Ego Mini Mafia - Page 16

On April 11 2013 22:10 sciberbia wrote:
marv i agree. While as people have said it is very hard to measure skill in mafia, I agree that this town could reasonably have been expected to outplay this scumteam. I just dont think that is a big problem. I think the game was still fun for everyone. I think scum, while underdogs, had a legitamate chance at pulling a nice upset.

Even with this extreme disparity in 'balance' I,think this game was fun as hell and fair in that the team that played better won the game.

I can see how it would be cool if you always had a 50 percent chance to win but imo balancing is bad for a number of reasons as we have been discussing that make the game less fun and less fair.

So this is imo the lesser of two evils and imo this game was a success. It seems that some people such as yourself and oats enjoy a game less if you know you are an underdog at the start. I am not one of those people. I think you should just take it as a challenge. I think most people are like that. You know.. like how a bad team in sports still tries their damndest to beat their rivals in a big game.

On April 11 2013 22:20 wherebugsgo wrote:
How do you balance 9 player games?

How do you balance games with uneven numbers of vets?

How do you balance games in which you have lots of people who are good at X alignment but bad at Y?

How do you balance games with a small number of vets and lots of newbies?

There have been games in which vets have become free scum lynches simply because of balance reasons. In these types of games vets are unlikely to shoot other vets, even if they aren't necessarily good all the time, because the host is known to balance the setups. If they do shoot the vets, they become a lynch. If they don't, they will sometimes get lynched anyway because the town focuses on them.

Think about it; if there are 5 vets in a game and you know the host balances, on day 2 if any of them die you can lynch into the remaining players and increase your chance of lynching scum incredibly.

e: my point with this is that in these games where the host balances the game, I find that the balance discussion pulls away from the aim of the game.

This is pretty unfortunate given that in these situations, balance discussion is often VERY productive. I myself have used it, but I don't think that it is good for the game because it doesn't actually teach you anything about how to find scum, only how to game the setup.

The problem with these supposed "stacked" games lies with attitude and not actual skill differential IMO. Because of the way reputation and expectation works on this forum, people expect certain things based on really stupid assumptions when in reality they are often in control of their own fate.

On April 11 2013 22:37 wherebugsgo wrote:
you don't know what I'm trying to say probably because you've come to a results-based conclusion.

You're incapable of seeing an alternate situation because you're basing your conclusion on the results of the game.

On April 11 2013 23:11 raynpelikoneet wrote:
The evidence against Oats was overwhelming and i think marv would have noticed it too. Palmar did a great job on D3 requesting a re-look on WoS/scib wagons and what happened at that time.

I think scum made some mistakes, not that they did play bad. I found it very fishy that Axle did not vote for WoS earlier when there was same amount of evidence against him than when he did vote. Tunkeg's approach to N2 basically gave him out. Oats played pretty well, had he done something productive on D3 and not waited for people to show up (why would you want to wait as the lynch candidates were in thread?) it would have been harder to catch him.

On April 11 2013 23:16 GMarshal wrote:

Anyway, blaming the "balance" of rnged rolls seems like a waste of time, its better to focus on lessons learned so that next time that a "weak" mafia team rolls out they know what to do. So, what could the mafia team have done better to establish thread presence? How could they have avoided the disastrous day 1 hammer (if at all)? What was the proper form of damage control post fact?

On April 12 2013 00:07 DarthPunk wrote:
To be fair. Ace/marv/palmar all being town wasn't even a major reason that town won this game. Vets often play badly just like everyone else. So if we are talking about balancing 'vets' I really don't see the point.

On April 12 2013 00:18 DarthPunk wrote:


So could a whole bunch of non vets in this game. I still don't see the point.

On April 12 2013 00:30 raynpelikoneet wrote:

So isn't the argument null in the first place because you can't know what other townies (this game) could/would have done as mafia? Only conclusion i can reach that this particular mafia team in this game couldn't push their agenda succesfully.

On April 12 2013 00:34 DarthPunk wrote:


You can't deny that Oats rose to the occasion though and played a really solid scum game. I mean. You were dancing to his tune.

On April 12 2013 00:36 raynpelikoneet wrote:
I understand and i agree that's a decent assumption to make for you. Just remember it's all based on meat and what do you think of other players (like your Oats read this game, and remember what happened in Redwith your read on me when you saw the results of Newbie Mafia XXXIX).

On April 12 2013 00:38 DarthPunk wrote:


If you hard defend scum and then defend another scum in order to form a wagon on town with the first scum then he is doing a pretty good job IMO.

On April 12 2013 01:02 raynpelikoneet wrote:

Yeah then your record is very impressive. What i mean is even if you got a record of 100-0 it doesn't really mean anything if you are lynched in 80% of the games. And then you are clearly doing something wrong.

After all this is a game where not only what you say matters, but who are the people analyzing what you are saying and do they believe you. If nobody believes you it doesn't matter how right you are and you are doing something wrong. :D