Last piece of my write up.

I learned a lot from this first Capo game. I will incorporate many new wrinkles into the next version – which will be a few months off as I think too many super-big games like this would draw down the energy too much. Here’re a few thoughts.


On the strategies and tactics of this game.

I saw four distinct strategies being used by the townies.

Lots of posts and pressure applied in the public thread. The Stranger did this, almost to the point where some accused him of spamming. The basic goal behind this approach, of course, is to force Mafiosi into the conversation and let them trip up on their own stories. Sasaki and others have used this approach in other games. It has 2 drawbacks here. First, it is more a test of your arguing skills than your mafia status. At various points, under pressure, Motep and The Stranger himself came off as having something “wrong” – even though they were just townies. Secondly, the volume of posts generated can actually put off other interaction, providing a “cheap” reason for someone to post once saying “this is silly” and just lurk from there.

Another strategy is the “research and assassinate” approach. Rather than relying on lynching as your primary tool, you identify probable bad guys and then kill them at night. This was the approach that was at least dabbled in by Moros and company – even Redleg’s team tried it once. However, while it is effective in that most of the bad guys aren’t protected at night (as they’re out hunting) it takes relatively large groups of townies and creates confusion in “Guilty” as a detective tool (the chap who helped you on night two may be a Made who thereafter claims to be a townie with a permanent guilty label earned helping you – excellent cover!). For Moros, the Rogue detective, it was a role-centric M.O., but it is a two-edged tool for townies.

A third approach is that applied by Pannonian – heavy direct pressure applied to suspects including suicide pacts. This, by the way, is a powerful if somewhat brutal tactic. The essential fact of any mafia game is that the townies outnumber the bad guys. The townies win only if the town wins and should be willing to absorb casualties in achieving the objective. This is an important point. The drawback here is that this also increases the attrition rate for the town, reducing the overall time available to find the Mafiosi. If you have a relatively short list of suspicious targets, however, it is a brutally effective move. In Capo, Pannonian tried to apply this tactic just a hint late. Targeting Prole would have been a quick townie win if he’d pushed it a day earlier – she was the sole Don and her “I’m not gonna kill myself argument” never quite answered Pannonian’s reasoning. However, with new Dons getting spawned, I think there are too many potential targets to make this a regular tactic. Don’t underestimate this approach’s power in certain situations though.

The fourth approach was a combination of analysis and trap. Force others to participate in townie groups and learn from their absence or group failures who is a bad guy. Coupled with a methodical analysis of posts, this was the tool used to defeat the mafia in this game. Had the mafia turned away from fratricide and focused on killing townies exclusively, this may not have been enough. Combined with internecine warfare, it was a winning combination.


The Mafia, by family.

Tataglia

These folks were snake-bit from the early going. Day One seemed promising, with their Made being elected Director and their Don coming up with a novel strategy for “remote” recruiting so that they wouldn’t be traceable. By the end of day Three, this had all been reversed. Their Don had been traced via text analysis and lynched and then their Made was killed as the result of a small PM error. This is illustrative of the difficulties in Mafia games – the slightest shred of verifiable evidence has profound and quickly used value.

The now-solo Luca, ByzKnight, was resilient enough to find and then recruit the independent “Wise Guy” team of Arach, Boo, and HughT. Kudos to him for a never-sound-retreat attitude. Only the Barzini’s targeting of this group just as the recruiting occurred prevented a resurgence of the Barzini family. As it was, they just got it together again when they were down to Byz and Don Arach.

Corleone

Not sure if this is an example of horrid luck or poor operational security during recruiting. The Barzinis murdered the Luca on night 1 [I think this was luck, but ask Rabbit] and the Made on Night 3 [recruiting backfire?] and then they helped to lynch the Don on day 4. Whether happenstance of circumstance, the Corleones were gutted and sent off before they got to play. I think pevergreen’s reveal during his lynching and GH’s subsequent posthumous reveal were to have a significant impact on the final outcome. Failing to secure this posthumous stuff was my fault – never assume.

Note: at the end of day 4, I was looking at a healthy Barzini family and only 1 solo survivor of BOTH other families! With Prole still getting sniped at over her N1 escape, I thought it could be over almost immediately!

Barzini

Prole and Reenk are relatively passive posters, which ended up suiting them nicely in their roles. As a team they managed to recruit Xiahou, Hagen, Alex, and Pindar – and to secure the services of all 4 relatively early in the game. This was quite powerful, giving them 2-3 kill teams per night session. When they really got rolling, they nearly reversed the problems of Day Four by rapidly piling up the kills. Many of this family have expressed their problems with GH’s reveal, ascribing part of their eventual defeat to it. This has some truth, but the real problem was their targeting of the other mafia families. By happenstance or planning, 6 of their 10 kills were mafia and 1 of the other 4 was a Wise Guy. Add in the Tataglia killing of Barzini’s Rabbit, and we have the sad fact that the mafia killed just as many of its own as the townies. This was the primary source of their defeat. Had more of the killings been of townies, the Tataglia’s might have stayed a threat or the Corleones been able to hunt a bit, but the Barzinis were still the strong ones. They pulled the trigger too early on their fellow Mafiosi.

The Wolf

Sasaki’s solo role was a potential boon to all three families. Unfortunately, the only one who had a sense of trust for him out of all of the starting 9 was Hankerchief – who was murdered almost immediately. Ultimately, Sasaki did want to betray everyone and be capo for himself, but none of the families used his abilities to aid them in the early recruiting/hunting phases. Having a chance to murder while not appearing guilty would have been useful later on, when this evidence was uncovered by the detectives working with the townie group. Had I been doing it, I’d have used him through night 4 or so and then arranged Sasaki’s long walk off a short pier. I think the “favor” thing worried folks too much. He could, at best, rack up 1 a night, so the Wolf wasn’t an immediate threat – but he was treated that way.


Thoughts for future games.

Tighten up the rules on Screenies, Reveals, and Posthumous play. Not being crystal clear on all of these issues hurt my game.

Redesign detective role. Of the old-style detectives, GH has them set up best. If I am going to use them differently, they need tweaking. I’m currently thinking of investigation points, added to targets cumulatively throughout the game. At certain thresholds, this investigation yields certain results.

Make the war between mafia a little harder. Something to encourage them to hold off on a mafia war from the outset and make them willing to try it only if they’re willing to run certain risks.

Make any attack a potential success…or failure…using an attack points v defense points system. [not sure here]

Change the post-mortem role announcements. Not sure if they were too fast, too complete or both.

Feel free to add your own thoughts and suggestions. I will review and use them to make our return to Fatlington even more fun.

THANKS AGAIN ALL FOR A WONDERFUL GAME!