that would get him lynched. I actually almost thought to frame another civvie, such as FH, with that instead of He-Man, a fellow teammate of Skeletor, but Snow Dog thought it was too risky.
It's funny. The night before the Snow Dog lynch, we sent a message to reywaS/Skeletor, trying to get him to team up with us to ensure our numbers to win this game. Because, let me tell you, our chances of winning looked REALLY good at that time. We had Magna Beam, Horde Trooper, and all 5 of us still, and if we could just get Skeletor and his force vote and NK affirmatively on our side, we could have easily won. I sent this insanely long message to him, trying to get him to side with us. And then... everything sort of fell apart and I was too busy taking up the following day with my gambit, lol, and reywaS was on vacation starting around that time so he never officially responded in code (by using a particular emoticon) in the thread. At the time, we were thinking he probably had a second teammate alive, which was probably Dom, but later on I realized my mistake with AATB. But the way he kept Skeletoring civvies from then on out made us realize he had the same goal in mind as us.
I made two major mistakes in this game, in my eyes. First was the Snow Dog gambit/lynch, even though it was so much fun to play the game from thereon out that way. I should have made it easier to throw him and a few other of my teammates under the bus, thinking it would be better for two or three of us, or even just me, to make it to endgame, instead of as many of as possible. I got too obsessed with overwhelming the game by having our numbers as 5 when there were 15 or so players left, thereby ensuring our victory. The second was not realizing how powerful Stormcrow's Modulok power could have been. It was only once Snow Dog died that I realized that we could be targeting her with our OWN actions to boost up her voting power, so I proceeded to make that my goal for the remainder of the game, to help my team keep her and DP alive over the rest of my teammates so that maybe they'd have some chance in hell of winning this thing after I blew it with the Snow Dog gambit. If only I had realized that earlier, we could have (perhaps unfairly) pumped her voting power very high.
Let's see... what else... I do have to say my BTSC in this game has to go down as some of the best I've ever had, largely thanks to Snow Dog. We talked so much about the game and schemed and planned so intensely. At many times, we thought we might be able to secure victory here. I also want to thank SE, BWT, Stormcrow (who replaced in and then didn't really get into the game, so thanks for your effort in appeasing me), and DP because you guys were equally great. Such an awesome BTSC with all of you.
I was very surprised the game lasted as long as it did. After the way all the lynches went on, I thought for sure the civvies had this one, and I thought they clearly deserved it by avoiding lynches for so long and playing such an awesome game. Props to indiglo, FH, and LT for seeing through my shenanigans and playing an incredible game. BF and Elohcin and DFaraday and other civvies as well, such an awesome game. You guys all deserved to win in my eyes. Well-played. Same to He-Man and reywaS in particular. After the way your team fell apart, you both played such an amazing game.
I have to stress again, what a game this was! It will certainly go down in mafia history as something else, I'm sure.
I think He-Man earned his as well, without a doubt.
Ryan and I talk about him all the time