[EM] It's Not Personal. It's Business.

[ravenvii]

great narration as usual, ravenvii.

can you give us an update of our status?
and was there just the Consigliere or also a goon?,
it looks like the bazooka misfired again, so which wall was hit, if any?

Consigliere and a goon.

Yes, the opposite wall (in other words, doesn't matter)

You took 2 point of damage while Rodimus took 7.

Levelled up 2 levels, of course.

Let's get to the endgame!

 

[Don't panic]

ok then
let's get into the office and blow the Don's brains out

i wish QoS was her to perform the final act

 

[ravenvii]

"****ing piece of ****," Rodimus Prime heard the doctor say before the bazooka crashed to the floor in front of him, sending small bits of his own blood flying.

The doctor walked over to the woman, whose dead body is slumped over the seat, and picked up her machine gun.

Rodimus Prime nodded in approval. "Let's go and ****ing **** the Don up."

He would have liked to stride over to the door to the Don's office and kicked the door over in a dramatic manner.

But the pitiful shape he is in prevented that, so he settled for limping over as the doctor used the key.

And kicked the door open.

"Jesus H. Christ. Took you ****ers long enough."

Rodimus Prime limped in behind the doctor into a long office with a desk in the end. The walls were dark wood, the table dark oak, the floor dark oak. Everything is dark brown.

"Nice office. Time to sleep with the fishes, ****er," Rodimus Prime snapped, bringing his gun up.

jav6454 smiled and sat back in his high-back seat. Resigned to his fate, he still emanated power.

The Don of the Sanfilippo Family opened a drawer and took out --

The doctor aimed his gun, "whoa --"

-- a Cuban cigar. Putting it in his mouth and holding a flame near the end, the Don looked up at his would-be-killers with amusement. And a hint of mockery.

"****ing amateurs. ravenvii could've sent in one sneaker. Would sneak right in here and shot me in my ****ing sleep. ****er would've taken the mansion, then, and I get to die peacefully in my ****ing sleep. No mess, no fuss, see?"

jav6454 took a puff. "****ing Cubans. Goddamned country went to hell, but not cigars. Cubans make cigars, everyone else makes cigarettes."

Laughing at his own joke, the Don looked at the doctor, then at Rodimus Prime.

"Well, what the **** are you waiting for, your mothers to help you put your pants on and pull the trigger?"

"**** ya," Rodimus Prime said. Unfortunately for him, before he could pull the trigger, the Don suddenly pulled up a handgun that was laying on his lap, out of sight.

And shot Rodimus Prime in the face. One gunshot. Bang. Dead.

Not even his drugs could save him this time.

***

****!

Don't panic didn't have time to aim and fire his gun -- the Don is too quick at the draw. He managed to spin back and flatten his back against the wall outside the room, the Don's bullet barely missing his head, leaving a line of blood along his scalp.

"Peek in. I dare you, little ****er. I will ****ing tear your head off and send it First Class to ravenvii!"

Don't panic has no such intention, however. Digging into his doctor's bag, he pulled out the bombs guy's grenade.

His dying wish is to put this grenade to good use. And that is exactly what Don't panic is going to do.

Don't panic grabbed the pin and pulled it out. He had no idea where he learned this, but it doesn't matter. Not anymore. He counted the seconds. When his guts screamed "THROW IT!" he did just that.

He tossed it into through the door behind him, and ran.

"What the ****ing **** did you throw -- ****!"

BOOM

The whole mansion shook as Don't panic ran. Through the room that was rooms, pieces of walls marking where each room was partitioned. Through the hallway. As he went down the stairs as quickly as his barely-alive body allowed, the mansion, begun to collapse. The holes that the Bazooka made throughout the mansion took its toll. The grenade's explosion removed the mansion's ability to support itself.

As he neared the landing of the stairs, the whole staircase collapsed, sending him crashing into the ground, pieces of wood flying around -- and on -- him.

Struggling to his feet, he ran -- no, limped to the exit. He could see the front stairs, the drive way.

He screamed as he forced his body forward. The grass lawn is his entire world, his existence. His only meaning in life is to reach that lawn.

As he cleared the stone steps and his right foot slammed on the driveway, his body collapsed as the world shook. But that didn't mean anything to him. All that meant to him is that lawn. He crawled across the driveway, coughing blood and screaming.

As his hand finally came down on grass, he stopped struggling and lay there, facedown. He has met the meaning of his existence. Nothing matters anymore.

Behind him is rubble. The only thing that remains intact is the stone stairs and the patio. Beyond that is a ruin.

***

A man silently walks across the carpet towards a desk in a familiar office. The same office where the seven hitmen and hitwomen met for the first time.

Going around the desk, the man leaned to whsiper in the Don's ear. "Don Sanfilippo sleeps in pieces."

"And the assassins?"

"Only one lives."

ravenvii closed his eyes. "Make sure he is taken care of."

Straightening, the man silently retreats out of the office.

ravenvii opens a drawer and takes out a cigar. Don Sanfilippo gave him the box of cigars. 'Cubans make cigars, everyone else makes cigarettes,' he remembers the former Don saying.

ravenvii lits a fire and takes a puff.

jav6454 was right. Cubans do make good cigars.

***

GAME OVER

 

[Comeagain?]

FINALLY!!!!!!!

No offence, great narratives..just lasted forever.

 

[jav6454]

Well, at least I took out Rodimus.

 

[Queen of Spades]

Excellent narratives, ravenvii. Really fantastic, thanks for all your hard work. And great job making it a challenge, jav and SS..

Way to go assassins! Special shout out to mscriv for leading the charge, DP for his fantabulous maps, and Moyank for her huge sneaking workload.

Well done, guys. WIN!

 

[mscriv]

Thanks ravenvii, that was lots of fun. Great job to everyone on both sides.

 

[Don't panic]

yeah us!


well played everyone, including Jav and SS, and thanks ravenvii for running the entire show. Great Job.

very well balanced, with the advantage ebbing back and forth between us and the sanfilippos. Also everyone's special abilities were essential at some point for the end result. a true team victory.

 

[Moyank24]

YAY!!!!

Good job all! And Raven, what a job with the narratives and dealing with all of us and Don't Panic.

Amazingly this thread was started on March 25th! Talk about epic.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I've been away for a few days, but allow me to add my voice to those who have rained praise on ravenvii; great game, great narrative, and yes, it ebbed and flowed well, and was thoroughly enjoyable.

My thanks, too, to Don Jav - a pleasure working with you and for you. And well done the six trespassing assassins; congrats on a victory that was most dearly earned.......well done one and all.

 

[ravenvii]

RECAP

As you all know, I work full-time, and don't have much time during the week. Now that it's the weekend, I can finally do the recap.

So here we go.



THE FULL MAP (WITH LABELS):

The details that was sent to each individual player:



DON SANFILIPPO:

You are Don Sanfilippo, the head of the Sanfilippo Family.

You, along with the Enforcer and the Consigliere, have access to the full map.

During the game, you cannot post in the thread *at all*. Your only interaction in the game is between yourself, the Enforcer, the Consigliere and me.

Unlike the Enforcer and the Consigliere, you cannot move from room to room in the mansion. You will remain in the room the duration of the game.

You begin at level 1, with 1 AP and 1 HP. You will remain that way the entire game. It's up to the Enforcer and the goons/caporegimes/your assassins to protect you.

Your abilities:

At the beginning of the game, you have 5 goons and 2 caporegimes. You can place them anywhere in the mansion (except for the assassins' start position). You can only place one goon or caporegime in each room.

However, during the game, you can move the goons and caporegimes during the bad guys' turn. You can move each goon and caporegime up to two times during your turn. You can have up to three goons, caporegime or assassin in one room.

Every turn, you will earn $100. You use them towards hiring more goons, caporegimes and assassins. Once hired, you can elect to have them enter the mansion at either exits (the one on the left or the one on the right (where the assassins came through).

Goons: $100 hires a goon. The 5 goons you start with are level 1, 1 AP and 1 HP. The goons that you hire will come in at HALF the level of the HIGHEST level assassin, rounded up to the nearest whole number. For example, the highest-level assassin is level 5, when you hire a new goon, he will be at level 3.

You can hire as many goons as you can fit in your mansion.

They carry handguns, adding 1 AP to their AP.

Caporegimes: $200 hires a caporegime. They are the captains of your goons. The ones that you start with are at level 2 (2 AP, 2 HP). When you hire a new one, the caporegime will start at the level of the HIGHEST-level assassin, plus 1. For example, the highest-level assassin is level 5, your new caporegime will be at level 6.

You can only have up to 2 caporegimes in your mansion at a time.

The caporegime carries a Thompson SMG ("Tommy Gun"), adding 3 to his AP.

Assassin: $400 hires an assassin. Your assassin starts at the level of the HIGHEST-leveled assassin, AND will level up WITH the highest-leveled assassin. For example, the highest-leveled assassin is level 5. Your assassin will begin at level 5. And then the highest-level assassin levels up to level 6. Your assassin will, likewise, automatically level up to level 6.

Additionally, the assassin does not start with a weapon, but has the ability to pick up any weapons left lying around.

You can only have 1 assassin in the mansion at a time.



THE CONSIGLERE

You are the Consigliere. You are the communication link between the Don and the assassins. You are the only bad guy that can post in the thread during the game.

You begin at level 1, and stay that way. You can, however, pick up weapons to defense yourself in a last ditch effort. You have two turns every round to do as you see fit.



BOMBS EXPERT

You are one of the assassins, a Bombs Expert. You are, obviously, an expert with bombs.

You can toss a smoke bomb into a room to blind whoever is in it. The assassins can then go in, and preemptively attack (their attack will go first, then if the baddie(s) survives, it'll go into the normal battle as outlined in the rules post). You have 6 of those.

You also have dynamites. You toss it into a room, and anyone in there dies. Simple. You destroy any weapons they might be carrying, though. You have 2 of those.



TORTURE EXPERT

You are one of the assassins, a Torture Expert.

You are an expert in the methods of torture. You can torture a goon and he will reveal the room through a door of the room that you are located in, as well as who/what is in it. In cases there are more than one door, a room will be randomly selected to be revealed to you.

There is a risk, however: there is a 1 in 4 chance that you will go a bit too far, and the goon will scream, getting the attention of anyone in the room through the door (similar to above; in cases there are more than one door, a random room will be selected), and they will come running.



GUNS EXPERT

You are one of the assassins, a gun expert.

You are skilled with guns, and will gain twice the AP from a gun. For example, a gun will give anyone who uses it 3 AP on top of their baseline AP. For you, it will give a 6 AP boost to your stat.



SNEAKING EXPERT

You are one of the assassins, a Sneaking Expert.

You are skilled in sneaking into places unseen. During the game, you can separate from the party and sneak into any room. You will see the goons and will be able to explore the room for items or weapons.

You can a) attack any goon in the room (your attack will be preemptive, meaning you will attack first. If the goon survives, it will go into a normal battle). Or b) you can simply move to another room (or return to your team).

There is a risk, however; every time you enter a room, there is a 1 in 4 chance you will be spotted, forcing you into a battle by yourself with any goon(s) in the room.



MEDICAL EXPERT

You are one of the assassins, a Medical Expert.

You are skilled with medical supplies.

You have a shot that can jolt the heart, resuscitating the person from the dead. You MUST use the shot on the person within two rounds of that person's death, or he/she's dead forever. You have enough for 2 of such shots.

You also have bandages, alcohol, stitches etc, that you can use to heal any injured members of your party. Every "application" heals that person to full health. You have enough to heal 6 times.



FORMER DRUG DEALER

You are one of the assassins, a Former Drug Dealer.

Before becoming an assassin, you were a drug dealer, so you have some good **** stashed away.

Ecstasy: Slows down time for the assassin - doubles his/her turns to 4 turns for 4 rounds. You have enough for 6 "administrations".

Cocaine: heightens the assassin's awareness and reaction. Effectively doubles the assassin's level for 4 rounds. You only have enough for two "administrations".

*This in no way resembles real-life effects of the drugs. This likewise does not constitue any sponsorship of drug activity. Drugs are bad, mmkay?



(Note that the Enforcer role was eliminated from the game, and control of the NPC given to the Don)



My thoughts:

This was clearly a pretty successful game -- although a lot longer than I anticipated (I thought the game would be done by the time I start my current job, back in the middle of May!).

However, there are some points I wanted to address.

The first was the restriction on the communication abilities of the Don. That turned out to be unnecessary, and does not have any bearing on the gameplay at all.

The second was multiple bad guys. While the formula for multiple bad guys in the previous game (the one with three mansions) seems to be a success, if only the game lasted longer, this time I felt like the consigliere did not serve much of a purpose other than consulting with the Don and acting as backup.

The third is the sneaking ability. Simply put, it's too powerful. I should've limited it to one or two "sneaks," to be consistent with the rest of the game. This was clearly seen when Moyank24 sneaked into almost every single room on the second floor

Finally, whining bad guys. jav6454 and ScepticalScribe were fantastic bad guys and good sports, but they whine a lot. Too unbalanced! Goons too expensive! Good guys too powerful! ... To make the game fun, the good guys *should* win, or come very close to winning. In other words, this is not the [WW] games where the game is fun whether the bad guys or good guys win. I'm not sure how to address this -- either by percisely balancing the game -- which is what I was trying to do -- or "modifying" the expectations for the bad guys to be more of a "dungeon master" of sorts. In other words, the bad guys aren't here to win, but here to give the good guys a hard time. (I'm especially interested in you guys' thoughts on this one).

That just about wraps it up. Please give me your thoughts, so we can improve the next game (which isn't going to be anytime soon, mind you ).

Thanks for playing!

 

[jav6454]

I thunk the original prices should be given.

$100 gained per turn

$100 hires a goon
$400 a capo
$1500 an assassin

After whining and complaining we got

$200 per turn

$100 per goon
$200 per capo
$400 per assassin (originally was brought down to $800)

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I thunk the original prices should be given.

$100 gained per turn

$100 hires a goon
$400 a capo
$1500 an assassin

After whining and complaining we got

$200 per turn

$100 per goon
$200 per capo
$400 per assassin (originally was brought down to $800)

Not for the first time, I find myself in agreement with Don jav and thanks, jav, for pointing this out.

Much of the 'whining' concerned the perceived unfair balance of the game. As originally envisaged, whatever resistance we would have been able to mount would have been very limited. The changes in the rules (which came about after lobbying, and presenting our case), allowed a genuine contest to take place, and were a lot fairer.

I agree that the sneaking expert was allowed to roam far too much; some curbing of that power would be in order in future games.

Re my own role, traditionally, the Consigliere represents the family in negotiations, (which never arose in the context of the game), does the legal stuff (again, didn't really rise), and in general, negotiates and advises; s/he is not a combatant. Thus, I saw the role as a back-up for the Don, and as an advisor on possible courses of action to be taken. It really doesn't matter what the role is actually called - whoever the chief baddie is needs a sounding board and advisor; given the Mafia theme, calling the advisor a Consigliere makes sense.

Silencing the Don was unnecessary, as the game itself showed.

However, I'll readily concede that ravenvii was open to suggestions re tweaking stuff, which, eventually made the whole thing fairer.

I think that part of the frustration on our side was the fact that, apart from waiting for the money which accrued per turn, there really wasn't an awful lot we could do except save up and spend when the time came on goons, capos, and an assassin or two in the hope that some serious damage could be inflicted.

I also have a bit of a problem with the way the supplies were dealt with. Gun stores, medical supplies and gold were strewn around the mansion, and, if the assassins managed to lay hands on them, were of considerable benefit to them. Which is as it should be.

However, we derived no benefit whatsoever from them, and were unable to do so; moreover, we were also unable to neutralise them. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen some sort of random device whereby we could have occasionally either destroyed or made such supplies harder to obtain - or whereby we could have derived some benefit from them.

Having said all of that, it was a good and interesting game, and jav was an excellent partner. Ravenvii's narrations were also extremely good.

 

[Don't panic]

a few clarifications:

how did you determine which door the keys opened?
from the description it would look like a key for the office and one for the other doors, but clearly it wasn't the case, and the 'mansion key' only opened two doors.

what where the stats of the enforcer?

would drinking the alchool have any effect?


also, the final price list is waay to cheap for the Family, i think ravenvii got fleeced (or maybe there were threats to the family involved?). basically at every other turn you'd get a maximum level assassin. considering that the 'good guys' don't level up or heal, it means that unless they go for a quick finish, it becomes increasingly impossible for them to win.

i agree that the sneaking ability is too much as is. one per turn would be right.
but on the other hand you need to have some level of self-healing, so if time passes it's not only the bad guys who benefit.

 

[ravenvii]

a few clarifications:

how did you determine which door the keys opened?
from the description it would look like a key for the office and one for the other doors, but clearly it wasn't the case, and the 'mansion key' only opened two doors.

Basically, anything that's good behind the doors is locked with the Don's key. Not the most brilliant game design ever, but... yeah.

what where the stats of the enforcer?

Double the level of the highest level assassin, basically.

would drinking the alchool have any effect?

That was actually kind of a joke. But I might very well invent something if you guys *did* decide to pick it up.

 

[jav6454]

a few clarifications:

also, the final price list is waay to cheap for the Family, i think ravenvii got fleeced (or maybe there were threats to the family involved?). basically at every other turn you'd get a maximum level assassin. considering that the 'good guys' don't level up or heal, it means that unless they go for a quick finish, it becomes increasingly impossible for them to win.

True, but sending just an assassin against 6 guys would have been pointless. The only good scenario would be to send in the assassin and two capos. However, that requires a total of 4 turns to achieve.

You guys had the opportunity to obtain a second stash of medical supplies. It was in the second floor; however, you zipplined to me before getting there. The Mansion key would have given you that.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Yes, jav can confirm how exercised I was at the thought of the second lot of medical supplies falling into our trespassers' hands.

I agree re the need for self-healing to a certain extent; however, given how long it took us to acquire the necessary monies, our armed resources were a lot less than were generally assumed.

To ravenvii's eternal credit, he did take on board some of our arguments, which had the effect of making the whole thing fairer.

 

[Don't panic]

First off, the game turned out great, went down to the wire it was a lot of fun to play and to read.

that said, if there is to be another mansion game, i think a few things need to be addressed.

1. pace. there HAVE to be quick deadline for every turn (12 hours tops, possibly less). if you miss a move, you miss a move.

2. group system. the 'one boss decides all' i think is flawed and slows down the game too much, if the one in charge is for any reason not available. also it de-involves the other players. maybe a system where anyone can decide for the group they are in would be better.

3. gameplay is too predictable. basically our moves where almost always on automatic: moyanks sneaks into the rooms, we move to the next room. the gameplay is too predictable and leaves very little room for creative play. there should be more independence among the various players, and maybe more options in terms of the kind of moves to make. not sure what.

4. adventurers are too weak to split. in no cases we where ever i the position to split in different groups. and even if we were it didn't seem like it would ever be a good move.
maybe starting with two separate groups and not allowing a more then 3 in the same room for more than a couple turns (to allow reshuffling) or in some specific 'bottleneck rooms' (basically, different rooms have a max capacity, some will accommodate 6 people, some only 2)

5. bad guys are too powerful with the last 'price list'. they just need to wait, not engage and the good guys are going to be toast. especially if the 'adventurers are limited more or forced to split, the bad guys need to be limited very significantly.
probably you can start with more lower level guys and have them grow slower.

6. if there are more bad guys players, they should have similar level of involvement, this was a bit too unbalanced

6. there is an intrinsic limit in this approach in that in different phases of the game, one of the two groups is clearly at an advantage. this depends on the 'levelling up' so maybe it is that that needs to be reconsidered

 

[jav6454]

First off, the game turned out great, went down to the wire it was a lot of fun to play and to read.

that said, if there is to be another mansion game, i think a few things need to be addressed.

1. pace. there HAVE to be quick deadline for every turn (12 hours tops, possibly less). if you miss a move, you miss a move.

2. group system. the 'one boss decides all' i think is flawed and slows down the game too much, if the one in charge is for any reason not available. also it de-involves the other players. maybe a system where anyone can decide for the group they are in would be better.

3. gameplay is too predictable. basically our moves where almost always on automatic: moyanks sneaks into the rooms, we move to the next room. the gameplay is too predictable and leaves very little room for creative play. there should be more independence among the various players, and maybe more options in terms of the kind of moves to make. not sure what.

4. adventurers are too weak to split. in no cases we where ever i the position to split in different groups. and even if we were it didn't seem like it would ever be a good move.
maybe starting with two separate groups and not allowing a more then 3 in the same room for more than a couple turns (to allow reshuffling) or in some specific 'bottleneck rooms' (basically, different rooms have a max capacity, some will accommodate 6 people, some only 2)

5. bad guys are too powerful with the last 'price list'. they just need to wait, not engage and the good guys are going to be toast. especially if the 'adventurers are limited more or forced to split, the bad guys need to be limited very significantly.
probably you can start with more lower level guys and have them grow slower.

6. if there are more bad guys players, they should have similar level of involvement, this was a bit too unbalanced

6. there is an intrinsic limit in this approach in that in different phases of the game, one of the two groups is clearly at an advantage. this depends on the 'levelling up' so maybe it is that that needs to be reconsidered

I'll answer on a per number basis:

1. Agreed. Sometimes you guys took too long. I admit at first we struggled, but it was due to our Enforcer being absent, and then me being absent. A time limit will speed things up most definitely.

2. I don't know how to change that. I mean, you guys were given the choice, split or stick as a group. Y'all choose the group thing.

3. There were several creative moves you guys could have done, but I must say it was annoying to no end to see you guys just depend on Moyank24 to go in and explore. Just using her made this an unfunny game.

4. No you weren't. The only weak one was Koodauw. All the others could well be split into groups of 2 and you can well be all fine. specially if Rodimus would have given you all drugs before splitting.

5. And even then we were still limited. We were never at any point in time allowed more than 3 bad guys per room. Where as you guys moved in a group of 6. However, yes we had to wait, but as we waited you guys came closer to me and more powerful. That meant I had to spend more $ strengthing my forces. We asked ravenvii about making them stronger through investments, but his answer was only buying gets you stronger forces. Moreover, the prices were ridiculously high. I would have never been able to afford an assassin. Not to mention capos...

6. We had a nice ploy set up at first, but ShaunP took things into his hands and did some unwanted moves that ultimately benefited you guys. Then he disappeared.

7. What I think should be rethought is the inclusion of traps. Also, the drug dealer and sneaking agent need some dumbing down. Even ravenvii acknowledged how terrible it was to explore all 10 rooms in one turn. Waay too powerful. A 2 sneak per turn maximum should be placed. Also, either less turns in effect durability or less pills. 6 speed pills that last 4 turns is too much and left me and S always wondering how to make the best of our turn. That and the cocain should be reduced to a 2 turn effect.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I'll answer on a per number basis:

1. Agreed. Sometimes you guys took too long. I admit at first we struggled, but it was due to our Enforcer being absent, and then me being absent. A time limit will speed things up most definitely.

2. I don't know how to change that. I mean, you guys were given the choice, split or stick as a group. Y'all choose the group thing.

3. There were several creative moves you guys could have done, but I must say it was annoying to no end to see you guys just depend on Moyank24 to go in and explore. Just using her made this an unfunny game.

4. No you weren't. The only weak one was Koodauw. All the others could well be split into groups of 2 and you can well be all fine. specially if Rodimus would have given you all drugs before splitting.

5. And even then we were still limited. We were never at any point in time allowed more than 3 bad guys per room. Where as you guys moved in a group of 6. However, yes we had to wait, but as we waited you guys came closer to me and more powerful. That meant I had to spend more $ strengthing my forces. We asked ravenvii about making them stronger through investments, but his answer was only buying gets you stronger forces. Moreover, the prices were ridiculously high. I would have never been able to afford an assassin. Not to mention capos...

6. We had a nice ploy set up at first, but ShaunP took things into his hands and did some unwanted moves that ultimately benefited you guys. Then he disappeared.

7. What I think should be rethought is the inclusion of traps. Also, the drug dealer and sneaking agent need some dumbing down. Even ravenvii acknowledged how terrible it was to explore all 10 rooms in one turn. Waay too powerful. A 2 sneak per turn maximum should be placed. Also, either less turns in effect durability or less pills. 6 speed pills that last 4 turns is too much and left me and S always wondering how to make the best of our turn. That and the cocain should be reduced to a 2 turn effect.

Broadly speaking, I'm pretty much in agreement with this (very well said, my Don). It sums up our position pretty well, and points five and six are especially important.

Indeed, precisely because we were limited in terms of the numbers of individuals we could place per room, and also limited in terms of absolute numbers of 'specials', (capos, assassin) that we were allowed to have at any one time, and also limited in terms of how much we could accrue per round, our strategy and tactics were, of necessity, quite limited. We couldn't really move all that much (not that we ever had many to move), and our main strategy, such as it was, was to spend time in order to save money. Otherwise, we were toast.

As both DP and ourselves seem to have considered the game unfair as structured, an uncertain equilibrium possibly existed; in that context, it is a good sign that we are both quibbling.

Jav has done a very good job of pointing out how the ShaunP situation unsettled us; essentially, he went rogue and then vanished. I make no apology for requesting a more equitable distribution of resources, otherwise the game would have finished months earlier with the Don and myself both toast in an undefended office.

In fact, early on, DP had the original version of the second storey/first floor ominously accurate, so much so that we felt obliged to request a visit from our interior designers and decorators and re-structure the whole thing.

I still regret that we were unable to derive any advantage from the stores stashed around the mansion; I didn't mind the fact that our enemies could avail of them (I lie, a little; of course, I minded, but I minded much more that we could so absolutely nothing with them).

But, at the end of the day, corpses strewn everywhere meant that it was a closely matched game.

 

[Don't panic]

In fact, early on, DP had the original version of the second storey/first floor ominously accurate, so much so that we felt obliged to request a visit from our interior designers and decorators and re-structure the whole thing.

I knew it!!!!

see? one gets creative and 'the man' stifle him by changing the *actual* playing field!!!

i should have kept my maps for me a bit longer, so it would have been too late for them to be changed.

as far as alway using the 'moyank move' and sticking together, it was clearly a highly effective strategy. anything else seemed an inferior approach, so we stuck with it. that's what made it predictable.
and maybe we could have split from your position of knowledge, but from our perspective, it never seemed like a viable option, as be were barely making it as we were.

maybe one of the flaws is the secrecy. it's possible that if the ground ruyles and balance are discussed before (especially before anyone is assigned a team) then they can be better balanced. You lose some of the 'surprise' elements, but it also allow a better strategy phase.

 

[Don't panic]

i am not sure everyone realized were my maps came from.

I started with the maps provided by Ravenvii and then used a standard Proto-Heat Off-Tracing Orthogonal Spectrometer High-Order Permutation analysis to partially rebuild the map as it was before the fire damaged it

The rest was just educated guesswork.