Yesterday I would have said luck was on KoD's side, but I guess it was just on Mown's. And when I say luck, I really do mean luck. I wasn't late on deadline because I was late on deadline, I was unfortunately just getting off work so I was operating through my phone. I hit a signal dip while trying to post my vote, which delayed the post enough to miss the deadline.
However, this was only an issue because the Romans seemed to actively want to throw the game away. Well that's probably a bit harsh, but they never lost the mentality that they would have to concede to somebody else's plan in order to move forward. Granted suspicions were probably high on what was being said to them and justifiably so, but when you're in a situation where you are guaranteed to be lynched unless you do something different, sticking to trying to control things is maybe not the best idea. That aside, it wouldn't have worked out for Rome in the long run if they had anyways.
So here's how I went about the game:
During day 1-2 initially I was going to sit the game out and only comment as an in-game spectator. But then Niklor irked my goat. Addressing the comment that KoD made about trying to use his Pseudo account to provoke me against Niklor, that had nothing to do with it. While I did initially believe Niklor was a possible potential, after Pseudo's initial PM round I started talking with Niklor directly, so when Pseudo re-surfaced later, I suspected it to be somebody else considering I was already balls deep in another conversation with Niklor entirely. Getting back to that period though Niklor had approached me about securing my vote for my life - this is what irked me and why I directed the lynch on him Day 3 (knowing KoD was in a numbers bind I was able to direct the counter faction to my liking) - after this point KoD started feeding me information on the Persian/Roman alliance. I didn't trust that he was just trying to be inclusive, suspecting that he was merely trying to direct my vote more subtly. I then took it upon myself to make sure that Squinty was equally as informed because I wanted to see what kind of counter offensive he'd muster. After KoD looped me into the counter alliance being almost as strong as the Roman/Persian alliance I pm'd Rag and told him about the counter offensive building. I told him he might be able to buy my support and told him to make me an offer, just to see what he'd come up with. He declined, saying it wasn't necessary. I replied to him saying that the numbers you think you have might not always turn out to be the numbers you actually have, essentially telling him that there was a traitor in his midst when combined with the massive amount of insider information I had at that point. Later down the line Hello pm'd me about voting against Rome or being killed. Gotta say HW, you got no poker face, but seeing Niklor mentioning you did it to him too made me laugh. I liked your gumption so I voted with the counter alliance. That was a pretty satisfying day.
Day 3 started with KoD still dropping updates on the counter alliance, because if Mown didn't side with the rest of Persia it was apparent he'd need my vote to play the numbers game. HW also pm'd me about continuing to support him. At this point I think my stance to HW was that I'd support a Niklor lynch and beyond that he'd be on his own. When KoD approached me later about supporting his side when Mown support seemed bleak I pretty much told him the same thing, I only had an interest in a Niklor lynch that day. So the wagon swerved over to Niklor (from Fel I believe, KoD desperate to get his hands on that NK). Meanwhile I had been talking to Niklor who had approached me again about siding with Rome. I set him on the almost impossible task of setting up a KoD lynch at that point. I say almost impossible because I didn't expect Mown to go for it, but you never know how people are gonna do. Had all four of them rallied against KoD it would have been an interesting game, because I would have let them both die in a 4-4 tie. But, alas, they didn't even really try, just kinda shutting down on the idea when Mown didn't go for it. Towards the end of this day, I believe, is when HW, Scar, and I started scheming to take down both powerhouses.
Day 4 was pretty bland. I think at this point KoD was afraid of the power I was amassing considering the factions were starting to even out, he started updating less. The plan for the day with me and HW was to start taking down Persian numbers to keep them from amassing too much control, and to keep the NK out of KoD's hands, because that would almost certainly spell doom for one of us (HW, Scar, or me). Early in the day we approached Fel about switching his vote to Mown with myself and HW for support and then me breaking the tie in Rome's favor. We could have easily killed KoD, but the worry there would be that Mown would side back up to Rome, and Jim would follow, creating a bigger voting number then we could surmount. Fel dragged his feet on doing this (which I suspect was planned so that we'd feel forced to take KoD out) so Neo backed his KoD vote and disappeared. If luck had swung another way we would have still been successful, but you know that part.
The plan from there would have been to simply eliminate KoD to ensure no more night kills, then alternate lynching Romans and Persians until only the three of us remained.
I gotta say, I feel like I did far more backstabbery and shady shady than most of the other players. And I was able to do this because I was factionless and quite empowered. Yeah the role seemed to start out kinda pointless but it allowed me to have so much fun. Five stars. Would role again.
As for the other problematic role of the game, you people have no imagination. During the course of the game I was under the impression that Zinger was strictly silent in the strictest of strict strictness. But so much more could have been done with his role in such a much more fun manner. I would disagree with placing him on a team though. Also non-factioned might be a better alternative and supping up the other two Greeks, and not even by that much, maybe just let Squinty kill undelayed.
I think that's all I wanted to say about the game. Looking forward to the next installment Cato!