Pre-game
Mafia:
makaikhaan and
Gaius Scribonius Curio
Mafia VIII took place in a period of relatively low activity in the Gameroom. It was immediately preceded by Myrddraal’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” a very good game but with very few players, and Caius’s “Everything Happens in the Wild West”, a game which never really got off the ground. At the time of this writing, the game after Mafia VIII, Omanes’s “The Brothel”, is hovering around 20 players after several days of being open. So I was grateful that I was still able to pull in 38 players.
This was also my first post-Capo II game, bringing in several starring players from that game and beyond, most notably
TinCow,
Curio, and
Privateerkev. Naturally, the Gameroom mainstays like
Sasaki Kojiro,
Ichigo, and
Andres showed up. I was disappointed to know that a lot of the chatters like Prole, Xiahou, and Husar, didn’t play, but on the other hand the people whom I consider to be the Big Three of the Mafia series –
Crazed Rabbit,
Kagemusha, and
Kommodus – did. These three have been playing since the beginning (M2 for Kommodus) and always seem to a) stick around until the end, and b) have a major impact. In this game, only one of them really followed this criteria, but oh, what in impact it was in the endgame. I was grateful for their continued interest.
And then, of course, we come to the mafia. Random.org gave me
khaan, an established player who has been an extremely tricky mafioso in the past with the multi-role environment. We would see how he would fare when the game was stripped down. Its second pick was
Curio, a new player who was leading the townie effort in Taormina but got badly fooled by PK. Would he get his revenge? Time would tell.
Finally, as discussed above, there was no Detective, for the first time since Mafia I.
Round 1
Curio kills
Tratorix
Khaan kills
Omanes Alexandrapolites
Good first kills by the mafia. The only contribution either of the two made in the game was Tratorix being the first one to translate the French “lost letters” message after N3. I felt really sorry for Omanes though, as he has the worst luck in my games. He’s played in two of them, VI and VIII, and both times he hasn’t even made it through the first round. Ouch!
(of course, there might be a pattern to this, as both times he didn’t really do anything after his death. A word to the wise: Mafia, take note, and Omanes, you might want to take action and start becoming more of a threat if you want to live longer. Easier said than done, of course, so I’ll shut up and get back to the game.)
Anyway, the round started off with an extremely questionable move by
Privateerkev, in that he voted for himself using the following reasoning:
Originally Posted by
Privateerkev
No mafia member would be so crazy as to vote for himself.
Therefore I must either be innocent or doing the biggest WIFOM in history.
My thoughts, both then and now:
I’m still not quite sure what PK was trying to achieve by this. My guess is that he wanted to gain the town’s trust and contribute while not waiting for the mafia to off him, thinking that a self-organized lynching in Round 1 would do the trick. However, the problem is (which I think he’s learned) is that
it’s simply not enough. The only way you are exonerated in this game is if the mafia kill you. That’s it. Yes, PK organized and pushed for his own lynching, but the doubt was still there, the lack of a 100% certainty.
Other highlights of this round include the voting being extended due to Tosa’s massive upgrade of the .Org, Sarathos voting eight times in a row, and Sasaki voting repeatedly (and purposely) for the dead Tratorix and later Omanes. As custom in the first round, the mafia sat silently back and laughed as PK directed his own death and Sasaki walked perilously close to the line of lynching. All in all, it was an active, if unproductive, round.
Executed:
Privateerkev
Round 2
Curio kills
Andres
Khaan kills
Craterus
Both targets were chosen, IIRC, because of Detective speculation/odd behavior. For most of the game (at least, the portion where khaan was active) Curio would send in his kill first. He provided me with kills of various degrees of completeness. Some days were outlines that I worked with (e.g. “Andres is jogging by a lake, he sees a well-dressed man wearing a trenchcoat and fedora sitting on a park bench. The man is smiling and makes a comment about the beautiful weather. Andres joins in, and then the man says “Unfortunately, this is the last day you’ll enjoy it”) and shoots him. Some days were nothing, and some days were pretty full descriptions that only needed a bit of polishing up (near the endgame, usually). Khaan, afraid that somebody would catch his writing style, gave me total discretion.
This was the part of the game where I had a strange obsession with birds/ducks being a linking theme. Some speculation was made from it, but to tell you the truth I just wanted a recurring bit of comedy with Beirut being more worked up over birds causing him property damage than the mafia killing the villagers. After a few more rounds, I got tired of using birds to link the two kills and dropped it entirely.
Finally, there was a small reference to “trace amounts of osmium” in the duck pond, a little homage to Mafia IV. Honestly, I was surprised that more wasn’t made of it.
Guess the old games are fading into obscurity.
Elite Ferret quickly got into trouble this round due to most of his posts being simply joking around. Khaan happily joined the easy bandwagon, but Curio stayed away and voted for a future lynch-bait in
FactionHeir. With low activity this round, EF was easily lynched.
Executed:
Elite Ferret
Round 3
Curio kills
LittleGrizzly
Khaan kills
TevashSzat
Ah, the third round night kills.
So much was made of Tevash’s epic death, the “find the lost letters” note, and the broken nose. Now you guys know the truth. Tevash wasn’t Detective, but I just felt like writing a good car chase scene. Plus, it was a good way of introducing the word puzzle, which had begun to be implemented the previous round.
A few calling cards were introduced this round. Curio’s dress, manner of speaking, and khaan’s shotgun were already in place, but I added a Cuban cigar for Curio and the Mercedes/broken nose for khaan this round. I wanted to do more with the cigars for Curio’s character, but kept forgetting to put them in.
I will say in future games not to make too much of calling cards, as they can be easily manipulated by the mafia and myself to screw with the town. Clothes and weapons can be leant. Even names can be manipulated, like in Mafia VII (I finally get to talk about that! Woo!). In that game
woad&fangs’s character was named Mr. Arlen Frederick Ivanovich Ace, or Mr. A.F.I.A. for short. Later on,
Crazed Rabbit named
his character Mr. A.F.I.A. as well. In the kills, however, I always put at least one reference to Arlen Frederick Ivanovich Ace in woad’s kill scenes, and
never put it in CR’s. After woad’s lynchings, Arlen Frederick Ivanovich Ace was dropped and both kills were made by the ambiguous Mr. A.F.I.A. Things like that can be tricky, which is why calling cards can be so hard to decipher.
The rest of the round was pretty strange. There were the usual junk votes being thrown around, but then
peverpink started claiming left and right, first mafia and then Detective, and then renouncing it. He named
Kagemusha as a mafioso, putting pressure, temporarily, on the old survivor. It would not be the last time.
Another reason why I got rid of the Detective is for rules purposes. There is always the opportunity to break rules and reveal privately, something which I almost had to deal with in Mafia VII and had no desire of doing so again.
Anyway, people were fed up with pever’s goofing around and gave him the chop. End round 3, with the mafia sitting pretty.
Executed:
peverpink
Round 4
Curio kills
Crazed Rabbit
Khaan kills
woad&fangs
Both mafiosi from Mafia VII bought it the same night. I liked it.
There’s been a lot said about how my games are an absolute grind for the mafia (and they are) and that Curio and khaan are to be congratulated for getting as far as they did, especially with khaan unable to provide support for a week (and they are) but I still think there was a handicap in this game, more than in the others. For starters, obviously, there was no Detective. More subtly, though, the letters. This was the point where people really started focusing on them as opposed to getting a lot of data. That was a distraction and helped the mafiosi out. Finally, the players. Kommodus was inactive this game, popping in this round to avoid the WoG and then dropping off the face of the earth (and eventually getting mod-killed) until the final round. Sasaki never really made an impact. And Kage first went on a cruise and then went to his annual rock festival. So the town was definitely at a greater disadvantage in this game.
Their mindset didn’t help things either. In the transition from the goofy beginning game to the serious midgame, the town pretty much decided on a pecking order and stuck with it until the desperate endgame. #s 1 and 2 on this list were
TinCow and
FactionHeir, with
Seamus Fermanagh, Sasaki, and even khaan farther down.
Honestly, I don’t know why TC was suspicious. References to posts were made, but really, I think it was the power of the bandwagon more than anything that doomed him. He went down, but only after a tie vote (after 2/3 of FactionHeir’s votes came from our mafiosi) extended his life a little bit. I hope I gave the .Org’s resident lawyer (quiet, Andres, I knew TC first
) a fitting send-off.
Executed:
TinCow
Round 5
Curio kills
Rythmic
Khaan kills
Quintus.J.Cicero
For this round, I had total freedom on both kills. That hasn’t happened since, like, Mafia I. Cicero bought it via red imported fire ants (inspired by the recent
Indiana Jones movie) right after he had narrowly escaped the WoG last round by voting.
Khaan started the round off by going after Sasaki with the most links I’ve ever seen in one post, including OverKnight’s “History of KotR” thread:
Originally Posted by
makaikhaan
Vote: Sasaki
There is little good reason for your decrease in posting. You're count is way down, and many of your votes have been unhelpful, often unhelpful with either little or no reasoning.
Examples like
this,
this,
this,
this,
this. Of note for this one is that he doesn't ever actually do as he said and clarify or discuss the vote or issues.
Here, Sasaki repeats his FoS of TinCow, but again does not offer any reasoning or clarification for it.
Here he once again does a FoS of TinCow but doesn't offer reasoning.
Here he states he even can't recall any actual specific post that actually struck him as suspicious. Also this
Non-contributory posts like
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this
Serious posts:
This,
this,
this,
this,
this,
this, where he finally offers the faintest of a glimpse of his reasoning and his activity, but frankly, to me, this isn't all that acceptable. Hell, my state's flooded and I can find time to do this post.
This, and
this, where he only finally offers some kind of serious reason for all of his previous votes and "FoS'".
Here he offers a further vote for TinCow for the tie.
This and
this regarding letters.
Basically, Sasaki's been active enough to avoid major suspicion, but has most often been unhelpful in his votes and commentary. His activity isn't particularly explainable, and his behavior, for someone who is so experienced at mafia, is unacceptable, and has done almost no good for the town thus far; there were still two different killers for the night phase; the drummer and the man with the broken nose. This would rather indicate to me that TinCow was innocent. Sasaki's efforts to help the town have thus far been mostly subpar; I think its attributable to being guilty.
At the time I was concerned for khaan’s real-life welfare because this was when Iowa (his home state) was flooded, but apparently he was fine and smelling blood. The mafia were obviously gunning for Sasaki this round, his reputation obviously being scarier than his actual contributions to the game. Sasaki responded with a pretty decent, although short, defense:
Originally Posted by
Sasaki Kojiro
There are far too many links in that post.
Some games I lead the charge some I don't. Think I got lynched as a townie in mafia VI (?) for posting less. It happens.
By the way makaikhaan, you should know that the "different killers" in the writeup doesn't indicate squat. Any one of the lynchees could have been mafia, the writeups wouldn't have been changed.
However, the attack was on. Curio, secondarily, led an effort to take down
Kommodus, who was well on his way to the Land of WoG by that point. Clearly, the mafia wanted to take down a high-profile target this round. It worked, with Sasaki and Kommodus tying for the most votes in an inactive round.
One interesting note was what came out of the inactivity: Suspicion fell on the active people, with the logic being that the people who voted would also get their kills in on time. While incorrect (see what happened when khaan went AWOL), this logic would name khaan and Curio, among others, as major suspects. Later, when khaan dropped off the radar, Curio kept his activity up, which among other things might have ruined him.
For now, however, Sasaki was lynched, allowing the mafia to breathe easier. 5 rounds down, no problem. Of course, it was like that for many other ill-fated mafia teams...
Executed:
Sasaki Kojiro
Round 6
Khaan kills
shlin28
Curio kills
RoadKill
Khaan sent in his kill early (around the start of the tiebreak vote), said he’d be having internet problems that night, and then dropped off the face of the earth for a week, leaving Curio with all the work. Curio, meanwhile, wanted to not kill anybody to throw the whole “if you vote a lot, you send in your kills on time” logic out of whack. After some deliberation, I decided not to allow it, and thus RoadKill went down. I think this ruling combined with what I allowed Curio to do in khaan’s absence pretty much cements the infallibility of the “there will always be two kills” rule.
The next couple of rounds that followed saw witness to probably the most herculean feat ever accomplished in one of my games: Curio’s solo effort (just beating out
Crazed Rabbit’s prolonged survival in Mafia VII after he did an amazing manipulation of The Truth). He had no backup, no wingman, nobody to help advise him.
His first day alone went well, with
Seamus Fermanagh getting most of the town’s attention. Seamus had spent most of his time trying to refine his play style in order to defeat
Holmes for future games and, in his well-known analyses, several times forgot to include every person. Naturally, this got the town’s suspicion up, and Seamus was left scrambling.
IIRC, I think there were also some similarities to a kill in Mafia V (when Seamus was a mafioso), which further injured Seamus’s cause. Let me just say that, when you’ve done eight of these things, you have a tendency to repeat some kills!
I remember looking back and rereading Mafia VII, I had made references to the “Ten Little Indians” poem as I had done this time, but not as blatant. There are probably more, too, and will be as this series continues. By then, it will be up to the town to determine whether these similarities are intentional or just coincidence (more likely
).
Beefy187 had a very nice analysis going in this round and ended up voting for khaan, but a quick post by PK made him change and he ended up voting for Seamus. Come on, Beefy, trust that initial instinct!
The bandwagon was initially on when
discovery1 showed up, and, following the smiley, voted for Seamus. Interestingly enough, Curio started another side-bandwagon on Sarathos, which didn’t gain enough steam. This failed effort would have repercussions in the endgame, but for now, another “heavy hitter” was gone.
Executed:
Seamus Fermanagh
Round 7
Curio kills
CountArach
Khaan “kills”
Joe Monks
I think this was the first time where the calling cards got tangled up, intentionally by Curio to throw the town out of whack. I exercised discipline and allowed a Marxist discussion to take place without any disparaging remarks (Capitalism FTW!!!
) between the two Backroom Aussie lefties. Interestingly enough, Curio PM’d me later to compliment me on CA’s death saying it’s what he would have done. I wondered if, because of it, suspicion would have fallen on Curio, but none ever did.
Funnily enough, it was this round where I purposely imitated another Mafia V kill (it was where
Reenk Roink killed Kommodus, I think, and twisted a famous quote to serve his needs), but nobody said anything. This was also the kill description with the second French note, signifying the end of the letters.
Due to the change in kills, some people believed that it signified Seamus’s guilt. Curio asserted himself and, interestingly, provided the correct explanation for the kills (I think if people like Sasaki had been paying more attention, they would have blasted him for this. I was certainly chuckling at the monitor when I saw his posts like that.
). Taking initiative, he cast the first vote for a longtime target in
FactionHeir. FH, for the most part, had spent his time abstaining and overanalyzing the letters. The bandwagon, however, was on, with the only real distraction this round being my banning Elite Ferret from Mafia IX out of sheer annoyance. You guys don’t know how much I hate that clown smiley.
Executed:
FactionHeir
Round 8
Curio kills
Beefy187
Khaan “kills”
Sigurd Fafnesbane
Round 8. The endgame was upon us. The traditional round where the mafia, cruising along, hit the speed bump (with Round 9 being when they lose control of the car and slam into an oak tree at 60 mph). Would Curio, essentially operating alone, follow Crazed Rabbit’s pattern and make it? Or, like so many others, would he falter and ultimately be overcome by the awesome power that is the town?
Early in the night phase, Curio made his preparations and strongly went after
Kagemusha and
discovery1, both of whom took offense and started looking at Curio more closely. Curio, meanwhile, backed his accusation up in the kills when he made it absolutely clear (by now, he was beginning to write more) that there were two mafiosi left. Knowing my history, I personally thought Curio was a
liiiiittle bit overconfident/cocky, but watched to see it play out.
Curio, of course, explained the kills perfectly and once again nobody really got on him for it. Interesting, really, that the one person who takes anything from the kill posts that
doesn’t get suspected is the real mafioso!
He and Kage started going after each other like two boxers, with most of the dead (barring TinCow, who suspected Curio for activity) backing Curio.
At the close of the phase, Kage got a temporary respite and voting shifted from him to
KukriKhan, who for most of the game had been a helpful, if off-target townie. With four minutes to go in voting, Kukri, partially in an effort to save himself and partially convinced by reasoning, switched his vote from Kage to Curio, sealing the death of one mafioso. Once again, lightning had struck. The mafia had been dealt a blow and now the game, with khaan still absent, seemed to be in fate’s hands.
Executed:
Gaius Scribonius Curio
Round 9
Khaan “kills”
KukriKhan and
Ichigo
My PM to Curio at the start of the night phase:
Originally Posted by
GeneralHankerchief
This next day phase is going to be an absolute farce. What it's going to come down to is whether or not khaan shows up and votes. I don't think a game has even ended by WoG before.
The bad news: Unfortunately, you are lynched and now pretty much have to rely on fate that khaan will show up to save the day. You also have to send in both of his kills and they will both be made by a man with a broken nose. I suggest that you mask that somehow.
The good news: Finally, precedence falls in your favor! As I have done in the past, I will extend the next day phase to 48 hours, so khaan will have more time to show up.
No matter how things turn out, you've essentially operated without a wingman for the second half of the game and survived this long, an enormous feat you should be proud of. Congratulations on that... and cross your fingers.
GH
Yes, khaan would have been Wogged had he not shown up.
Sarathos too, leaving the possibility that the game might have ended with Disco as the only survivor!
I can’t imagine how I would have written that one.
Curio chose Kukri and Ichigo partially because he wanted a bunch of lurkers left in the game and because he didn’t think khaan would be back (at the time, I didn’t know he had been on vacation and that his absence had something to do with the flooding) in time, so he wanted to get his revenge on Kukri. In retrospect, this was a big mistake. At the time, however, there was no way of knowing. I’ll discuss this more in my “game end” section.
Anyway, I posted the kills in the summary thread at 22:16, my time. At 22:19, I received the following PM:
Originally Posted by
makaikhaan
GH, I'm terribly sorry about my disappearance. I was offered a last second opportunity to go on vacation with a buddy of mine in the northeast. I expected to have internet available, but to my surprise, I had none. I have had no access for the last week or so. I'll get back in the thread soon.j
Tonight, I'll kill Disco and Sarathos.
Khaan was back, he was ready, and most notably, he gave me radically different kills. He missed the deadline by three minutes! Had he PM’d me before I put the kills up, I would have given his kills priority.
I’ll always wonder how much difference those three minutes made. Had he killed Disco and Sarathos, it would have left khaan, Ichigo, Kage (target #1), and Kukri (also pretty suspicious). Instead, he was stuck with Kage, Disco, and Sarathos, with him as one of the two major suspects. He was coming home from a vacation. Three minutes... that’s one rest stop. One bathroom break. A couple of traffic lights. One “Wait, don’t start the car yet, I forgot to pack this!” It made all the difference in the world.
At least khaan had avoided the WoG, however. Now all he needed to worry about was keeping Disco and Sarathos focused on Kage, who by this point was defending himself like crazy.
Over the past two rounds, I was imagining potential crazy endgame scenarios, grinning wildly at the thought of them and the fact that they
were, in fact, plausible. Kage could be lynched but khaan fails to show up, getting Wogged. Khaan shows up in the 11th hour and puts the clinching vote on Kage, thus getting his revenge and forever destroying the Curse. Kage gets lynched Round 8, with Curio getting the lynch Round 9 and khaan getting the WoG, thus marking the first time two mafiosi ever died in one day phase and pretty much affirming the Curse for all eternity (how else do you explain
two mafiosi dying right after the guy gets lynched?). But I was never imagining what really happened.
As expected, khaan reacquainted himself with the game and went after
Kagemusha, who proceeded to give himself probably the greatest defense in the history of mafia games. With khaan gunning for him and just about every single dead person screaming for his blood, Kage hammered three points over and over:
- As a mafioso, he would have a partner, and there was absolutely no clear-cut partner.
- khaan, on the other hand, had a clear connection to the lynched TinCow (wrong partner, right idea).
- If he were a mafioso, why would he make himself the only clear-cut lynch choice?
The third point was probably the most effective, WIFOM or not, which is why my confidence in WIFOM has all but evaporated. Some things are just common sense. It’s the final round, there are a bunch of lurkers alive... and you kill off the second-most suspicious guy (Kukri) and isolate yourself? When you can just tell everybody else to vote for the other suspicious guy instead? Please. There definitely needs to be a line drawn between WIFOM and common sense.
Amazingly, Kage convinced the two people that mattered. First Sarathos, then Disco, believed him and cast their votes for khaan. I closed the final phase, shaking my head in amazement. I’m sure the mafia were doing the same. Khaan was lynched with a ton of the dead screaming that Kage had played them all.
Executed:
makaikhaan
Game end
Earlier on, khaan PM’d me saying, assuming Kage was the lynch, that Sarathos was to be killed in a 24-hour diner and Disco was to be run over by a bandwagon. A little hasty there, khaan?
Lacking inspiration for the final scene, I decided to go with the diner approach but (obviously) change the result.
Curio definitely established himself as a very good player in this game with his commendable effort. He had to carry the weight for part of the midgame and most of the endgame and almost made it. There were a lot of moments he shined, in messing with the calling cards and his lynch choices, but there's a bit that needs to be polished up, especially in reaction to the kill posts. From my (obviously biased and informed) standpoint, those were the obvious parts that screamed "MAFIOSO!!!" to me. Look for him to become a very formidable player in the future. khaan, of course, turned in another exemplary effort and it was only due to Kage's amazing defense that he failed.
With yet another mafia collapse in the final two rounds, it’s time to reflect on what caused it this time. As my “console the losers” commercial noted, previous defeats have been caused by surprise reveals, chokes, turnarounds in town strategy, and
Holmes. However, none of these really applied here. For a little while it seemed like process of elimination would destroy khaan and Curio, with both of them on the “watch” list, but both, khaan especially, fell off for a while. Curio got lynched, yes, but that was more due to luck than anything. I think the game was really lost when Curio made the decision to kill KukriKhan and Ichigo, most notably Kukri.
Things brings me to the lesson learned from Mafia VIII:
Play to win, not to cover your butt. Both sides were guilty of this, I think. In Curio’s final kills, he had pretty much given up hope that khaan was coming back and acted as such, getting revenge on Kukri and putting khaan in a very bad position when he eventually did reappear. Had he operated under the hope that Kage was coming back, I think he would have killed Disco and Sarathos, leaving khaan in a better position. Heck, there might have even been a tie between Kage and Kukri in the final round, forcing me to further extend the round, giving khaan even
more time to get back. The town, for too much of the game, was simply lynching people because they were on the “next to go” list – the sign of a lazy town. Case in point TinCow and FactionHeir, who really didn’t do anything to warrant suspicion in the later rounds and were lynched just because. This is the same reason why many of the dead people were gunning for Kage in the final round. They wanted him gone just because if he had stayed alive, it would have been a travesty and he would have skunked them all. They were so focused on making sure they didn’t badly lose (if they had lost to khaan, I don’t think it would have been a bad loss for them so much as a “good win” for him) that they didn’t analyze everything. In the endgame, you can’t afford to have narrow vision.
Now that Mafia VIII is over, it makes me wonder where it will rank among my other games. III, V, and VI, are the giants, of course, and VIII is most similar to them. VII had the most posts, but I didn’t like hosting that as much. I had to do too much enforcement/peacekeeper work in that one and the final rounds were pretty much a farce after Crazed Rabbit pulled “The Truth.” IV was promising, but far too short. I was special, but that’s all it’ll be, really. And II was a pretty mediocre game until Tiberius’s reveal saved that one. So where to put VIII, I don’t know. I’d like to lump it in with the great ones, but there’s still a lot of inactivity. I think we’ll have to reserve judgment until some time has passed and how fondly I look back on this game.
That said, I’d like to congratulate everyone that participated, with special kudos to our gallant mafiosi
Gaius Scribonius Curio and
makaikhaan, and of course
Kagemusha, the man that credit for this town victory goes to!
Congrats guys, and see you in Mafia IX!
Mafia VIII - information and summary thread
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