Mafia X [Concluded]

[TinCow]

I actually was waiting at the doors of the bookstore at 8am to pick up a copy as soon as they opened on Tuesday. The employees looked at me oddly when I walked over and picked up three copies (two were for lazy co-workers who are also fans).

[GeneralHankerchief]

Okay, I've finished reading Dance, so hopefully my pace is going to pick up a bit.

[GeneralHankerchief]

While we wait for the commentary, here's my usual postgame "state of the Gameroom" essay for you to chew on. I tried to keep this one relatively short, clocking in at a bit under 2,000 words (the commentary is already well past that). This one has to do with the anonymous accounts and the metagame.

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for indulging me.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The anonymous accounts were the brainchild of Sigurd, who had been toying with the idea back when he was still a Gameroom moderator some months back. Checking back through my PMs, he initially raised the issue in August of 2010 with the intention of basically, killing off the metagame (the exact definition of which I’ll get to later on). issaikhaan and I, the other two moderators, agreed with the idea’s premise, as we’d all been victims of online typecasting of a sort. Over the next several months, the idea crawled along, with Sigurd liaising with Tosa on how to properly set something like this up.

Things on the anonymous account front really picked up during the late winter/early spring of this year thanks to two separate events: First, we finalized the plans for the upcoming Gameroom Anniversary celebration over the summer and decided that then would be an excellent time to roll out the idea, which would be something very new and (we thought) the players would enjoy. Second was the forum staff restructuring in the aftermath of Tosa’s passing. Sigurd was now a Tech Admin, with access to a lot more of the nuts and bolts that made the forum work and was thus a lot more able to bring the anonymous accounts scheme to fruition. In addition, he was aided by another Tech Admin in TinCow, who had spent time in the Gameroom and was able to help out with the implementation. On the eve of the Anniversary, everything was in place.

Deciding that a test run before the real thing happened was probably for the best, khaan set up a mini game entitled “The Copa Clash” in which for the very first time the players would be posting under anonymous identities. The idea was that the Tech Admins provided the game host, in this case khaan, with a spreadsheet detailing the login information of all of the anonymous accounts, which the host would then send out one-by-one to players along with their role information. The slightly annoying catch, of course, was that the players would have to log out of their usual accounts and into their anonymous accounts in order to post in the thread, and then reverse the process. I was one of the seven players, anxiously seeing how the game would turn out.

All in all, things went okay. There were no technical issues, which was a big relief, and the game ended in a last-minute townie victory. However, in what was a harbinger of things to come in Mafia X, posting activity dropped sharply from the usual levels. Most of the time players would log in, lodge a vote, and that would be it for the round until it came time to vote again. I was a bit uneasy about this, but chalked it up to it only being a mini game (seven total players) and a vanilla one to boot. What else could you say, really?

In Mafia X, there was plenty of reason for optimism. First, it was a much larger game anyway, even without the distinctions of it being the start of the summer-long Anniversary celebration and it being the tenth game in a – and I say this as a fact, not to brag – very popular and well-loved series. Second, I made the sign-ups public, so you actually knew who was playing, unlike Copa, where the players truly went in blind. Third, I figured that if all else failed, the tightness of the endgame, which is traditionally what has made my games memorable, would serve to crank up activity to its usual levels.

So, as I sent out the 36 information PMs, I was closely observing post-count levels (a selfish part of me wanted another 1,000-post game, which, while not meaning as much as it used to, would be my seventh), but also what the anonymous accounts’ impact would be on the metagame.

The metagame in the context of the Gameroom is difficult to define, but my best shot at it is as follows: allowing your past experiences and knowledge of other players to influence your own play during a particular game. In a truly dispassionate game whatsoever, without any metagame, the players make decisions purely on their experiences and motives for that particular game and nothing else. Obviously after five years and counting of Mafia here on the .Org, this has never happened once, not even in Mafia I (because a) nobody knew what the *#%! they were doing in that game anyway, and b) a lot of decisions were made based on experiences in other parts of the forum). Now, without the easy option of voting for Player X just because they were Player X was no longer available. The players would have to do a lot more legwork in order to achieve the same results as before.

From my observations, the reduction (not elimination, as described later) of the metagame by the anonymous accounts swayed the game in a few ways. First, and perhaps least importantly, the foolish, jokey reasons for voting people in the early rounds (“GH used a weird smiley, lynch him!”) were gone. However, they were replaced by foolish, jokey reasons for voting people in the early rounds based off their anonymous account names (“Vote: [for] Pedro” applies here), so we’ll call this one a wash. Second, voters were now unable to equate in-thread behavior with a particular source, so there was no looking for deviations in usual behavior. You could no longer rely on discrepancies like a usual lurker all of a sudden becoming quite active or a notoriously jumpy player suddenly acting a lot more calculating and cerebral. This meant the players had a lot less to rely on, even if it was subverted in some instances when players were able to figure out who was behind their masks. Third, it saved the mafia team a ton of speculation and misery.

As any mafioso alumnus from a vanilla game will tell you, the endgame is always the hardest part of the task. If you make one mistake – say the wrong thing, vote the wrong person, kill off the wrong people – you’re sunk. During the night phase you agonize over your choices, essentially trying to craft a credible narrative that the remaining townies will buy into. As the numbers continue to sink, this becomes nearly impossible to do and I will submit is the main reason why the mafiosi have such a poor survival rate in my games. A big part of the reason for this is the metagame. Say, for a minute, you’re a mafioso (we’ll say you’re already working alone and your partner has been lynched) and you’re doing two nightkills that reduce the town’s numbers from five to three. Your choices are Player A, who’s been a lurker, Player B, who’s been extremely verbose but wrong a lot of the time, Player C, who’s been lynchbait for a few rounds now, Player D, who is targeting you as the lynch for this upcoming round, and Player E, who was the deciding vote on your partner the last round. Sound difficult? That’s the anonymous account, non-metagame version. Now, in the metagame version, add names, posting styles, and histories to all of the players. Suddenly, Player C is a noted veteran who is renowned for slipping out of a sure lynch. Suddenly, Player E has a history of disagreement with Player B and isn’t apt to go along with Player B’s (probably incorrect) lynch choice. Suddenly, Player A is the type to get mad at being offed so late in the game and come out of nowhere with a ridiculously cogent argument against you. Suddenly, Player D is not just coming after you, but is a noted endgame specialist and has saved the town’s butt in similar situations in the past. Suddenly, you just had an experience with Player B in a recent game that could possibly connect you to him if you were to nightkill Player B now. So who do you kill? Picking one target is difficult enough, yet alone two. If your head is spinning right now from all of this, this means I have done my job in describing just how much the metagame can ruin a mafioso’s life.

All of this was more or less nonexistent for CR and Kage this game. They had far less to worry about, while the town’s usual methods of finding reasons to vote for people were significantly reduced. In addition, I think that a lot of people were trying not to be “discovered” for who they really were, which meant brevity was the order of the day for a while. Brevity, of course, being the diligent townie’s worst enemy, since when it comes time to make serious votes, there is far less information to go off of.

(Additionally, I think that trying to hide one’s identity in this game was ultimately meaningless, for two reasons. First of all, just because people now know who you are does not affect your chance of being a mafioso in the slightest. Second of all, it brings the metagame – detrimental to the mafia, as described above – back into play.)

The ultimate result, as we all know, was a Total Mafia Victory for the old-timers, CR and Kage. I’ll detail exactly why I think this was the case in my upcoming commentary, but this essay will conclude by looking at the larger implications. In other words, what have we learned?

Number one, the town has some catching up to do. Vanilla games, especially when uncommon, can serve to expose the player base’s inability to truly find mafiosi without the crutch of detectives, protections, information in the writeup, networks, inter-villain crossfire, pure luck, etc. Now, this had of course been the case for all of my previous vanilla games as well, with the town conducting itself admirably. However, this time I removed a second crutch: the crutch of the metagame, and the town fell on its face. This tells me that in the future, people are going to have to do more/better in-thread detective work if they want to catch the mafia on their own.

Number two, the anonymous accounts prove a long-standing maxim that the more information that is generated (usually), the better it is for the town. Despite tying the record for game length, with a couple of tiebreaker rounds thrown in there, Mafia X came in at just a touch under 1,000 posts. Hopefully in the future, with the ability to switch between your normal account and anonymous account having been made easier thanks to the Tech Admins, activity in anonymous games will approach or equal the level of that in normal games, and we’ll start seeing closer games.

Both of these two items have swayed things significantly in favor of the mafia: the anonymous accounts by providing less information for the townies, and the death of the metagame by giving the mafia less to think about. Now, while the sample size is small, I believe two things: One, that the above is in fact the case. Two, that things are already regressing back to the norm. Despite everything I have mentioned above, the town was still one or two breaks away from winning. Anonymous accounts don’t look to be going away for the future, which means that people will get more comfortable with them. More comfort can only mean more posts and, possibly, a return of the metagame.

[Kagemusha]

Thank you for the general insight. Cant wait to read the commentary. I will comment more once it is out in the open.

[TheLastDays]

return of the metagame

Heh, will this be the title of Mafia XI?

Good read and I agree. This also disproves one of the Org's Mafia rules that states metagaming isn't as useful as one might think.

[TinCow]

Thanks for the commentary, GH. As noted here, what you wrote is heavily influencing my thinking about the experimental anonymous game I'm working on. If you have some free time, I'd like to know what you think about how maintaining anonymity would impact game balance in that kind of setup.

[Diamondeye]

A good read, GH. I have to say, one of the reasons I was less verbose (apart from having a usually "scummy" style) and tried to conceal my identity was that, as far as I remember, it was actively prohibited to outright reveal who you were. I felt like this restriction also forced me to anonymize my posts and play style as much as possible or indeed try to mix it up a bit to give an actively false impression of whom I might be. I think one of the major discussions concering the anonymous accounts would revolve around this subject; How much can you reveal? The only player I "figured out" was, unsurprisingly, AnneThePizzaGal, who has a very unique posting style and who didn't shy from it (especially in later stages of the game). That was a pretty solid clue to his identity and not something I would have felt comfortabel doing if my style was that distinct, yet I didn't feel ATPG broke any rules...

Opinions, anyone?

[TheLastDays]

I felt the same, if not for a rule, I felt obliged to try to stay anonymous for the spirit of the game. It wasn't until endgame that I stopped caring about that a bit...

[GeneralHankerchief]

A good read, GH. I have to say, one of the reasons I was less verbose (apart from having a usually "scummy" style) and tried to conceal my identity was that, as far as I remember, it was actively prohibited to outright reveal who you were. I felt like this restriction also forced me to anonymize my posts and play style as much as possible or indeed try to mix it up a bit to give an actively false impression of whom I might be. I think one of the major discussions concering the anonymous accounts would revolve around this subject; How much can you reveal? The only player I "figured out" was, unsurprisingly, AnneThePizzaGal, who has a very unique posting style and who didn't shy from it (especially in later stages of the game). That was a pretty solid clue to his identity and not something I would have felt comfortabel doing if my style was that distinct, yet I didn't feel ATPG broke any rules...

Opinions, anyone?

The rule was that you had to post under only the anonymous account for as long as you were alive, but there was no restriction on revealing yourself for who you were in the game - I half expected people to know who the alive people were in the endgame, much like Pizza's situation anyway. I debated it for a bit, but eventually decided against it, mainly for the reason that there would be absolutely no way of backing up your claim if you wanted to reveal yourself until you died. Who's to say that an "I'm Spartacus" type of situation wouldn't come up and cause some amusement for everybody?

[Diamondeye]

The rule was that you had to post under only the anonymous account for as long as you were alive, but there was no restriction on revealing yourself for who you were in the game - I half expected people to know who the alive people were in the endgame, much like Pizza's situation anyway. I debated it for a bit, but eventually decided against it, mainly for the reason that there would be absolutely no way of backing up your claim if you wanted to reveal yourself until you died. Who's to say that an "I'm Spartacus" type of situation wouldn't come up and cause some amusement for everybody?

I had the impression that deliberately revealing oneself was not allowed... Was that only true for the mini game, perhaps? Not that I think I would've done it anyway, but it would have been nice knowing.

[Askthepizzaguy]

I honestly tried lurking a little in the beginning of the game.

Never again. What a waste of freaking time. I felt so dirty.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hey town! Even though we lost this game, in epic fashion, somehow I feel prouder of our performance now.

I thought I'd have to hide under my bed for the next few months after unvoting Fat Tony and lynching myself.

But no.

No, now that achievement has been overshadowed.

[Kagemusha]

Where is the commentary GH?

[GeneralHankerchief]

My commentary is finally finished. I make no apologies for the lateness - it was an absolute pain to write, as you can tell from the delay. At 8,381 words, it blows my word count record out of the water (the Godfather 3 commentary didn't even come close).

And with this, I officially and hereby declare Mafia X over! Let's party, everyone!!!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Game start

Mafia: Kagemusha and Crazed Rabbit

My PM to the two Mafiosi:

Okay, I lied about randomly generating the Mafia.

You two are the only two who have ever survived one of these games as the bad guys, as I’m sure you both know. For the tenth installment of the game, for the fifth anniversary of the Gameroom, I want to see if you can replicate your feat. It may be a bit gamey, but that’s where the anonymity comes in.

I’m sure you both know how this goes, but just in case, here’s a quick refresher course. The game starts with a night phase, so you can both send your first kills ASAP. You each get one kill per night, until/unless one of you dies, in which case the remaining Mafioso gets two. You can write as much or as little as you want, and I’ll fill in the gaps.

Best of luck, gentlemen. I’m very much interested in seeing how this turns out.

GH

From the beginning, Mafia X was going to be this. Well, maybe not from the beginning, as that would be taking us back to June 2006, before I had any idea of the staying power this thing would be, but at least in the summer of 2008, after I noted in my commentary for Mafia VIII, in the aftermath of yet another heartbreaking defeat for the mafia, that CR and Kage a) were the only two mafiosi ever to have survived the grind, and b) were the only two to have played in every single installment of the series, something which still holds true. Add that to the fact that Mafia X kicked off the Gameroom Anniversary, and I couldn’t resist. This would be their ultimate test.

(By the way, if either CR or Kage had not signed up for this one, I would have scrapped the idea and instead given the mafia PM to former mafiosi that had fallen just short in the past – probably khaan and Andres – and made the theme about second chances instead. In either case, I would not be randomly selecting the mafia for the first time in ten games for this installment.)

For reference, and the fact that aside from winning as mafiosi, their track records were better than most anyway, here’s what CR and Kage did in the first nine installments of the series leading up to this one:

• Mafia I: Kage: Survived as Mafia. CR: Killed before last voting round, successfully deduced that Kage and Shadows were Mafia (Shadows was lynched, but Kage survived the double lynch phase).
• Mafia II: Kage: Killed Night 5. CR: Killed Night 4 (game lasted 7-8 rounds).
• Mafia III: Kage: Wogged in the first-ever inactivity killing on the .Org. CR: Detective, killed Round 9 after the worst luck in investigations I have ever seen but still successfully and correctly argued for Kommodus’s lynching.
• Mafia IV: Kage: Asked to be lynched Round 1 and got his wish. The mafia were summarily lynched in the next two rounds, which is when Kagemusha’s Curse really started revealing itself. CR: Survived.
• Mafia V: Kage: Killed Night 7 (game ended on Day 7). CR: One of five survivors.
• Mafia VI: Kage: One of four survivors. CR: One of four survivors.
• Mafia VII: Kage: CR’s final kill on Night 11. CR: Survived as mafia.
• Mafia VIII: Kage: One of three survivors. CR: Killed Night 4.
• Mafia IX: Kage: One of nine survivors. CR: Killed Night 1.
• Mafia X: ???

Due to circumstances, I would say that this time Kage would have a harder go at it than before and CR a bit easier of a time. The reason for this was that nobody knew what they were doing in Mafia I and it was really only through a lot of help on my part that the town even got one of the mafiosi, and Mafia VII had a massive 39 players and CR looked cooked in the late midgame before he used the safety valve of his now-famous manipulation of The Truth in order to skate by for the rest of the game. All in all, however, I would say that their task was a bit easier than for most mafia teams.

First of all was the anonymity factor. It would cut down significantly on the metagame aspect of things, which, as discussed in the previous essay, I find usually hinders the mafia more than the town since they have to agonize over it and take it into account when making plans while the town just has to worry about finding the mafia. In addition, since nobody really wanted their true identities to be discovered – even though it had no impact on their actual guilt or innocence – brevity would be the name of the game. It was that way in the warm-up game, The Copa Clash, and I guessed that it would probably be that way in Mafia X, at least in the early rounds.

Second of all was the player composition. A lot of the townie powerhouses, past and present, were out of action for this one. Askthepizzaguy was being very concise as “Anne” and burdened by RL, Sasaki Kojiro was gone, and Kommodus had long since passed into legend. It would be up to their aspiring successors – Renata, Romanic,, and Diamondeye to name a few, plus the other contributing townies who are oh so important to vanilla games in particular – to step up and shine in their absence.

And so, roughly a week after I initially posted the Mafia X thread (which was posted five years not just to the day, but to the minute after I posted Mafia I), we were ready to begin.

Day 1

Crazed Rabbit kills Winston Hughes (Chickenman)
Kagemusha “kills” Giuseppe (robbiecon)
Winston kill an homage to: Mafia II (pond, ducks), Mafia IV (osmium)

The game started out ominously enough by both CR and Kage being late on their kills. With the townspeople becoming more and more restless and me panicking a bit on the inside, I finally got hold of CR and he filled in for Kage. A few hours on in the day phase Kage came online and apologized for his absence, which probably had both CR and I breathing sighs of relief. It would not be the last time that Kage was inactive in the game, but it would be the only time that he was accidentally inactive.

With every Mafia game that passes, I feel worse and worse about allowing the first set of kills to come before any voting. It just feels cheap to knock two people out of the game before they have the chance to immerse themselves at all, and the excuses I make to myself for keeping this system around, “storyline purposes” and “tradition”, feel more and more flimsy as time passes. I kept it the same this time because it was an Anniversary game, but for Mafia XI I think I’m seriously going to consider changing things up and starting with a vote before there are any kills. The storyline will have to suffer if need be.

The usual Round 1 shenanigans happened, and as I expected, a lot of people had to get used to the idea of anonymous accounts. Generally, khaan and I were pretty quick about getting rid of the non-anonymous posts, and in any case most of the time this happened the players quickly edited the contents of their posts out and waited another hour or two before posting again so as to avoid detection. There were some non-anonymous posts that I didn’t bother removing; these were generally comments that had no effect on gameplay. Also, I was lazy.

The poor saps up for the lynch this round were Jolt (Pedro) and Ignoramus (Luciano), interestingly with Jolt/Pedro initially starting the Iggy/Luciano bandwagon. More often than not in this round the players continued the pattern set in Copa Clash by posting once to lodge a vote and then saying nothing for the rest of the round, which resulted in a relatively quiet Day 1 that is usually good for getting me a couple pages’ worth of posts. Additionally, neither CR nor Kage voted this round.

Eventually Jolt got the lynch after a tiebreaker round, leaving me to determine which trends set in Round 1 were mirages and which ones would hold up over the course of the game.

Executed: Jolt (Pedro)

Day 2

Crazed Rabbit kills Visorslash (Maria)
Kagemusha kills johnhughthom (Christopher)
Christopher kill an homage to: Mafia I

Overshadowed by the start of CR’s radio-controlled killer (via ice-cream truck, jingle courtesy of YouTube) was the official start of my callbacks to past games in the Mafia series. After a round in which I threw in the pond/ducks/osmium reference – a running gag of sorts, I’m pretty sure I’ve referenced that pond once in every game – I started consciously doing it, going back through the old games and picking out bits that struck my fancy. This one was a total rewrite of a primitive kill I had thought up all the way back in Mafia I, a full five years ago. Things have changed a bit since then, as you can clearly see by the difference in writing styles. I was originally planning on having the references in chronological order as the game went on going from Mafia I to start and the final kill being a callback to something in Mafia IX, but later on when CR and Kage started giving me more detailed orders I found this impossible to do and just worked them in whenever I could. At this stage in the game they were still giving me carte blanche, and thus the references started coming in order.

Andres, as Rocco, started off the round by posting the following:

Djeez, that dude in my avatar really has a face that invites people to chop wood on it. I'm starting to dislike myself because of that annoying face. What a jerk.

If people were paying attention, they could have connected Andres to Rocco with that post, since “Djeez” is one of those verbal tics that people can use to identify other people with. I have never seen anyone besides our favorite Flemish lawyer-parent use that spelling of the more common “jeez”. However, as stated, figuring out who was who in this game signified nothing.

Another identifier to people paying attention was CR, as Fat Tony, making a callback to Mafia II and the origin of the term “meatballing” – though precious few people know that reference now.

Vote: Fingers

Soon he'll be voting for people because he saw them eating a tasty meatball.

In terms of voting patterns for this round, Day 2 followed the example set by Day 1. Votes were spread incredibly thinly, with a full 15 people getting at least one, and 11 people didn’t even show up at all. Andres ended up getting lynched with the ridiculously small plurality of four votes, and all in all it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t make him mafia as per my musings at the start of the game due to this lynch and the fact that shortly afterwards, he had to deal with an RL issue that was a massive crunch on his .Org time.

Executed: Andres (Rocco)

Day 3

Crazed Rabbit kills Death is yonder (Carlo)
Kagemusha kills issaikhaan (Furio)

Already CR and Kage were exerting more and more influence on the writeups, both of them giving me kill methods this time, so I was unable to work in a reference to previous games in these kills.

The votes got a little better this round. A lot of the eventual endgame players started making their marks this round; Renata (as Sonny) continuing her game-long crusade against autolycus (Vincent), glyphz (Luigi) popping in to make good analysis, and CR (Fat Tony) avoiding the main bandwagons like the plague. In addition, TheLastDays (Angelo) lodged a vote on CR, calling him out for shoddy reasoning, beginning the start of a long war between him and the mafia faction.

The problem was that there simply weren’t enough votes, and I, in a crisis of confidence, posted a poll to players asking what to do about the anonymous accounts (which I deemed the main reason for the increased inactivity). The general consensus was to finish the game out with the anons, since the only thing people were sure about was that they increased brevity – which in itself did not lead to fewer voters, only less content in their posts.

I’m still not certain what caused the amount of inactivity in the game, especially the early part. I don’t buy the explanation that it was a vanilla game and people had nothing to do, as that flies in the face of a large amount of contradictory evidence (see especially Godfather 3, where there were over 2,000 posts when only 28 people were playing and there were no WoGs). In any case, I decided to press on and continue with the anonymous accounts, as that was the majority opinion and I’m sure that getting rid of the anons would have thrown a lot of strategies in the gutter.

In terms of the actual voting activities for the round, Chaotix (Joe) ran into another random bandwagon and did not live to tell the tale. After three rounds, the mafia were doing fine, which surprised me not in the least since this was the established pattern for things (freak accidents like Mafias IV and IX nonwithstanding). The trick was, and it would always be: could they survive the endgame?

Executed: Chaotix (Joe)

Day 4

Crazed Rabbit kills Seon (Fingers)
Kagemusha kills ELITEOFKINGWARMAN88 (Big George)
Big George kill an homage to: The Godfather, Part 3

Yes, I included an homage to a lynch scene that wasn’t part of the Mafia series. Sue me – the Godfather series is basically a spinoff anyway and Godfather 3 is the best game I’ve ever hosted.

A bit was made over the mafia’s kill selections over the course of the game. For all of the analysis that was attempted, Kage’s targets were entirely random until the very end, and CR did an offshoot of the randomness strategy and targeted the last people to vote before the previous day ended. As we’ll see later on, I wasn’t certain this strategy would pan out, especially after several other lurkers were whacked and Kage as Emilio was starting to stick out more and more. For now, though, it was still a good way to evade any potential analysis, as random killing always is.

The cases started to coalesce this round. Yes, there was the occasional random vote being thrown in the odd direction, but for the most part there were always a few “candidates” per round from here on out. This time, the three candidates were Diamondeye (Bugsy), Centurion1 (Connie), and Sigurd (Claudia). This round was also the start of a bizarre, but mostly ignored sideshow of ATPG (Anne) voting for spL1tp3r50naL1ty (Frank), without any explanation other than ATPG was basically certain Frank was mafia. Split would ultimately go on to be Wogged.

The main case on Diamondeye/Bugsy was a flawed case brought out by Populus Romanus (Johnny) which was based around, appropriately enough, kill choices. A few people bought into it, since in this game and at this stage of the game, flawed cases were generally the best cases around. However, the players noted that DE/Bugsy was offering up good analysis and ultimately decided to spare him, with DE escaping the tie by one vote. Kage assisted in creating the tie by slipping in and voting for Cent/Connie with a customary (for this game) non-sequitor:

vote:connie.I like tied up women.

This would allow him to evade the WoG notice for a little while longer.

In the tiebreaking round, Cent took umbrage to his overall situation which saved him, albeit, temporarily, and Sigurd went down mainly because he a) didn’t defend himself as much, and b) was identified as posting from a mobile device, even though it wasn’t true. I note with a bit of pleasure that this whole “scumtell” originated with Mafia IX when it was how Sasaki caught Subotan.

In any case, Sigurd got lynched, and his string of bad luck in the Mafia series continued. I’d post a game-by-game performance list similar to how I did with CR and Kage at the start, but in the interests of brevity (hah!) I’ll spare you from that.

Executed: Sigurd (Claudia)

Day 5

Crazed Rabbit kills Earthling (Nick)
Kagemusha kills Csargo (Mickey)
Mickey kill an homage to: Mafia VIII

At this point in the game CR’s kills were becoming both more outlandish and detailed, so I had an easier time working in the past games references with Kage’s kills, which also had the benefit of not really having a set theme like CR’s radio-controlled killer.

Finally fed up with the inactivity, I put two players on the WoG chopping block: Greyblades (Fredo) and ACIN (Pete). Both were ultimately replaced. I’d also like to thank CR and Kage for not complaining (to me anyways) about this, as I know how annoying it can be as a Mafioso to basically have to survive one extra round due to replacements.

It is usually this point in the midgame where the town basically takes a round or two off and there are no real surprise candidates as everybody falls into the “next in line” mindset which can be so deadly to the town if they don’t mercilessly quarantine and regulate that mentality. This game proved no different, as Renata (Sonny) and ATPG (Anne) kept their usual jihads up on Vincent and Frank, respectively, and there were no real lynch candidates offered up aside from the runner-up from the previous day.

Earthling, now dead, started actively contributing more and offering contrarian targets. It was his first game in the Mafia series, but apparently he has a bit of a reputation from his play in ATPG Mafia 2 and over at other forums where not many people listen to him, as his advice wasn’t really heeded throughout the game.

The Cent/Connie wagon, far and away the runaway choice for the day, gained some legitimacy when Romanic (Bobby) made a nice long analysis post with the conclusion that it seemed like Cent wasn’t really looking for the mafia. It was a good intention, but again we see how the anonymous accounts and the removal of the metagame harmed the town, as normally this kind of behavior is scummy but it was more like par for course for Centurion. If the anonymous accounts were off, would Centurion still have been lynched? Probably, but I think there may have at least been a legitimate counter-wagon that would have sprung up that may have provided for better information in the endgame (a “lynch the lurker” wagon on Kage/Emilio, perhaps?). It’s interesting to speculate, but in the end that’s all we can do, and not much more.

Cent went down by a huge wagon in what some people were already calling a wasted round. Again though, this was nothing out of the ordinary.

Executed: Centurion1 (Connie)

Day 6

Crazed Rabbit kills Ashurnasirpal II (Salvatore)
Kagemusha kills B_Ray (Paulie)

No homages this round.

I was sad to see B_Ray go, as he had come back to the Gameroom out of nowhere a month or two back after an almost five-year absence. The last (and only) game he had played before his long vacation was Mafia III. B_Ray lasted for two rounds longer in this game.

I sent out more WoG warnings this round, three in total. Kage dodged it by doing his usual one-line vote, as did Ignoramus (Luciano), who after presenting the dominant case on Jolt/Pedro back on Day 1 had retreated into the shadows. Split (Frank) however, did not post, and as I had no more replacements lined up we had our one inactivity kill this round.

Due to the overwhelming bandwagon on Centurion the previous round, there was nobody really “next in line” for this day phase and thus the town had to start fresh again (which was probably for the best). The early part of the round was dominated by Cent berating everybody for the previous lynch and ATPG’s identity as Anne becoming an open secret. Pizza’s other activities this round included continuing his odd obsession with Frank before finally moving his vote, and questioning Kage for his absence but moving on without a vote. Not the new Content Manager’s finest hour. Again though, the breaks went against the town, for had ATPG’s inactive obsession gone in the direction of Emilio instead of Frank, he might have ultimately pressed harder after Kage showed up to save himself from the WoG once and then twice.

A couple of votes went the way of glyphz/Luigi, who aside from on Day 3 hadn’t really made much analysis yet. Eventually though, the town sentiment shifted and went the way of DE/Bugsy, who had made a couple of glaring factual errors and contradictions in his case on Luigi and was called out on it. I wasn’t sure the reasoning on this case was solid, as I generally find that a mafioso is going to be extra-careful on the facts when making these types of cases so as to appear more of the diligent townie. Still though, it was nice to see the town moving on beyond the “next in line” philosophy and actually doing some detective work.

Diamondeye went down without much opposition, and now the candidate pool was really starting to drop for our mafiosi as there were fifteen left after the lynch. If Mafia X was to follow the pattern of most of the other games, then I would be looking closely for the beginnings of the cases that would ultimately be CR’s and Kage’s undoing in the next couple of rounds.

Executed: Diamondeye (Bugsy)

Day 7

Crazed Rabbit kills Ignoramus (Luciano)
Kagemusha kills White_eyes:D (Ralph)

No homages this round (again), but I did manage to work in a Zero Wing reference in the Luciano kill.

It was at this point in the game where I was seriously starting to question the mafia’s kill choices. Both of the targets, Luciano especially, were low-profile players that would continue to make Kage stand out against an increasing number of town would-be detectives. CR was fitting in a little better, but if anyone seriously analyzed his posts (as Renata soon would) they would see that he was quite comfortable in his role of silent contrarian. However, the two of them doggedly stuck to random.org, at least for another few rounds.

A few things started to wind down this round as the transitioning to the endgame began. The old random feuds were mostly put to bed, as Frank was gone and Renata’s/Sonny’s on autolycus/Vincent would soon conclude. Additionally, the WoG notices were dwindling as activity amongst the remaining players either picked up, or they were removed courtesy of the WoG or the mafia’s kills.

Renata put the full-court press on Vincent this round with a long post-analysis post, ultimately coming to the same reason that Romanic/Bobby used to ruin Centurion: he wasn’t looking for the mafia. The two immediate posts to follow this analysis were TLD/Angelo - slowly becoming more of a presence in the game – agreeing with Renata and Earthling offering his usual contrarian perspective, suggesting the town focus on glyphz/Luigi (who had slipped back under the radar after his brief brush with death earlier).

The only serious opposition to this case was Romanic’s on Ibn-Khaldun (Bruno), which had the ever-popular reasoning of Bruno not really looking for a mafioso in his posts. Amazing what anonymous accounts can do to expose a person’s contributions as a townie, eh? However, nobody really jumped on this wagon and Romanic ended up being the only vote for Bruno this round. Finally in alternatives this round, the recently-deceased White_eyes picked up in activity and singled out ATPG/Anne for questionable behavior.

In our mafioso watch this round, CR made a rational post about how the town needed to lynch those who they considered scummy immediately (which a couple of people agreed with) and Kage celebrated not getting Wogged last round by not voting. Behind the scenes though, he was as active as ever.

Executed: autolycus (Vincent)

Day 8

Crazed Rabbit kills Secura (Pete)
Kagemusha kills Romanic (Bobby)

No homages this round. By now the mafiosi were giving me start-to-finish descriptions, leaving me to only write the filler, and thus it was getting quite difficult to throw references in.

I continued to privately question Kage’s kill choices, as his target for this round looked to be Suspect #1 for the day’s lynch due to the “next in line” theory, probably the last day that it would be valid anyway. Sure, Kage’s greatest threat was currently the WoG (he was up for it again), but all around him the walls were starting to close. If he didn’t have the exact right set of candidates with him at the endgame… well, one need only look at the fate of Lemur, Cowhead418, Gertgregoor, Kommodus, Reenk Roink, Seamus Fermanagh, Dutch_guy, Andres, Gaius Scribonius Curio, issaikhaan, and Subotan to see how well that would turn out.

The assault on TLD/Angelo began this round, with ATPG/Anne especially leading the charge. In his vote analysis post that round, he noted that Angelo had been a) a very consistent voter and b) usually voting for one of the front-runners that round. Additionally he perfectly summed up the sentiment on Kage that round by not even listing his votes, with the following reasoning:

Unimportant, for they shall be wogged, and the wog shall be good.

Interestingly, a little under four years ago, in Mafia VII, another noted town analyzer, Kommodus, also refused to even check out a particular person’s posts in the endgame, with the reasoning that It wasn’t worth his time. That person was Crazed Rabbit.

However, Angelo proved once again to be a survivor as the town shifted in other directions. When it became clear that Angelo wasn’t going to show up and engage in a tit-for-tat with his accuser, ATPG moved his vote to Populus Romanus (Johnny) who had voted for him only a little while back. This move was controversial at the time seeing as it seemed like a blatant play for greater influence by ATPG. It also worked, as the Johnny wagon was rolling thanks in part to the more inactive players showing up and hopping aboard.

Meanwhile, in an ominous sign for the mafia, Renata, one of the town’s best analyzers made a late case on CR, using good reasoning and pointing out CR’s “avoid bandwagons at all costs” strategy for the entire town to see. It was too late in the day to swing the town’s momentum, but it made me think to Sasaki’s post that doomed the mafia team in Godfather 3, Kommodus’s dead-on Holmes readings farther back, and numerous other posts across the years that made mafiosi scream. Would it be repeated here once again?

Even though Populus Romanus was the day’s lynch victim, I could tell that the supreme moment was nearing.

Executed: Populus Romanus (Johnny)

Day 9

Crazed Rabbit kills Believer (Fredo)
Kagemusha kills ArpeggiateTHIS (Giorgio)

Giorgio kill an homage to: Mafia IX

Day Nine. The endgame had officially begun. This round had always been the bane of the mafia, providing for some spectacular lynches in games past. The two I can think of off the top of my head were Kommodus in Mafia III and khaan in Mafia VIII, both of which finished their respective teams off for good. I’m sure there were others as well. Obviously this wouldn’t have been the case in this game, but at the start of the round things weren’t looking good for CR thanks to Renata’s pressure.

After a couple of the usual random votes thrown about, the attack on CR/Fat Tony began with Renata’s hammering home her point and TLD joining in with good supporting evidence of his own (though he named CR’s partner as Captain Blackadder/Bertha). This was two verbose, well-thought out posts, which probably would have been enough to doom CR in the earlier rounds. However, as it was the endgame, people thought out every option more. Add in ATPG’s vote as well, and CR looked like a goner.

However, at this point, the breaks started to go CR’s way. First of all, he logged on and not only defended himself, but presented a viable alternative target in his erstwhile enemy, TLD/Angelo. This sort of thing alone, unless the defense itself is obviously terrible, is enough to help stem momentum, and CR’s defense was several notches above “terrible”.

Second, I got a round extension request by PM from Renata, citing the July 4th holiday and probable town inactivity as the reason. Leaving it up to the town to decide, I got support from both sides (CR for mafia, Renata and glyphz for town) and so decided to draw things out (Interestingly enough, I got a PM from Kage a little later on essentially saying that I wasn’t making things any easier for the mafia, not realizing that CR desperately wanted the extension). This allowed CR time to build on his momentum shift, and soon enough a counter-bandwagon on TLD was rolling. In a defeatist attitude, TLD self-voted, taking a vote off CR in the process. glyphz/Luigi stemmed the bleeding with a vote for CR, but it was now clear that things were going to be very close.

A third option presented itself when TLD out of nowhere voted Anne, saying that the Fat Tony/Bertha theory was just a smokescreen.

The breaks continued going the mafia’s way. In an absolutely catastrophic move, ATPG – whose vote had been on CR - self-voted with precisely one vote on him and put himself in a position to not be able to change his vote until after the round was scheduled to end. Ibn-Khaldun/Bruno, who had been going after Anne for some time now but whose vote was presently on TLD, quickly moved over, and just like that there was a three way tie.

Since the round had already been going on for well over 24 hours, and also since it was the endgame, I deviated from my previous tiebreaking method and instead kept the tally right where it was, giving people 12 hours to move their votes. At the risk of sounding clichéd, the game was now balanced on a razor’s edge. In all other games, at this point in time, someone would jump in and save the day with a vote for the right person.

This time? The round was scheduled to end at 2am, my time. At 1am, nobody had moved their vote. At 1:25, with me closely monitoring the forum, I noticed several players online: Bruno, Angelo, Sonny, and Richie. The former two’s votes were on ATPG/Anne and weren’t likely to move. Neither would the latter two, who had their votes on CR/Fat Tony. However, ATPG was also online and did nothing. As I saw the clock tick closer to the deadline, I couldn’t believe it. I knew that looking from a host’s perspective, I always had better information and after having hosted so many of these things was easily able to identify critical points in the game, but I still couldn’t believe ATPG didn’t take his vote off himself. He saw me make the public post that it was the endgame, right? How did he not see the stakes for what they were?

At 1:52, with eight minutes to go, CR, online, switched his vote over from TLD to ATPG. There were no other posts made in those eight minutes.

Executed: Askthepizzaguy (Anne)

Day 10

Crazed Rabbit kills Renata (Sonny)
Kagemusha kills Beefy187 (Richie)

No homages this round, unless you count the general weather metaphor that I’ve used consistently over the series.

While the town had one round left to lynch a mafioso before they were mathematically doomed, I wasn’t feeling very high about their chances. For one thing, the town had made an enormous effort to lynch the right person on Day 9 and had come up for nothing. From my perspective, the supreme moment had passed. The town was blown. Getting a target right would be more so out of luck than anything else. Perhaps they would finally go after serial lurker Emilio, but the time for lynching lurkers had passed, and two of that makeup had survived.

The mafia had added to this feeling of general town exhaustion with two beautiful kill choices: Renata and Beefy, two of CR’s biggest accusers. Any potential steam towards another attempt at lynching Fat Tony had been completely taken out of the town with these two kills. Even though the town was on its last legs, the mafia were still on their game, as demonstrated by this PM exchange the previous night:

Gentlemen,

As I'm sure you're both aware, if you survive one more lynch then you're guaranteed a victory. Tonight, though, aside from your kills choices, I present one more thing for you to think about: if you do survive this lynch, would you rather kill off everybody immediately over the following night phase, or drag things out and leave the remaining townspeople under the illusion that they can win for one more phase? I'm perfectly fine with either option, but I figured I'd give it to you guys to decide for yourselves.

Whatever happens next round, you've played a great game so far and I wish you the best of luck.

GH

We haven't won anything yet, and I can't relax or I'll screw up.

If neither of us gets lynched tomorrow, I prefer to drag it out.

Im sorry.I just got back from work. I agree with CR that nothing has been won as of yet.Hypothetically speaking id rather drag things out also. CR now we have to really start thinking who to kill. These are the final rounds where most mafiosi have fallen.Now its our time to stand out.

Kage

So we have these people left:
Angelo
Bertha
Bruno
Emilio
Fat Tony
Luigi
Richie
Sonny

Initial thoughts;
Angelo - keep him alive as a target for me. Or don't? Killing him might look like a mafia attempt to discredit me. Who will he vote for now that Anne is dead?
Bertha - I have no idea what this person will do. They seem to have a habit of not voting for me, though.
Bruno - fixated on Luigi now that Anne is dead. Probably good to keep alive as a vote for someone who's not me.
Luigi - good to keep alive as a target for Bruno. Voted for me, probably as a way to stay alive this round.
Richie - voted for me as well. Good kill target? No one thinks him suspicious.
Sonny - good to keep alive as an excuse I'm not mafia. Though that's kind of WIFOM, and killing him would be WIFOM too.

I'm going for a hike, so I'll be gone for ~8 hours at most.

CR

Im going to include GH to these talks also, as i think he should know what went on on our heads during these deciding moments in the game, which will help him create the write up also.

I am very happy that you survived, but my opinion is that Pizza wanted to die, so he could better serve the town cause by being dead. I do not think that was actually too good of a move as in this game that does not make him a confirmed townie, so i think he might have been bit trigger happy on himself.
In any case i am quite sure that he will be coming after you during the next day with every argument he can think off.

Let us look and compare the player list to a list who they actually might be:

Angelo
Bertha
Bruno
Emilio
Fat Tony
Luigi
Richie
Sonny

and

Beefy187
Renata
Captain Blackadder
glyphz
Ibn-Khaldun
TheLastDays
Crazed Rabbit = Fat Tony
Kagemusha = Emilio

For sake of convinience i have translated us both already into that list. Now, could we have any tells of the remaining people, who might be who? To me the next nght kills will be extremely important tool for us. We can either use it to get rid of those who are likely to vote like ATPG wants, or we might want to try and discriminate him with our kills. Or last option would be to just completely ignore the situation and confuse the town further with completely random killing.

I think all options have their up´s and down´s. But to me the most important question is that in case we can identify players from the living list. Who of them we want to take with us to the next round?

Kage

Finished off by the Steam conversation that CR quoted earlier:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Kage: Good morning :)
Mild Tennessee: And good evening to you :)
Kage: damn one should have a vacation adapting back from vacation :P I feel like a zombie after 3 hours of sleep
Mild Tennessee: we had a nice three day weekend in the states because of the fourth of july
Kage: yep, happy late independency day. My summer vacation ended on monday and i have bit hard time getting back to my normal schedule, it hard to get up at 5:30 am when you get down at 2 am. I guess we arent getting any younger
Mild Tennessee: nope, that aint much sleep
Kage: so you arent sure about Richie?
Kage: Whom are you thinking in his place?
Mild Tennessee: I'm wary, but it's probably the best way forward
Mild Tennessee: Truth be told, I'm most worried about Sonny. He's going to be confirmed innocent and want me dead, dead, dead.
Kage: I think you are going to get tons of heat in any case. The best we can do is to get rid of the actual voters and then have some other options
Mild Tennessee: That's probably right
Kage: Leaving Sonny /renata alive to become a rallying point might turn out to be disastrous. We only need to win the next round and we have pulled this off twice ;)
Kage: with the voting history of the others.I am quite sure that the votes will be spread and if the mafia votes are the only coordinated votes, while people go after their own targets.I thiink it is the best chance we have
Mild Tennessee: I agree. Let's kill Richie and Sonny.
Kage: Ok :)
Kage: Il go make some coffee and think of how to kill my target. Do yuo want to waste Sonny as he is your nemesis? :P
Mild Tennessee: Might as well :D
Kage: why not while we are at it ;)
Crazed Rabbit: awesome
Kage: Let us just hope this will play out, thank God we have white_eyes and Earthling in the crowd disagreeing about anything pizza will say
Crazed Rabbit: heehee they're great
Kage: Im just worried what pizza might cook, we are too close, but a good thing is that we are very hard to trace to each other. Im my prediction goes right.You will have to defend yourself like the last day phase and i go completely unnoticed. It would be fun to show people that lurkers are really something to take in count in these games, its totally different how i usually have played
Crazed Rabbit: Last day round I waited and hoped the heat would turn up on somebody else. This time I'm going to come out and at Angelo early on.
Kage: strange steam went offline there for a bit
Crazed Rabbit: I'll just repeat this then;
Crazed Rabbit: Last day round I waited and hoped the heat would turn up on somebody else. This time I'm going to come out and at Angelo early on.
Kage: I think thats a solid strategy
Kage: Il send a pm to GH now.I have to get out and leave for work in about 20
Crazed Rabbit: Ok, have a good day at work. I'll go to sleep in ~2 hours and check back in real quick in about 11 hours.
Kage: Ok, remember to send your kill ;)
Kage: ok we cant screw it up anymore. Mosquitos are going to take care of Richie
Kage: Have a good night.Im sure we have a quite interesting day phase coming our way! :)

They got it dead on. This was endgame strategy at its highest; keep a good balance between killing off those were not suspicious as well as those who were targeting you. Luckily for Kage and CR, those two categories heavily overlapped each other this time around.

In terms of the round, it opened with debate on ATPG’s actions the previous day, with glyphz calling him out for the early self-vote. ATPG, in his defense, cited being fed up with the constant accusations and his lynch allowing the town to move onto other targets, forgetting that being lynched proved nothing. As this emotionally-charged debate racked up in intensity, I had to step in and remind everyone to cool down, the only real tense point in the game which I’m more than fine with.

The newly-murdered Renata stepped in and correctly pointed out that the kills removed two votes on Fat Tony, but the mafia’s strategy worked perfectly. Her accusations didn’t have the same fire as when she was alive. And when she had to leave the thread for RL reasons, the chances of her impacting the last round diminished even further. The living townies had other remaining priorities and pet lynches.

A minor bandwagon went up on Blackadder/Bertha, the other lurker. Luck went the mafia’s way a final time, as it could just as easily have gone in Kage’s direction. It didn’t, however, and CR for once joined the bandwagon early and Kage sealed the town’s doom by placing the decisive fourth vote on Bertha in a round where only six people were alive.

Over Steam, Kage and CR were celebrating their clinched victory. The rest of the town, however, went out with barely a whimper. Some of them seemed to realize that they had failed.

Executed: Captain Blackadder (Bertha)

Day 11

Crazed Rabbit kills glyphz (Luigi)
Kagemusha kills Ibn-Khaldun (Bruno)

Bruno kill an homage to: Mafia V

As previously mentioned, mathematically, the town had no chance of winning this game, which made this round essentially a victory lap for the two mafiosi. The only possible scenario in which the town could have secured a victory is one where Kage was WoG-eligible (which he wasn’t anyway) and both Kage and CR didn’t vote, and TLD would have voted for CR. That way CR would have been lynched with TLD’s one vote and Kage would have been Wogged. Obviously, the chances of that happening in any game were laughable.

Poor TLD, a part of him realizing his fate, fought to the bitter end. On the other side, the dead townies finally got their acts together, equally arguing for the lynch of both Fat Tony and Emilio, but since they had a 67% chance of guessing right, this didn’t mean much.

I customarily make the final, make-or-break rounds in my games (if they happen) 48 hours, and even though I gave people the impression that this round was one of them, I kept it at 24 mainly because TLD had been tortured enough. He even had a brief hope spot as the two mafiosi turned on each other before turning around and switching their votes to him. Angelo had made a lot of escapes this game, but this time, where he was facing two people who were aligned and whose victory condition would be fulfilled literally by killing him, he was doomed.

Executed: TheLastDays (Angelo)

Game end

Final kill an homage to: CR’s and Kage’s final kills in Mafia VII and Mafia I, respectively

As I had been promising since Mafia III, a Total Mafia Victory would result in the killing of the town’s Chief of Police, an NPC who has been a mainstay of the series from the very beginning and whoever is the current moderator of the Frontroom. I’m sure this scene meant a lot to CR and Kage, even if all of the other players dreaded it. As far as the game’s continuity goes, I don’t know if I’m going to resurrect JuJuBee for Mafia XI. Yes, the Frontroom of the Mafia series defies all laws of chemistry and physics, but for something as massive as this, I feel as if there should be some finality.

So where did things go wrong for the town? I identify three areas from different parts of the game. These are in both chronological order and in my opinion escalating order as well, meaning that in my opinion anyway the later reasons weigh more heavily than the earlier ones.

Firstly, in the early-to-midgame, the town simply didn’t generate enough data in terms of both post count and post content. This was probably a consequence of the anonymous accounts. In vanilla games, this is absolutely critical since what is said in the thread is literally the only thing you have to go on. I list this as least important because enough was still generated for Renata to make a case on CR at the end, but with more information at her back things would have been made a bit stronger and may have even convinced some of the other townies to abandon their pursuits and go with CR.

Secondly, in the midgame, the town did not lynch enough lurkers. There’s really no getting around this. The general strategy, refined over five years and ten-fifteen games, is to make the usual random lynches in the early game, lynch the obvious suspects and the lurkers in the midgame, and then focus and use the data generated by the previous lynches to get the mafia in the endgame. This strategy was deviated from and they left several lurkers alive. Two of them – Kage and Blackadder – survived until Day 10, and more would have if it weren’t for the mafia killing a lot of them via random.org. Even if the town had lynched one more lurker, say Blackadder, they would have focused on Kage on Day 10 and the random lynch would have left CR reeling and vulnerable on the final day.

Thirdly and most importantly, the town just couldn’t get over the hump on Day 9, the best chance they had at lynching a mafioso all game. CR looked doomed in the early part of it, but due to a number of events which I described above, sentiment shifted over the course of the round. You could probably simplify this to a case of bad timing and bad luck, but the fact remains that these breaks all went in the mafia’s favor where in games past they had gone the town’s. I could clearly tell early on in Day 10 that the town had ran out of gas.

All of the credit in the world, of course, has to go to our victorious mafiosi: Crazed Rabbit and Kagemusha, who have been here from Day One and proven beyond a doubt that they know how to play this game by achieving the impossible: a second victory as mafia where literally no one else has won once. Congratulations, gentlemen, you truly deserve the title of Eternal Champion.

A thanks of course goes to the town for their gallant efforts in this one. Despite the beating I’ve given them over the course of this commentary, they were still one or two very close breaks away from not only avoiding the Total Defeat but winning outright as well. This is a hallmark of how well they played and how close this series is. A very distinguished effort, everyone.

Finally, as this massive commentary comes to a close, I’d like to thank everybody from the bottom of my heart for playing and continuing to patronize the Gameroom. Five years ago, when I started Mafia I in the Frontroom, I never thought in my wildest dreams that we’d be here today, not only still playing Mafia but doing so in our own specified subforum and in one of the most popular areas in the site. This is all because you guys keep playing, which I am extremely grateful for. Great memories have been made, friendships have been formed, and I think most importantly, we’ve all had a lot of fun. I and all the others will keep hosting ‘em if you keep playing ‘em, and hopefully we’ll see you here in five more years.

And so, once again, thank you to everyone who has played a game in the Mafia series over the years:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

a completely inoffensive name
AggonyDuck
Alexander the Pretty Good
Alexanderofmacedon
Andres (TheCunning)
ArpeggiateTHIS
Ashurnasirpal II
Askthepizzaguy
atheotes
autolycus
B_Ray
Banquo's Ghost
Bar Kochba
Beefy187
Believer
Beskar
Big King Sanctaphrax
Byzantine Mercenary
ByzantineKnight
Caius Flaminius
Captain Blackadder
Centurion1
Chaotix
ChuggtheSquirrel
CountArach
Cowhead418
Craterus
Crazed Rabbit
Csargo
Cultured Drizzt Fan
Death is yonder
Death Match
DemonArchangel
Destroyer of Hope/Lord Winter
diablodelmar
Diamondeye
discovery1
Divine Wind
Divinus Arma
doc_bean
Don Corleone
Double A
Drisos
Dutch_guy
Earthling
Elite Ferret
evil_maniac from mars
FactionHeir
Faust|
FesterShinetop
Fragony
Gaius Scribonius Curio
georgeman51
Gertgregoor/Moros
glyphz
greater/kami/makai/seieri/Shinsei/Yasei/issaikhaan
Greyblades
Hepcat
Hiji
HughTower
Husar
Ianofsmeg16
Ibn-Khaldun
Ice
Ignoramus
JimBob
Joe Monks
johnhughthom
Jolt
Joooray
Kagemusha
Killfr3nzy
King Henry V
Kommodus
Kralizec
KukriKhan
Leet Eriksson
Lehesu
Lemur
LittleGrizzly
littlelostboy
Masy
Methos
Mithrandir
Motep
Myrddraal
Omanes Alexandropolites
Orb
Pannonian
Peasant Phill
pevergreen
Populus Romanus
Pra Tha Funkee Homo Sapien
Privateerkev
Proletariat
Quintus.J.Cicero
Redleg
Reenk Roink
Renata
RoadKill
robbiecon
Romanic
Rythmic/Psychonaut
sapi
Sarathos
Sasaki Kojiro
Seamus Fermanagh
Secura
Seon
Shadows
shlin28
Sigurd (Fafnesbane)
Silver Rusher
Sir Boo
Sir Moody
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
SSNeoperestroika
Stig
Stormcrow
Subotan
The Spartan
TheLastDays
Thermal Mercury
Tiberius
Tiberius of the Drake
TinCow
Tran
Tratorix/Brave_Sir_Robin
Twilightblade
Uesugi Kenshin
UltraWar
Visorslash
Warman
Warmaster Horus
White_eyes:D
Winston Hughes
woad&fangs
Wonderland
Xdeathfire/TevashSzat
Xiahou
Zalmoxis

That’s 141 names, folks. You should all be proud. We did this together.

~ General Hankerchief

[Diamondeye]

Huzzah! Great commentary, Gen'ral!

Also, me? Townie Prodigy? I would like everyone to remember this when people throw out the "always scum" argument

[TheLastDays]

Thanks for the commentary, a good read!

also FoS: DE

[Askthepizzaguy]

I think I will ignore all voices of the dead who call for my head, from this moment onward, forever.

My own move was a disaster, but if I didn't care about the non-voters who didn't know what they were talking about, I wouldn't have been so frustrated as to not care if I lived or died. And CR's head would be on Renata's mantle.

Lesson learned.

[TheLastDays]

I wish I had that staying power when I'm Mafia... basically when I self voted I think I was in the lead and calling for Anne's head was the only way to get people off me.

I don't think I really called the argument against Tony a smokescreen because I was more convinced of Tony's (and unfortunately Bertha's) guilt than of Anne/ATPG. But I knew the chances of Anne being scum were higher than the chances of myself being scum so I switched to her and somehow convinced myself of the argument I made. I should have broken the tie and went for Tony's head again.

[classical_hero]

I nearly signed up for this, but I just wasn't feeling the best for it.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Thanks for an excellent commentary to finish off an excellent game, GH.



CR