Werewolf VII- Return to XCom

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Fouts

Great game, SirFozzie. I enjoyed the descriptions, and the roles were well designed. Even if you did put my neck on the line forcing me to swap sides.

I just don't understand why you squealed like a pig. The way you presented it, I'm not sure if I would've believed it. I think that's why some of them distrusted you. As soon as you could you totally outed us. I was like WTF??? That one really threw me for a loop.

[Swaggs]

I want to know why the aliens killed kingfc22? I thought for sure he was the converted. And then when we started to consider there being a lag period for converted, I really thought we'd lost it.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

Was there ever any chance of RA surviving outside of an alien victory?

If you had released lockdown, when you guys left.. he was going to escape.. I had an alternate ending where X-Com has to battle against the "Cult of the Blood", where RA found a way to infect others with his blood.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

Was there ever any chance of RA surviving outside of an alien victory?

I made that up to try to get in his head a little bit. I presume digamma picked up on that and played along. Unless he knew something else.

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

I just don't understand why you squealed like a pig. The way you presented it, I'm not sure if I would've believed it. I think that's why some of them distrusted you. As soon as you could you totally outed us. I was like WTF??? That one really threw me for a loop.

Well, I was going to send a message to the bodyguard everytime you guys decided to kill/convert someone. Well, then everyone ganged up on the bodyguard, so I had to act fast. Unfortunately, Jeeber and Swaggs said "how do you know" instead of changing their vote. Hard to get people to trust you in this game.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Special Ability: COMPUTER OVERRIDE. If you are chosen to be blasted, you may activate this one time override, and choose another target to be blasted. YOU MAY ONLY USE THIS ONCE.

Wait, wait, wait! Swaggs wasn't targeted. How was he able to use his power to protect Fouts?

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

I want to know why the aliens killed kingfc22? I thought for sure he was the converted. And then when we started to consider there being a lag period for converted, I really thought we'd lost it.

At the point before we killed kingfc22, we thought that the game was over (and effectively it was). We killed him to throw a curve and hopefully you guys would turn against Fouts. I don't think we played it well enough to induce the paranoia.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

I just don't understand why you squealed like a pig. The way you presented it, I'm not sure if I would've believed it. I think that's why some of them distrusted you. As soon as you could you totally outed us. I was like WTF??? That one really threw me for a loop.

I can answer that...

After Night 1, the conversion, I sent Fouts a Crisis Of Conscience. He knew that there was a chance that the aliens might not let him go if they succeeded in taking the base. So.. this is the choice I gave him.

His winning conditions changed to be the following:

He wins if he survives AND the team he plays for also wins.

If he stays with the alien team, nothing changes.

If he switched to the human team, then each night, he would name the person being attacked to the Cydonian Veteran (Coffee). Who knows if Coffee would have believed him or not. It was to be done through me, so Fouts could not covertly name the whole team.

After the 2nd reveal, I would mention to the other Alien Front players that Something was right, the old human adage "Once is coincidence, Twice is suspicious, third time is enemy action" and allow them to check themselves for a TurnCoat

Fouts had a VERY difficult role to play, and he was definitely screwed when the aliens managed to get CW on the board.. he tried announcing it to save CW (who could protect him from the rest of the Alien Front). of course, we know how THAT turned out.

[hoopsguy]

OK - two questions on/for Swaggs:
1.) How did you obtain info on me that was independant of what Digamma sent? Or was that the only info you had? If so, I'm pretty bummed that I wasn't able to create enough fear/doubt to stay alive.
2.) How did you get to use your power to attack me when you weren't the one on the line? It doesn't appear that this was included in your description.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

Wait, wait, wait! Swaggs wasn't targeted. How was he able to use his power to protect Fouts?

shit, I changed that before I sent it to swaggs but after I saved the .txt file

I changed it to the Duke role (ie, change the target ONCE).

[Mr. Wednesday]

The only reason I ever considered some sort of lag period was because hoopsguy continued going after Blade on day 2 -- it worked out well for him in the sense that he earned some trust, but poorly in that he kicked off a bandwagon that Qwikshot mistakenly turned against Blade. If we'd been smart enough to identify that he wasn't the Chryssalid, it would have been a lot quicker because we would have immediately gone after Neon_Chaos once Peregrine was killed.

My mistrust of Fouts because of the endgame of VI nearly cost us.

[Raiders Army]

Oh, that one about Fouts wasn't really a question. I sent him a PM saying good one and all that...no hard feelings.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Also, the aliens can say what they want about me being their private fiddle, but I did vote for Neon_Chaos over CW.

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

My mistrust of Fouts because of the endgame of VI nearly cost us.

I don't lie all the time.

[Raiders Army]

Another reveal: When Blade died, we were still able to communicate. We complained to SirFozzie about how he backed up Qwikshot in his description. I think we could've recovered from Qwikshot by trying to discredit him (like we did with Coffee, hehe), but SirFozzie essentially said that Qwikshot was telling the truth. We thought that was unfair, so he even things up by allowing us to still communicate telepathically after Blade died.

[SirFozzie]

BTW, I'm sure that the TurnCoat Triple Agent Role will only work once. If anyone ever runs a X-Com game again, the Alien Front will be MUCH more tough on each other

A couple people asked me why I gave the X-Com so many specials.. Well.. that was the counter balance to the Alien Front. They had 4 to start, 5 with the Chryssalid conversion.. and the TurnCoat could have stayed with em. If I didn't give X-Com, a lot of info, then the game would have been over quickly.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Why did I not notice when Digamma scanned me?

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wednesday

Why did I not notice when Digamma scanned me?

because he was killed during the scan.

[Raiders Army]

Also, at one point, I was incredulous that we were actually going to win. Once you guys knocked off Blade and Fouts outted us, we thought it was all over. The key to being the bad guys was playing on your paranoia and mistrust while hoops spread out the suspicion amongst us aliens with his analysis.

[Fouts]

It is pretty telling that you can put the whole truth out there and people will still choose to kill you. I really didn't want to play my hand that early, because I thought Neon would die next. When qwik and a couple others voted for CW at the end, I was scrambling pretty fast.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

OK - two questions on/for Swaggs:
1.) How did you obtain info on me that was independant of what Digamma sent? Or was that the only info you had? If so, I'm pretty bummed that I wasn't able to create enough fear/doubt to stay alive.
2.) How did you get to use your power to attack me when you weren't the one on the line? It doesn't appear that this was included in your description.

1.) Digamma sent me the scan that night. It was the only info that I had. If you read back through, he thought he had screwed up b/c he kept asking for a verification that I had received it.

3.) It was clarified to me that I could use it to change the target once. I would have liked to have used it on myself, but at that point I was afraid we would lose if I didn't use it. I had planned to kill Neon Chaos all along, but lost my nerve at the last minute and switched to you.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Not knowing what we were dealing with, alien-wise, when the deaths came was the big one. Qwikshot had scanned for the Chryssalid among Blade, Neon, and Peregrine, and when Blade turned out to be an alien, I think we were divided about whether he had been the alien that Qwikshot detected. I would imagine that it basically would have flipped the vote that went against CW.

[SirFozzie]

BTW.. my three most fun moments during the game...

1) Night 0.. I open the door for actions. Aliens: Scan Coffee Warlord. Digamma: Scan Coffee Warlord. JeeberD: Leaves Coffee Warlord a note saying "We're coming for ya Cofee!"

Coffee's reaction was priceless. when he got all that information. "I am so a dead man."

2) Waiting to spring the Swaggs surprise on everybody. Truth be told, he had targeted Neon_Chaos, but his faith was so shattered in the last few minutes before the deadline that five minutes beforehand, he switched to Hoopsguy. I had to edit the whole text!

3) Every time you called me evil

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Fouts

It is pretty telling that you can put the whole truth out there and people will still choose to kill you. I really didn't want to play my hand that early, because I thought Neon would die next. When qwik and a couple others voted for CW at the end, I was scrambling pretty fast.

I think the mistake you made was totally outing us. To name the three aliens made us scramble against you. Had you played it a little better, like telling everyone you know Neon or I was an alien and also letting us know that it is a good gamble, you could've kept your status as a spy and I think more people would've believed you.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

BTW.. my three most fun moments during the game...

1) Night 0.. I open the door for actions. Aliens: Scan Coffee Warlord. Digamma: Scan Coffee Warlord. JeeberD: Leaves Coffee Warlord a note saying "We're coming for ya Cofee!"

Coffee's reaction was priceless. when he got all that information. "I am so a dead man."

2) Waiting to spring the Swaggs surprise on everybody. Truth be told, he had targeted Neon_Chaos, but his faith was so shattered in the last few minutes before the deadline that five minutes beforehand, he switched to Hoopsguy. I had to edit the whole text!

3) Every time you called me evil

Uhhh... number 3 was more than once.

[Raiders Army]

I never played X-Com but it sounds really interesting. I'm out for tonight. Good game fellas and it was really enjoyable. Thanks again SirFozzie for putting on a great game!

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by Raiders Army

I think the mistake you made was totally outing us. To name the three aliens made us scramble against you. Had you played it a little better, like telling everyone you know Neon or I was an alien and also letting us know that it is a good gamble, you could've kept your status as a spy and I think more people would've believed you.

You might be right that I could have been more subtle, but I thought naming all of you would ensure that you guys wouldn't kill me at night.

[Swaggs]

I was seriously beginning to question Digamma in the last 10 minutes before I pulled the switch. And the funny thing is that it was humans that really threw me.

[SirFozzie]

Anny other questions for me, before I shuffle off to Buffalo?

[hoopsguy]

Yep, when they converted me I we talked about how I would keep my feud going with Fouts the next day. It was going really well until Qwik came in with his news - the group was collectively telling me that I was drawing attention because of my vendetta. I certainly didn't want to see Blade go down, but my options once Qwik came in were to stay on Blade or look unbelievably suspicious switching gears.

I think the biggest problem the aliens ran into was moving on two grunts the first two nights - there were enough special roles out there that they needed to get one of them.

On the topic of kills, we picked Peregrine on the 2nd night because we were worried about going after Coffee (who, it turns out, was guarding himself). Then we were able to get Coffee clipped the next day, but at a big cost in terms of all of the aliens aligning themselves on votes and then Fouts naming all three of us.

We had almost no choice about going for Qwikshot - if he assumed the bodyguard role we were goners. The only choice was whether to kill or convert. If we killed, there was still a pretty good chance that Neon would be gone the next day and we would never get the conversion off.

Qwik, why did you clear Coffee? And why didn't you go with the story I had about looking in Peregrine's room and identifying him as the bodyguard? I really think that had a better chance of breaking the confidence of the non-committed grunts and going against the Fouts/Digamma/Swaggs troika (wasn't sure that Swaggs was 100% committed at that time). I just about had a heart attack when I read Qwik's "CW is human" post - if anyone wants a laugh take a look at my stuff immediately after that. I'm sure it is unfettered crap.

I would have gone after King as well that night, although I wasn't part of that decision. He knew he had screwed the pooch on his decision the other night and there was no way he would align with us again. By killing him off there was a chance to create some commotion around the swing grunt votes, but it would have taken a lot of work. Plus I figured that Digamma would scan him and identify him as a good guy. I didn't know if kills or scans were processed first, but had to roll the dice there. Guys, was that your reasoning?

Other than that, just tried to come up with enough lies about how the aliens might work without creating a role for myself, since I was self-identified grunt. All the while, trying to put focus on a small set of people (usually with one of the aliens in the list considered, but not selected), rather than posting long stuff with zero substance. It was challenging defending ourselves against so many people who had info.

If I was to ask for one balancing factor, it would be that Coffee/King/Qwik weren't given additional scans on top of their power sets. The aliens needed to do a better job collecting the scalps of the specials early, but it felt like there was so much information on us out there so quickly that it was a very uphill battle.

Thanks for a fun ride, everyone.

[Mr. Wednesday]

(response to Swaggs)
At that point, both kingfc22 and I were seriously confused, kingfc so much so that a couple of us actually accused him of being the second convert.

That vote was basically the turning point, though, because the vote against Fouts was basically the two of us plus the entire alien bloc.

[kingfc22]

My biggest mistake like I told digamma after he died was my misunderstanding of Foz's PM to mysefl.

He allowed me to scan 3 people and the way the first message was written I thought I was looking for the zombie. I named 3 guys and did not get a hit. Then after the 2nd conversion, I got a message that it was Chryssalid hunting time. "You've done this before" is what it said so I figured I was searching for the Zombie again. Doh!! That is why I kept saying Hoopsguy was in the clear.

[Mr. Wednesday]

I think that the way it played out, killing kingfc22 was a mistake. I don't believe Digamma was scanning him that night (though I don't remember for sure) and he had gotten a couple of the human faction very suspicious.

[hoopsguy]

King, I was flat giddy when you were posting that - just couldn't believe the luck. I was beginning to think we might actually pull it off until Swaggs turned the cannon.

[hoopsguy]

Game would have been drastically different if we had chosen Swaggs or Digamma instead of Peregrine the 2nd night. It certainly didn't feel like an inflection point decision at the time, but it was a doozy.

[Swaggs]

This one threw me off:

There's one person on this list, who's been chosen to share the scan, one person who requested the scan, and KingFC22, you are the Target of the scan.

You seek out KingFC22's mind. He's tossing and turning in his sleep, a bit. You see a phrase running through his head again and again. "First, do no harm". He's not sleeping well, apparently he's worried that by selecting Fouts, he might have condemmed an innocent human to death.

He doesn't sleep well, but he sleeps lightly. He has made a promise to save digamma if he can... after all, he operated on many X-Com agents in the past.. hopefully he can save one more, and in the doing, save himself.

Verdict: X-Com, brave and true.

I had to read it a half dozen times. Because I got it right around the time we were talking about the lag in conversions, I wasn't sure if it meant that Digamma or kingfc22 might have been converted and were lagging (b/c of the "save himself" part). I was worried that I wouldn't be able to trust Digamma after that, and, at that point, he was the only one I trusted.

[hoopsguy]

Also, we never got our chance to mount the "why would the aliens kill peregrine and leave Neon out on an island" strategy, since Coffee came out firing the next morning with "total proof".

So much counter-punching so early in this game compared to the other werewolf threads I have read ...

[SirFozzie]

Basically, the Chryssalid thing was a crapshoot.

If they were doing something active that night, I figured there was a chance they could catch the Chryssalid on his way back.. I asked them to give me three names.. I would tell them if the Chryssalid WAS or WAS not in the group.

I meant it to be a paranoia-type thing.. especially if you picked the Chryssalid and two X-Comers.

The first one. Blade, Peregrine.. Neon..

Oh boy was that a cluster.

Especially since Qwik posted it publically.

Well, I didn't want anyone to be hurt, that's why I gave the alien communications back afterwords.

There was not much I could do, after all, noone had EVER faked a PM previously, and it would really be considered over the top.. plus it could inspire others to do it, so I HAD to crack down hard on it.

[Swaggs]

It would have been impossible for the Aliens to have no contact with each other. That would have been brutal.

[SirFozzie]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

This one threw me off:

There's one person on this list, who's been chosen to share the scan, one person who requested the scan, and KingFC22, you are the Target of the scan.

You seek out KingFC22's mind. He's tossing and turning in his sleep, a bit. You see a phrase running through his head again and again. "First, do no harm". He's not sleeping well, apparently he's worried that by selecting Fouts, he might have condemmed an innocent human to death.

He doesn't sleep well, but he sleeps lightly. He has made a promise to save digamma if he can... after all, he operated on many X-Com agents in the past.. hopefully he can save one more, and in the doing, save himself.

Verdict: X-Com, brave and true.

I had to read it a half dozen times. Because I got it right around the time we were talking about the lag in conversions, I wasn't sure if it meant that Digamma or kingfc22 might have been converted and were lagging (b/c of the "save himself" part). I was worried that I wouldn't be able to trust Digamma after that, and, at that point, he was the only one I trusted.

Ick.. I was trying to identify him as the medic. "First, do No Harm" is a version of the Hippocratic oath, and the first part of the code of the doctor.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Game would have been drastically different if we had chosen Swaggs or Digamma instead of Peregrine the 2nd night. It certainly didn't feel like an inflection point decision at the time, but it was a doozy.

I'd guess that if you had chosen Digamma instead, Qwikshot would have assumed the role the following night. Then again, as I recall that was when he got converted...

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

This one threw me off:

There's one person on this list, who's been chosen to share the scan, one person who requested the scan, and KingFC22, you are the Target of the scan.

You seek out KingFC22's mind. He's tossing and turning in his sleep, a bit. You see a phrase running through his head again and again. "First, do no harm". He's not sleeping well, apparently he's worried that by selecting Fouts, he might have condemmed an innocent human to death.

He doesn't sleep well, but he sleeps lightly. He has made a promise to save digamma if he can... after all, he operated on many X-Com agents in the past.. hopefully he can save one more, and in the doing, save himself.

Verdict: X-Com, brave and true.

I had to read it a half dozen times. Because I got it right around the time we were talking about the lag in conversions, I wasn't sure if it meant that Digamma or kingfc22 might have been converted and were lagging (b/c of the "save himself" part). I was worried that I wouldn't be able to trust Digamma after that, and, at that point, he was the only one I trusted.

If I were you and received this, it would have cleared King and myself immediately.

[Swaggs]

Yeah... I got that part and my first instinct ended up being the right one, but just the last sentence threw me. Made me consider that Digamma may have been converted and that kingfc22 was going to try to save him or that kingfc22 might have been converted and Digamma might have been able to save him.

Too much paranoia.

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by Fouts

If I were you and received this, it would have cleared King and myself immediately.

He ended up dying the same night that I received the information anyway.

[SirFozzie]

BTW, just going from memory... if Fouts had been killed it would have been 6 to 4, and then when they killed that night, 5-4. You would have had to get Neon_Chaos the very next night THEN the rest without a slip up to win.

So yeah, Swaggs's target switch was huge.

[hoopsguy]

Oh, and on the Coffee thing - we knew he was ecto, so I was asking Fouts to help set him up mid-afternoon with a threatening post like,

"Coffee, are you SURE you are not holding back on us"

And then come out with a reveal around 6:15 - 6:30 about having a one-time use hand scanner he had cobbled together, being the technician. But Fouts was having none of it So Raiders picked up on this later, but it didn't feel as believable (I don't think).

Nor did having the one-time device used to pick up on Fouts/Digamma conversing in random language the next day - particularly since that was brought up before lunch time. Too much time for people to analyze that and realize that RA was sure alien, thus cinching the rope around our collective throats a little tighter. I was very surprised this was not publicly flogged earlier than today.

[Mr. Wednesday]

Basically, up until the point where Swaggs got you, I was very unsure about Digamma, and that bit about conversing in a strange language was one of the reasons.

[Fouts]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

And then come out with a reveal around 6:15 - 6:30 about having a one-time use hand scanner he had cobbled together, being the technician. But Fouts was having none of it So Raiders picked up on this later, but it didn't feel as believable (I don't think).

Yeah, it was very hard to ignore you guys and not do that. I do think that raiders pulled it off. They believed him and killed CW.

[Swaggs]

I'd say that, after this game, everyone will be about 10-times harder to read next game. That was a tight, intense game.

Good job guys.

Great game, Foz.

[SirFozzie]

Thanks for the kudos, folks, it means a lot that you guys all enjoyed it.