EPTWith that said, this writeup will primarily focus broadly on role picking, strategic themes, and some of the unique properties of this type of setup.
On Format/Balancing
Naturally, a game with this many unknown variables is very difficult to balance. The sheer amount of possible role picks and combinations along with the fact that there are 3 mafia factions makes it almost impossible to predict outcomes, as player and role interactions could rapidly swing in any direction. Given the amount of town investigative and KP roles, it might seem like the town was very overpowered this game, but I think that the lopsidedness of the game came more from the fact that the mafia were too conservative and did not know how much they actually needed to do to succeed in a multi-party PYP game.
Pre-game, we got some suggestions that the number of mafia should be reduced, as the high number of mafia would discourage townies from playing their part since their fate was not really in their hands and they did not have the strong numerical advantage typically granted in normal mafia games. However, we felt that the pick your power format as well as the 4 faction format would allow for enough variety to hold the players’ interest and give them the power to impact the game in a meaningful way. Furthermore, we felt that although 4 player teams might seem intimidating, that any fewer members would give the mafia fewer options, make them more risk averse, and make the game a lot less interesting. Overall, I think having 3 mafia factions of 4 players each was a reasonable proposition that afforded each team enough power and variety to come up with interesting strategies.
In this game, all the mafia factions ignored the importance of being active, and pretty much all went into turtle mode (with the exception of York). The role picking shows defensive play from both Tudor and Lancaster, who primarily picked investigation and KP immune roles. While this could have worked in theory, a lack of game presence by both teams resulted in their roles being almost useless. Meapak never drew any hits as the Rock Star and was too susupicious to avoid a lynch day 2. deconduo and supersoft never benefitted from the bulletproof and hider roles respectively due to nukes. I can definitely see where the Godfather/NKVD Agent picks come from, but again the mafia were playing too defensively here. Investigation immunity isn’t too terribly important in a multi-faction game, especially one with PMs. More critical would be investigation manipulation via PMs, and KP protection (you have mafia and town KP to worry about, and only town investigations to worry about, as a good mafia will not realistically choose investigative roles in this type of setup).
In terms of balance, the picking stage gave the town a huge lead, as they picked up a number of strong investigative + KP roles that mostly circumvented the mafia picks. In theory, the high number of mafia (12 for a 27 player game) is balanced by the fact that the multiple factions will eventually end up hitting each other. However, in this game, only 1 out of the 11 killed mafia died to mafia hands, as 3 were lynched and 7 were killed by town KP. While it may seem that the town was thus overpowered in this setup, the lopsidedness of this game can be attributed to a lack of mafia planning, overly conservative picking, and lack of game presence. This makes it difficult to judge the balance of the game, although I am confident that if the mafia had better planning and organization, they could have definitely stood a chance.
One factor that I think I overlooked in the setup was the fact that a concern about relative power incentivized mafia to pick conservatively. All three mafia factions have similar interests, that is, to avoid investigative checks, stay alive, and eliminate their enemies. In this game, the mafia suffered from having two investigative roles in elected offices. Certainly, as BC suggests, there are some pretty good combos that in absolute terms are beneficial to the mafia - if you don’t take into account the other mafia factions. For example, the vote rigger and Showtime! are the ultimate counters to strong mayor/pardoners. However, as in this setup, picking one of these roles to off elected officials benefits all the mafia and denies you the chance to pick another more selfish role.
It seems as if people were frustrated by the PM use in this game. If anyone has more feedback here, please suggest it.
On Planning:
The pre-day 1 planning, number picks, and role discussions were a complete waste of time for both the town and mafia, and pretty much just resulted in people recycling ideas that are irrelevant to this specific setup. Unlike a traditional single mafia game where town (arguably) benefits from public information and accountability, this strategy is absolutely inappropriate for a 4 faction game. There are too many mafia and too many ways they can pick that it is impossible to gain an advantage by denying roles or holding them “accountable”. The cost of denying roles or holding them accountable is too high compared to what you could gain by just picking straight up town roles. What people failed to realize is that in this setup the town doesn’t want the same roles as the mafia, and the mafia have more to worry about from other mafia then from town. In other words, the mafia isn’t out to get the town like normal. Their attention has to be diverted between both the town and the opposing mafia factions.
Unlike in other PYP setups, the mafia has a far greater chance of getting high role picking slots if they wish to do so. The first important difference in this setup is that there are 27 players, while there are only 20 possible numbers to pick. This guarantees clashing on some level, and makes the mafia’s ability to pick 4 different numbers more valuable. Add in another two factions that have this same ability along with the fact that the mafia count is twice as large as usual, and the town is not reasonably likely to have a large number of the top picks. Thus, there is no reason to plan any sort of organized picking. Town should simply go for the usual and focus on Invesgitation/KP roles + Inventor with a defensive role or two thrown in, while letting the mafia focus on the dilemma of whether to go for the strong mafia roles or to try to blend in with the town. More often than not, mafia should go with the strong mafia roles and use them before they are found out, as the potential for chaos outweighs the fact that you will eventually be discovered.
Given the in thread discussions about role picks, mafia would have benefitted from clashing numbers to get to the bottom of the picks. There were a lot of holes in the planning and discussion, which gave mafia the opportunity to pick some strong but unexplored roles.
Here was my take on the role strength:
Tier 1
Janitor
Inventor
Thief
Unlike PYP Insane, there are not very many roles that are insanely powerful on their own with the exception of Janitor and Inventor. Many of the other roles need combinations to guarantee effectiveness. These roles are huge because of the flexibility and power they provide. As I discussed earlier, Janitor is huge simply because of the value of information in this setup. Janitor permanently denies a large chunk of information from the other 3 factions if used on night 1, and gives the team that picks it a monopoly on that information. Obviously this role is better for mafia factions, but if used correctly in a town circle, it could be used in subtle ways to figure out who knows what. Inventor is self explanatory, as it offers a large variety, while thief is a solid overall role for nabbing any of the T1 or T2 roles.
Tier 2
Protective:
Hero
Veteran
NRA Member
KP:
CPR Doctor
Assassin
Multipurpose:
Jack
Vote Rigger
Framer
If we’re looking only at individual roles, defensive roles and KP roles seem to be very solid choices. Without roles, total KP is 3, but there is the potential for a few added KP. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, roles like bulletproof aren’t as strong as you might think in this setup. The list of KP roles comprises of the Mad Hatter, Vigilante, Day Vigilante, America, CPR Doctor, Assassin, Bomber Man, Kingmaker, Admiral Ackbar, Dreamflower, Capitalist, Jack, Ace, and BloodyC0bbler. 4 of these roles have shots that cannot be blocked (Kingmaker/Admiral Ackbar/America/Assassin), which makes them superior to the other shots. Mad Hatter is weak in this setup due to the other available picking options in this game, as are Vigilante (CPR Doctor is superior) and Day Vigilante (America is superior). Ace and BloodyC0bbler are weaker versions of the Vigilante, and the Capitalist/Jack also have limited shots. While dreamflower potentially can take more shots, her penalty for misfiring makes picking her a risky move. In other words, with the exception of CPR Doctor, the most attractive and viable KP roles in the game were all roles that went through extra lives. In this game, the town pretty much circumvented mafia protection with America, who shot through a bulletproof and a hider.
Thus, while Bulletproof/Rock Star are valuable in this setup due to potential CPR and hostile mafia KP, they aren’t as attractive as some of the other options such as NRA Member, Hero, and Veteran. NRA Member counteracts roles like Assassin/America/Kingmaker by killing the first visitor per cycle, while Veteran and Hero can evade lynches, which is always a nice bonus to have. Veteran grants that extra night life to make a hybrid with the stronger protective roles, while Hero grants an extra KP if lynched.
The KP side gets a bit tricky. In this setup, there is really no good reason for the mafia to leave an on-target public KP role like America alive. Private KP is better for self-preservation, as public KP just makes you a big target, although if you can use your thread presence to buy some night protection, America and DayVig are strong choices too. I’d put CPR Doctor and Assassin as the stronger options though.
Jack has great flexibility in this setup, but is certainly better as a town role than mafia. Mafia have almost no use for the Detective part of the role (unless used in conjunction with Assassin), and Day Vigilante makes them too big of a target. Regardless, Medic, Bulletproof, and Vigilante options are still very strong. Vote Rigger has tremendous utility. Although there is the potential for non-lynch KP to be higher than lynch KP, the vote rigger can punish a town that isn’t on top of vote control. As BC pointed out, calling a double lynch at the last second can severely punish a bandwagon and cause extraneous deaths, and the ability to rig the votes can turn around the game by saving a mafia member while eliminating a strong player (such as mayor/pardoner). Framer is a clutch role that has a lot of utility. Although the frame aspect itself is decent, the real power in this role is redirecting KP/investigations.
Combinations:
Assassin + Extractor
Goldman Sachs + Kingmaker
This setup is fundamentally different from traditional setups in that dominating the thread is not the obvious move. Preferably, you want to exert your power discretely so that you are not seen as a threat and eliminated. Thus, the setup increases the value of combinations that allow actions that cannot be traced back to you. Assassin + Extractor circumvents protective roles and pretty much allows you to eliminate any non-mayor/pardoner/rock star player. Goldman Sachs + Kingmaker is even stronger, as it can eliminate mayor/pardoner/rock star as well.
Mafia Picks:
The main advantage of mafia picks are not necessarily that you can coordinate number picks, but that you can coordinate role picks. In other words, knowing your team’s options as a whole allows you to pick in such a way that multiplies the effects of any one role. The Assassin/Extractor and GoldmanSachs/Kingmaker combos are the obvious ones, but less gamebreaking ones do exist. Unfortunately, it seems that while the mafia did have themes for their picks, none of them exploited the advantage of pooled knowledge, which led to the picks being significantly weaker than they could have been.
Lancaster:
2. Kenpachi - NKVD agent
6. Cyber_Cheese - Godfather (Vanilla Townie)
13. Mr. Wiggles - Medic
19. chaoser - Puppeteer
An overall decent set of picks, although quite passive. These picks show a mindset that the team is playing a stalling game, which is a weak strategy given the setup. I really like the Puppeteer pick, although I’m not sure exactly what machinations chaoser thought up for it. In a setup that emphasizes anonymous information over open thread domination, the puppeteer is really a great way to maintain control of the game flow. However, the other role picks had very low synergy and it seems though the mafia strategy was to wait for the town to mess up and hope that they will divert their attention elsewhere.
Medic is a strong protective role, though it should have been paired up with some aggressive PMing by one player (who you would then protect). The fact that this game featured multiple factions and PYP means that really KP is anyone’s game. Mafia do not have the KP knowledge advantage that they traditionally hold. Thus, the power of the medic is weakened given that mafia lose the ability to predict where the KP will land. Still, not a bad pick at 13.
The logic behind NKVD agent and Godfather is interesting, given that those two picks were in the top 6 of the draft and had high chances of being scrutinized/rolechecked. Had you not died earlier, you might have survived scrutiny from the town investigative roles. However, these picks are too passive and don’t fulfill the full potential of getting such a strong picking position. Although you don’t have as strong a picking position as the Tudors, you certainly have some decent chances at very strong roles. Almost any roles would have been better than NKVD agent and Godfather, although I suppose that without more thread presence, it might not have mattered anyway. Certainly, with 2 of the top 6 roles, you could have caused a lot more chaos than you ended up creating.
Tudor
1. Meapak_Ziphh - Rock Star
4. deconduo - Bulletproof
16. prplhz - Bomber Man --> Vanilla
18. supersoft - Hider
Another set of passive picks, even more passive than the Lancastrians. Although I can understand the rationale of defensive picks (you are afraid of being shot, as you have good picking spots), you basically gave up their potential for domination. Having 2 of the top 4 picks definitely sets you up for a big advantage given you can almost guarantee yourself any combination of two roles that you’d like. If you were worried about being scrutinized for getting the top picks (which it seems you were), then maybe you should have altered your picking strategy to overlap a few times.
I understand why Meapak would hand the inventor off to someone of a different alignment thinking he could control him, but if you are going for this plan, you need a stronger followup. Picking thief in the lower ranks or attempting to misdirect the invention by picking Framer would have been a much more dynamic and complete plan. However, a Rock Star pick is just putting yourself in a tough spot, as it is highly likely that your bodyguards will be of differing alignment. Although this gives you the potential for manipulation much like Foolishness’ Chezinu Family idea, it puts you under big scrutiny, especially considering your position as the #1 pick. You claim inventor in the thread, all the while knowing that both your bodyguards knew you were lying. Unless you did a good job ensuring that they were onboard with your plan, there are many ways this can go wrong. Bodyguards in a sense are another big liability, as if the inventor dies, you are now responsible, even if your bodyguards were the leak. On the other extreme, you could keep your bodyguards in the dark about the entire plan, although that also would almost certainly backfire. In the #1 spot, the only real explanation for picking a defensive role is to deter the mafia from shooting indiscriminately into the upper ranks, or to draw fire faking a role, and you have to be very active both in PMs and in thread to make it worthwhile. Meapak ended up not being active enough to make use of his role, and could have caused much more chaos with a pick like Inventor, NRA member, Assassin, or Janitor.
Bulletproof at #4 is likewise a weak move. In particular, as you knew that the inventor was being taken #3, you effectively had the #2 pick, as the only other pick you do not know of (and thus have to worry about for overlap) is Kenpachi. Bulletproof at this spot is extremely weak, given that I would expect the number 1-3 draft picks to be shot at a much higher frequency than the 4th pick. You pretty much could have chosen anything you wanted, but ended up picking passively.
Bomber Man is an ok role, but unreliable in terms of KP. At pick 16, sure you probably can’t guarantee that you’ll get any of the stronger KP roles (assassin, America, CPR Doctor). This is a good opportunity to go for a role like thief or role swapper. You have the 1st and 4th picks, and picking one of these two roles effectively gives your choice of the 2nd or 3rd (inventor) picks. Hider is really a terrible role choice and doesn’t synergize with any of the other picks. Its one of those roles I’d only ever consider picking if I was one of the bottom 3 picks. And even then I would have second thoughts before picking it.
York
9. sandroba - Godfather --> Vanilla
17. Node - America
23. kitaman27 - Role Swapper
28. sinani206 - Vanilla
Unfortunately, your team started out handicapped by an inactive sinani, a day 1 Node lynch, and all low draft picks. However, the roles you got were huge. America and Role Swapper at those locations are great bargains, and could have had the potential to change the game had you gotten past day 1 and been more active. Whether this was intentional or just a result of a lack of communication in the team, your picks were much more dynamic than the other two teams. Perhaps being low in the draft pick gave you more freedom to be creative and go for the non-obvious defensive roles, given that you are lower on the scrutiny list and cannot go for the roles that have been heavily discussed in the thread (defensive roles).
America is an interesting choice for a mafia, particularly in a setup where you want to avoid making enemies if possible. However, if Node had been more active and avoided being lynchbait on day 1, I could definitely see this role being a game changer. No less than 2 mafia died to nukes this game, and sandroba’s affiliation with the Mig/Radfield circle could have certainly made the game a lot closer by buying time and credibility for Node from the circle’s perspective. Role Swapper is not as good as thief, but given it was taken at the 23rd pick, is certainly a solid choice.
In a game like this the mafia must be proactive. Given that there are 3 factions out to get them, they cannot afford to sit back, let town go wild with investigation roles, or allow critical townies to live. The mafia picks were overall too conservative. It felt as if the mafia were hoping that the other mafia factions would get found out before they did, which allowed the town to just steamroll the mafia despite their defensive picks. None of the mafia teams had the role power or game presence to stop the Mig/Radfield investigation duo, and nobody had a good way to off crucial townies at the right moments. Given their role picks, there was no way to stop town from confirming each other and hunting the mafia down by process of elimination. Janitor would have obviously helped in this game, and there was no attempt at a shot for a stolen/role swapped inventor.
Town Picks
This time, the town didn’t get too many picks and only got 2 of the top tier picks, but circumstance and a passive mafia allowed town to steamroll their way through the game just by the sheer amount of investigations and KP they could pull off. Having two elected investigative roles is huge, connecting that with KP and some blatant mafia players ensured that the game ended rapidly. Although the early draft role picks were good, things were more tenuous than they seemed. Town got a few incredibly lucky breaks.
Copycat at #8 is actually quite weak, given the high potential for having half of the top 8 picks as mafia. At #8, you are quite safe picking one of the stronger town roles, investigations, or KP (given the mafia won’t really want investigations, and have better options than KP). Fortunately for the town, the Copycat ended up nabbing America, who ended up killing two mafia. Just imagine of Radfield didn’t last minute switch to Node and instead lynched chaoser. Town would then have been stuck with a town puppeteer, which would have been a complete waste given Scamp’s utter lack of thread presence. Furthermore, the game would have looked a lot uglier if the mafia hadn’t been so blatantly suspicious in the thread. Meapak/Mr. Wiggles/chaoser were all painted bright commie red halfway through day 1, and Cyber_Cheese slipping up in IRC definitely did not help their case. Of course this bad play would normally be punished, but in this game, the presence of the dreamflower role pushed town’s advantage even further. If the mafia had been any more competent, it is highly likely that hiro could have misfired, killing a townie and resulting in 0 red deaths (hiro ended up being responsible for 3 of the 10 mafia kills).
Take out these two lucky breaks, and the town picks look quite weak. Yes, you had 2 strong investigation roles, but only 1 KP (CPR Doctor) to back it up (Ace/Admiral Ackbar/Bomber Man are unreliable/weak KP). In reality, the town’s ability to quickly rule out players by process of elimination was due to the combination of KP AND investigations. Investigations alone simply wouldn’t cut it, but the rapid deaths of the mafia members greatly aided the hunt by allowing the town to confirm player connections and affiliations.
On that note, I like the town focus on KP and investigation roles, as the two combined are a powerful combination. Avoiding the ridiculous plan on denying mafia roles did you well, but the some of the better roles were neglected, presumably due to fear. Almost nobody in the bottom of the list got their role pick, and 3 overlaps on dreamflower certainly isn’t what you want (the dreamflower role isn’t even very strong anyway). Overall, town would have also benefitted from more aggressive picking, and only improved their mediocre role picking by a combination of mafia incompetence and sheer luck on the Node lynch.
General Observations:
It seems that despite the warnings, the mafia were unprepared to deal with a multi-faction game. Although the town as a whole did well, the Chezinu Family seemed to have a clear grasp on the thematic principles of the game, and it showed.
Mafia:
1) In a multi-party game, taking the initiative in PMs is critical. Given that it is a PYP setup, the mafia have the additional advantage of having two days before the game really gets going in order to organize and plan. You simply cannot let the town get comfortable with each other in PMs, as the more you wait, the harder it is to break into established circles or undermine their trust.
2) In the election phase, the mafia were way too passive. Basically the day started out with a decent number of mafia candidates running for office (chaoser, Mr. Wiggles, Meapak_Ziphh), but none of them made a serious attempt at office. Whether it was out of fear of being caught or intimidation by the big names like Radfield/Mig, day 1 showed that the mafia had no backbone or organization. The mafia just sat by passively and allowed Radfield/Mig to just waltz their way into office with almost no meaningful opposition. While some players showed a little doubt, the mafia seemed to overall support Radfield/Mig when there were clearly a good amount of people who were skeptical about the way the votes were going up. Certainly, Radfield deserves credit for PMing each player to establish the connection and encourage people to vote for him, but the mafia’s willingness to go along with this scheme shows that they were thinking reactively and were just going with the flow. In a normal game, going with the flow is bad enough, but in a multi-faction game where you posess less of an information/numbers/KP advantage than normal, you MUST leverage every possible opportunity to push your agenda.
The GreYMisT push should have shown that the town was in doubt about who to elect, yet no mafia took advantage of this situation. Most of the mafia posts were either devoted to tacitly approving Radfield’s election, or weakly questioning townies on their votes. Mafia should have done a better job at undermining the election, as there were no real reasons to elect either of Mig or Radfield. Radfield got a free pass and quite a few votes based off of "he is putting in effort and is active", while Mig's election was pretty much forced on him and he could have easily been attacked for apathy in the early game. Mafia could have pointed out these facts and forced the town to scramble, but mafia ended up doing nothing. Once Mig/Radfield both got into office with investigative roles, mafia was already in big trouble, as they had no way to counteract the elected positions without roles like Vote Rigger or Kingmaker/Goldman Sachs. It is definitely a valid strategy to refrain from running for office
3) Coordination. Yes, with 4 members (2 less than normal) and a bunch of foreign KP and potentially dangerous roles floating around, you are bound to feel more intimidated than normal. But the instinct to hide in a corner and hope the town screws itself over is even worse here. This game is about buying influence and getting other people to do your dirty work. Radfield/Mig and Foolishness/WBG/JimboSilvers showed how you do just that. Obviously, each townie starts off on his own, so any town group that forms is only due to one thing – townies being proactive and reaching out to others. Especially since this setup is a game about politics, you are certainly doomed if you think you can win the game by sticking with your 3 other mafia team members. The town groups were certainly not restricted by this narrow way of thinking, and ended up exerting far more influence than any of the mafia.
While Mig/Radfield did not do this explicitly and rather controlled their group openly from a centralized position (they could do this because of their invincibility from Mayor/Pardoner position), Foolishness/WBG/JimboSilvers recognized that town power structures do not need to be centrally managed, and adopted an effective way to reach out to players by forming House Chezinu. Perhaps due to the fact that they know they’re different and wish to be dissociated from their other members, mafia tend to shy away from a group identity, and almost always tend to play isolated from other mafia members. While this seems reasonable, it doesn’t make sense to avoid playing in groups. Mafia already start out with the advantage of being linked together with 4 people who know each others’ alignment and share a common goal, and in a sense have a leg up on other factions when it comes to forming their own political entity. In addition, in a multi-faction game, everyone is going to be pushing their agenda, which in a sense should make it easier for the mafia to take more power and be more involved in town groups. After all, they still have a list of 8 mafia they need to eliminate. Unfortunately, the mafia did not take advantage of the fundamental differences of this setup, and simply let the town circles grow unchecked.
4) Fear of being perceived as a threat. In some of the post game comments, it seems that many of the mafia were too scared to push their agenda for fear of appearing to be pro-mafia, or afraid that they were talking to the wrong people. While some of this feeling is part of the natural mafia mindset, a lot of this was artificially created in the thread. The most important thing to know (and a lesson that really can be applied to all mafia games) is that actions snowball, and relations between players become more solidified and clearly delineated over time.
Of course it will be impossible to break into a town circle in the midgame if you did nothing to undermine it in the early game. It is impossible to break into the town circle on day 2 and on, especially after Mig/Radfield had all those investigations and KP roles in their pocket. The way to stop this machine is not by combating it when it is wreaking havoc, but before it even forms. Radfield/Mig were basically given free reign day 1 and were able to build a network unopposed, which was a huge mistake. This is why in the guides there is a clear emphasis on the importance of day 1 and the importance of being proactive rather than reacting to the game. Day 1 is usually what sets the tone for the entire game, and in this almost all cases, town has a bigger room for error than mafia. If the day 1 atmosphere is clear as day, there isn’t much the mafia can do on future days to undermine it. However, if the atmosphere is murky on day 1, there is plenty that town could do to correct it. Of course, this will require some massive mindset changes from the town, but the general idea is that you can make murky things clear, while it is more difficult to make clear things murky. The mafia needs to preemptively prevent town from setting up private communications before it becomes utterly impossible to break the bonds of trust that emerge between players.
This game highlights an important theme: the power of groups. It happens in normal games too, but this game shows how the formation of multiple town groups made it almost impossible for the mafia to exert any influence. It is as if the town and mafia reversed roles. While the mafia should be the ones who have the more informed, large, and threatening group, in this game, the town created two groups so powerful that it was impossible to oppose them, and the mafia was fragmented in comparison. There was no coordinated attempt by the mafia to destroy these town entities, and as time went on, the mafia became more and more helpless.
There was plenty in the early game to criticize about Mig and Radfield. Mig’s in thread apathy and Radfield’s lack of early game conviction (along with the unopposed candidacy) brought them under scrutiny, ironically by fellow townies. While the mafia could have exploited this weakness before the Mig/Radfield powerhouse could be solidified, they chose to stay passive, resulting in Radfield becoming elected mayor on a grand total of 5 town votes. Certainly the mafia are the only ones to blame for sealing their own fate and not thinking about the consequences of letting such a player skate into office. Yet although there was some day 1 doubt thrown on Mig/Radfield, that completely vanished on consequent days, and Radfield/Mig were able to trumpet the “I’m pretty much confirmed town” card all the way to victory. While yes, lynching Node seems convincingly pro-town, the mafia forgot that there were 2 rival factions in the game. If framed in that context, Radfield’s refusal to lynch chaoser certainly looks suspect. Even I was wondering whether Radfield would be grilled for this choice, as WBG clearly indicated that he would gun for Radfield if chaoser was not lynched. Luckily for the town, this never happened, but the mafia certainly could have taken cues from the thread that Radfield’s innocence was nowhere near clear cut. Add to this the ability to use PMs (and the Puppeteer!) and Radfield’s invincibility starts to look like it was a premediated illusion.
It is true that with a smaller teams, the mafia did not control the full power of the mafia vote, and the mafia were probably hindered by the fact that if they switched their vote off of Radfield, the other Radfield voters would gun for them regardless of alignment. However, given that (ironically) the most vehement opposition to Radfield’s election came from townies, there really is no reason to accept a defeatist attitude and assume that Radfield will be elected and that anything else will result in the mafia getting punished for it.
5) On the positive side, sandroba did a good job at staying alive by abusing a weakness of strong town circles: they have a high sense of loyalty and like to bully people into thinking that their innocence means that they are correct. Regardless of whether or not Mig/Radfield claim that they were manipulated by sandroba, sandroba’s inclusion in the their circle let him survive until the last game day. In essence, Mig/Radfield’s close proximity to sandroba effectively made them a meat shield for sandroba, who didn’t have to defend himself directly against the wrath of Foolishness et al. Without this shield, it is not unthinkable that he would have been dead on night 1 due to the machinations of House Chezinu.
Town:
After the election was over, pretty much nobody gave it a second thought. Nobody questioned Mig/Radfield, and they pretty much disappeared from the thread and were left to their own in PM land. Even more interestingly, nobody looked at any of the other candidates that ran for office. When an election is over, always look at the losing candidates. Why did they lose, and why did the run in the first place? More importantly, how did they drop out of the race, and how did they react after they realized that their campaign was not going to fly? If you look back at this, it should be clear that chaoser/Meapak/Mr. Wiggles made pretty half-hearted attempts for office. Combined with the fact that they pretty much offer nothing of substance after their candidacy, this should be a strong red flag. Meapak_Ziphh clearly has the time to make a flashy if not corny campaign post, but otherwise disappears and offers nothing. chaoser seems active enough, but is really apathetic and is more concerned about dying himself than anything else (as evidenced by the activity leading up to the lynch). Mr. Wiggles defends his election run but other than that hardly pushes town in a forward direction. A quick look at GreYMisT’s posts should show a clear contrast, as he is assertive, takes the initiative and is actively trying to disrupt a status quo he is uncomfortable with. Same for JimboSilvers (who honestly would have been my vote for mayor given the information in the thread).
