Civilization Mafia - Town Wins!

[SinisterOverlord]

Civilization Mafia

It is 5000 BC. Man has lived for centuries, roaming the world in loose tribes, a basic hunter-gatherer society. But now, something has changed.

20 of these tribes have formed together, settled permanently in one place, and elected a leader. These civilizations are about to discover each other, to interact towards peace and war. Ultimately, most people will aim to develop a lasting peace with all their neighbours and grow for the betterment of mankind. To this end, the leaders have agreed a place regularly to convene, to discuss the state of the world and whatever action they must take. But not all the leaders have such good intentions...

Barbarian tribes roam on the borders of the civilized nations. Even now, the barbarian chieftains have formed alliances and infiltrated the meeting, in the hope of turning the nations on one another, and destroying all they have worked so hard to build! Can the kings, emperors, consuls and other esteemed leaders identify the barbarians and execute them, cutting off the head of the barbarian snake? Or will the savage tribes succeed in their aim to destroy the nations of the world?

Living (1/20):

Akonas,

replacing Bamboomancer

(Shaka of the Zulus)

Consigned to history (19/20):

Coron (Tokugawa, of the Japanese) - eliminated Night 1
EmpTyger (Mao, of the Chinese) - eliminated Day 1
Vesuvan, replacing corporateclaw (Abe Lincoln, of the Americans) - eliminated Night 2

Mr. Flay (Godigisel, of the Vandals - European Barbarians) - eliminated Day 2

Iammars (Smoke Jaguar, of the Mayans) - eliminated Night 3
HezLucky (Catherine, of the Russians) - eliminated Night 3

VisMaior (Attila, of the Huns - European Barbarians) - eliminated Day 3

armlx (Gandhi, of the Indians) - eliminated Night 4
Thok (Hannibal, of the Carthaginians) - eliminated Night 4
Mastermind of Sin (Ragnarok, of the Vikings) - eliminated Day 4
Puzzle (Hammurabi of the Babylonians) - eliminated Night 5
rajrhcpfreak (Osman of the Ottomans) - eliminated Night 5

Lord Rahl,

replacing This is not me, dybeck

(Sargon of the Assyrians - Middle-Eastern barbarians) - eliminated Day 5

d8p,

replacing mlaker

(Abu Bakr, of the Arabs) - eliminated Night 6
inHimshallibe (Gilgamesh, of the Sumerians) - eliminated Day 6
Astronaut (Hiawatha, of the Iriquois) - eliminated Night 7

d_rouge (Theodoric, of the Goths - European Barbarians) - eliminated Night 7

Kelly Chen (Targitaus, of the Scythians - Middle-Eastern Barbarians) - eliminated Night 7
Yosarian2,

replacing darquiel, rolandofthewhite

(Piye of the Nubians - Middle-Eastern Barbarians) - eliminated Night 8

Status:

Town wins!

[SinisterOverlord]

Normal rules (stolen from many, mainly Phoebus)

-Votes should be in the format Vote: JohnCitizen. If they aren't, they will be ignored. Also, remember to unvote before voting someone else.

-No communication outside the thread unless you are specifically told otherwise in your role PM's - and then, only according to the specified conditions.

-Once a player has reached a majority of votes, the day will end and that player will be killed. Please try to keep discussion to a minimum after this occurs.

-You can Vote: No Lynch if you want the day to end without a lynch. As with voting for players, a majority is required.

-If you have died, don't add anything further. You may post once - so long as it contains nothing significant about the game.

-Don't edit or delete posts once they have been posted.

-Don't quote PM's from me, on penalty of death.

-If you don't get in a night choice before the deadline, you will not do anything at all that night.

-Feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

Game-specific rules

-Every night, a player can choose to build a unit, or advance into the next era. They can also use any units they built on previous nights.

-Most units have an A/D/M (Attack/Defence/Movement) value. Each value corresponds to a normal night action - Attack to a vig kill, Defence to a doc protect, Movement to a cop investigation. If a unit has a value greater than 0 for a stat, they can use the unit in that way at night (but each unit can only be used in one way per night). The probability of sucess is the stat divided by 5 - so, a unit with Attack of 1 would have a 20% chance of a sucessful vig kill, and a unit with a defence of 3 would have a 60% chance of a sucessful doc protect.

-Some units have a Bombard value - these can be used as roleblockers. The player can choose to have the Bombard-capable unit target the player's cities or units. Should they target the cities, then that player's unit production or era-advancement for the night will be nullified. Should they target the units, then all that player's units will be unable to perform any actions.

-For example, the standard units that all players can build in the Ancient Era are:
Warrior - 1/1/1
Spearman - 0/2/0
Horseman - 0/0/2
Archer - 2/0/0
Catapault - 0/0/0 - Bombard: 2

-A player can have any combination of units they like, and probabilities do not stack - so each unit must have its own target picked, though it can be the same target if the player wishes.

-A player can target themself with a doc protect ability if they like, but only with one of their units.

-All players will be told via PM what units they are capable of building at any given time, along with those unit's values.

-Every civilization has a single unique unit. This replaces one of the commonly available units, and is significantly more effective.

-There are 4 eras total. Players start in the Ancient era, and can advance to the Medieval, Industrial and Modern Eras via night actions - instead of building a unit, you can advance one era. Each era has its own selection of units you can build - the more advanced the era, the more effective the units.

-Again, feel free to ask any questions.

[SinisterOverlord]

All confirms are in. Please send me night 1 choices ASAP... deadline for Night 1 is 10 AM GMT, Sunday the 9th - resolving sooner if I recieve all choices.

[SinisterOverlord]

Sire, we have detected a massive barbarian uprising near Kyoto.
Our worker has been ambushed by barbarians!
Our worker has been destroyed!
Terrible news, sire! Kyoto has been ransacked by barbarian forces! They stole 31 gold from its coffers!

...

Sire, we have destroyed the fledgling Japanese.

Coron, Tokugawa of the Japanese, has been destroyed.

-

It is now day 1. With 19 alive, it is 10 to lynch.

[Puzzle]

Vote Astronaut

.

Now a bit of strategy. I think that everyone investing directly in 1 specialized unit and using it asap should bear more fruits than spending too much time in improvements :
By morning of day 3 (critical threshold at 20 people, imo) :
- 1 unit with 40% chances of success on 2 nights active has 64% chance of having at least 1 success (best case 2)
- improving the unit means 1 less night active and then has a 60% only chance of success (best case 1 success only)
On morning of day 4, we get slightly better odds with the improvement but not much and we then lose tempo.

I also wonder if this setup couldn't be broken a bit to our advantage by a chain-circle of investigation (all horsemen).

Thoughts ?

[dybeck]

Sounds like a good strategy to me.

However: Strategy be damned!

vote: Puzzle

.

[Coron]

I die way too much.

[VisMaior]

vote dybeck

bacause he is above me
On Puzzles strategy: correct usage of basic math impresses me. I like it. And what do we do until then? No lynches? Im generally against nolynches, but with everybody having investigative powers, its like an all-cop mafia.

[armlx]

Puzzle = Cunning Plan (tm). Learn to live with it Dybeck.

The poblem with not advancing though it for some it is worth it since their special unit in the next era is that much better.

[Astronaut]

Puzzle: How can you know for sure what stats the upgraded units will have?

[Puzzle]

I'm optimistic.

[HezLucky]

Puzzle = Cunning Plan (tm). Learn to live with it Dybeck.

The poblem with not advancing though it for some it is worth it since their special unit in the next era is that much better.

I agree. For example, the Germans and Americans, assuming they are in the game, will want to advance eras since their unique unit is late in the game.

On the other hand, civilizations like the Greeks and Iroquois may either already have their UU or be very close to it.

There's too much variance in the civs to be planning too much this early. Although I don't see harm in trying.

While I'm here, I'll

vote: mr.flay

[Bamboomancer]

Let me see if I can list units from this era...

What's weird is that I thought that the Swordsman is a bronze age unit, and as such should have been buildable, but I guess he's doing bronze and iron, that certainly cuts a lot off.

Off of warrior is aztec's speical unit, which had increased movement. Off of spearman was Zulu and... Greek, Which had movement and defense respectively.

Off of bowman was the babalonian longbowman, which was a greater attack.

Off of horseman... the egyptian war chariot.

So I guess the only people who get UU's in the first age are Aztec, Greek, Zulu, Babalyonian, and Egyptian.

[Puzzle]

Well, as I think we may break the game, it may be interesting to explore the option I suggested a bit more :
Open question : how long would it take for each of us to get your first unit ?

[Mr. Flay]

Bamboomancer: So you think only certain players will get unique units?

I'll start right off by saying I never played the real Civ 3, so I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage to understanding the mechanics here... but so far Puzzle's idea sounds fairly good. Tons of Civ & Civ II mean I kinda like early unit building...

Random Vote: Astronaut

for being from Alpha Centauri.

[Puzzle]

Correction to my question : who cannot build units yet ?

[EmpTyger]

Everybody stop all other discussion.

Vote: No lynch

The town a huge advantage: our superior number. Every townsperson can do *something* of value at night, and this value increases with each passing night. Therefore, unless we can guarantee lynching an antitown, there is no reason to lynch at this point (or unless we are or think we are in or about to be in lynch-or-lose, for that matter)- the risk of wasting in lynch a townsperson, who will be growing stronger every night, more than offsets the chance of hitting an antitown.

Any other discussion will be of most help to antitowns in their making the most informed decisions tonight. I repeat:

Do not discuss suspicions of others players today; it hurts the town.

However, there is one question which should be discussed today, especially with it already having been opened: whether it is better to advance or develop, and in which manner to do so. Since everyone has already acted in Night 1, everyone has had to formulate a basic individual strategy. Thus there are 2 options, with no lynching being almost certainly correct for quite a few days (I would assume through the Day 4 or 5 breakeven point calculated by Puzzle in [4]):

1) Everyone continue individually. This randomness might stymie antitowns, while leaving the survivors in a sufficiently advanced position, regardless of which position exactly, to dominate.

2) The other option would be to coordinate systematically, giving the antitowns information and hence a chance to sabotage. However, with the proper setup, we might be in a greatly superior position

[3) I suppose a compromise solution might be a generalized systematic approach, something in the form of everyone who did A Night 1 do X Night 2; who did B do Y; C, Z; etc. But my initial reaction is that the random element hurts the town more in this instance, so either of the above would be better.]

I myself haven't done enough calculations on potential plans to fully evaluate these yet.

Random FoS: Thok

[HezLucky]

First of all, I must say I love Flay's reasoning for his random vote. [/legit compliment, don't read into that]

Bamboo, I think you've forgotten about the Iroquois Mounted Warrior.

Assuming he didn't go PTW on us (Play the World ... which means even more civs to analyze ... let's hope not), then the following civs would prob have something related to movement for their UU:

F-15 Fighter: Americans: (probably bombard though)
Rider: Chinese: (possibly attack, but its a horse....)
Something or another: English: (it's a boat ... iunno what that would be... could be movement though ... or could have some other special trait)
War Elephant: Indians: (more likely attack but hey... it's an animal)
Cossack: Russians: (it's Cavalry with +1 defense... but it's a horse once again)

So we have potentially 5 civilizations, though realistically fewer than that, who could have a movement-related UU. I think it would pay off if these five civs decided to advance eras rather than build units. Most only have to advance one or two eras (exception: Americans, who will probably have to advance three and therefore it's not worth it)

If you are one of these civs, I would recommend NOT saying so.

[Bamboomancer]

Bamboomancer: So you think only certain players will get unique units?

I'll start right off by saying I never played the real Civ 3, so I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage to understanding the mechanics here... but so far Puzzle's idea sounds fairly good. Tons of Civ & Civ II mean I kinda like early unit building...

Random Vote: Astronaut

for being from Alpha Centauri.

No, those are the units from THE FIRST AGE.

Everyone else would get their special unit later.

For example, the next age probably contains swordsmen, whic includes the persian and japanese special units

Also Riders, mabye which I believe are China, India, etc.

[HezLucky]

Two things:

- didn't see the post above mine at time of posting. Will respond to that later.
- When I say "movement-related UUs", I meant "non-ancientera movement-related UUs"

- if there are any posts between my 12:50 post and this one, I haven't read that either.

[inHimshallibe]

Oh, crap - so one can lose unique units?

I'd rather not go with EmpTyger's plan - no lynching = no fun; game breaking = not as easy as one usually thinks = no fun.

[Thok]

Wow, EmpTyger. I was going to random vote you based on probability (you've been scum in every game I'm in), but I figure I might as well actually go

vote EmpTyger

. The random FOS is a nice touch.

I suggest everybody read newbie 128.

Puzzle, I think it's worthwhile to upgrade a little once you have one or two useful units.

Bamboomancer-we might also have civilizations from some of the expansion packs-don't forget to include those.

Is it worthwhile to provide some background link? It provides scum info on role claims and unit information, but I'd expect scum to already start doing it's research.

[EmpTyger]

inHim:
All antitown groups are going to be trying their hardest to take advantage of the setup. The town, if they were to not do likewise, potentially cede them a huge advantage. But more importantly, the town would lose a critical ability: the ability to identify antitown by suboptimal play. The motive for the town is to maximize their chances of winning, so that suspicion falls on players who are not playing optimally (from the town’s point of view), who presumably are antitown. So a townsperson’s discouraging an optimal play has two effects: it would excuse any suboptimal play an antitown would do and also prevent them from being picked out by it.

I am sympathetic to the danger of the game not being fun, but I urge you to reconsider.


Thok:

<snip>The random FOS is a nice touch.<snip>

I’m glad you liked my little trap. Now take your paw out and vote no-lynch. Because that still is the correct play.

[mlaker]

I like EmpTygers plan...sort of. It would be wise for the town to build up our forces. But the Barbarians can probably level up and create things too, I would think this would be the case. I like the idea however I don't know if it's worth the risk.

[Thok]

EmpTyger: What about wonders? What about barbarians developing stuff (they almost certainly will have a faster tech tree than us, or get better units than us at each stage). What about a possible time limit? I can imagine no-lynch + building units being disasterous if we're not careful.

I'm also metagaming a little-I was in Sinister Overlord's last game, which got broken fairly easily. I'm assuming that he's spent more time polishing up this game.

Finally, fundamentally all protown players are roughly the same as far as I can tell. Discussing suspicions only hurts when it reveals power roles, but as far as I can tell, everybody and nobody is a power role. (That is, everybody has powers, but nobody is that much more valuable than anybody).

No-lynch might be the right play for today, but I still think discussion is useful.

Keeping my vote on for now.