One Man's Spy... The End

Been a good one, even if I missed the fun of those days without any spies in action.

My apparent quietness was just because we had a good plan on those first few days. Move and verify. Didn't seem much to discuss. But, I'm glad Bravo won in the end. Good game, all. And thanks to Ob Bob for running.

Herdanos wrote:Oh my god

I wasn't sure if you'd realised or not

We were planning to move from X then anyway as we'd raced to the spot and knew your "if we both get on it we'll team up" made no sense. Just confirmed to us not to fire any missiles on alpha that day though as we tried to solidify an allegiance there.

Your movement was insane, we must have fired just as you moved from spots so many times.

Rocsteady wrote:

Herdanos wrote:Oh my god

I wasn't sure if you'd realised or not

We were planning to move from X then anyway as we'd raced to the spot and knew your "if we both get on it we'll team up" made no sense. Just confirmed to us not to fire any missiles on alpha that day though as we tried to solidify an allegiance there.

Your movement was insane, we must have fired just as you moved from spots so many times.

I think the last 4 or 5 attacks were foiled by them moving from the spot that was hit.

I felt like we were stood still a lot of the time.

And from our chat log you can very much see I thought they would be something positive if we co-located. I was quite wrong on that. Bravo team had to keep stopping me from trying it out.

Roonmastor wrote:
But at least I didn't send them out attack confirmation by accident

It, ah, was a, er, super secret bluff!

I hadn't realised Moggy's identity was known quite early, was trying to throw some bullshit out to explain why I kept voting for him.

Roc, what was your reaction when I sent you that PM?

Rocsteady wrote:I hadn't realised Moggy's identity was known quite early, was trying to throw some bullshit out to explain why I kept voting for him.

I figured it out on day 2 then on day 3 or 4 Dan outright told me in discord. Knowing who Moggy was didn't really change anything for us so I decided to leave him alive and not execute him right away as I was hoping later on that I could work with him against Bravo. Then I got a little bit unlucky and by telling Dan he was verified (which he was) to gain his trust, I inexplicably verified 3 members of Bravo leaving just me and DarkRula unverified. I then spent a while trying to talk Dan into leaving Rula alive since I knew that if he died I'd die immediately after.

I think it was working and then I guess Roon came back and shoved his big stupid mouth into the matter and ruined my plans.

Really enjoyed this game, though feels like ages ago I got eliminated.

The rules and structure were quite well-thought out for a first attempt, and there were lots of checks and balances.

Only real drawback is that there's nothing really in the thread, so once you are out, you can't really follow anything. All the gameplay and drama takes place elsewhere.

Secondly, and this is probably a personal thing, but I felt that the Verify power was slightly overpowered, and that the Spies left the game too early. In bigger teams, Verify would be more balanced, but in teams of five, it meant we were never going to last more than a few days. With the early turns, I made Bravo move and verify, which I imagine was the tactic for the other two as well. It meant that on Day Three, we basically had between Rula and Qikz. I would be surprised if any Spy lived long enough to actually do any sabtoaging.

Next time, I would maybe rework or remove the Verify power. I'd try and figure out a way that Spies were encouraged or pushed sabotage or do other neferious thing. It would be better if the Spies were unmasked due to detective work, bad tactics or messing up somewhere, rather than a power. That's just my view as a Spy though - others might be glad they had the power.

And being a Spy was... exhausting. I was in at least five or six different conversations and the way I'd structurd Bravo meant it all went through me (I'm not sure how fun this is for the other players, as it's quite passive, but felt necessary to safeguard info and protect leaks).

I was actually really busy at work as well. I was in the office and it was the week I was going for promotion, with three interviews. So, Moggy, I was actually busy when I was PMing you - I wasn't actually buying time or busy in my actual team and was trying to reassure you that I would reply later on. I thought that was actually less sus, as it is what I would have said had I been loyal.

But, yeah, there is a lot of activity going through the Spies and it was hard to keep up during the day. I did enjoy the de facto role of team leader, though also felt very similar to being at work.

Regarding Rula/Qikz, I don't think Moggy named Rula in his PM. I remembered a conversation in the Charlie chat which seemed to suggest Rula was the spy (think it was when Mommy was discussed as coming forward to Moggy). I relayed that back to the verified players, but we were aware that it could be false info being fed to us (I was trying to do this in the Bravo chat) - didn't realise Dan had leaked Moggy's name to Qikz).

Fairly early on I had Roon verified, and I had guessed Dan was loyal, though had to keep him at arm's length at times, just in case. Preezy was very quiet but then Verified next. We had a core group of three or four fairly early on. Unfortunately for Rula, I didn't feed him any info at all, just in case he was the spy - sorry about that!

Though he did play a part early on, as the trustworthy first leader. I was choosing the leader via random dice rolls and only informing people late on with the role and decision. I thought that would eliminate leaks and planning if we had to pick the Spy as a leader. Any discussion of plans in the main team chat often contained red herrings and misinformation.

As I mentioned, if we didn't have the Verify power, I would also have had to take a risk trusting members of my team. I would have still gone for Roon and Dan, but Qikz would have had more chance to infiltrate and mess us up. I know Charlies quickly took verified Chet elsewhere, which was ultimately the safest move.

But, yeah, overall I thought it was a great game and really well-planned, for something OB presumably thought up himself. I didn't just enjoy it due to being a Spy, but also liked the structure of the game. Reminded me a little of the early days of Tribe versus Tribe too, which I also really enjoyed.

Parksey wrote:Unfortunately for Rula, I didn't feed him any info at all, just in case he was the spy - sorry about that!

Oh, no worries on that. Completely valid move to have made. After all, any spy would have been foolish to deviate from the instructions you were giving, so even if I was the first leader, it didn't mean I could be trusted.

Parksey wrote:Regarding Rula/Qikz, I don't think Moggy named Rula in his PM.

Was just a silly text I sent hoping to spread some doubt. I changed the name of the bravo team member to each person I sent it to.

Moggy wrote:

Parksey wrote:Regarding Rula/Qikz, I don't think Moggy named Rula in his PM.

Was just a silly text I sent hoping to spread some doubt. I changed the name of the bravo team member to each person I sent it to.

You really freaked Parksey out with that if the Bravo chat was him being serious.

He thought for sure the Alpha spy was leaking everything including his name to you.

I do agree though that the verify ability was far too overpowered, it meant the spies were on borrowed time. If you ever do this again it'd be nice to maybe weaken it a bit / remove it and try something else. Having more to do in the thread would be cool too. I think one thing that would be cool is if the teams themselves don't actually know who their own spy is so it's not as directly easy to get in contact with your own team - people could then pose as the spy leaking false information and it adds another level of espionage. The spies not knowing each others identity as well (which is solved by the same thing) would be good too.

Was a great game until I died, then because I had to leave all the chats I couldn't really spec what was going on

Yeah, my initial reaction was one of panic - I thought the Alpha spy had mentioned my name in their group (as obviously Qikz knew I was in the Charlie chat) and that Mommy, in his usual scattershot way, had just thrown information everywhere. I was worried about Mommy than the Alpha spy, as I thought the Alpha spy might be playing it similar to me.

The other comms Moggy was getting from Mommy also suggested that he (Mommy) was just going to get the names of the spies and throw them into the open. Sort of like how it happened in Tribe versus Tribe - one player just outed most of the playerbase.

I came quite close to just offering to work with Moggy to get rid of Alpha (though the rules incentivised him to keep the
Alpha spy alive). I was very much aware that, if I was found out, I'd probably need to quickly make overtures to Moggy - would be important to try and work together with the Charlies on the Alphas first.

I did then manage to compose myself, think logically and banked onto the fact that it may have been a copy and paste PM to everyone. I felt as long as Aaron and Pedz were alive and unverified, I could hide. No idea why Drummy got executed before me...

I also had another scheme I was half-tempted to put to Moggy - I was going to suggest we took the game's theme to a whole new level, get the alpha spy and actually just form a team of three spies, sabotaging every single team and ending up with just the three of us. Felt like it would be quite a shock to everyone (including OB). Ultimately I decided to play the game "straight", as I didn't want to betray the Bravo team members who were invested in the game.

Would Moggy have accepted that offer, I wonder...

Moggy wrote:

Parksey wrote:Regarding Rula/Qikz, I don't think Moggy named Rula in his PM.

Was just a silly text I sent hoping to spread some doubt. I changed the name of the bravo team member to each person I sent it to.

I thought he'd been named in the group chat as well, though I was taken anything said in there with a pinch of salt. Rula's name definitely wormed its way into my mind at that point, and imagine this is why the group later killed him. Can't remember if we were talking about verifying more at that point (I had Preezy and Roon verified, and Dan felt trustworthy), but I guess reporting your message back to the trustworthy lot got Rula killed.

I definitely would have accepted it.

I like maximum chaos in games, the three spies strawberry floating over everyone else would have been right up my street.

Moggy wrote:I definitely would have accepted it.

I like maximum chaos in games, the three spies strawberry floating over everyone else would have been right up my street.

I had a feeling you might - you mentioned in the group chat about wanting to fire missiles in order to have chaos.

Sort of regret not doing it and seeing how things worked out (and people's reactions at the end when it was obvious what we'd done). I had the message I was going to send to you mostly thought out in my head.

Had I felt like my life was in imminent danger I may have just gone for it (the two deaths in Charlie, before I died, happened as I was cooking dinner - I'd only just noticed Drum and Aaron going, before I went as well, so had no time to react).

Might have ruined the plan from the start though, had I reached out to you as the Charlie spy and then Rula as the Alpha one...

Moggy wrote:I definitely would have accepted it.

I like maximum chaos in games, the three spies strawberry floating over everyone else would have been right up my street.

I would've gone for this as well.

Herdanos wrote:Roc, what was your reaction when I sent you that PM?

Honestly I was already planning to move us from X as I suspected you maybe know we were there, but obviously that solidified it.

The only change it made is that I was planning to shoot one alpha member but we were already in contact with them too - from that pm and others I realised your team was clearly more engaged with the game as alpha were barely responding/taking ages to get back to me so I figured you both having 3 players would be more beneficial than Charlie helping to decimate their team.

Basically it stopped us from killing one alpha player that turn but we knew you were being disingenuous in your overtures so it didn't shape too much. Gave me a good laugh though.

Thanks for running the game ob, was good fun. I'm not sure if we could have maybe had a few rogue spy's or other special roles involved - the main issue I think was towards the end game where there were a few days of no real action.

Mommy Christmas wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Herdanos wrote:Oh my god

I wasn't sure if you'd realised or not

We were planning to move from X then anyway as we'd raced to the spot and knew your "if we both get on it we'll team up" made no sense. Just confirmed to us not to fire any missiles on alpha that day though as we tried to solidify an allegiance there.

Your movement was insane, we must have fired just as you moved from spots so many times.

I think the last 4 or 5 attacks were foiled by them moving from the spot that was hit.

This was exactly it. Bravo played very cautiously and stockpiled an arsenal of firepower pretty much as powerful as possible in the game. It seemed to me they were unstoppable, but then it became clear that if Alpha and Charlie worked together they could fire 2-3 missiles each at Bravo per turn, which would just about counterbalance the weaponry held by Bravo (this became especially true when they missed with their nuke). Dan's PM clanger pushed Alpha and Charlie together and made this happen – but then Bravo danced around the missile fire (or stayed still and bluffed A&C to hit the same tile again) every turn until the end. I think it was partly luck but also partly clever play by Dan wording PMs to give the impression they were on a different tile.