The Twenty-First Dynasty of Kevan
January 19, 2018 — March 8, 2018
Ascension Address
- Day ten of the lockdown, and the military still escort cautious hazmat patrols through the empty streets of the city, searching and scanning for traces of contamination from the security breach at the nearby research facility.
- An open-backed truck pulls up at a tower block near the city centre, and a team in military fatigues jump out over the sides. They drag a plastic-wrapped supply crate down from the truck and across the street, and with some barked calls to the block’s residents to stay back, they unhook the hazard tape from the building’s doors for just long enough to shove the crate into the lobby.
- The doors resealed, the truck guns its engine and roars off to another part of the city.
- Rename “Director” to “Government” and “Failed Specimen” to “Resident”.
https://blognomic.com/archive/quarantine2
Players
The following players were active at the start of the Dynasty: Axemabaro, card, Cuddlebeam, Diabecko, Kevan, PineTreeQ, pokes
The following players were active at the end of the Dynasty: Axemabaro, card, Cuddlebeam, Diabecko, Kevan, pokes
Final Ruleset
Posts of Interest
- Crate Expectations: Base mechanics for the game. Crates were made over time and Alertness determined your order in the queue to get an item from it.
- One man’s trash is another man’s turtle shell: The Proto-Fiberboard proposal. Created an advantage in having low Alertness.
- Surge Pricing added Money (previously added as a worthless fuel source before being renamed) and allowed a victory for any Resident having 5 Money at the end of a Crate.
- Easier Money: Created the Black Market mechanic. A low-Alertness player would constantly make more and more Fiberboard (Diabecko at the time), so this proposal was designed by Cuddlebeam to "weaponize" such a phenomenon by making it an amazing source for Money and forge an alliance with them (via bribe).
- Balancing: Successful attempt to de-weaponize Fiberboard. (To due Cuddlebeam's alliance with Diabecko failing.)
- Rebalancing: Successful proposal by Diabecko to make Fiberboard a Money source again.
- A Better Stalemate Escape: With Diabecko and Pokes about to hit the victory condition simultaneously, Cuddlebeam attempted to preempt any 50/50 coin-flip between them by proposing a 60/20/20 coin-flip between one of them, Cuddlebeam and Card (the other active player). It failed, but general discussion covered 44 comments.
Ascension
Pokes, Diabecko, card and Cuddlebeam were the active players at the end of the dynasty.
Pokes and Diabecko were in the lead of the race to get 5 Money to win, with Diabecko ahead by a good margin due to the Fiberboard + Black Market combo. Cuddlebeam decided to then try to make pokes closer in range of having 5 Money (and then tried to weaponize the possibly imminent stalemate due to that), and thus committed suicide so that pokes would loot Money off their corpse (because they couldn't normally do transfers due to pokes having a Suspicious stance towards them and doing a seemingly idiotic action kept this plan a bit more secret). So at Crate #20, Pokes was at 3 Money and Diabecko at 4, with both having enough spare items to reach 5 Money each via the Black Market and cause a stalemate (if card chose to send a Money to pokes).
What happened after that point was a massive flurry of deals and deal-speculation, because certain agreements/decisions would result in an immediate victory or a stalemate due to two players being in range of 5 Money:
- If Pokes and Diabecko agreed among themselves who would win and have the other concede, one of them would win.
- If Diabecko and card agreed among themselves to have Diabecko win, Diabecko would win.
- If card decided to send a Money to pokes, the game would result in a stalemate and neither Pokes or Diabecko could win (or anyone in the game for that matter) until a proposal came to break it, there were more agreements involved, or someone got Knocked Out.
Axemabaro also unidled during the penultimate Crate, which could have been game-changing if they'd commented on a Crate and woken up - Diabecko's low Alertness put them at the end of the queue, and vulnerable to being attacked by Axemabaro who had potential access to a Crowbar. But Axemabaro didn't wake up.
In the end, card decided to send a Money to Diabecko, thus making them achieve victory, in exchange for a payment of [TBA, but it seems related to the mantle given Diabecko's comment and card's latest public post.]
Commentary
Very political dynasty. Secret and non-secret deals largely shaped and decided the game. Also, it goes to show that idea that early-game "advantages" mean very little - it's all up to the players who will choose what will become of those frills via their proposals later on. Yes, Alertness seemed to be the most important thing, but low Alertness was deliberately made to become really good - game-winning, in fact. The game we make here isn't a pure, fair thing. What people's silly numbers and game pieces ultimately mean largely depends on the interests of the other players, because if the situation isn't currently what we want it to be, we can propose/vote it to become it. (And then veil that intent with "it's fair/interesting/necessary/good") --Cuddlebeam (talk) 10:51, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Interestingly to me, the politics was contrary to my personal experience. I didn't finalize any deals, secret or non-secret, and still ended up with 4 money.
I do disagree with the frills: Getting this money was in part because I kept a high alertness which felt not frilly at all but allowed me to take items that were the most helpful in getting more money (fishing rod, gas mask) and defending my hoard (crowbar, rope). Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. --Pokes (talk) 12:47, 8 March 2018 (UTC) (edited 13:57, 8 March 2018 (UTC) to sound less aggressive and separate my points)
I'm surprised I got away with this one: [1]. Getting the Fishing Rod let me gain an average of 2/3 money each crate if I could keep the food instead of having to eat it, and was the only thing that enabled any competition against Diabecko. Pokes (talk) 22:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
