Werewolf: XIV Spawn (GAME OVER! Please give feedback)

[jeff061]

Hehe. Yeah, incredibly bad luck on your part. If I had known at the time the Spawn weren't going to kill anyone over the course of the game I would of not used it that night and kept it for something more definitive.

[Poli]

I probably wouldn't have lynched you either.

[jeff061]

You shouldn't of anyways. Plenty of reasons to think King was guilty at the time, 0 for innocence. Not to mention if I was spawn I wouldn't of admitted to killing him. On top of the fact there was a clear cut path to winning everyone supported, which was killing Raiders. That plan was delayed a day.

[Poli]

I thought I could end it right away if I took you out. I was ultimately wrong thinking Raiders Army was useful, but then again, so were you. I knew you were wrong about kingfc before you killed him. His death basically sealed your fate, and ultimately mine.

[dubb93]

Good win survivors. Now onto my thoughts on game balance...

* The deck is stacked way too much against the Spawn. Spawn not having secret roles combined with all the survivors having one is an easy way to finger the spawn.

* Way too many seer type roles with the doctors having a chance to scan 2 people a day. Combine that with the empaths and the guys that can act like doctors for a day and the nurse, there is no way for the spawn to make it to the end of a long game.

* It seems that the with all the bodygaurds and the brig, the spawn can't ever get the guy(or object) they need to get. This stacks the deck even further in favor of the survivors when the there are 4 or more seer actions each day, lots of bodygaurds(protecting EVERYTHING) and the important people in the brig, the spawn simply can't do anything. Hell, there is even a chance that a guy that isn't protected won't be killed/converted due to the dice role.

I may think of some other things, but this game needs to be further balanced before I play it again. It was really fun, untill me and Schmidty realized we couldn't get anything accomplished. And the only way to get the doctor was to completely out myself in the brig. Reduce the # of seers and bodygaurds and increase the chances of spawn's actions being sucessfull and the game could have easily turned out different, as it was me and Schmidty knew on night 2 we couldn't make it to the end of this game with all the seers and the bodygaurds.

[hoopsguy]

I thought that there should have been one more spawn to start. But perhaps I would have felt differently about that if we had not gotten lift-off as quickly as we did. Two failed attempts at the doctor really tilted the game early, I think.

By the way, what did Schmidty do on the night that you guys attacked in the brig? Anything? I feel like the queen has to attempt to convert each night if they lose that ability after lift-off.

Perhaps another balancing mechanism could be that the queen can convert one more time post-liftoff after the spawn are down to two. That would have really tilted the game if someone we had cleared could be converted.

I asked Barkeep how the other game went that he based this ruleset on. He said that the spawn won by denying water.

[hoopsguy]

Dubb, it sounds like you feel a little bit like I did when I played Fozzie's X-Com game. We were unlucky in that our early kills were generic villagers - numerous roles in that game had the ability to mini-see by getting to submit a list of three names and being told if there was a bad guy in that mix. Then there was the turncoat, who narced out the whole group of bad guys, including their specific roles. Having been on the wrong side of that battle, I was glad that Barkeep kept Raiders limited on info sharing in this game.

[SnDvls]

I totally enjoied the game....until I knew I was going to have to die.

I agree the deck was pretty stacked against the spawn, mabey you combine some roles and have more non-role people. You could have easily gotten rid of my role and combined it w/ the warden.

Even though I never knew my secret role I really enjoied the game.
Anyhow...YEAH!!! SURVIVORS!!!

[kingfc22]

I PM'd Barkeep early in the game about the number of bodyguards. Especially after he changed the rules to allow all security members to hold a phaser. I thought that was a HUGE advantage for us survivors and that is also why I asked if there was any need for us to protect the engine room after we had lifted off. Once the answer was "no" it enable us to protect almost everything without fear of being overwhelmed by an attack.

[Barkeep49]

Ok so there seems to be consensus that there shouldn't be so many guards at the start of the game and perhaps increasing the number of privates. I think perhaps less engineers would be a good thing as well.

Dubb do you think you would have felt differently had Marc not been killed that second day? That would have made for up to 4 spawn that could have been attacking each night.

[kingfc22]

Barkeep, don't get me wrong. This was one of the most entertaining WW games I've been apart of by far. Very cool ideas and I think it would have played out a little differently if we had waited one more day to Liftoff .

[hoopsguy]

I'm not sure more privates and less engineers does much for balancing the game if privates can be brought up to fill positions for dead survivors. I think the idea of privates getting promoted is very cool and would not like to see that dropped, but that flexibility makes them more valued, in many respects, than engineers.

[dubb93]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Ok so there seems to be consensus that there shouldn't be so many guards at the start of the game and perhaps increasing the number of privates. I think perhaps less engineers would be a good thing as well.

Dubb do you think you would have felt differently had Marc not been killed that second day? That would have made for up to 4 spawn that could have been attacking each night.

Yea, probably. I feel with all the seer types(which the really wasn't a need for 2 empaths and I believe there were two people that had to power to use anyones role for a day, which obviously turned out to be a doctors role) that you should have started us with WAY more than 2 and 1 spawnling. I'm thinking 3(a full council) and 2 spawnlings would have been ideal. The less engineers means that we don't get off the ground as fast, that helps as well. IDK, there was just flat out no way we were winning this game and we knew it early.

[dubb93]

BTW, Schmidty participated in the attack in the brig. It was a spawn attack. We really didn't want Vince to know he was attacked b/c it would out me and RA, while he had to go and we knew he would be in the brig the entire game. It was our only chance and we had to take it. Otherwise you have a seer that can not only scan 1 person each day, but can scan 2. We would have been outted really quick.

[dubb93]

DOLA:

The reason for the spawn attack in the brig is we didn't want a dead body in there either. We probably could have killed him in the brig with a double attack from me and RA, but then we are goners anyway.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I think we're all on the same page about the empath. I know that in the game I got the idea from, each crew member said each day "I am not a werewolf on Day X". If someone didn't/wouldn't make the statement it was considered very suspicous.

I was absolutely going for that dynamic when I asked for statements from everyone, I was very suspicious by the end of the day that nothing was forthcoming from Vince, and if it had been played straight (rather than how I was allowed to do it), I would have started agitating the following day because I had decided that Vince was the one I wanted to check. It's hard to say how it would have played out from there.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by jeff061

On top of the fact there was a clear cut path to winning everyone supported, which was killing Raiders.

Killing Raiders was a terrible idea. We wasted a chance to take a shot at getting a spawn. It seemed clear to me that RA was going to die in another day or so due to lack of water anyway.

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

Killing Raiders was a terrible idea. We wasted a chance to take a shot at getting a spawn. It seemed clear to me that RA was going to die in another day or so due to lack of water anyway.

Yeah I said that for 2 days, but it was like talking to a wall. Total waste of a vote. So was voting for blade and I and not lynching one of us. Of course, I didn't want to be the one lynched.

[Mr. Wednesday]

In retrospect, the spawn probably should have realized how dangerous my remaining empath action could be and gone after me before I brought it up. I'm not convinced they were as far from winning as dubb seems to think.

[hoopsguy]

I still disagree that killing Raiders was a waste, because we got the nurse earlier. There was some suspicion of the current doc at that point, but it wasn't overwhelming. We had no idea how many spawn there were. So by killing Raiders early, we were getting either our only scan one day earlier or an additional scan one day earlier.

Plus, if we were able to protect our water we were going to lose, at most, one survivor to dehydration.

I can see the argument the other way, but I don't see how anyone can say this was open and shut.

[jeff061]

I knew you were wrong about kingfc before you killed him

How? Because you could PM him? What could he of possibly said to prove he was innocent after putting 2 spawn and vince together in the brig?

And no, I still think killing Raiders was the right idea, there was stil a lot of people left and having another nurse was a major plus. If Penny wasn't going to get promoted, then no, the killing would of been pointless.

If you hadn't of caught Schmidty or if the spawn was someone getting water you'd be wishing you had killed Raiders.

[Poli]

Call it a false sense of security, call it whatever you want, but I knew he was clean before that time. When it turned out he had put two spawn in there, I knew it was just a mistake. There was no opportunity for him to have converted, at least to public knowledge.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

In retrospect, the spawn probably should have realized how dangerous my remaining empath action could be and gone after me before I brought it up. I'm not convinced they were as far from winning as dubb seems to think.

I definitely knew, and was trying to come up with a way to have you use it on someone other than me. Other than that one scan, you were useless, and there was plenty of suspicion about people other than myself -- I felt that we were better spent using (wasting...stupid failed rolls) our efforts on other targets. When hoops mentioned that we could have used your scan on Lathum the day I scanned him, I was pissed because it would have been a perfect out. My bluff (claiming that I wasn't a spawn) after you had scanned I thought was pretty good, because Hoops made a lot of sense to scan up front due to the fact that he was rationing the water. The only problem is that I wasn't online early enough to do it, and I'm not even sure you would have listened to me anyways.

[Mr. Wednesday]

I made up my mind pretty early in the day that I had some latent questions about you and it was critically important to have complete trust in your scans. If I cleared you, then we could trust your previous scans and you'd be able to move on to scanning e.g. hoops.

[pennywisesb]

Originally Posted by Vince

I'm not even sure you would have listened to me anyways.

I learned alot from this game, namely, don't listen to Vince.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

I made up my mind pretty early in the day that I had some latent questions about you and it was critically important to have complete trust in your scans. If I cleared you, then we could trust your previous scans and you'd be able to move on to scanning e.g. hoops.

Yup. I knew with the 'gamble' that we could essentially be screwed if something like that happened. I mean, we were so set at the beginning of that day, and then everything fell apart when you decided to scan me. Ugh.

I think I may be overstating his importance, but if hoops hadn't have been there, I wonder how organized you guys would have been? RealDeal posted some really good stuff, but he wasn't as active as hoops, and hoops really was the only one to voice suspicion of me right away. If we could have gotten just ONE good roll...

...well, that's why they play the games

[Vince]

Originally Posted by pennywisesb

I learned alot from this game, namely, don't listen to Vince.

For the most part, everything I did post-conversion was the exact same as I would have done pre-conversion. If I hadn't been turned, I STILL would have been very tempted to try to revive Raiders Army. And outside of Schmidty, I didn't lie about anything until Mr. Wednesday found out who I was. I was surprised Schmidty didn't come under any scrutiny (at least not aloud) until RealDeal deprived him of water. I was very brief when I cleared him (since it was about 15 minutes after I had found out I was no longer a good guy), and then basically just moved on. I believe that I was at least a little more descriptive of everyone else that i cleared. There was very (very) little reason to doubt me at that point, I guess. Bravo hoops, for sniffing me out (you bastard ).

I was actually surprised that when Mr. Wednesday went to scan something, he didn't pick my statement that Schmidty was clean...I guess it's because I cleared Lathum and...whoever else I cleared that next day. Who did I clear the day we decided to kill RA?

[Mr. Wednesday]

I think it would have been too much of a risk for me to look for something like Schmidty being clean. Sure, if I'd nailed that one, it would have finished the game for us, but if I missed it, we wouldn't have cleared the one person that I wanted a definitive read on.

[hoopsguy]

Yep, I thought about the Schmidty is clean statement as well. But after you had scanned Lathum I didn't want MrW to go that route if there were better options.

After reading RealDeals post on Schmidty as spawn on Day 4, and then you cleared him then I knew that you were spawn if Schmidty was spawn (duh). But I thought it was possible that you were spawn and Schmidty was clean. Neither Schmidty nor Lathum posted very much this week, so there wasn't any real opportunity to pick up anything based on their posts. And the voting patterns this week weren't all that telling either.

That is one thing that was interesting in this game - needing 1/3 of total votes to lynch. That, coupled with the water aspect, almost forced bandwagons and made it more challenging to pick up anything in voting patterns. We were lucky on the first day to have two spawn in our sites and then have you attacked in the brig. Although I did not realize that Schmidty would be able to launch a spawn attack from outside the brig.

[RealDeal]

I had a really hard time coming around on the idea that Vince was spawn. Since I had scanned him myself, I knew the only possible way he could be spawn was if he got converted during the RA scan, and it just seemed so unlikely to me. Only when I had time to realize that there was no possible advantage to Mr. W sacrificing himself did I start to believe it. But even then I hedged my bets, but depriving Schmidty, not Vince, of water that last turn. I kind of felt like Schmidty made a good proxy for Vince, because I was so sure I had nailed Schmidty back in turn 4.

[Raiders Army]

When I was put into the coma, Vince was a good guy and Schmidty was the only remaining spawn. I'm guessing that Schmidty turned Vince right after since he didn't revive me the next day.

So you guys shouldn't have killed me. I knew who one of the spawn was...

[Raiders Army]

Oh, and

...

[jeff061]

Heh, who was going to take you out of your coma?

[Poli]

Yeah, you coming out of the coma wasn't an option.

[Vince]

Well, I had at least one or two of you convinced it was an option

[Schmidty]

I'm still bitter, but I want to thank Barkeep for putting on one hell of a game.