The Hannivalia Crisis 1891 [AYAW] - The End (page 137)

It's been great reading thoughts on the game and I'm glad in general people seemed to enjoy it! There are some comments I'd like to reply to but first: I promised a restrospective and I wrote too much - this post is entirely just about the game setup and balance, not much specifically about how the game played out! I will write another post about that later

Design Objectives

Overall I had two main objectives for the setup:

1) Make the debate over rule variants part of the game
2) Create a game that is balanced

I think there was an inherent contradiction in trying to achieve both, but I gave it my best shot!

After most other AYA? games I've played on here the discussion of game balance and rule variations gets brought up (often I admit by myself). There are always proponents on either side, often holding strong opinions (again, myself included!) which I thought would make a good basis for a meta element to a game that could incorporate that debate.

The idea of voting on rule changes as part of the game is one I have had in my head for a long time and has roots in the game Nomic, a game entirely about changing its own rules that I have run twice now on GRcade. More recently in the forum games thread discussion came around to a similar idea (I remember Dan specifically suggesting a combination of Nomic and Mafia) and that encouraged me to flesh my idea out into a fully formed setup.

The players voting on rules each day alongside the game playing out was the core of the design and the parliament themeing followed naturally from that. Defining those laws was then one of the most important aspects, and I especially wanted to include what I saw as the "Big 4" variations that get debated - an open vs closed setup, allowing outside communication, a vote to lynch vs a vote for mayor, and an inactive cull. My secondary concern was then in trying to balance the laws to not be entirely one-sided in their benefits and to make debate over which to prioritise and implement interesting.

It made sense that the initial setup of the game should be at its most basic so that the laws felt like additions rather than reductions to the game. It would have been odd for example to include an inactive cull in the initial setup and give the option of removing it as a law, or to allow who is online with the option to block it. When it came to knowing the roles in play it was necessary that the game start closed with the law there to make the setup open. Even though the laws followed that trend then in "opening up" the game, I was aware of making sure there could be both benefits and downsides to the town and the mafia for each of them.

The two most impactful laws by far in the way the game played out were the State Secrets Act to make the setup open and the Private Communications Act to allow all player to communicate in private.

With open vs closed setups (that is, whether the number and nature of roles in play are publicly known), that has a huge impact on game balance and I think creating a game where that changes was the biggest contradiction in trying to achieve balance. Closed setups give space for more roles because there is much more uncertainty in role claims, and having extra roles in a close setup can be very useful to give the town better odds given it is much harder to deduce what is going on and the state of the game. Closed setups allow for more speculation but I also find them much more likely to lead to frustration, especially in the late game, if the town can never feel like they have a grip on what is happening.

What I think went well in the game with the transition from a closed setup to an open setup on day 3 was that the initial closed setup allowed for more speculation in the first couple of days which really helped the game get going and be interesting from the off, but then there was no (or at least very little) frustration in the mid and end game down to the rules of the game being too unclear.

In retrospect it probably would have been more balanced to have only made the game semi-open - that is, a set of roles could be made known but exactly which are in play and how many would still be unknown for people to speculate on. This would have given the mafia more space to hide also.

That squeezing of places to hide was in large part due to the high percentage of roles. As a general rule the hard limit on balance is that there should be more standard town players than those with named roles. That way if a mass role claim is made, night kills can work through the special roles quicker than the lynch can work through the regulars which must contain the mafia. The near fifty-fifty split in MPs to roles was probably fine for a closed setup as the game started but too much for an open setup which the game became.

In choosing the roles I did I considered that role claiming is not a popular strategy on GRcade (in fact I have never seen a mass role claim) and so I was happier to run the risk of including more roles. The way I saw it it was a tradeoff between potential but unlikely imbalance and having more engaged players due to more of them having roles.

That gamble on an "unlikely imbalance" partly held true in that there never was a mass role claim! I think the game as it played out could have been as good as over several days earlier than it did end if there had been one. Even in private it seems not all roles came forwards to the essentially known-town seer circle. Where the game tripped up on the unlikely imbalance was in the first seven kills all being MPs! While the game started with MPs outnumbering special roles that early run of only MPs dying had a significant impact and was one of the major factors in the Conformists losing.

One of the points of balance I paid particular attention to was in maing sure an invincible protection circle couldn't form, no matter the combination of laws in play and without changing the role of a mayor to be out of the ordinary. That's why there was only one doctor who couldn't protect himself and why the Fanatics were included with their one-shot strongmen kills. I think this was succesful - while a seer circle did dominate the game, the Conformists had plenty of opportunity to disrupt it, but chose another strategy in hunting for the seer.

I also thought about "swing" a lot. To make a game feel balanced I think the impact of random chance should be lessened on the game and positively reinforcing actions avoided. Having deputy roles is one of the easiest ways of achieving this - it doesn't overpower the town like giving them an extra concurrent seer or doctor would, but it means a seer and doctor are much more likely to remain in play. The two strongmen kills were similarly divided between two Fanatics rather than given to one so that the power couldn't be lost with one unlucky death.

It's usual on GRcade for the mafia to start the game with more than one night kill, reduced only after losing a certain number of players, but this is inherently swingy - if the town by luck can reduce that kill rate earlier in the game, it has a postively reinforcing effect on the town doing well, whereas if the mafia start out well and keep those kills it accelerates them towards a win.

On the subject of the mafia, I was surprised when everyone thought seven to be a lot. I think this is roughly in line with the recommended ratio, and perhaps the perception of it being a lot was because of the mafia having multiple kills being more normal on GRcade. The general rule I used to decide the ratio of mafia to town was to start the game with a balance between codemns to win and miscondemns to win. To explain, a condemn is a lynching of a mafia and a miscondemn a lynching of a townie. With 7 mafia out of 32 players, the game was roughly balanced so that the first possible town win was in as many days as the first possible mafia win - in fact it was slightly favoured to the town, but with the serial killer having 3 kills that were more likely on odds alone to balance that out.

A higher ratio of mafia I think is just more fun anyway and good for the game as it makes finding them by pure chance more likely - which is often what is needed to get a game going, as it's only once one mafia is found that post histories etc. can be more meaningfully examined. I think seven was a good number!

That covers open vs closed setups and the choice of roles, but it was the combination of an open setup and private communication for the town that really swung the game in their favour. I've made it clear in the past that I myself am very much against the town having private communication for several reasons, and while I didn't set the game up to try and prove a point I think this game bore that out. In thread activity dropped noticeably on the introduction of PMs, they enabled the seer circle that carried the game, and all things considered I think it made the game more boring to spectate and probably for those not directly involved with the seer circle or mafia more boring to play. If this game and the contrast between those early days without PMs and those after helps win others over to the idea of games without PMs, I'm going to consider that a success

I've written an absolute essay when "design principles" was just meant to be the first of several headings in my game retrospective, so I'm going to stop there for the moment. Absolutely though I will write another follow up to this with more of a breakdown of how the game actually played out and moments I want to comment on!

gg

Really interesting to hear your thoughts when designing and balancing the game OR. Generally I think the village over-relies on the seer setting up a circle of trust (I'm guilty of this also when playing as a villager), but as soon as it actually happens the game does become a lot more boring for those not involved. Because of this reliance I think there is far less analysing of posts and voting histories than perhaps there should be, I think Balladeer made the point in the Spectator thread that he would normally expect everyone to be posting daily suspicions in these sorts of games which I think doesn't tend to happen on here. I'm with you in that I think no PM games could end up being a lot more interesting, although I would fully expect the Mafia to run away with the first one while everyone gets used to playing the game differently.

sawyerpip wrote:Really interesting to hear your thoughts when designing and balancing the game OR. Generally I think the village over-relies on the seer setting up a circle of trust (I'm guilty of this also when playing as a villager), but as soon as it actually happens the game does become a lot more boring for those not involved. Because of this reliance I think there is far less analysing of posts and voting histories than perhaps there should be, I think Balladeer made the point in the Spectator thread that he would normally expect everyone to be posting daily suspicions in these sorts of games which I think doesn't tend to happen on here. I'm with you in that I think no PM games could end up being a lot more interesting, although I would fully expect the Mafia to run away with the first one while everyone gets used to playing the game differently.

Funnily enough that's what tipped me off on Clarkman being suspicious, because he kept going on about analysing voting then never actually doing anything himself (he also avoided voting a lot).

I definitely think no pms is the way forward, people just need to be more confident coming out in the thread with information.

What the strawberry float is Bladeforce

Really liked the theming of the game and the law passing mechanic. Only gripe with it would be, and maybe this was just because of how the game played out, it felt to me like most of them were entirely superfluous. I never really had to deliberate over which to pass.

Sorry if my role claim across as stroppy, it wasn't at all though I can see why it sounded so. It is pretty boring having nothing to do in these games time after time. The role claim was a kind of live fast die young tactic to spice things up a bit, when I did it I did not expect to end up making it to the end with a victory. I went through a phase of a few years not playing these and since coming back to a few recently the games seem quite cliquey with people having a group they play with regardless of role assignment.

Seems to me the PCA call helped swing the game to Parliament, though clearly Ob played his role very well which is largely why we won. I think Conformists let role claims get away from them which ended up being why they couldn't fight back. I get Parkseys point about chasing a moving target but I don't think this was the case early on.

Kinda sorry I helped kill the game with the PM's as generally I don't like those circles and was why I tried to keep engagement up as I found myself still alive. This is going to sound bitter, someone already claimed I was in the thread, but I'm interested to hear why Ob chose to contact Mommy and not me when I think I was clearly the safer choice. I mean evidently it was a successful choice, but it just seems an unnecessary risk and I guess comes back to why I think sometimes it can feel like you're not part of the 'in' group.


Overall really nice game OR. It got me wondering about how else to keep activity in the game and in place of Seers if you could maybe have the dead drop clues.

Had fun. Well played everyone.

i do think the games are better without a protection mechanic, and i liked the lack of pm's to start with

needs some work but i think the seer position can be retooled into something useful but less encouraging of the that sort of circle play

Captain Kinopio wrote:What the strawberry float is Bladeforce

Probably a crap version of Power Rangers.

I'm just sour because i wasn't invited to join it.

sawyerpip wrote:...although I would fully expect the Mafia to run away with the first one while everyone gets used to playing the game differently.

That first game was AYA Hitman, which did go to the wolves. I fully expect a second no-PMs game to go the wolves, as well. PMs feel a lot safer than the thread, where you always feel as though you're on the firing line depending on what you say, and I suspect that's why the meta formed as it has here. I'm a bit guilty of that myself when asking the Bladeforce PM group rather than the thread what their opinion of Moggy's action were.
__________

Interesting thoughts on the game design, OR. A lot of work definitely went into the game.

One of my favourite posts was this beauty from the death thread, courtesy of Dan:

Herdanos wrote:I think it's telling that you've essentially presented a "blank slate" Mafia/AYA game to GR and within days they've implemented a ruleset to create a mayor and enable a protection circle.

I enjoyed the game in the format it was played, but if it was going to be remixed and replayed, based on the suggestions and comments made by players, I would think these changes could work:

[*]No set roles, other than obviously setting conformists / wolves at the onset

[*]Each position would be openly voted on in parliament and held for a small number of days, say 3 in total, before being voted on again. Anyone holding a role would be unable to be elected in to that same role in the following election, creating rotation of roles within the player group. The roles would need slight tweaking in order that they would benefit both sides, creating a risk that a wolf was being given a risky power (executioner), or that information given by a seer was actually given by a wolf elected into the role

[*]PMs really changed the game from the wolves perspective, and there is some debate to them. Personally I really enjoyed having them as a wolf, but hated not seeing the debate held by MPs. I would reduce the ability to a limited number of people who have been elected into the role - say 4 MPs at any given time. I am tempted to say allow the wolves to PM at the onset, but remove it once the equivalent role has been enabled for MPs, forcing wolves to attempt to gain roles which are more important to them, or use coded messages to communicate in the open

By adding a voting element on the roles, everyone would be given the chance to hold specific roles and part of the process and co-operation between players would be key. Obviously there is a lot of work involved in figuring out balancing in these types of games, which I haven't taken into consideration, but I think voting of all roles is a natural extension to this format (as some voting of roles was already a feature of the game).

OrangeMKN wrote:I've made it clear in the past that I myself am very much against the town having private communication for several reasons, and while I didn't set the game up to try and prove a point I think this game bore that out. In thread activity dropped noticeably on the introduction of PMs, they enabled the seer circle that carried the game, and all things considered I think it made the game more boring to spectate and probably for those not directly involved with the seer circle or mafia more boring to play

Absolutely, it's the cliquey bullshit like "Bladeforce" that ruins it for everyone else. It's easy to discuss things in thread, and it's shitty that you don't share your opinions with everyone who's playing

So here are my thoughts:



As I said, it wasn't just one thing, it was all of them.combined. the SSA, combined with the roles, combined with PMs, combined with the smaller playerbase, combined with the large number of wolves, combined with the IPA etc. They ultimately made.it quite easy.to build up a bank of players who were just completely known and I think the game is better when it's more speculative (and often outrageous). I think just removing one or two of these things would have made it a little more balanced.

Captain Kinopio wrote:Really liked the theming of the game and the law passing mechanic. Only gripe with it would be, and maybe this was just because of how the game played out, it felt to me like most of them were entirely superfluous. I never really had to deliberate over which to pass.

Sorry if my role claim across as stroppy, it wasn't at all though I can see why it sounded so. It is pretty boring having nothing to do in these games time after time. The role claim was a kind of live fast die young tactic to spice things up a bit, when I did it I did not expect to end up making it to the end with a victory. I went through a phase of a few years not playing these and since coming back to a few recently the games seem quite cliquey with people having a group they play with regardless of role assignment.

Seems to me the PCA call helped swing the game to Parliament, though clearly Ob played his role very well which is largely why we won. I think Conformists let role claims get away from them which ended up being why they couldn't fight back. I get Parkseys point about chasing a moving target but I don't think this was the case early on.

Kinda sorry I helped kill the game with the PM's as generally I don't like those circles and was why I tried to keep engagement up as I found myself still alive. This is going to sound bitter, someone already claimed I was in the thread, but I'm interested to hear why Ob chose to contact Mommy and not me when I think I was clearly the safer choice. I mean evidently it was a successful choice, but it just seems an unnecessary risk and I guess comes back to why I think sometimes it can feel like you're not part of the 'in' group.


Overall really nice game OR. It got me wondering about how else to keep activity in the game and in place of Seers if you could maybe have the dead drop clues.

Had fun. Well played everyone.

I think you held the game together a lot of the time. It was a good role to have in the game and well played by you. OB was paranoid that you had somehow managed to secure a wolf role (pretty much to the end) even after I discussed my conversations with you. I had no doubt after you revealed in the thread.
I wasn't privy to any of the bladeforce stuff. Kinda glad to have been away from that, I'd probably have been caught out more.
The "thing" was a potential switcheroo between OB and me (or Darkrula) where I claim I'd seered OB on night 1, he was the Noble and was the seer. The plan would keep him alive one more night.
He wanted a martyrs death and was ready for it.
Hats off to the remain 2 Conformist for the ending they created. The detail put into this game was great.

Parksey you say my ‘strop’ and Mommy’s announcement would have been punished in other games but there was nothing stopping you punishing these ‘mistakes’ which clearly in your view completely fortuitously helped the Parliament.

There were several days when you just let us both live when there was ample opportunity to bump us off. Rooney was basically inactive and it wasn’t till Hypes in the last couple of days that we had another confirmed good guy.

I don’t think this game was unbalanced at all. You just chose the wrong tactic and Ob played a blinder.

It's great to read the analysis, I've enjoyed reading these post game comments. Plus it sounds like we've got Nun's December Mafia and Mori's Easter AYAV on the way

I know I already touched upon this in the dead thread but I think there needs to be a hint of the unexpected in future games (unless they're - for want of a better word - advertised specifically as a "classic" format with no twists!) but, of course, that carries with it an element of risk, as you may disappoint players who learn towards the end of a game that the game they thought they were playing is actually another game altogether.

It's tricky to think of something unexpected or unanticipated (it doesn't have to be something 'secret' at the point a game begins, it just has to be different) as the purpose of the FGTG was to discuss potential variations on existing formats, but to do so too much removes any element of surprise. For example I'm pretty sure my all-vigilantes game wasn't a surprise to some people given I had suggested the idea a little while beforehand...

I do think there are elements of the format that we take for granted though. One of these was something Karl and I removed in Cannibal House but it definitely made the game imbalanced - lynch votes had to be in-thread. The "traditional" GR AYA? format has a publicly elected "mayor" who runs on a platform (that they can change once elected!) of two potential lynchees; however, votes for which of the two players wish to kill are made secretly to the GM. I think there's merit to this structure, as the hidden element benefits the unpredictably of the game for all factions. "Everyone in the thread says they voted for X, why did Y die? Are players lying? Do informed secret roles know something we don't? Was it rigged?" Etc.

I think I've been won round to the idea that no outside communication is preferable, too (whether this extends to wolves too, I'm unsure) and I actually think that you could play a very "vanilla" game using the "traditional" ruleset without making any other changes beyond prohibiting PMs or any other form of non-thread interaction. The main motivation (I think) for adapting the "original" setup was to prevent protection circles - but there's not as much harm in there being (to use the old terms) a mayor, a seer and a witch doctor all in play if it's not possible to speak to one another secretly! But having those roles in play allows the village side to approach things tactically, whilst also allowing the badduns options in the way they approach the game - do they have players pose as a seer? Do they attempt to control the mayor's position? Etc.

There are loads of other things that could be done with the format. I don't want to make specific suggestions (because if they're ideas people want to implement they should do so without a potential twist being ruined!) but think of all the other aspects we take for granted. Of course, any change that impacts the way we play the game impacts on the way you'd run it. Phases, for example - we're so set on the idea that certain actions occur at the beginning or end of a phase. Sure, it's convenient to know when things might occur - but is it essential? Who's to say you couldn't add caveats to roles, so that certain powers aren't bestowed once a day at a set time, but are awarded upon completion of secret criteria? You could theoretically have far more special and powerful roles in play at once - but rather than a "lucky"* few be given these roles and all others be a villager or similar, the "lucky" ones would have easier criteria whilst others would have to do more to earn their powers / actions / etc.

(*I say "lucky" to illustrate the point but, as has already been noted, sometimes to be "just" a villager is blessed relief! )

We take it for granted that all the wolves mafia etc are hidden from the outset. But what if the alpha played in plain sight, working secretly in the background with the hidden players within their faction, but immune themselves throughout the game until it's lost or won? They could play against an elected village role in daily events to earn additional bonuses. Do they attempt to send one of their own in up against their leader? Does it make it obvious when they lose the game that they took a fall to gain, for example, an extra kill that night, or lose the village a seering?

Anyway I'm mostly just thinking out loud here now, and didn't intend this to be a long post So I'll leave it there. GG all and big thanks again to OR! OB MVP for sure.

Parksey wrote:The SSA especially was a no brainer - the town got all the roles revealed, the role PMs revealed, all the caveats etc revealed and intel regarding two redacted acts that sounded like good stuff. It was just a clear and obvious choice (and I think got 0 votes against it?).

IIRC Kezzer voted against it at a point where it was obviously going to pass, and that ultimately proved his undoing.

Well we'll have to disagree on that.

I am still of the opinion that going after named roles was just chopping off the head of a hydra, to see it replaced by another.

You were confirmed on Day 2 and I think Mommy killed Aayl on the morning of Day 3. SSA had already been passed and all the roles revealed. I think around 4 MPs were already dead (Drummy, Dan, Aayl, Sat). That left only 9 non-specials in the game, at a point where we had a role list, two known specials already out there, PMs already out there and the buffed power of the IPA (which removed doubt on all Seerings except the Alpha).

Crucially as well, ObBlov always knew more specials than we did. He had VlaSoul and Falsey Seered on Day 1 and 2 I think. We could never have eliminated his mouthpieces as we'd always be playing catch up purely on the players we knew about, let alone the ones we didn't.

We also didn't absolutely drop everything to go for the Seer. The people we were going for were players who thought might have something. A few like Jenuall, Tomous and Qikz, we thought might be the Seer *or* a Special.

Killing you and Mori would have been Day 3 and Day 4 kills. By Day 5, ObBlov had a wolf Seered (maybe 2, I lose track of things then) and he knew Qikz, Falsey and VlaSoul were specials. We would have spent two kills/days getting rid of two specials and ObBlov would have had three more. And then it was around this time that we knew DarkRula was the Backbencher, Room was the Occultist etc.

It would have been impossible to keep a lid on it, the gnie was out of the bottle.

I don't think we went for the wrong tactic, just that the key to our victory lay in hitting one player. The Seer was able to aim for 6 with better odds.

ObBlov still played a blinder being as accurate as he was, mind. Had he got the wrong target with Sprouty or Skarjo, I think we'd have pushed him pretty close.

And like I said I think the game could have been a bit more balanced so that the main influence wasn't who two players picked as their target each night. The game after the early period basically boiled down down to us with our one kill versus the Seer with their one check and who hit their targets. The other players and powers didn't really have much effect on anything, did they?

And I maintain our targets weren't actually that bad a guess, bar maybe Pedz and Preezy who we probably shouldn't have prioritised.

I wrote:Lots of stuff

Parksey wrote:Well we'll have to disagree on that.

Absolutely brutal

I do enjoy the big post game, game development and balance posts. Makes for interesting debate.

On my phone so tricky to reply to specific points of Dan's but there was a recent game where the alpha fought a nominated villager for an advantage each day. Think it was one of Karl's?

I just remember that dreadful pokemon match haha