Rubicon [Concluded]

Excellent Game, very confusing with all that switching back and forth. I got very suspicious of Sasaki when we defended him when he asked and nothing happened and the next day (or night) one of our group was killed, that effectively ended my cooperation with the Sasaki team. Who would have guessed that it was indeed a killorder by Sasaki that offed Woads...

Anyway hats off to TinCan. This thread stands as an epic achievement to your oratory skill and level of organization.

Funnily enough I always wanted to join the Pompeiians because my role was so pro Pompeii that I couldn´t believe that I was Mafia from the beginning. I was Lucius Afranius (Afranius) who even fought Ceasar in Spain and was nurtured by Pompeii himself. I just never found a possibility to find and contact the faction safely although I did tell Beefy (who told me he was Optimates himself) I just want to win (no matter if it´s with the republic or not).

Anyway a win, yay!!!!

We lost...

Very well played, town. You got yourself organised very well. The conversion thing certainly helped, as it gave town a few confirmed innocents that weren't in a position to backstab or change sides. I never took that into account.

That explains why the planted seeds of suspicion against LittleGrizzly and Sasaki didn't want to grow.

Would anyone have fallen for my fake role pm?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

“Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared. ”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Publius Clodius Pulcher (Pulcher)
Senator
(Populares Faction)

Your notorious political career started in 68 BC when you served on your brother-in-law Lucullus' staff in Asia. You began your cursus honorum as quaestor in Sicily. After your return from Sicily in 61BC, you decided to renounce your rank of patrician in order to hold a tribunate of plebs. You got yourself adopted by a distant relative (a controversial adoption that didn't go unnoticed!). To avenge wrongs done to you in the past, you started to make legislation aimed at the destruction of your nemesis, Cicero (who destroyed your alibi at the time and was thus responsible for the scandal). You introduced a law threatening to exile anyone who ever executed a Roman citizen without a trial. Cicero, who had been responsible for the execution of members of the Catiline conspiracy, without trial, was clearly the intended target of this law. Due to this law, and lack of support from his own allies, Cicero was forced to go in exile to Thessalonica in 58 BC. It didn't take too long for you to organise the destruction or confiscation of Cicero's properties.
In 56 BC, you took the next step on the cursus honorum and held the office of aedile.

Victory Conditions:
(1) Eliminate all Caesarians and Pompeians. You will be victorious even if you are dead if this goal is met.

OR

(2) Survive and eliminate all Populares Faction Members, including Caesarians.

Role Description:
Night Actions:
(1) With 1 other Senator, you can investigate one player per night. Successful investigations will show the target's faction.
(2) With 2 other Senators, you can attempt to protect one player per night. Any player you protect will be very difficult to kill that night.
(3) With 3 other Senators, you can attempt to kill one player per night.

Special Ability:
(1) Pugio: for many years now, you have been trying to destroy Cicero. You have humiliated him through and through but you are not yet satisfied. You have a dagger that once belonged to Cicero and you plan to put it to good use. If you manage to find Cicero, you can give the dagger to one of your clients who will plunge it into his heart during the night. You may kill alone once. You don't have room for mistakes, since this is a one time only ability. However, if your attack fails, you will not have lost the ability.

---

EDIT: And thanks for hosting TinCow :2thumbsup: Had a lot of bad luck in the first part of the game, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless. Kudos to johnhughthom and Iskander 3.1. You guys did very well but town was too well organised this time.

Nope the victory condition is wrong it should say for part two eleminate all optimites including the pompians and not the other way around.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Captain Blackadder

Nope the victory condition is wrong it should say for part two eleminate all optimites including the pompians and not the other way around.

---

Gah!

:laugh4:

I had noticed that Andres was acting out of character. Since he was dead I didn't feel the need to accuse him, but in all honesty he was acting like he usually does when he's dead mafia, with slight variations. He's very challenging... almost extremely so... against anything you say.

Lots of seeds of self-doubt. However I was already confused, doubting myself, and I knew I was town and that his behavior matched previous examples of dead mafia from him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Askthepizzaguy

Was Andres ever proven innocent? Because I smell an Andres bluff.

---

The more he talked, the more I grew convinced of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I think the main thing that prevented factionalism was that helping the dictators instead of the republic is fundamentally unappealing and feels a bit craven. I know at the start of the game I decided to ignore that option. Another factor was that you couldn't investigate unless you had another person, so you would have to basically confess that you were going for that option in order to make any progress. Also, the groups I set up prevented people from investigating.

Now, if being factional appeared less cowardly and I could have investigated on my own, I would have been tempted to organize hit groups on the enemy faction while protecting our own etc.

---

Some of the Senator abilities were aimed at encouraging this. First, there was the Amicitia pairs, which were essentially same-faction masons. Both of these pairs immediately started investigating together from night 1, which is what I expected them to do. From there, it wouldn't have been hard to go for a faction victory. The Populares pair obviously did end up aiding the Caesarians, though not in the way I anticipated. The Optimates pair never had a chance because mini was killed on Night 1, leaving w&f essentially as a normal townie.

The Gravitas ability never got properly used either. I intended it as a way for ambitious Senators to either help their faction or attempt to infiltrate it. However, the only time it was ever used was when Cronos Impera asked Pompey to help him get Drizzt lynched. Obviously that wasn't likely to get positive results. everyone never used his ability to contact Caesar at all.

I agree though that changes need to be made to make the faction-aligned victories more plausible. I think the last couple phases when factionalism started to be an issue were some of the most interesting in the game, so I want to make it an easier option to pursue. I've got a lot ideas rolling around in my head, and I'm sure many will make it into the next version of the game.

I cant say I am particually surprised that one of the group was a mafia.

Sorry about being so singleminded about you being mafia beefy. :sweatdrop:

Forgot to say this....

Thanks for the game TinCow. Really enjoyed it!!

Ohh and apologies to split and grey for attempting to get you killed at various points!

Great game TinCow and wellp layed town... Congratulations. :2thumbsup:
This game was massive...During the first part i was not able to follow due to RL and then i couldnt really get into the swing of things... sorry abt that CDF and Tratorix :bow:
We wanted to take out Sasaki early hoping that he was alone in directing the townie groups and had not yet shared the information he had gathered.

Awesome game, TinCow!

Although I have to admit it was kind of annoying being lynched by the town after deciding it would be a better idea to help the Republic rather than one of the Dictators. Not that I couldn't have expected it though, after claiming a neutral role.

In hindsight, it would have been much easier to have never revealed myself until necessary- I wound up revealing to YLC on Night 3 as soon as I believed him to be a Consul, and then I also revealed to Sasaki because he was believed to be mafia at one point.

Although, I have to say, playing the game the way I did was much more fun. Night 4 in particular was crazy- split told me that Sasaki was going to kill me, so I scrambled to block the one Praetor/Consul role I knew for certain (GH). Then I also had help from ATPG, who asked TheFlax to protect me as well. That phase was nuts.

Great game, Tincow!

So... let your battle cry be "Victory! Victory and Glory for Rome!"
I've won. It is such a hard thing to believe that.

With Jolt, who was the real winner in all of this. I never suspected to win, I thought I would evidence that I had a role. Ive sent the subtle hint in the thread, and I PM'ed Cato with a traductor, and I've wrote "Mei praetor amicus". I dont know to today what he wrote.

This evidenced the latin words, henceforth we discovered that we were Cicero and Cato.

The QT idea was mine, but the real purpose of me was to create a fake QT to blame other people, not to organize. Then Jolt created the Congregation of Heroes.

What can I say? Im not good at playing as a stoic, even though Im somehow stoic, and I kinda dissapointed, basically I played as a regular townie... with powerfull roles.

I stopped using the Cato rhetoric speech to make them believe that Cato was down. Cato was long forgotten into the succesion of things.

I suspected CDF, yet Jolt didnt want to hear. Also, we thought that both Pompey and Caesar were alive. Looked like so, Jolt even send me a PM saying "I KNOW WHO CAESAR IS!!!!!" and didnt wrote the name :here goes a whip smile:

Good job Jolt. Good job Sasaki. I just investigated the wrong ones so they didnt make teh mistake. :smiles here:

We are the champions, my friends....

Oh and Jolt, Ive sent you the 2 PMS of Beefy and MM, just in case :P

Was it coincidence that Jolt, being portugese speaker, and me, spanish speaker, defend Rome, the civilization that gave us our languages?

Well done TinCow. Simply well done.

Well, Chaotix since I investigated you and saw that you were lying about being the woman, I'd say you'd be lynched by us sooner or later unless you revealed. But then if you revealed you'd probably be killed by the Mafia. So you were dead anyway. I was about to convert you, but I'm not sure whether I would have suceeded or not. TinCow?

Caius must have suspected I was Cicero through my "moderator" Role-Playing and through my eloquent sentences. I was roleplaying that way exactly to see if Cato would notice me as he did. He originally contacted me by saying "Tu narro iustum, mei praetor amicus", which stands for "You speak justice, my friend Praetor." While it immediatly came to my mind that Caius could be Cato, the fact that he put "mei praetor amicus", made me suspect that he was a Mafia who had investigated me in night 1 could check Role PM's, and since in my Role PM, it is advised to speak Latin, it would be logical that Cato would also speak latin for me to recognise him. Unfortunatly, I deleted that conversation with him, so I can't explain what I said to Caius in latin, as I did originally reply to it in Latin. In any case, I quit playing around the bush and asked whether he was Cato, to which he asked my identity, and I revealed as being Cicero. Afterwards, he proposed creating QTs to incriminate people in case we come under pressure. From there, I took the liberty of creating our own QT to coordinate our actions better. I made it clear that the QT link wasn't to be given to anyone under any circumstance, other than our future recruits, (And even these would be subject to some scrutiny) to assure that our "Planning hall" wasn't infiltrated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jolt

Well, Chaotix since I investigated you and saw that you were lying about being the woman, I'd say you'd be lynched by us sooner or later unless you revealed. But then if you revealed you'd probably be killed by the Mafia. So you were dead anyway. I was about to convert you, but I'm not sure whether I would have suceeded or not. TinCow?

---

An attempt to convert Chaotix would have resulted in failure. He could not be converted by the Orators or recruited by either mafia family.

Note that Chaotix was not lying about who he was. If you read his role PM (posted with all the others) you will see that one of his abilities was to appear to be the same faction as whoever was investigating him. For Orator investigations, this also included a unique Senator name that was not otherwise in the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

An attempt to convert Chaotix would have resulted in failure. He could not be converted by the Orators or recruited by either mafia family.

Note that Chaotix was not lying about who he was. If you read his role PM (posted with all the others) you will see that one of his abilities was to appear to be the same faction as whoever was investigating him. For Orator investigations, this also included a unique Senator name that was not otherwise in the game.

---

Yep. I even mentioned it in the thread, too, although I didn't explain it fully.

You'll notice those two senators were the same ones who left to warn me in my lynch write-up.

Another thing- I never once lied during the game. Everything I said was at least a half truth, or otherwise people assumed I agreed by silence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

An attempt to convert Chaotix would have resulted in failure. He could not be converted by the Orators or recruited by either mafia family.

Note that Chaotix was not lying about who he was. If you read his role PM (posted with all the others) you will see that one of his abilities was to appear to be the same faction as whoever was investigating him. For Orator investigations, this also included a unique Senator name that was not otherwise in the game.

---

I read his role. But I didn't know his role in teh game so I supposed he was lying.

This was a great game to get my toes wet, thanks!

Congratulations to all survivors, particularly Caius, The Flax and LG. Magnificently played and a deserved victory. Commiserations to JohnHughTom, a great effort unfortunately falling short.

Thanks to Tincow for hosting an epic and imaginative game. I apologise for my lack of particiaption after death, but I've just started exams. If I was alive a greater effort would have been made but... (by the way, Tincow do you mind me asking if some of the characters were altered slightly to balance the game more? I study this period at university and I noticed a few inconsistencies, I'd assume that Quintus Curio is an amalgamation of Curio my namesake and Quintus Cassius (neither of whom was a praetor, they were tribunes) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, an important populares, was the urban Praetor, yet didn't get the office in game (off the top of my head). I'd also be interested to know where you found all the information but back to some actual feedback on the game.....)

The reason I targeted Sasaki when I did was a possibly misplaced feeling of an optimates conspiracy in support of Pompeius, with Sasaki pulling the strings. For this reason I decided to try and alter things by pulling the few populares I knew of (including JohnHughTom and Iskander) away from his group and slowly try and subtly support Caesar. At the same time if Sasaki's group lost its leader I was confident that chaos would ensue. I was luckily proven right, but then was killed before I could take advantage of the situation. (So you see Sasaki; I was targeting a dangerous adversary, you should feel honoured. :bow: ... :laugh4:).

Once again, congratulations to the Republicans (I'll get you next time *shakes fist*).

And finally, Andres, I would have picked the fake PM, Clodius was already long dead by the time of the civil war. Did anybody pick mine (below), out of curiosity?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TinCow

Many thanks for volunteering to serve as a replacement. :bow:

You are replacing Don Corleone. He has never posted and your character has never been involved in any night actions, so it's pretty much a blank slate for you. Good luck, and please let me know if you have any questions.

---------

“Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.”
- Quintus Horatius Flaccus

Gaius Scribonius Curio (Curio)
Senator
(Populares Faction)

A prosperous Roman Senator, you have achieved great success in life. You were Tribune in 50 BC. Because your former close friendship with Marcus Antonius, you have always been a die-hard Populares. Caesar is clearly the political leader of his cousin Antonius, and you supported his attempt to hold onto his army during the previous year. Despite being your own man if you are going to abandon the Republic and take sides, it is to him that your loyalties will fall.

Victory Conditions:
(1) Eliminate all Caesarians and Pompeians. You will be victorious even if you are dead if this goal is met.

OR

(2) Survive and eliminate all Optimates Faction Members, including Pompeians.

Role Description:
Night Actions:
(1) With 1 other Senator, you can investigate one player per night. Successful investigations will show the target's faction.
(2) With 2 other Senators, you can attempt to protect one player per night. Any player you protect will be very difficult to kill that night.
(3) With 3 other Senators, you can attempt to kill one player per night.

Special Ability:
(1) Manumission: You have several slaves in your household. For years now, you have been training one of them as a gladiator to fight for your profit. This man has become a deadly weapon, and in this time of crisis, he is a weapon that may be worth using. In return for his freedom, he will attempt to assassinate anyone you wish. You can attempt to kill another player by yourself one time.

---

Great game TC!

I'm actually amazed that I survived the game. Due to my previous poor record of participation, I usually get lynched if I participate.

What I think helped my survival was my ability to switch sides. The Pompeians wouldn't want to lynch me, being an Optimates, while Caesar's crew would hope that I'd switch and thus mean one less kill they'd have to do.

For the record, I suspected Sasaki as being Pompey, and GSC as Caesar.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jolt

Caius must have suspected I was Cicero through my "moderator" Role-Playing and through my eloquent sentences. I was roleplaying that way exactly to see if Cato would notice me as he did. He originally contacted me by saying "Tu narro iustum, mei praetor amicus", which stands for "You speak justice, my friend Praetor." While it immediatly came to my mind that Caius could be Cato, the fact that he put "mei praetor amicus", made me suspect that he was a Mafia who had investigated me in night 1 could check Role PM's, and since in my Role PM, it is advised to speak Latin, it would be logical that Cato would also speak latin for me to recognise him. Unfortunatly, I deleted that conversation with him, so I can't explain what I said to Caius in latin, as I did originally reply to it in Latin. In any case, I quit playing around the bush and asked whether he was Cato, to which he asked my identity, and I revealed as being Cicero. Afterwards, he proposed creating QTs to incriminate people in case we come under pressure. From there, I took the liberty of creating our own QT to coordinate our actions better. I made it clear that the QT link wasn't to be given to anyone under any circumstance, other than our future recruits, (And even these would be subject to some scrutiny) to assure that our "Planning hall" wasn't infiltrated.

---

Originally, that was right. I have the whole PM conversation between you and me, Im in UNi right now. I will ask you what did it say, I dont remember at all.

Also, we PM'ed each other in TWC when the org went down. He said:
"Et tu Cato?"

which I replied

"Et tu Cicero?"

Im glad he turned out to be Cicero. I would had died if he wasnt.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gaius Scribonius Curio

Thanks to Tincow for hosting an epic and imaginative game. I apologise for my lack of particiaption after death, but I've just started exams. If I was alive a greater effort would have been made but... (by the way, Tincow do you mind me asking if some of the characters were altered slightly to balance the game more? I study this period at university and I noticed a few inconsistencies, I'd assume that Quintus Curio is an amalgamation of Curio my namesake and Quintus Cassius (neither of whom was a praetor, they were tribunes) and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, an important populares, was the urban Praetor, yet didn't get the office in game (off the top of my head). I'd also be interested to know where you found all the information but back to some actual feedback on the game.....)

---

Yes, some small historical alterations were made to allow for better playability. The most significant one was calling Cicero a Populares, and I felt that was so bad that I had to include a footnote about it in the Cicero role PM. It had to be done though, since I really did have to have one Populares Orator and one Optimates Orator. When it came to picking two roles to be pure-Republican victory only, Cato and Cicero were the obvious choices. It would have been insanity to pick someone other than them. At the same time, it was also ridiculous to call Cato anything but Optimates, which left Cicero the only one I could fudge as a Populares.

As for other changes, some players held positions that would have warranted Lictors (such as Lepidus), but I didn't give that power to them for play balance reasons. I also greatly fudged the political system to make it fit into a mafia setting. Proscriptions were never done by consensus, but that system seemed to fit the setting far better than lynchings. In addition, the Consuls should have had far greater powers in the Senate than they did, but I didn't give them those powers because they both had to be Optimates and thus it would have been unbalanced. At one point in my draft, I included the Tribune of the Plebs position as an elected office every 2 day phases with the power to veto any proscription. However, I canned this due to historical inaccuracy. First, the Senate didn't elect the Tribunes. Second, they didn't change every two days and I couldn't figure out a way to narrate that that wouldn't have been ridiculous.

Your namesake actually was in the game, manifested as a Praetor played by GeneralHankerchief. Wikipedia says that Curio was also known as Quintus Scribonius Curio, and since I thought you might end up playing the game, I called him Quintus instead of Gaius to avoid potential confusion.

For sources, a lot of the background is just from my own knowledge. I majored in History in college and I'm pretty much a history nut. I've got several 8' bookcases covered in nothing but history books and it constitutes the majority of my recreational reading (currently reading a history of the Royal Navy from 1648 to 1815). Rome has always been one of the largest areas of my focus, so I have a decent understanding of the history and culture of the time period.

The finer details were provided by consulting my own books and (obviously) from the internet, mainly Wikipedia. I love history a great deal and like educating people about it, which is why every role PM had multiple links to Wikipedia articles. I was hoping that some people might learn a bit about the time period in addition to just playing a game. Wikipedia is surprisingly detailed in Roman history, and there was a lot of good info I got from there (I had never even heard of Speculatores before I started work on this game). If you look at the unused roles list, most of the Senators I did not use had very small Wikipedia descriptions. I did not use them because I wanted players to have more interesting historical backgrounds to read.

Similarly, I called the Dictator propaganda ability "Acta Diurna" because it was the only Wikipedia article I could find on something similar. At that point I had used Wikipedia links for so many things that I was afraid using non-Wiki links would make some legit role PMs appear fake if they were posted. So, I just went with the closest Wiki articles I could find. Thus also the "Damnatio Memoriae" ability, which I would have preferred to called Defection.

Info on a lot of the Senators was easy to come by, but one hurdle I had was actually figuring out who the Praetors were in 49BC. I couldn't find an easy list in any of my books and it wasn't on most of my Roman history websites either. Eventually I found this website, which claims to show Senate composition in 49BC. That's how I found Aulus Allienus as the second Praetor. In the beginning I also tried to narrate real events from Caesar's march on Rome, but time constraints made me drop that relatively quickly. Here are two more websites on Roman History that I've had bookmarked for years, I consulted both of them as well. Livius in particular is excellent, and has a great section on the history of the individual legions.

This historical basis will continue in any other mafia games I host, simply because I love it. Just the background research required to do it I find to be very enjoyable and worthwhile on its own. As noted in my commentary, my original plan was for the Thirty Years War. That will probably be my focus for the second game. I suspect people won't be quite as interested in that time period as in Late Roman Republic, but I honestly think it's a much neglected part of history. The Thirty Years War was essentially the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs fighting for supremacy in Europe with Germany (Holy Roman Empire) as the battleground. Add on to that the fact that pretty much every other medium and minor power in Europe decided to get involved to pursue their own objectives, and you've got a period of war, chaos, political infighting, and shifting alliances that makes the perfect setting for a mafia game. Top it off with the Catholic/Protestant struggle that was the superficial excuse for all of this, and it's essentially my dream game.

It's a pity, I won't get Cicero (Most probably) in the sequel :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Funny part of the game to me was when I thought you were accusing GeneralHankerchief so I quoted our pm convo to give you the support you wanted and it turned out you were accusing me :D

---

Hahaha.

I have to admit, I thought it was really weird both Andres and Cultured Drizzt Fan were both very keen to work with me. Them (out of the whole list I people I used) were both the most co-operative and couldn't do enough.

However, you attracted my attention more with the whole AggonyDuck thing and after killing people. Which led closer in bed with both Caesar and Pompey.

It is your fault, Sasaki. :cry:

Well done everybody. TinCow, that was an excellent job as a first-time host. I wish I had participated more, but unfortunately my being dead did not mesh very well with all of the behind-the-scenes activity going on. I eagerly look forward to future games. :bow: