Cosa Nuova II – Nadir of the Nanites
Got tapped by Kommodus to be one of the CN team for this set-to. HughTower and Greaterkhaan were selected as the other members of the troika.
Preparations were choppy, as I had little or no time to prepare before what I thought was the initial deadline for PMs. Ooops – real life gets in the way. Spring Break week does NOT mean the same thing for parents as for students.
Night One
The extension helped, as it allowed us to touch base with a few things. Hugh persisted in his desire to target Axe – fine by me – and khaan was set to target GeneralHankerchief to see if we’d get lucky and pick up a powerful recruit early on. Khaan ended up with commo trouble during the last stretch, so I jumped in and executed an attack on his target.
A few minutes of research – neat stuff about the optic nerve – and I had what I needed to set Kommodus up for the write-up. He’s quite talented, and I simply send him an outline of the steps of my idea and then let him craft it to fit his overall narrative.
Results of Night One = 0 recruits. Drats. On the positive side, the General is a busy gamer, so his early death might see him off into other gaming directions and keep him from being a powerful hunter in this one – though this is by no means certain.
Day One
Sigurd’s comments about mis-trusting attack survivors don’t spell out a lot of hope for any new recruits – though it’s also likely to get any “doctor” saves killed as well, so I’ll take the salt with the sugar.
The pace of votes and commentary aren’t hopeful for a mafia win, of course, but I’m hoping that my eventual lynching (price of being a known player) will take long enough, and be distracting enough, that ‘khaan and or Hugh get by. I’ve chatted with them both to see if we can highlight this effect for our advantage.
This time around, it would be a joy if Sasaki buys it – leaving just that hint of doubt to his participation in the mind of the town – but neither Hugh nor I had a good reason to withdraw our vote from ‘luster and bring about his early lynching. Oh well, we’ll see what comes of the tie.
Okay, Stig broke the tie and sent Warluster to the chopping block. Sasaki is capable of annoying more people, but Warluster – as Kommodus’ write-up suggests – ended up paying the price for hit-or-miss participation in previous games. Of course, for the CN, Sasaki’s lynch would have been more valuable, but one fewer is still one fewer.
Night Two
We had several tentative targets including Tran, Redce, and Ichigo (recruit!), but in the end we decided on a mix similar to the last go-around. ‘khaan will take out Redce with his Black Widow whilst my surgeon will attempt to recruit Crazed Rabbit. Ichigo draws more fire than Rabbit, as my partners noted, so we felt we could let him risk lynching more readily. Rabbit, on the other hand, has his “I don’t lie rep” going strong. Therefore, if murdered, he gains no Extra credibility – if converted, we pick up a good planner/attacker (and we’ll decide how much he’s allowed to know). I really was impressed with Rabbit’s efforts during Capo – he was the “operations director” for the Barzinis and did quite well.
Well the write up for ‘khaan’s kill was splendid – a venatrix no less! I am impressed with Kommo’s writing at all points. Neither target lived, but the odds favor that. Sorry to lose Rabbit – but omelettes and eggs as they say.
Day Two
Tran just got hammered in slow motion. I took the opportunity to snipe hard at Caius – his vote record lets me hit reasonably hard – though nobody took the bait. A lot of vote shifting this time leads me to think that no solid leads exist in our hunters’ minds. They’re casting about looking to provoke a guilty response. This is about normal for this time frame. If a detective is hunting, he hasn’t hit on anything yet.
Night Three
We’re discussing who to kill, and Disco comes up. I’ll suggest Kage – one vote to “stay alive” is the way I’d try to be a detective if I had it to do again. We’ll see who the final targets shape out to be.
Disco is taken out as is Kage – with no recruits. It is only after his death is posted that I remember the “curse.” I’m not really superstitious (except as required of a baseball traditionalist) so I really don’t think about it. We’ll be discussing whether to kill two or one on night 4 –is confusion worth more than reduced #s?
Day Three
Voting kicked off at a steady pace, but kicked off in the wrong direction. Ichigo is picking up on good – if somewhat thin – evidence and has targeted ‘khaan. He’s exactly right, of course, as to the inconsistencies. Fortunately for us, Destro fired back at Ichigo (some substance, but as we know he’s not CN) and then Andres jumped on Sasaki based on Sasaki’s earlier “you’ll see I’m innocent” comment. If Sasaki is the detective and got one of us round 1, we may see a reveal that get’s that one and ‘khaan killed, but if we’re lucky, Sasaki will take the chop and ‘khaan will slide under the radar for a few rounds.
Things slogged along for a while, and then rapidly shifted against Xdeath towards the close. Sasaki took the opportunity to break the tie and keep himself alive and his role (if any?) intact. Can’t say I blame him.
Night Four
A bit of confusion here – we’d chosen targets but my link to the org went away until after I was asleep. Got the PM in late – not sure if Kommo will count it. Plan – after a good deal of targeting discussion – was to take two: Arach and T’blade. Arach seems to be swinging to the Sasaki/Ichigo camp and T’blades round 3! No lynch vote just seems to scream “I’m preserving my role.” Maybe not, but it got him targeted.
If Kommo only counts one kill, we still get the confusion benefit. Either way, it should be a useful night.
Wow! We converted T’blade rather than killing him. Early sentiment seems to be to use him without giving out our identities. I’m gonna advocate not using him as a sacrificial lamb though – 4 gives us a much higher chance to win early (8 left = CN victory barring a deadman vote).
Ichigo’s suicide seems unusual. At Kommo’s request (subsequent to a discussion with HughT) he’s being quiet.
Day Four
Voting starts out with pressure votes – I add one for Xehh just to get a vote in early before bandwagon threats start up. Blade and Sasaki were the popular wagoneers after the early going.
Discussion went back and forth for a while, with ‘blade finally responding to the pressure (and under directions to do so and to vote) and starting turning on Xehh. As time ran out, Sasaki ended up with the plurality and got the chop. This was useful as it was the best way to maintain the “taint” on his claims and analysis.
Night Five
We had a lot of discussion on this, finally narrowing our kills to Pev and to Sapi or Frenzy as choice number two. ‘khaan was facing some kind of timezone and/or tech issue, so I ended up sending in kill orders on Frenzy. Blade was tasked with killing pevergreen.
Pevergreen attempt was intercepted and stopped – bad joss on us.
Frenzy died during the experiments – oh well.
Xehh was killed by a vigilante – talk about your two for one deals! The presence of a vigilante is problematic for the CN – allowing the town to get two of us in one day/night sequence if they get their act together, but tonight’s result was nothing but gravy.
Day Five:
Wow. I’ve never really tried a fake reveal before, but with the pressure building I took some of the information that HughT had developed and embellished it and fired for effect. This won’t save me in the long run – my not being targeted will kill me eventually – but I think I’ve staved off the wolves for another whole round with my teammates help. Good on us!
I – the surgeon – couldn’t resist my quip to Sasaki about being a “bad doctor.” My humor will get me mafia killed some day….but it was fun to write.
I would really have preferred to get Caius lynched over Dutch, because Dutch seems to be a) just a bit more tenacious as an investigator and b) more prone to draw suspicion to himself with his vote/semi-lurk style. This latter made him today’s target instead of Caius. Hope it doesn’t mean we can’t get both lynched.
Night Six:
A fair amount of target discussion here. Boiled down to sending me (presumed innocent and with an excuse to be out of the hut) after Sapi and ‘blade after Stig. T’blade’s attack was blocked. This puts us two kills short and puts the town back in the lead. Poo-rats.
Day Six:
Started out as a pressure session on RK and GK, but the pendulum of analysis swung heavily against my partner. He’d twigged too many folks a notch early on, thus getting himself noticed a bit. Add his non-lurking status and the narrowing field of the late game and he got himself FOS’d. Other than a few early mis-steps, I think he’s played excellently. I am sad to see him be the first to go…I really thought it’d be me. GK’s lynch is a virtual lock as I write this.
Latter part of the discussion gives us hope for hammering Caius instead of Hugh – would be crucial numbers-wise. Give us two nights with 3 kills and Caius instead of Hugh and we might get back into this. Unfortunately, ATC and Siggy are pretty well covering the small field now and the bits of info are letting them target their lynches all too well.
Night Seven:
Rats! Only one kill again! That it was Andres – agent Bayinga I’m guessing – is good, but not getting two really puts us in a bind with Hugh. Siggy is camped on T’blade and Pevergreen is supposedly booby-trapped. Apparently Andres protected Stig yet again. Frustrating.
Day Seven:
First vote was to Sigurd but boy was he ready with a defense. Doubt I could put enough holes in that to work. Unfortunately, Andres analysis is on target and leaves Caius and Hugh. I have a sick feeling they’re gonna choose Hugh. Though we’ll try to get Caius offed. If Hugh goes, we’ll be down to one kill and one kill only as Siggy will just continue to sit on Blade. This gives them lots of chances to rethink and whack me – and it looks as though I’ll be the only original left. Not fair really, it was Hugh’s research that gave me the alibi.
Okay, it got a lot fairer as I became the primary target. Since I’m guilty, I have to put it down to my slip-ups. I never thought the fake reveal would fly as well as it did, and I guess I should be thankful that they tumbled on the weaknesses and discrepancies only after a couple of rounds.
My team tried to arrange a last minute switch to Caius, but T’blade was off line (and playing for the town?) and Hugh wasn’t enough. I got the lynch on a well played strategic “pocket” vote used by the town to confirm Hugh’s status – at least that is my supposition.
That makes two of us CN’s dead and Hugh likely to follow immediately. I suspect this one is over.
Night Eight.
Hugh has an attack plan in place, but I suspect we need at least one – and more likely two – converts to actually get a win at this point. Since I suspect that Siggy will continue to sit on T’blade, I suspect that we’ll get one kill, one block and a quick death for Hugh.
As I write this, discussion seems to be assessing between Hugh and Caius, but the real movers and shakers in this – Andres and Pev – are just, I think, biding time and waiting for the casualty reports. Once the kills are up, I think we’ll see a rapid series of Hugh votes and a quick finish – despite the discussion.
Wow, what a lucky break. A conversion kicked in when that, and only that, was likely to give us a win. Sigurd should be a fun one to play with as well. T’blade will have to be used at arm’s length – pever’ has a connection with him – but Siggy should play along nicely. Killing stig was a good help too.
Day Eight.
Incredibly, the discussion quickly swung back to Caius – along with some votes – and the votes stalled there with Caius on the blocks. Apparently, there is still enough doubt for the town to consider Caius as the greater threat than Hugh. There are those with second thoughts about me even! Even Andres, who has no doubt about me, has correctly pegged me as the type to start a game-long attack on a fellow Mafioso just to build a good case for the endgame – and he’s right. I think I even mentioned it in discussion at one point. It’s not a tactic I chose here – the conversion thing seemed more influential and I didn’t play it that way – but my accidental focus on Caius may pay some dividend. Of course, Andres and Pev could still be woolin’ us for a late Tuesday vote to hammer Hugh…but we shall see.
If they don’t lynch Blade, Hugh, or Siggy, it’s probably our win as one of the two attacks will kill or convert. If they lynch Blade or Siggy, then we need both attacks to work in order to keep it at 2-2. If they get Hugh, of course, they win. We shall see.
Well, well. Caius takes the chop – best thing that could have happened for the CN. This will leave it at Horus, pevergreen, Roadkill and the CN. Needless to say, with two kill/convert attempts locked in, the chances that the remaining folks can completely protect one another in a round robin is almost nil. This should mean a victory for us.
Summary:
This was a wonderful game and, as usual, well written and managed by Kommodus. His level of consistency and equitability is one we should all strive to attain when hosting our own games. I enjoy most of the Gameroom hosts, of course, but as Kommo’s original CN was my first game, I will always be fond of his.
This game started well for the mafia, as do most, but I get suspect – we’ll see in the GM’s write-up – that the mafia had gotten a bit lucky (and/or players were getting Wogged with roles) and this occasioned the envelopes. With those envelopes, however, the game reversed quickly and information was assembled that quickly killed prime CN suspects. GK was taken down and I – though I staved it off with my “reveal” for a while – didn’t last too long when the real pressure came down.
At this point, I started to think that this would end (as do most mafia efforts) with the initial success but rapid destruction of the mafia as the field narrowed in the late mid-game and end-game.
This time, there were still doubts. Even after lynching me, some expressed concern that I had been innocent after all. Key for us, was that Hugh had created enough of a sense of normalcy to be cut slack for a long while, and Caius played into this with his altered posting style and got picked in the 50/50 choice between the 2. With tough defenses by myself and G’khaan (even though these ultimately failed we did buy measurable time after initially becoming FOS) it allowed us to stay alive just long enough to get a little luck with the second conversion.
I think the town made a mistake not lynching T’blade. If you are unsure of your targets and see yourself as only 50/50 between a choice of two suspects, why not take out the known enemy? Even if he isn’t central to town victory, his presence adds numbers to the mafia which they CAN use for their victory. Sasaki was correct when he called for ‘blade’s lynching – it would have slowed the CN down. The last night would have been 4-2 going in, and only a double kill night would have put the mafia in control. Another 1 and 1 would yield a 3-2 townie advantage and VERY few suspects among whom Hugh might have “hidden.”
Thanks all, and I look forward to the next stint of gameroom mafia.
