XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Mafia Fallout Thread

[Deamon]

My general thoughts in terms of what I'd do for balance, I'd probably have left the Weak Doctor in the game like I originally planned and take role cop off mafia/removing a member of the mafia would have probably been a good call to especially to account for the game size better. At the same time I wasn't expecting the Watcher to end up gone straight away which put town behind from the start. I had fun running though and it's a learning experience what with it being my first game and all.

XCOM planning chat can be found here!

[+] Role PMs

[+] Townie

"They're disciplined and well equipped, although their obedience makes them predictable."

Greetings, Yugikun! You are an ADVENT Trooper. ADVENT troopers form the backbone of ADVENT's military power. Their main function is to police the Earth's human population. However, they may also be assigned to guard key assets alongside other enemy types. Troopers are ostensibly human, clad in sleek, angular body armor. All troopers wear a face-concealing helmet that leaves only the mouth exposed, hiding the fact that they are a product of an human-alien hybrid development.

You are a Townie.

Abilities:

• You have no abilities other than your voice and your vote.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Townie

"The ADVENT officers seem more capable than the grunts. We're not sure whether to chalk it up to training, or stricter mind control."

Greetings, Zetsu! You are an ADVENT Officer. Physically larger and more tactically capable than the subordinate troopers, the ADVENT Officers administer a system of control over the Troopers through a carefully engineered Psionic link augmented with a mechanical implant.

You are a Townie.

Abilities:

• You have no abilities other than your voice and your vote.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Townie

"The ADVENT officers seem more capable than the grunts. We're not sure whether to chalk it up to training, or stricter mind control."

Greetings, Fenris! You are an ADVENT Officer. Physically larger and more tactically capable than the subordinate troopers, the ADVENT Officers administer a system of control over the Troopers through a carefully engineered Psionic link augmented with a mechanical implant.

You are a Townie.

Abilities:

• You have no abilities other than your voice and your vote.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Townie

"They're disciplined and well equipped, although their obedience makes them predictable."

Greetings, Jace! You are an ADVENT Trooper. ADVENT troopers form the backbone of ADVENT's military power. Their main function is to police the Earth's human population. However, they may also be assigned to guard key assets alongside other enemy types. Troopers are ostensibly human, clad in sleek, angular body armor. All troopers wear a face-concealing helmet that leaves only the mouth exposed, hiding the fact that they are a product of an human-alien hybrid development.

You are a Townie.

Abilities:

• You have no abilities other than your voice and your vote.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Tracker

"Subject Gamma"

Greetings, BlizzardeyeWonder! You are the Viper King. Although clearly reminiscent of the known Viper species, this specimen is unique for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its gender, this may be the only male Viper ever reported. As a result of this genetic tampering, the Viper King possesses venom glands with a dramatically changed form and function, in that they produce ice in the place of the poison produced by the other members of the species.

You are the Tracker.

Abilities:

• Each night, you may investigate one player in the game and you will discover which player they targeted (if any).

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] 1x Bulletproof Bodyguard

"Subject Beta"

Greetings, Irina Ivanov! You are the Berserker Queen. As if the standard Berserker wasn't enough this particular specimen has been substantially modified with some form of auxiliary injection system circulating fluids throughout its body, increasing its combat effectiveness.

You are 1x Bulletproof Bodyguard.

Abilities:

• Each night phase, you may attempt to protect one player in the game from being nightkilled, dying in their place. You are not able to protect yourself. Additionally, you will survive the first nightkill targeted at you, unless it is unblockable. If you are targeted by multiple sources on one night, you will survive. You will not be informed when your immunity is used.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Watcher

"Subject Alpha"

Greetings, Cactus! You are the Archon King. The modified Archon variant has not only been genetically altered but also upgraded accordingly with equipment directly tied to its unusual abilities. As a result, this specimen has advanced flight capabilities beyond anything traditional Archons are capable of.

You are the Watcher.

Abilities:

• Each night, you may investigate one player in the game and you will discover which player targeted them (if any).

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Vigilante

"Join me in the darkness, and I will end this quickly"

Greetings, Emprexx Plush! You are the Chosen Assassin. The Assassin is the only female member of the Chosen and the third one created by the Elders. The Assassin uses stealth and trickery to confuse her enemies and prefers to pick off individual targets in close range combat with her shotgun and sword.

You are the Vigilante.

Abilities:

• Each night phase, you may attempt to kill another player.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Roleblocker

"Savor the moment...It's lookin' like your last."

Greetings, dmboogie! You are the Chosen Hunter. The Chosen are the most cunning aliens created by the Elders. The Hunter is a Chosen who could be considered the equivalent of a sniper; his long sight range and Tracking Shot ability make him a formidable force at long range, while his Darkclaw pistol allows him to deal with unsupported enemies at close range. In addition, The Hunter’s ability to tranquilize or concuss enemies makes him an able disruptor.

You are the Roleblocker.

Abilities:

• Each night, you may target another player in the game to attempt to block them from performing any night actions.

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Role Cop

"You have been judged, and I am your punishment"

Greetings, Slam! You are the Chosen Warlock. The Chosen are the most cunning aliens created by the Elders. The oldest of the Chosen, The Warlock is a powerful, psionic specialist warrior that uses tricks and psionic powers to manipulate the battlefield as he wishes.

You are the Role Cop.


Abilities:

• Each night, you may target one player in the game to investigate them. You will receive either their role name or "No Result". Goons and Vanilla Townies will return a result of "Vanilla".

Win Conditions:

• You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

[+] Mafia Godfather

"Commander, you may want to instruct your men to exercise restraint when using explosives"

Greetings, MurderWeasel! You are The Commander. The Commander is the leader of XCOM. A highly skilled leader who commanded XCOM during the original war, they were kidnapped by the aliens after Earth’s surrender and used as a tactical computer to program tactics into the ADVENT forces. Recently freed they now lead the XCOM resistance against the aliens.

You are the Mafia Godfather.

The other members of XCOM are Ninja & 2x Strongman Central Officer Bradford [General Goose], Roleblocker Chief Lily Shen [MethodicalSlacker] and Role Cop Dr. Richard Tygan [MK Kilmarnock].

Abilities:

• You are immune to investigations.

Win Conditions:

• You win with the rest of the Mafia once you control a majority that cannot be overcome through town power roles.

In addition, thanks to your intel you are aware that there are a plentiful amount of ADVENT forces: ADVENT Troopers and ADVENT Officers deployed. You also know that no Andromedons, Spectres or Chryssalids are present. (These are potential safeclaims you can make should you fear you are compromised).

[+] Mafia Ninja

"If you haven't noticed the aliens have been kicking our planet's ass for the past 20 years, you think maybe it's time we try something else?"

Greetings, General Goose! You are Central Officer Bradford. During the original war, you were the junior commander of XCOM until it was destroyed following Earth’s surrender. After years of leading what was left of XCOM and hiding from ADVENT on the edge of civilization, you became jaded. However, after bringing the Commander back, you’ve regained your confidence and have been inspired to take up arms again.

You are the Mafia Ninja & 2x Strongman.

The other members of XCOM are Godfather The Commander [MurderWeasel], Roleblocker Chief Lily Shen [MethodicalSlacker] and Role Cop Dr. Richard Tygan [MK Kilmarnock].

Abilities:

• You are immune to being observed at night, additionally, thanks to your Multipurpose Combat Rifle you have two uses of an experimental ammo type that grants you an unblockable kill for that night.

Win Conditions:

• You win with the rest of the Mafia once you control a majority that cannot be overcome through town power roles.

In addition, thanks to your intel you are aware that there are a plentiful amount of ADVENT forces: ADVENT Troopers and ADVENT Officers deployed. You also know that no Andromedons, Spectres or Chryssalids are present. (These are potential safeclaims you can make should you fear you are compromised).

[+] Mafia Roleblocker

"No one seems to be asking the real questions, like...when was the last time you even saw a cow?"

Greetings, MethodicalSlacker! You are Chief Lily Shen. You serve as Chief Engineer for XCOM. When the aliens attacked during the original war, you were only eight years old. Your father, Raymond Shen, left you for XCOM HQ, and you would not see him again until XCOM lost the first war. It was exceptionally difficult when your father passed away, especially since he had yet to complete his life's work: defeating the alien invaders once and for all. Something that you intend to do.

You are the Mafia Roleblocker.

The other members of XCOM are Godfather The Commander [MurderWeasel], Ninja & 2x Strongman Central Officer Bradford [General Goose] and Role Cop Dr. Richard Tygan [MK Kilmarnock].

Abilities:

• Each night phase, you may target another player in the game to attempt to block them from performing any night actions.

Win Conditions:

• You win with the rest of the Mafia once you control a majority that cannot be overcome through town power roles.

In addition, thanks to your intel you are aware that there are a plentiful amount of ADVENT forces: ADVENT Troopers and ADVENT Officers deployed. You also know that no Andromedons, Spectres or Chryssalids are present. (These are potential safeclaims you can make should you fear you are compromised).

[+] Mafia Role Cop

"I could not have predicted this outcome."

Greetings, MK Kilmarnock! You are Dr. Richard Tygan. You serve as the Chief Scientific Officer for XCOM. As a biochemist, you led one of the earliest Gene Therapy clinics for ADVENT and were impressed with the medical advancements the administration provided, although, as time went on you were troubled with how ADVENT had applied his efforts. You saw increased control exerted over the human populace and, upon hearing of a growing resistance movement, decided to flee the city and seek out XCOM.

You are the Mafia Role Cop.

The other members of XCOM are Godfather The Commander [MurderWeasel], Ninja & 2x Strongman Central Officer Bradford [General Goose] and Roleblocker Chief Lily Shen [MethodicalSlacker].

Abilities:

• Each night phase, you may target one player in the game to investigate them. You will receive either their role name or "No Result". Vanilla Townies will return a result of "Vanilla".

Win Conditions:

• You win with the rest of the Mafia once you control a majority that cannot be overcome through town power roles.

In addition, thanks to your intel you are aware that there are a plentiful amount of ADVENT forces: ADVENT Troopers and ADVENT Officers deployed. You also know that no Andromedons, Spectres or Chryssalids are present. (These are potential safeclaims you can make should you fear you are compromised).

[+] Night Actions and Notes

Night 1 Actions
Boogie roleblocks Irina
MS blocks Zetsu
Slam investigates Paige - learns she is the vig
Blizz investigates MW - gets a “Did not see anything” result
Ricky investigates Paige - learns she is the vig
Paige tries to kill Irina taking her 1x BP
Goose kills Fen
Irina protects Paige but is blocked by Boogie

Watcher going afk also doesn’t help
Should have left the weak doc in tbh
Shouldn’t have given mafia a role cop either

Day 2
Let’s see how this goes.
Zetsu starting to look at Tobe as potential scum is a move in the right direction but the sheer amount of discussion revolving around Jace means this could easily be lost in the shuffle.
Town are currently arguing around in circles over the Jace/Yugi thing to the point the mafia aren’t even having to contribute anything meaningful to the phase.
They need to get off this topic and look elsewhere
Well this is a mess
And it gets worse

Night 2
Boogie roleblocks Slam
MS roleblocks Boogie
Irina protects Toben
Blizz investigates Yugi - gets a “Did not see anything” result
Slam investigates Irina - gets a “Bodyguard” result
Ricky investigates Blizz - gets a “Tracker” result
Goose kill Paige
Paige kills Slam

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Damn. Sorry about not being active towards the end guys.

[Yugikun]

I'm going to quote this post from the Mass Effect Mafia fallout thread because tbh it sums up a notable amount of my feelings on this game:

Look, I get being excited to play Mafia and nail scum, I really do. But there's enthusiastic and then there's STRANGLING THE GAME TO DEATH WITH YOUR HUNDREDS OF POSTS. This isn't just a personal bugbear, I feel it's something that's actively harming the games. I touched on this briefly back in Day 2 but if your first day has several thousand posts, it effectively ices out half the lurkers from the discussion because they have no time to read and catch up (as was what happened to me even though I was scum and not really reading anyway, but my point still remains) and hands complete control of the game to a small handful of people, which in a game of 20+ people is a very bad move. What happens when they're all town and Mafia kills them all? Not only do the town become reliant on them to provide discussion and move the game along when it really should be /everybody/, the lurkers aren't given room to breathe in the first 2-3 days because every time someone chimes in with a post they're immediately read because they have only 10% of the posts that you do. This is an actively discouraging move to make in a game where it's really easy to get knocked off for misdemeanors. I know in the current meta it's essential to analyze everything and provide reads on command for every single post but it needs to happen in a way that doesn't lend itself to the game being spearheaded by a select few people. Because once those people are gone, poof, the game is dead, as is what happened in this game.

[Yugikun]

EBWOP: giving quote credit to brackie for what he said above

[Emprexx Plush]

Well that sure happened

Ngl this felt like an overwhelmingly scum sided game; even if we hadn't gotten stuck on the flavor confusion town investigation roles were better at catching town than scum(since Ninja trumps tracker and watcher they will only ever catch neutral results or the Vig, and it was confirmed in deadchat Godfather would have returned as vanilla to Rolecop so the only scum it could catch was Ninja), town PRs are as consequence all neutral to harmful(Vig is either vanilla or an SK with an easier win con, watcher/tracker/rolecop are as likely to catch town as scum, 1xBP bodyguard is lol), and by the numbers scum get a voting block way too fast at 4 members in a 14 person game. If Irina wasn't BP this game would have ended Night 2 after just two mislunches and two vig whiffs. Dunno if we had much of a shot even if literally the entire town wasn't on the wrong tracks XD

[Slam]

I'm going to quote this post from the Mass Effect Mafia fallout thread because tbh it sums up a notable amount of my feelings on this game:

Look, I get being excited to play Mafia and nail scum, I really do. But there's enthusiastic and then there's STRANGLING THE GAME TO DEATH WITH YOUR HUNDREDS OF POSTS. This isn't just a personal bugbear, I feel it's something that's actively harming the games. I touched on this briefly back in Day 2 but if your first day has several thousand posts, it effectively ices out half the lurkers from the discussion because they have no time to read and catch up (as was what happened to me even though I was scum and not really reading anyway, but my point still remains) and hands complete control of the game to a small handful of people, which in a game of 20+ people is a very bad move. What happens when they're all town and Mafia kills them all? Not only do the town become reliant on them to provide discussion and move the game along when it really should be /everybody/, the lurkers aren't given room to breathe in the first 2-3 days because every time someone chimes in with a post they're immediately read because they have only 10% of the posts that you do. This is an actively discouraging move to make in a game where it's really easy to get knocked off for misdemeanors. I know in the current meta it's essential to analyze everything and provide reads on command for every single post but it needs to happen in a way that doesn't lend itself to the game being spearheaded by a select few people. Because once those people are gone, poof, the game is dead, as is what happened in this game.

Also going to echo this because I simply don't have time to read through 25+ pages for one day's worth of analysis. It's also kind of lame to be expected to at the risk of being designated scummy for not being as involved as you were in the game that was half the size.

[Irina Ivanov]

Yikes, I didn't expect the 4 scum team, I thought we had at least one phase left. I feel like 4 all power role scum was a bit too much for a 14 person game. Even without vig hitting town, the game would have been very short. Also I was mainly right in my suspicions towards the end lol. Anyways, yeah, if I died night one, then the game wouldn't have lasted three days. And yeah, by then, first day is usually not very helpful so town would have had their second day at mylo.

Also maybe it's just me being tired and exhausted, but by the end of the second day, so much posts had occurred and discussion was so fast that I basically lost track of what happened, and I was just like, taking things at surface level. The discussion was so roundabout and confusing man. Basically gave up night 2. I don't blame Dodd.

Also sorry about that Slam : /, I kinda was a bit hard on with that I think.

Also, is deadchat and mafia chat still up, Deamon?

[Emprexx Plush]

Consider



More seriously most of the post overflow is meming and having fun, not gameplay. We also see what happens when the loud voices go quiet and it's a lot of "anyone? Anyone? Bueller?"

This game got excessive mostly because of the flavor confusion and constant round and round on it but as far as top posters go activity is the same as last game.

[Deamon]

it was confirmed in deadchat Godfather would have returned as vanilla to Rolecop

While I won't dispute the rest of your points, I will say have to stop you there because that's not what I said. I said:

Deamon21/04/2020
Y'know I'm not sure, I just spent 10 minutes looking for a ruling and since I can't find anything saying otherwise he'd have come up as Godfather since that's his role I guess
But he is immune to investigations so he may have also just returned Vanilla
Good question

Which isn't the same thing as confirming it would have returned Vanilla.

[Emprexx Plush]

Like, hundreds of posts of serious analysis I get, I remember the dark days of tunneling where I could trade half a dozen pages of multi paragraph posts a day, that shit was exhausting. If the memes aren't for you though, you can just skip them. Ask questions, skim for stuff that interests you, find your own jokes, w/e. Nobody knows what's going on but like, that's how every game is, even the ones generally agreed to have screwy set ups are a lot more fun when you stop giving a fuck about winning to embrace this thing as a chaotic party game for goofs where everything you say and do is probably wrong

[Emprexx Plush]

Ah, I misremembered then, soz!

[Zetsu]

I thought I'd just post this excerpt from the readlist that'll now never get posted:

Townnull

Toben (ugh): The thing that bugs me about Toben's play is: if he's scum, it's seriously greedy. He's going out of his way to interact with every person in the game, and that can absolutely backfire on him if he flips and everyone obsessively ISO's him afterwards. Sure, WIFOM can mess us all up badly. Betting on not flipping is generally a bad idea for Toben, given his propensity for getting investigated (scum wouldn't have known that town (probably) lacks a cop until after Slam's flip, and Toben was dialed in pretty hard before then. We can also be reasonably sure that there's no scum godfather, given the lack of a conventional cop, so we can probably rule out Toben being a godfather trying to attract an investigation. IDK, I feel like scum!Toben (who's not godfather) would probably play with the expectation of getting lynched at some point, and this play makes little sense for someone who's expecting that.

[Zetsu]

oh and not from my readslist but a thing i made a note of to myself after the last nightphase started

if ricky doesnt hard push toben tomorrow despite backing off today, he and toben are very probably a scumteam
i think

the tomorrow that never happened, that is.

*sighs*

oh I did get this wrong, though:

if murder's scum, then goose is clear

slightly more serious thoughts:

@Scum: Murder I would've started suspecting except I was SURE he wasn't godfather and thus his play as scum made no sense to me. Ricky was sus to me, but outside of the Murder connection I was sus for the wrong reasons. Goose was sus but if he'd flipped scum I would've gone and cleared MW, so ;-; Oh, and I would've never seen MeS in a million years. gj scum, i'm salty because you were handed a very good hand already but you played those advantages well

@Town: Stop doing scummy things if you ain't scum

I'm with Paige on this being very very scumsided, but i still had a larf, so thank you mod. I feel like Paige hit all the comments I had there, so that's kinda that.

[Zetsu]

oh and not from my readslist but a thing i made a note of to myself after the last nightphase started

if ricky doesnt hard push toben tomorrow despite backing off today, he and toben are very probably a scumteam
i think

the tomorrow that never happened, that is.

*sighs*

oh I did get this wrong, though:

if murder's scum, then goose is clear

slightly more serious thoughts:

@Scum: Murder I would've started suspecting except I was SURE there was no godfather in the game and thus his play as scum made no sense to me. Ricky was sus to me, but outside of the Murder connection I was sus for the wrong reasons. Goose was sus but if he'd flipped scum I would've gone and cleared MW, so ;-; Oh, and I would've never seen MeS in a million years. gj scum, i'm salty because you were handed a very good hand already but you played those advantages well

@Town: Stop doing scummy things if you ain't scum

I'm with Paige on this being very very scumsided, but i still had a larf, so thank you mod. I feel like Paige hit all the comments I had there, so that's kinda that.

[Zetsu]

oh heck

i was trying to edit my post to say that i was sure that there was no godfather in the game