The Settlement [Concluded]

[LittleGrizzly]

I would have been devastated (and slightly miffed) if that was me...

Happy Bday Ares!

Btw we've reach the 2000 mark!

[TinCow]

Btw we've reach the 2000 mark!

A remarkable achievement, but it has to be noted that it is 2000 APG, which should not be confused with 2000 BPG.

[LittleGrizzly]

That had me laughing out loud for a good 20 seconds!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

A remarkable achievement, but it has to be noted that it is 2000 APG, which should not be confused with 2000 BPG.

[Captain Blackadder]

Oh so I was the one that would have died when Jolt was blocked thanks pyschonaut I think

[Thermal]

I would have been devastated (and slightly miffed) if that was me...

I was going to go for Seireikhaan () but when pevergreen started to talk I thought he was far to lively to be around, I really should have gone with my instinct! (unless seireikhaan had an awesome role) I completely dented the Usurpers chances from word go!

It seems whenever I participate or reenk participates in each others game we both get killed off at the start, on the next game I host I may just reserve a space where Reenk is invincible


Thank you all for your birthday wishes

[Askthepizzaguy]

The Pizza Lord cometh, and foundeth his own religion. The religion of the Yakkety Yaks. All hail the almighty, perfect, divine, and sexy Yak.

Once the Yak hath been ordained as a priest of the Pizza Lord religion, he hath gathered unto him the many lost and lurking souls, and teacheth unto them the many articles of Pizza Wisdom; amongst these the theory of honorable suicide, the suicide bluff, the reverse suicide bluff, the "townie sacrifice" bluff, the "remove votes from my greatest rival" bluff, the "break ties every round" bluff, the "murder those that people think you have a vendetta against and then use WIFOM to not get lynched" bluff, the "pretending to be a Mason that can recruit purely so that people can give you their information" Medieval mafia bluff, the triple reverse suicide bluff, the crab-walk voting strategy, the Psychotic Lopez strategy, the headless chicken strategy, and the strategy of the inside-out cornflake.

Also unto thee he spoke of the Sky and it's net, but readily acknowledges it only works half of the time.

Praise the Pizza Lord and confess thy sins to the Holy Yak!

Yakety Yak, Amen.

[CountArach]

Oh yeah, I remember wanting to say sorry to TinCow for manipulating and lying to you for much of the early game. I'm sure you understand.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Oh yeah, I remember wanting to say sorry to TinCow for manipulating and lying to you for much of the early game. I'm sure you understand.

This is my favorite kind of apology to make

[LittleGrizzly]

What about my apology for the whole death thing eh?!

Ohh sure I attacked you... but, hello, pepper spray... tasers... there are plenty of non lethal ways to take down an attacker!

[Askthepizzaguy]

This is my favorite kind of apology to make

Seconded, with enthusiasm. Being a big fat lying liar is the whole point of the game.

[TinCow]

Oh yeah, I remember wanting to say sorry to TinCow for manipulating and lying to you for much of the early game. I'm sure you understand.

Apologize for what, you played perfectly! You could have killed me off immediately, but you used me to help eliminate your other opponents and I didn't catch on until after I was dead. If you'd converted anyone other than Yoyoma, I think you would have won. I wouldn't have outed you until late in the game because until he contacted me I had no idea you could change your victory conditions. You should be pleased with your performance, you were almost perfect and there was no way for you to know that Yoyoma wouldn't be a permanent convert.

[Jolt]

I also apologize for ATPG for mentally breaking him down to the point of stepping down from The Settlement. :P Sorry mate, lying is something I needed to do to mess with your head about the beefy being killed by Andres matter. :)

[Askthepizzaguy]

I also apologize for ATPG for mentally breaking him down to the point of stepping down from The Settlement. :P Sorry mate, lying is something I needed to do to mess with your head about the beefy being killed by Andres matter. :)

You weren't at fault, I was already ticked off about other stuff and I was just tired of being accused of things.

As the Wise One said: "toughen up your hide and stop whining!"

[shlin28]

Yay! The town won!

[CountArach]

Apologize for what, you played perfectly! You could have killed me off immediately, but you used me to help eliminate your other opponents and I didn't catch on until after I was dead. If you'd converted anyone other than Yoyoma, I think you would have won. I wouldn't have outed you until late in the game because until he contacted me I had no idea you could change your victory conditions. You should be pleased with your performance, you were almost perfect and there was no way for you to know that Yoyoma wouldn't be a permanent convert.

Haha yeah I did enjoy trying. Unfortunately I was not able to convert you (Reenk said as much specifically) and I needed to convert Yoyoma so that he would not tell you that I had faked my PM. That was a tense night phase while I waited to find out if it was successful or not.

One thing I mainly want to ask to Yoyoma and Reenk - why did the conversion stop working? Was it because I died for the first time?

[Csargo]

Good game RR.

[TinCow]

One thing I mainly want to ask to Yoyoma and Reenk - why did the conversion stop working? Was it because I died for the first time?

The conversion stopped working the instant I died. We didn't want you to kill off Yoyoma at night, so we tried to make it look like my info on you didn't come from him, and he kept playing along like he was still on your side. I'm guessing it was part of the hidden rules that Reenk hasn't posted yet.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Seamus stayed alive during a town victory and I remember him saying he always wanted to do that so that's nice....

YES! Town wins AND I live to see it!



Woot!!!!!!!!!

My first ever survival!!!!! (not counting god Heimdall role in Mid1, hardly fair)

Hip, Hip...hurray!!!!!!!!








A very fun game folks, thanks!

And again, thank you Reenk for a really fun and twisty game to play.

[White_eyes:D]

I admit......GREAT GAME.....best part was my bluffing made Pizzaguy spill the beans early on I also loved lying about being "The Watchers Appentice" I knew the guy with the Iffo role would either....kill me or avoid me(Innocent townie) and it worked (The fifth game I had no abilitys yet I somehow managed to shift the game....AWESOME)

[Askthepizzaguy]

I'll get you my pretty, and your little White_eyes too.

[Jolt]

No thanks for me Seamus? I was the one who spared you. :P

[Seamus Fermanagh]

No thanks for me Seamus? I was the one who spared you. :P

Thanks! For most of the time you were out there murdering, I figured you had better targets than an already revealed shepherd. Still thought I might have ended up lynched.

[Jolt]

Indeed. The fact that there were a huge number of investigators simply dominated my game. I was the entire game looking for the investigators. :-x

[Reenk Roink]

Role Determination

So as I envisioned it every player would have a public role both for purposes of roleplaying. Of course, every speical role would also get a public role. This wasn't really due to Midgard II as GeneralHankerchief suggested (I don't recall that aspect from my skimming), I had always wanted to give the special roles cover roles. As many realized early on, the variance in the duel ratings between the cover roles could prove problematic. It was somewhat designed this way. I wanted the cover roles to provide a very basic framework for obfuscation, not a total crutch.

I used random.org for determining good men and major roles (the ordering was in respect to descending Battle Rating) and the left over minor roles were just assigned by a correspondence of the alphabetically ordered roles and the remaining players in each category listed by sign up order (got tired of random.org and thought it wasn't really necessary).

As mentioned in the opening post under Game Mechanics, some roles would be reserved only for good men while others would be reserved for men only. Some would be available to all players.

The cover roles for the special roles were predetermined. Some were unique (The Watcher was a Beggar; The Psyensil was either a Scribe or Sweeper; Pisuf was either a Poet or Potter) while others got public roles that other settlers got (Priests and Farmers).

This game was in the workings for over two years, so a lot of ideas were thought of. Many were rejected, some were forgotten, and the rest were implemented in some way or another. I probably won't be hosting any time soon again (it's a ton of work ) but due to the rare possibility that I ever do host again, I will keep the removed roles and differences in the existing role to myself.

Players in order of sign up:

1. GeneralHankerchief
2. Sasaki Kojiro
3. taka
4. White_eyes:D
5. seireikhaan
6. Lord Winter
7. Captain Blackadder
8. Gaius Scribonius Curio
9. Beefy187
10. TheFlax
11. Psychonaut
12. CountArach
13. FactionHeir
14. Andres
15. boudica
16. Jolt
17. TinCow
18. Ichigo
19. Yoyoma1910
20. Tristan de Castelreng
21. pevergreen
22. Sigurd
23. shlin28
24. 777Ares777
25. Askthepizzaguy
26. LittleGrizzly
27. Seamus Fermanagh

Determining Good Men:

7 [Captain Blackadder]
1 [GeneralHankerchief]
19 [Yoyoma1910]
8 [Gaius Scribonius Curio]
10 [TheFlax]
16 [Jolt]
5 [seireikhaan]
9 [Beefy187]
16 [repeat]
20 [Tristan de Castelreng]

Good Men:

1. GeneralHankerchief
2. seireikhaan
3. Captain Blackadder
4. Gaius Scribonius Curio
5. Beefy187
6. TheFlax
7. Jolt
8. Yoyoma1910
9. Tristan de Castelreng

Men:

1. Sasaki Kojiro
2. taka
3. White_eyes:D
4. Lord Winter
5. Psychonaut
6. CountArach
7. FactionHeir
8. Andres
9. boudica
10. TinCow
11. Ichigo
12. pevergreen
13. Sigurd
14. shlin28
15. 777Ares777
16. Askthepizzaguy
17. LittleGrizzly
18. Seamus Fermanagh

Determining Major Roles:

Pisuf - 12 (CountArach) [potter]
Vode's Sword - 24 (777Ares777) [laborer]
Vode's Wand - 7 (Jolt) [priest]
The Watcher - 17 (LittleGrizzly) [beggar]
The Last Thief of Carn - 7 (Faction Heir) [farmer]
The Psyensil - 17 (TinCow) [sweeper]
Vode's Dagger - 8 (Andres) [merchant]
The Blessing of Kefy - 26 (repeat - LittleGrizzly)
The Blessing of Kefy - 2 (Sasaki Kojiro) [water carrier]
The Oligarch - 9 (Tristan de Castelreng) [bureaucrat]
The Tax Collector - 9 (repeat - Tristan de Castelreng)
The Tax Collector - 5 (Beefy187) [bureaucrat]
Vode's Eyes - 9 (boudica) [farmer]
The Eye of OsiOsi - 7 (repeat - Jolt)
The Eye of OsiOsi - 8 (Yoyoma1910) [priest]
The Generous Brewer - 5 (Psychonaut) [cook]
Iffo the Fallen/Risen - 15 (repeat - 777Ares777)
Iffo the Fallen/Risen - 8 (repeat - Andres)
Iffo the Fallen/Risen - 9 (repeat - boudica)
Iffo the Fallen/Risen - 5 (repeat - Psychonaut)
Iffo the Fallen/Risen - 8 (repeat - Andres)
Iffo the Fallen/Risen - 2 (taka) [merchant]
The Village Idiot - 12 (pevergreen) [farmer]

Determing Minor Roles:

Remaining Good Men - GeneralHankerchief, seireikhaan, Captain Blackadder, Gaius Scribonius Curio, TheFlax

Remaining Good Men Roles - bureaucrat, poet, priest, scribe, scribe

Remaining Men - White_eyes:D, Lord Winter, Ichigo, Sigurd, shlin28, Askthepizzaguy, Seamus Fermanagh

Remaining Men Roles - farmer, farmer, laborer, merchant, soldier, shepherd, shepherd



Just for fun this was the status of the role determination before Seamus Fermanagh joined:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. GeneralHankerchief
2. Sasaki Kojiro
3. taka
4. White_eyes:D
5. seireikhaan
6. Lord Winter
7. Captain Blackadder
8. Gaius Scribonius Curio
9. Beefy187
10. TheFlax
11. Psychonaut
12. CountArach
13. FactionHeir
14. Andres
15. boudica
16. Jolt
17. TinCow
18. Ichigo
19. Yoyoma1910
20. Tristan de Castelreng
21. pevergreen
22. Sigurd
23. shlin28
24. 777Ares777
25. Askthepizzaguy
26. LittleGrizzly

Determining Good Men:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

4 [White_eyes:D]
19 [Yoyoma1910]
14 [Andres]
2 [Sasaki Kojiro]
3 [taka]
10 [TheFlax]
21 [pevergreen]
2 [repeat]
17 [TinCow]
21 [repeat]
8 [Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Good Men:

1. Sasaki Kojiro
2. taka
3. White_eyes:D
4. Gaius Scribonius Curio
5. TheFlax
6. Andres
7. TinCow
8. Yoyoma1910
9. pevergreen

Men:

1. GeneralHankerchief
2. seireikhaan
3. Lord Winter
4. Captain Blackadder
5. Beefy187
6. Psychonaut
7. CountArach
8. FactionHeir
9. boudica
10. Jolt
11. Ichigo
12. Tristan de Castelreng
13. Sigurd
14. shlin28
15. 777Ares777
16. Askthepizzaguy
17. LittleGrizzly

Determining Roles:

Pisuf 2 [Sasaki Kojiro] (Poet)

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Seamus!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Reenk Roink]

Seamus!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Yeah, sorry about that I considered giving you the Pisuf role anyway though ultimately I decided against because you went from a good man to a man.

A good man Sasaki Kojiro with the role of Pisuf... what a force!

[Askthepizzaguy]

Well I will say it: I appreciate the extra work you put into showing us how you determined roles and so forth. The game was certainly fun, and very unique and interesting, not boring in the slightest. Given how many mafia games there have been, and how many I've played, it's no easy feat to bring something fresh and fun and seemingly very well balanced.

[Reenk Roink]

Basic Commentary

This game was not even supposed to happen. You all know the history of the idea popping up after Interficio quod Scurpulosa of a themed game and then being refined after The Midgard Saga. I had even had a place on the host queue but then took a hiatus from the Org (when I came back some of my messages were telling me it was my turn - sorry about that ).

One of the main reasons I was compelled to log back on the Org was sitting in an ancient Near East class listening about early Sumerian temple complex administration by priest rulers. That got me thinking about The Wanax which got me thinking about Mafia games.

When I pulled up the Org webpage for the first time in more than one and a half years I went to the Gameroom and saw The Midgard Saga II. Spent almost half an hour skimming it and was hooked again. I put my unnamed game up on the queue.

Only a couple of months later I realized that I wouldn't really have the time to host and so I posted back on the hosting thread asking to be removed. I thought this was the end of it until shortly after the end of Godfather III when Andres sent me a message reminding me it was my time to host (you are supposed to message a moderator if you want something changed on the hosting queue - they prune the thread from time to time and my withdraw message was probably not read ).

I was going to explain the situation to him and apologize for not messaging him but I just impulsively wanted to host, though I was badly unprepared.

So I began to bust my butt off getting the game ready and refining all those ideas in my head to become tangible. I also had midterm week that week. It took me 8 or 9 days to get the game going from when Andres notified me, so I apologize for that. I did try to trickle out as much game information I could as it got finished so people weren't totally left in the dark.

This was a major reason in the discrepancy of the length (and quality) of some role messages compared to others (will be explained).

Mechanics:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Voting: Pretty much explained in the intro post. I loved the idea of different people having different voting weights. It was one of the earliest mechanics I had decided on for my game. I think it turned out to be pretty good. It led to roleplaying, speculation, and some tactical voting without being a major difference.

I didn't care about the exact formatting about the votes in this game because I had to read the thread anyway so as long as I could see that you made a vote I would count it (analogously for challenges).

Battle Rating: Given from a scale from -1 to 10. Battle Ratings could never go lower but they could go higher in various ways (though the absolute cap was 10).

The battle rating was incredibly important in the kills though it didn't really manifest itself (a nice little abstraction). I will explain the system because although it does act as a spoiler if I decide to host again, it may lead to more tactical duels and kills.

Kills: Any role that had a kill ability would use the battle rating to determine the success or failure of the attempt.

This was the algorithm for a kill:

If the killer's battle rating plus two was at least two times the killee's battle rating, the kill would be an automatic success.

Otherwise if the killer's battle rating plus two was less than two times the killee's battle rating, the kill would be determined by a runoff which worked as such:

a) keep drawing 0's or 1's (using random.org)
b) a 0 means that the killer strikes and a 1 means that the killee strikes
c) if the killer receives a number of strikes equal to his battle rating plus two he dies
d) if the killee receives a number of strikes equal to his battle rating he dies

(one role had an exception to this)

The mechanism of multiple killers attacking a single target was allowed. In this case all of their battle ratings would be added up and then two would be added to that total. In the case of a runoff there would be a strike variable for each participant and it would continue until all the killers were dead or the killee was dead.

A sample kill (from the game):

The Watcher (6) attacks Pisuf (10):

(6 + 2) < (2 * 10) so runoff: 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 (The Watcher dies)

Duels: The duel mechanics were very similar to the kills except that two was not added to any battle ratings. Otherwise the same algorithm was used.

A sample duel (from the game):

Pisuf (10) duels Iffo (7):

10 < (2 * 7) so runoff: 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 (Iffo dies)

FactionHeir made the point early on that the duel system was not being used at all. I did set it up so that a duel had to be fully consensual. This did lead to no dueling for a while although the late stages of the game saw some duels.

I'm not sure how I would change the system or if I would even change it. On the one hand, I wanted it set up differently as I thought the duel system of Midgard games (and now Swords in the Moon) was too helpful to townies. That being said, the town (led by Sasaki) did go ahead and force pressure duels in this game anyway... I was kinda shocked that the pressured people went along with it, but the town is persuasive.

Writing:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I thought the role messages were one of the best parts of the game, but I also was disappointed with their inconsistency. The first three I wrote (Pisuf, Psyensil, The Watcher) were the longest and most detailed and some of the best, but others did not live up to that standard for a number of reasons.

The time issue was a big one, that whole week of getting the game going was pretty hectic, and so I had to cut some messages short. Also, some messages were a lot easier to write than others.

Needless to say, while there are role messages I am pleased with (the Scribe and Farmer wrote themselves) there are others that fell short. Some I just had to cut short though a good idea was set (the Priest and Cook). Some were flat out tough to write (the Bureaucrat and Shepherd). Some were awful (the Poet - though khaan did a great job of speaking in verse the entire game and somewhat redeemed the bad role description ). I fel the Usurper role descriptions were the biggest shortcoming. They all had a detailed back story idea for them, but they were cut and kept extremely short because I was already delayed and had to get the game going.

As for the writeups, I thought these were pretty mediocre. I found it really hard to write a coherent story based on the setting and happenings that was also entertaining as compared to sending in kills where a lot more randomness is allowed which allows more creativity. I felt my already mediocre writeups became repetitive too.

Still there were some good points to them. Andres killing scribes allowed for a pretty funny kill tidbit. The Pisuf kills generally turned out well.

I got a few requests from players to influence the writeups. I rejected any major influence from the players though I did put in small tidbits that fit (CountArach wanted to kill Sasaki with a trident which went well with the water carrier and all).

The reason I wanted to keep the writeups to myself was because I wanted to carefully filter any influences. My paradigm was once the game was created, do not interfere more and let it ride the wave. So there were no (intentional) clues that weren't already planned (planned clues mean like giving Ares away after he killed pever and Iffo laughing after The Watcher was killed to signify his freedom and mentioning that investigations may not be enough to catch the last usurper - these were included due to the mechanics of the game). Other things were just flavor tidbits.

Roles:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Will (hopefully) get to this

[Sasaki Kojiro]

FactionHeir made the point early on that the duel system was not being used at all. I did set it up so that a duel had to be fully consensual. This did lead to no dueling for a while although the late stages of the game saw some duels.

I'm not sure how I would change the system or if I would even change it. On the one hand, I wanted it set up differently as I thought the duel system of Midgard games (and now Swords in the Moon) was too helpful to townies. That being said, the town (led by Sasaki) did go ahead and force pressure duels in this game anyway... I was kinda shocked that the pressured people went along with it, but the town is persuasive.

The dueling system was interesting. There are less random challenges and instead you have town pressured duels and personal grudge matches (though pizza backed out ). I think the system favors the town more that the migard/SoM approach.

As for the writeups, I thought these were pretty mediocre.

Nonsense

(CountArach wanted to kill Sasaki with a trident which went well with the water carrier and all).

I thought the water carrier role was fitting