The Syndicate

Maybe you can all join Dogs vs Cats for another chance of proving the balance is all wrong (and for winning too)!

I apologize if my posts came across as saying civilians played badly. That was not the point. The point was that, under the framework of teams I build, the civilians failed to achieve the goals they had to achieve in order to win as well as the mafia. That said, there is a discussion to be done about whether multiball is good or not, or if that framework was fair to begin with. I think I'll go with Dizzy's point: power madness is just much more swingy.

I don't normally host games with a 1/6 indie to non-indie ratio, tbh. I did it this time because it fit flavor, but normally a game this size hosted by me with have 1 or 2 indies.

I'm not saying we should do what mafia Scum says, just giving an example of how this affects the liberty we have to design games.

It's not just pressing the "allow claim" or "not allow claim" buttons. If influences what kind of game you are making from the ground.

The Mafia Scum wiki says claiming should never be banned. But the wiki also says you should never host games with named roles.

Unfortunately, role madness loses a lot of possible setups if you can't have named roles.

This is a variant, and I'd rather have it exist than otherwise.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 3:14 pm Imo it is better to have mechanics that punish info dumping (wolf claim vigilante) or make it unreliable (janitor, fakeclaims, misdirection, cloaks, millers) than to just ban it.

Cause then you don’t have to deal with corner cases or accidental rule breaks.

You are right, but some flavors (like this one) are straight up unplayable unless you ban info dumping. Because all civ roles are named and you can learn who they are using Google.

Janitors are inefficient because civs can just massclaim on day 1.

Fake claims only work if you have a bunch of relevant characters lieing around not being in the game. Still fails if you added all the most relevant characters (which is usually the case). In the Ace Attorney game I hosted a few years ago, I did that and I had a guy who knew the series and didn't play saying he could see through all the fake claims, so I got lucky he wasn't in the game.

All other stuff you mentioned is also puny compared to the insumortable power of 15 civs naming their characters in the first 24 hours. I've seen it happen multiple times. Usually to some newbie host who just read a treatise about the merits of allowing claiming and decided to do that in their game without imagining the consequences.

If I want to host a Girl Genius game, I have two options. Ban claiming, or not host a Girl Genius game.

Sure I can always do something cool like in Hogwarts where I built an entire system to replace the named characters. Or in a One Piece game I made this year where every character was a villain and the faction layout was secret. But that can't be done every single time. Sometimes you just want heroes to be heroes and respect flavor.

I think it was Epi who said this in one of my first games here:

I love it when the game mechanics automatically punish civs who dump info.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:51 pm

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:47 pm

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:33 pm It’s also horseshit for a host to repeatedly repeat that I broke the rules and should have been modkilled and when I ask him when that happened his answer is “I don’t know.”

Well my post was a reply to Dom's complaint that mafia knew he was Agatha.

If you guys are mad mafia learned all your secrets, ask them how they did it.

I didn't modkill you because, like you said, I didn't even see where you broke the rules.

I just don't want to hear complaints about mafia picking out civs to roleblock and then you trying to convince me that you didn't reveal your identities. At some point you did. Maybe do a better job of hiding them next time.

I’m not mad the mafia figured out something.

I’m mad you’re saying I broke the rules when I didn’t.

Let's agree that you didn't, then.

I just don't want to hear any more complaints about mafia focus firing on Dom. I guess they were just lucky then.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:23 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:35 pm Civilians needed nutella dead (not mafia).

Civilians needed Lunalee dead (not mafia).

Civilians needed sprityo dead (not mafia).

Civilians needed five more people dead.

That's eight.

That's too many.

I agree.

I’m not saying I deserved a win because my reads were pretty well junk except on Nutella.

I think there were too many antitown roles compared to town ones.

DDL: Town has 5 blocks so they could have stopped some kills and that’s balance.

Sure, but the town spent all game blocking me.

And if they had blocked some kills, that really would have frustrated the mafia, as I was highly frustrated at the labyrinth of ways to stop kills in Hogwarts that the mafia had to tiptoe around.

Basically, I’m saying this should have been a mountainous game.

Now excuse me. I have to get back to writing my multiball game with a bunch of blocks and a high scum to town ratio.

Welcome to role madness, it only works because people block each other all the time.

I mean, Dom keeps saying mafia had extra information but that is factually wrong. Mafia's only source of information was killed night 1.

It's fun to try to pin on me the fact mafia figured out your identities, but it won't change the reality that they did it without my help.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:33 pm It’s also horseshit for a host to repeatedly repeat that I broke the rules and should have been modkilled and when I ask him when that happened his answer is “I don’t know.”

Well my post was a reply to Dom's complaint that mafia knew he was Agatha.

If you guys are mad mafia learned all your secrets, ask them how they did it.

I didn't modkill you because, like you said, I didn't even see where you broke the rules.

I just don't want to hear complaints about mafia picking out civs to roleblock and then you trying to convince me that you didn't reveal your identities. At some point you did. Maybe do a better job of hiding them next time.

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 1:59 pm When did I hint Dom was Agatha?

I don't know, but mafia just caught it.

Either you or someone hinted it, or they used black magic or something.

Dom wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 11:52 am Especially when they have a permanent -1 in the polls.

Which is punished by growing madness every time they use it. Madness that is also affected by juliets doing night kills, and by the T5B.

The civilian faction had 5 roleblockers. Some of them with constraints, but that's still a ton of blocking power.

They didn't have those at the end because they let their members die way faster than the mafia did.

The amount of combined power the civilian faction should have should hve should be similar to the mafia faction's. But since more civs died than mafia, mafia had more power in the end. If civs were able to shut the mafia's kills down consistently in lylo (which they did do once), it would mean the mafia had no way of finishing the game off.

Quin wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 11:08 am

Jackofhearts2005 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 11:03 am

Quin wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 6:13 pm Aw. So close. But it really was a stretch for me to stand a good chance of winning this. When I subbed in the game was more or less solved and most of the popular lynch candidates weren't sparks.

In the end, if I'd had juliets lynched today, I'd have boosted Michelle's vote tonight and won with mafia by lynching the last spark tomorrow. Town had already lost the game on Day 10 unless they managed some lucky tie shenanigans, I'm assuming jack was aware of that which is why he wouldn't go for juliets. Phooey.

Yeah. I assumed we were playing an ugly game of chicken where we lose if we vote Juliets, you lose if you vote Michelle and everyone loses if nobody moves.

To be honest, at first I was considering voting Michelle just giving you the win, mainly because I'd subbed in more or less when the game was already solved (and Quin 1.0 was townie, I guess). But I figured that wasn't fair to DDL and the role he designed, so I went with the juliets lynch to try pull it off.

I thank you for playing your role to the best of your ability, even though you had an unlucky situation to face (most sparks survived longer than they should have).

As for the roleblocks, mafia had one, and a role that could copy abilities from living teammates. If the roleblocker died first they would lose the ability to block altogether.

A mafia team that can punish civs who openly claim each other is a good thing. That's why most mafia teams have roleblocks, it's basic protection against civ role abuse.

Dom wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2019 10:39 am I didn't out myself. They had a role check. It was only obvious what was going on when there were literally only civs who had had BTSC left and Mafia who had btsc left. That wasn't my doing.
Baddies have significantly more information than any one civilian. And they can leverage it better. That's the trade off for fewer numbers.

No, it wasn't your doing. What happened is that Jack hinted at you being Agatha so strongly that mafia picked up, and from there they decided to shut down your role.

I could have just modkilled Jack for it but I didn't want to cause any issues.

Their access to information was actually low because they lost their role cop early. That's how they missed stuff like you having a kill or Jack being a secret cop

Owner of a Lonely Heart wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:17 pm I thought the mafia team had specifically chosen to kill me with the bomb, but nope, just a flat rng.... : PerC Dry emoji :

That sucks, but it could have been worse. Could have lynched Quin again.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:14 pm When I played, I had fun. That's important.

Thanks, Epi. And sorry for any annoyance caused. Truth is, I've made and hosted about 10 role madness games so far. Only 2 really left me satisfied: Hogwarts and Ace Attorney. This one was one of my best ones I think, but still doesn't ompare to those two. It seems making a perfect RM game is a huge task.

One mistake I admit was made was insisting on 24 players when it was clear there were not 24 people wanting to play.

That caused me to recruit a bunch of maybes and other people who might not have really wanted to play. I advertised this on Reddit ffs.

I should have just redced the role count. But it hurts to do that so I didn't.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:07 pm

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:05 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:00 pm I want to say this though:

DDL, you are a writer who knows what he's doing. I liked reading your stuff. And I did read your stuff. Even when I was dead.

Oh man, thanks for that. I have to say, I don't really prioritize doing write-ups. Sometimes I even skipped them. But when I did them I tried to give them some fun event related to the comic so it didn't feel like I was just phoning them in.

You're a good host. I think highly of you. My one piece of advice would be this:

Don't incorporate every aspect of a theme at the expense of the balance of your game. Cut things.

Ok I will give it that the game would be more balanced with fewer indies.

Not in the sense that I think this would make town more likely to win than mafia, but I guess the game feels more random and less rewarding of skill when it has more factions.

I also think highly of you, by the way. I've copied a bunch of ideas from your games in mine before.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't come across as me trying to bash the civ faction. I don't think you guys were terrible, and while I didn't read it much closely I saw some good scumhunting going on. I just have this game theory of "the setup should ensure mafia wins if they escape a certain % of lynches" and that's what I think happened. If mafia lost even after surviving a bunch of lynches I'd think town had too may abilities or something. Which has happened countless times before in my games.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 11:00 pm I want to say this though:

DDL, you are a writer who knows what he's doing. I liked reading your stuff. And I did read your stuff. Even when I was dead.

Oh man, thanks for that. I have to say, I don't really prioritize doing write-ups. Sometimes I even skipped them. But when I did them I tried to give them some fun event related to the comic so it didn't feel like I was just phoning them in.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:59 pm If your SK has a 20% of winning, no. That's daft.

How many mistakes can the civilians make before they lose? That's where I start.

That gives every individual player the same chance of winning. I don't think someone should be punished with a lower chance just because they drew a SK role.

As for the later question, I don't know. What I see is that this is a multiball game where one faction was left alone. So that faction went and won it.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:54 pm When you want to balance something, look at your game and ask yourself this:

"I am signing up for this game. Which side do I want to be on?"

Honestly, I went in thinking the civs had the highest risk of being OP.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:52 pm

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:51 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:47 pm Civilians only get so many lynches to get it right. Mafia have lynches AND kills.

Piling on additional people civilians have to eliminate doesn't balance your game. It makes it harder.

It makes it harder for the mafia too.

The more factions a game has, the harder it is for each individual faction to win.

I do not agree.

The more people everyone has to get out, the easier it is for mafia, because it's a goose chase for the civilians.

Unless one indie escaped through them. Then you get a scenario where a SK could stay hidden and win with its superior role (like DH did in my last game). Or get backstabbed by Zola. Or maybe the civs are taken over by the cult and the later outnumbers the mafia.

The indies went down because they were more scummy than the mafia, so they were lynched first. An indie's advantage is that they can hunt the mafia and appears less scummy than it, but mafia managed to earn the town's trust while the indies were slaughtered. That looks like a clean mafia win to me.

This game had 5 factions, excluding Quin.

CIvs, mafia, SK, cult and Zola.

So the game is balanced if each's faction chance of winning is as close as possible to 20%.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:47 pm Civilians only get so many lynches to get it right. Mafia have lynches AND kills.

Piling on additional people civilians have to eliminate doesn't balance your game. It makes it harder.

It makes it harder for the mafia too.

The more factions a game has, the harder it is for each individual faction to win.

Where I come from an independent is any role that s not aligned with civilian or mafia.

It's synonimous with Third Party.

This game had a serial killer, a cult, and two custom roles. All independents.

Which means, if I could redesign the game, the first thing I would do is nerf the Tarvek role.

I could change a few other things but that would be the main one. I guess the game would be healthier if it had fewer 3Ps, though this was always meant to be a struggle to add many 3Ps because I liked the characters, so not sure if I would change that.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:32 pm

Dragon D. Luffy wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:30 pm

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:12 pm Too many lynches had to go right, and civilians weren't afforded enough of them. DDL, how were the civilians expected to win?

Lynch more than one baddie in the first 7 day phases.

How do you lynch more than one? You only get one lynch.

You lynched 1 baddie, 3 indies and 3 civs.

If a civilian faction is ever allowed to win a game after doing that, the host did a bad job balancing it.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:35 pm Civilians needed nutella dead (not mafia).

Civilians needed Lunalee dead (not mafia).

Civilians needed sprityo dead (not mafia).

Civilians needed five more people dead.

That's eight.

That's too many.

Mafia needed nutella, Lunalee and sprityo dead too.

It's unfair to pretend only civs needed to eliminate the indies. This is a multi-ball game. You assume mafia will do some work attacking the indies, and vice-versa.

This game was a stomp. Mafia was much better than the civilians, as observed by how the civilians had an incredibly low scum lynch ratio.

Granted, you guys spent half the games milling through the indies, but if civs and indies only attack each other that means the mafia is doing well.

The only reason the game wasn't over by Day 8, which it should when civs are that bad at lynching mafia, is because of the Tarvek role. That role was allowed to be that good because I assumed it would be balanced by its inability to detect culted civilians. But nutella died too early so Jack was allowed to build a perfect PoE, which ended up breaching through the non-claim rule (something I allowed it to do or the role would have been pointless), and turn the endgame into a boring stalemate. Mafia was able to power through in the end because I like to ensure mafia always has the tools to shut down civilians who reveal their abilities in the open (like they did here), as well as prevent civs from beating mafia with abilities only. Civs need to lynch, and civs didn't lynch mafia in this game. At least not until Jack started monopolizing it with his role.

Juliets was one-shot BP. Big deal. So was Higgs an most of the indies. In a game with so many kills, mafia also needs kill protection. Everything in mafia's arsenal was meant to counter something the civs had.

The Take 5 Bomb was considerably more powerful. But town had a revive, which Mac could have had used but he decided to save it for later for some reason and then mafia managed to cop him and take him down before he could). And the Take 5 Bomb pratically ensured the saved mafioso would die next day, unless they pulled a huge vote fliparound, as well as blocked and silenced 2 mafiosos.

Epignosis wrote: ↑Sat Aug 24, 2019 10:12 pm Too many lynches had to go right, and civilians weren't afforded enough of them. DDL, how were the civilians expected to win?

Lynch more than one baddie in the first 7 day phases.

List of Actions

Day 1
Rej was lynched.
Night 1
Owner protects Dragomir
TSP makes Dragomir vulnerable (redirected to Owner)
Creature jails Epignosis
Timmer blocks Jack
Jack protects Sloonei from culting (RB'd)
Michelle roleblocks nutella
Oreki kills Epignosis with Wolf Pack (fails because jailed, learns role)
Sabie super-kills Dyslexicon
nova kills Sig
nutella places hive on Dragomir (RB'd)
Epignosis investigates Lunalee (jailed)
Dom tracks Epignosis (result = nothing)
Sloonei investigates Mac (gets role)
Sig investigates Epignosis (dead)
Dyslexicon tracks Quin (dead)
juliets silences Dragomir (redirected to Owner)
Jack invites Epignosis to talk (RB'd)
Lunalee chooses to side with the Wulfenbach Empire

Day 2

Sprityo replaced Oreki
Nutella was lynched

Night 2

Michelle blocks Mac
Timmer blocks owner
Dom blocks LC
Mac charges lightning staff (RB'd)
LC buffs TSP (RB'd)
Creature jails LC
Owner protects nova (RB'd)
Jack invites LC for a chat
Sloonei blocks nova
sabie super-kills Mac
Sprityo uses Metal Arm to kills Epi
nova kills Dom (RB'd)
Jack vaccinates LC
Epi checks Creature (dead)
Mac searches Lunalee (dead)

Day 3

Lunalee was lynched
Jack guessed Long Con’s role and learned it.

Night 3

owner protects juliets
Creature jails Jack
Quin protects Jack
Michelle blocks Jack
LC buffs Dom
nova kills Quin
sabie super-kills nova
jack talks with Michelle (RB'd)

Day 4

Dyslexicon replaced Sloonei
Quin replaced Poison Chan
Epignosis replaced RainyDay
Juliets reduces Creature’s VP
Creature was lynched

Night 4

Owner protects Epi
Dom protects Epi
Epi attacks sabie
Michelle blocks Timmer
Timmer blocks Epi (RB'd)
Dyslexicon blocks LC
LC buffs Jack (RB'd)
Sabie super-kills Quin
Jack invites Tony to BTSC

Day 5

Sabie12 was lynched
Jack confirms TSP's role.

Night 5

Dyslexicon blocks Jack
Michelle blocks Epi
Owner protects Dyslexicon
Epi attacks Timmer (RB'd)
Dom protects Epi
Dyslexicon super-kills LC
sprityo kills Epi (protected)
Jack invites Epi to talk (RB'd)
Dom makes Jack vote for TSP

Day 6

Timmer is lynched
Dragomir is modkilled

Night 6

Owner protects Dom
Michelle blocks Dom (redirects to Owner)
Dyslexicon blocks Epi
Epi attacks Jack (RB'd)
juliets kills Epi
Jack invites Dom to talk

Day 7

Sprityo was lynched.
Jack guessed Dom’s role and learned it.

Night 7

dizzy blocks owner
michelle blocks Dom
Dom blocks juliets (RB'd)
owner protects tony (RB'd)
dizzy kills tony (stopped by bulletproof)
Dom kills Michelle (RB'd)
Tony reduces Michelle's vote power

Day 8

Juliets used Take 5 Bomb to remove herself and Michelle from the poll.
Owner was lynched (due to Michelle not having VP, it went down to RNG)

Night 8

TSP blocks Dizzy
Dizzy blocks Dom (RB'd)
Dom blocks Dizzy
Dom kills juliets (fails because of Take-5)
Dizzy kills TSP (RB'd)

Day 9

Dizzy was lynched

Night 9

michelle blocks dom
michelle kills TSP
dom kills juliets (RB'd)
dom tracks michelle (RB'd)

Day 10

Juliets reduces Dom’s vote power
Dom was lynched.

All Roles with Hidden Abilities:

Agatha Heterodyne

The heir to the nefarious Heterodyne clan, the maddest geniuses of Europa, she just wants to be left alone to do some science in her castle. Unfortunately, everyone in the continent wants to either control, or eliminate her.

[Dingbots]: Agatha’s first invention, little robots that also have the spark. She can make one per night, and have them use their ability immediately or save it for later. Each robot will be able to use one ability before being destroyed. She must make all types of robots once before making them again. Agatha can use up to three robots per night.
Agatha may use up to three robots per night.

- Flying Robot: this robot will track a player and learn who they targeted in the night.
- Bomb Robot: this robot will explode on a player and roleblock them for a cycle.
- Fighter Robot: this robot will protect a player from one regular kill with its life.

[Heterodyning]: Agatha’s family has developed a special type of humming that helps them concentrate. After activating this ability in the night, she won’t receive any votes due to the Madness Meter in the next day. Two-shot.

[KNEEL!]: Every other day, Agatha can use her powerful voice to intimidate a player into voting for whoever she wants to.

["People keep giving me rings, but I think a small death ray might be more practical.”]: Agatha will fire a death ray on a player, super-killing them. One-shot.
 
Gilgamesh “Gil” Wulfenbach

The adventurous son of Baron Wulfenbach. He’s in love with Agatha. Once per night, he searches for her. If he finds her, he will learn her identity and full role.

[Lightning Staff]: Gil has a staff which can absorb energy from lightning and unleash powerful blows of electricity. Every night, he can either fire it at a player to roleblock them, or charge it so he can roleblock three players the next time he uses it. Charging it still makes the Madness Meter go up in that night.

[Construct]: Gil is skilled at science involving human bodies. Once in the game, he can bring a dead player back to life.

Tarvek Sturmvoraus

A noble who wants to be the Storm King. Also known for being a devious snake. However, he is in love with Agatha too. Once per night, he searches for her. If he finds her, he will learn her identity and full role.

[Wasp Vaccine]: From his time pretending to work with Lucrezia, Tarvek has managed to develop a vaccine against the slaver wasps. Once per night, he can target a player to make them immune to being recruited by those, or to being used to recruit others. The effect lasts two nights.

[Double Agent]: Every night, Tarvek can pick one player to stay close to. They will gain BTSC for the duration of the next day. If, after the day ends, Tarvek correctly names the player’s role, he will receive a confirmation of it and learn all their abilities. He won’t learn if the player has been recruited by The Other.

[Spark Wasp]: Tarvek is in possession of one unit of a special breed of slaver wasp that can infect sparks. If he dies, The Other will obtain it. The Other is also capable of searching players each day to find it. This wasp will disappear from the game after Night 4.

During the night, Tarvek may choose to give it to another player.

Othar Trygvassen

A dashing hero to some, a dangerous madman to others.

He believes sparks are the source of all evil and wants to kill them, even though he is a spark himself. He wins the game when all the other sparks are dead. He loses if only one faction other than himself is left, and it still has living sparks in it.

Othar knows who all the sparks are, though he doesn’t know who has which role. He is forbidden from revealing them and will be modkilled if he does so.

However, Othar is too clumsy to kill them by himself, so he must manipulate other players into voting for the sparks. Once per night, he can choose a player to be his sidekick. That player will have +1 vote power in the next day.

Othar can’t be killed. Period. Whenever he dies, whether it is caused by a kill or a lynch, he will disappear from the game for a cycle, then come back afterwards. During that time, he is forbidden from posting, voting or using abilities.

Baron Klaus Heterodyne

The ruler of Europa, and a powerful spark who ensures the continent lives in peace and order. Or else.

He is convinced Agatha Heterodyne is The Other, and will do whatever it takes to contain that threat.

[Pax Transylvania]: The Baron has a good reputation as a keeper of peace. He appears as civilian on investigations.

[Construct Body]: The Baron has an abnormal body. He survives the first regular kill that hits him.

[Castle Wulfenbach]: A giant military blimp that is more like a city, and can attack a player in the day to make them lose all their vote power.

[Wasp Eater]: The Baron has commissioned the research of genetically modified weasels that can smell the scent of people infected by wasps. Once per night, he can have a wasp eater investigate a player and learn if they have been infected.

[Take Five Bomb]: One-shot. If The Baron is about to be lynched, he can activate this bomb. It will freeze himself and another two players of his choice in a time bubble, making them unable to be lynched on that day. It will also make them unable to post, use abilities or be targeted by abilities, during the next cycle.

The effect will wear off right before the next day’s lynch. Once that happens, the three players will receive any votes they had on them the moment the ability was used.

If there are less than 10 players alive, only 1 player will be frozen with the Baron instead of 2. If there less than 6, only the Baron will.

Lucrezia Mongfish

Agatha’s mother. Lucrezia has developed a technology called Slaver Wasps, mechanical wasps that can infect a player and make them a slave to Lucrezia, forever.

[Hive Engine]: Once per night, Lucrezia can place a Hive Engine next to a player, which will release Slaver Wasps in their vicinity. Anyone who targets that player with an ability during that night will be converted to Lucrezia’s faction. They will keep their role abilities, except for kills.
No more than 4 players can be converted for the duration of the game.

This ability fails on mafia and independents. It also fails on sparks, unless…

After all the fighting and bloodshet, the Empire finally decided it was enough.

Castle Heterodyne flew directly over the city, and started bombarding it. Most of the projectiles fired were actually smoke bombs, in order to scare the people away. It was a demonstration of strength.

The Castle had been shut down, most of the jäggers were dead or unsconcious, and most of Agatha's minions had been killed. It was just her, Tarvek, and a handful of citizens fighting.

So Agatha surrendered.

She would let the Baron annex the city to his Empire. It was shameful, but at least it would spare her people's lives. Maybe one day she would find a way to break free of it, but for now she would have to accept Klaus's rule, and work for him one of the state's sparks.

Now, with Mechanicsburg and all the other contenders to power dead or surrendered, Baron Klaus Wulfenbach was unrivalled. He had defeated The Other, conquered all of Europa and put all those dangerous sparks under permanent control. An era of peace and tranquility was ahead of the continent. Or else.

Day 10

Axel Higgs was not a human. In fact, that was not even his real name. He was a jäggermonster, and one of the older ones. A general, having survived for hundreds of years, which eventually gave him a larger body, superior fighting skills, but most importantly, wit.

And with that wit, he had gone undercover, pretending to be a human to spy on the Empire, as Airman Higgs.

But the empire was wary for spies, and after Boris died, the Baron grew suspicious of the people around him.

While reviewing the profiles of his troops, he came upon one soldier who seemed way too good at fighting. Higgs had risked his life to save Klaus once, which is why the Baron didn't want to be ungrateful by suspecting him. But this was war, so he decided to summon and interrogate him.

But Higgs was smart, and realized he had been caught, so he tried to escape. He went to the deck to steal a flying machine and flee from the flying castle he was in.

But when he got there, Captain Vole was waiting for him, along with an entire squad.

After one day, the time bubble disappeared.

The Baron was nowhere to be found, having used a second device to abscond while the others were frozen in time.

However, he didn't predict something. One of his most trusty minions had gone undercover to try to sabotage the city's defenses right before the time bomb exploded, and Klaus wasn't aware of it. When the bubble disappeared, he found himself alone in the middle of enemy troops.

A mere secretary could never make it out alive.

Day 9

Suddenly, the Baron came down from his ship. Alone. Like if he was surrendering.

But he was not. Because he was carrying a dangerous weapon with him.


Klaus pressed the button and activated the bomb. But before he did that, Zeetha instinctively leaped on him, trying to cut his arm. What happened was that she didn't stop the explosion, but was caught at point blank range.

The explosion was not a normal one, though. It was a space-time distortion that made time itself stop around the entire city.

Day 8

After days of fighting, the Wulfenbach Empire suddenly stopped attacking.

Was that some kind of ploy? Of course it was. But Mechanicsburg didn't have a choice but wait, as they had suffered too many casualities to risk attacking back.

The man raised his sword and screamed:

- Peasants! I am here to take my place as the legit heir of the Storm King, and rule Europa!

His bravado lasted just a few seconds. Everyone looked at him and fired their respective death rays.