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Sandover Wrote:It would've had a bearing had I actually been a villager, because all you did was determine that my posting style (one that I always use, no matter the situation) was wolfish behaviour and convince people to go along with that. Saying I'm a wolf based on the content of my posts this game (prior to the baner claim) is no different than saying Dantski is a wolf based on his lack of posts during the same time span - and it's a flauded approach in both cases because it's exactly what one can expect from both of us.
You're a great writer, and for that reason I was dead the moment you targeted me. The actual targeting was nothing but a lucky break though, based off of your lack of knowledge of my typical posting style, that lead you into believing it was all a wolfish act to cause disturbance - which it wasn't. I would've caused the same disturbance had I been villager. If someone wants to argue that that makes me a poor villager then fine, I can buy that argument. (And you better pray that we're not both on the villager team in WW3 while you're at it, because my play style will remain the same for better or for worse). End of the day though, I was just being me, and the errors of the utterly flauded methods Roland used to reveal my identity were simply covered up by the excellent end result, which was a luck of the draw moment.
Alright. I see what you're saying, and I guess I have to concede that. Although, despite my agreeing with you on your Baner claim (you really didn't have any other choice, and honestly, MJW was so self-destructive to himself AND the Village that it truly did almost work), it still was what cemented you as a 'Wolf for me, and a few others, I imagine.
I'm not going to re-read the whole first day and decide whether I was right or wrong in my actions (I'm not the type to believe the ends justify the means, in most cases), but I'll concede that you have a point. Although, I do believe your style would have hurt you regardless of whether you're a 'Wolf or an innocent.
Maybe I went into this with the wrong expectations. I thought the ultimate goal was to sniff out 'Wolves based upon their actions (not just limited to votes). Am I wrong about that? This is my first WW game ever, of any kind, so maybe I simply approached it the wrong way? Food for thought for the future, certainly.
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Roland Wrote:Although, I do believe your style would have hurt you regardless of whether you're a 'Wolf or an innocent.
Based on personal experience I'm inclined to think you're correct. Maybe next time I'll live long enough to find out.
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Part 2 of 3 
Day 5:
This was a weird day. We had lost our Seer and we found out our Owl was very limited. Serdoa ended up on the block, though I would have preferred scooter. Ultimately, I ended up falling for Serdoa's innocence pleading posts, which were sort of correct. Roland and I talked a bit, and we sort of talked ourselves into Ug. This was a screw-up, though keeping Serdoa alive ended up winning us the game in the long run. While I think we would have gotten scooter lynched eventually regardless, the nature of that vote is what revealed the final wolves. Ultimately, though, this is the only day in which I legitimately feel like I screwed up. All the other days I feel like I voted correctly at least.
Day 6:
This was the day of Lewwyn's opus. I really did consider the idea that Roland had been playing us all along. I was still on the fence about the wolves at this point. Irgy was pretty safely in my probable villager camp, Rowain was in my maybe camp. scooter though, I couldn't understand why we wouldn't lynch him. Everyone I had talked to was sure he was a wolf, and yet somehow he kept avoid lynch votes. Nonetheless, this was a useful day. While Roland was never a wolf in any way, shape or form, he had become so full of self-doubt that he was hurting more than helping. Ironically, as Lewwyn was the one to point this out, I'd argue he had been just as big a liability. This campaign definitely is what kept Lewwyn alive to the end, however, so I guess it worked out for him as well.  More importantly though, was that there were 3 votes for scooter: Myself, Dantski, Sareln. This was the foundation of what I thought to be the most-keyed in players in the game. Also, Rowain's post where I said he revealed himself was indeed the one that put Rowain from my maybe villager camp to my maybe wolf camp. The confirmation on that had to wait for tomorrow.
As an aside, which I'll place here because its after the Rowain comment. 3-players railed hardest against the trusted network this game: scooter, Serdoa, Rowain. While I think the original network did as much harm as good, behind the scenes chat is necessary to move things along. I'd be my bottom dollar the wolves win WW3 with them being able to chat outside the thread and the village not being able to. The bottom line is, if the conversations I had with folks on the last 2 days had been in the thread, A: the wolves get a chance to discredit them and B: for sure I'd have been eaten. You have to take a much different tone when everyone can read what you have to say. While I'm sure you'll argue you'd say this even if you weren't wolves, its telling that the sowing of discontent came from 2 wolves and the possessed. Just sayin'.
Day 7:
I was still on scooter because I had no earthly idea how he'd survived this long when he was at or near the top of everyone's list. I couldn't vociferously defend MNG (who I think played a very good game) because I suspected him a bit. I could however vociferously suggest scooter. When I came home from work to find Serdoa had flipped and scooter was dead, I was truly shocked. Serdoa had been so deeply in scooter's pocket all game, I couldn't understand it. But this is the vote that clinched the game in so many ways. There it was, in black and white:
Quote:scooter (5v): Mr. Nice Guy, Dantski, Gaspar, haphazard1, Serdoa
Mr. Nice Guy (4v):, Lewwyn, Irgy, Rowain, scooter
Captain bad vote and the three remaining wolves. Its most certainly what made it plain to me. I guess as a matter of postgaming, it was sort of the combination of days 6 & 7 that made me certain Irgy & Rowain were the last two. There was a perception to some extent that MNG and haphazard were mini-masons, and so there was always a little bit of doubt that we could be missing big time and they were wolves. But they clearly wouldn't have lynched scooter. Serdoa was the last remaining suspect outside of the wolves themselves, but his last-second lynch obviously disqualified him. That's the thing, late in the game, its completely unfeasible that a wolf would go for deep cover. They only needed us to screw up twice more to win, so they wouldn't sacrifice one of their own in such a fashion.
A note on Serdoa, since he asked. I wouldn't go so far as to say "it was obvious to me." I'd say your actions just told me something was amiss. In short succession after making the pivotal lynch vote of the game, you made a short one line post patting yourself on the back but subtely insulting the village, you mentioned that we were only doing well because the game rules were stacked in our favor, and then you voted for yourself in a snit. You were very obviously pouting. You had just basically won village MVP and the only discernible reaction you had was that you were unhappy. That doesn't make any sense. So what I knew was that something was wrong. I put out there that you either had a role we didn't know about or you were playing some sort of personal game against the village and had screwed up because that's what your actions indicated. Roland can tell you I made several of these kind of offbeat observations about several of the players all game, most of which were wrong. This one however was important, since I had now decided that I knew who the wolves were, but I had to build a consensus.
I'll finish this up with the last 2 days and a few thoughts shortly.
I've got some dirt on my shoulder, can you brush it off for me?
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A note to the secret network: Although he didn't rail that hard on it haphazard wasn't happy with it too.
haphazard1 Wrote:Overall this turned out to be a mostly unpleasant experience.  Meta issues, role issues, most of the game being dominated by power roles and trusted networks. The level of acrimony certainly did not help matters. As a first experience with WW/Mafia type games, this certainly does not inspire any desire for another.
My frustration was simple no matter what argument were brought forth and no matter how strange or blatant lies several actions of the trusted people were the network remained.
Day 7 does look bad in retro but it was our best chance. Had Serdoa not switched MNG would be dead and on one of the next 2 days you would have lynched Serdoa securing our win.
Of course with Serdoa our secret helper we would have had voting majority as soon MNG was dead but that was unknown to us.
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Part last:
Day 8:
Basically, this night was where I made my play to get the endgame going. I sent a series of pm's to Lewwyn, Dantski and Mr. Nice Guy doing my best to convince them that Irgy and Rowain were the two wolves, and that Irgy should be lynched first. I did this in pm's because I felt like I was too easy a target should I have done it in the thread - if I didn't get myself lynched, I surely would have gotten myself eaten. MNG made a good frontman, and if ultimately pointless, his back and forth with Irgy were some of the more entertaining posts in this game. I picked Irgy because Rowain was much easier to build a case against at that point, if we had gone Rowain first, Irgy may have found some wiggle room. I picked Lewwyn because I had learned after the Roland lynch you had to get to him early to convince him at all, Dantski because he was a known villager who had proven to be pretty reasonable, and MNG because he was on the opposite side of that lynch. The key here was to make sure Serdoa's key vote didn't get him in on the action, and that was why I posted in the thread about his behavior, to ensure folks didn't trust him based solely on one key vote. Once all that had been achieved, the vote itself was a formality.
Day 9:
This was a formality, my only question was whether Rowain would eat me out of spite in the night period. Once that didn't happen, it was just a matter of making sure haphazard voted right, but there were really no threats left for Rowain to draw attention to. Lewwyn was cleared as a mason, Serdoa was cleared after the scooter vote, basically just me or hap, but I wouldn't vote for anyone else. So I guess putting me up there was your best shot, but I'm pretty sure haphazard had been clued in by MNG that I was behind the Day 8 move, so obviously I was innocent.
Post-game thoughts:
I think ultimately it was kind of a an up and down game. I'll agree with Roland that we all could have played better. I know personally, a lot of my game-planning was based of lurking WW1, where with the scriers dead early, there was a lot more ability for regular villagers to impact the procedings by playing a role. The ability to this was lost in WW2 with the myriad secret roles, as well as the tone of Day 1. Roland's deep analysis, whatever you think of it, changed what players could get away with in the thread. Anything less than full-earnestness was called out over and over. This was something Rowain was good at as well, because it favors the wolves.
For the record, I agree with the idea that the out-of-game communication really leaves a sour taste for those who are left out. As I said many times in thread, I was largely left out of that network until I semi-constructed my own late game. I do see it as a necessary evil, however, and I will be shocked if the village team can win WW3 when wolves can talk and villagers can't. The personal approach is very important to building consensus. If Roland hadn't approached my Day 1, I might have taken him as a blowhard rather than connecting with him a bit. If I had to post in thread the stuff I pm'd on Night 6/Day 7, surely it would have changed the wolf game-plan.
I think I'd like play a WW game with no special village roles, or perhaps only masons. It would obviously require a lower number of wolves, but I think it'd be a lot of fun to rely only on what people do in public to suss out the culprits.
If there's any other play I made that folks would like explaining, I'm happy to do so, though I'm going to finally read the lurker thread after this. For what its worth, here's my assessment of the best players on each side:
Best Wolf: Rowain. Its a fluke he lasted til the end instead of Irgy, as I explained above, but he was the one wolf who was rarely on anyone's list consistently until the end. He was contrarian, but not in an over-the-top way, like scooter was. scooter may have impacted the early procedings quite a bit, but there was no way he wasn't going to die with the amount of attention he put on himself. Just thought he played a good game. Irgy as well, though a lot of his lack of suspicion came from the misunderstanding of the Owl scry, as obviously, he wouldn't have gotten owl scried if we didn't suspect him a bit in the first place.
Best villagers: Kyan, Mr. Nice Guy, Sareln
Kyan was the one member of the trusted network who almost always made sense. The village definitely felt his loss, moreso for his reason and ability to convince team village rather than his owl scries, though certainly hitting the devil made a huge impact. MNG was a bit erratic in the early game, but his pressure on scooter was crucial to the endgame. Sareln made a good play on Day 1, inadvertently, giving us some clues. He always posted with logic and reason and I was a bit frustrated when he got eaten, as clearly the wolves were seeing the same. Roland was superb in the early game, but definitely lost his way. We wouldn't have won this without him as well, however.
gg everyone, and I look forward to butting heads with you all again.
I've got some dirt on my shoulder, can you brush it off for me?
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... on day 1.
