A Perfectly Average Game [Mafia Win!]

Tinylightsflash wrote:@lux wouldn't it be beneficial for mafia to have more NL so that they can churn through townies and their killproofs at night without having to push one way or another in the discussion?
Also I'm gonna be super honest I kept acting on tiki because its similar to the name of a character in a manga me and Hayley read and I was clinging to familiar names (plus my action failed the first night so I did it again on the second night).

I might be a lot more active this rollover because my students gave me the plague :)

Admit it. You were able to instantly tell how awesome I am, and just wanted to give me all your actions.

This is completely understandable.

So, usually NL is better for mafia in terms of lowering information among town, yes. It also puts mafia into not quite as many situations where they can have their word flipped on them.

I guess the thing I'm more considering is mafia strategy if they have reason to believe (or know) that every town has bulletproof or a lot of protects.

If you go through two night phases without kills, and you think this to be the case for town's role distribution, what is your strategy then? Do you just cling to NL and let town talk and discuss and wait until some concrete information is revealed? Or do you push lynches? This is what I want to find out.

The reason I'm curious about the perspective of lynches being pushed largely comes from the ease and practicality of killing. If night is more unreliable than usual, whereas a lynch is theoretically a kill on a townie more often than not (unless town has good reads, which they might), the lynch then becomes a lot easier. Consider that if we had mislynched D1 and D2 (which is not hard to do and fairly common early game)... the ratio would now be 4:5. Meaning mafia would be a stone's throw from victory.

That said, they could elect to NL. Depends on how patient they are and how they wish to go about setting up future NKs. I am 90% certain they sent a kill in on me N1 to prime me for N2, so they could take out me and Five last night and leave ratio at 4:6, and then they just need one ML or panic fire onto a town from another town. Possibly one of their own shots if they still have it.

Bear in mind, the lynch was strongly pushing onto Rasei D2, so it depends on if you think she's town or mafia regarding what-ifs. Well, at least on D2. She might have changed since then for all we know.

This is actually a pretty solid strategy from them if they did all the things I think they did.

I will still dismantle them player by player, however.

Edit:

ezzelin wrote:Traditionally, when someone is converted, they turn vanilla bc recruitment on its own is very strong.

This is a fair point and Hayley might have done this since giving mafia another kill and bulletproof would be... strong.

However, it's... true this doesn't always... happen... with recruitment.

>w>

Luxaria wrote:

ezzelin wrote:Traditionally, when someone is converted, they turn vanilla bc recruitment on its own is very strong.

This is a fair point and Hayley might have done this since giving mafia another kill and bulletproof would be... strong.

However, it's... true this doesn't always... happen... with recruitment.

>w>

This is true but Hayley was also in the game where........ that didn't happen with......... recruitment........ and we all saw how that went, so I believe she would vanillize a convert in her own game.

Tiki The Average Troll wrote: Admit it. You were able to instantly tell how awesome I am, and just wanted to give me all your actions.

This is completely understandable.

Each action has a bouquet of flowers and a handwritten note attached: "senpai please notice me"

Yes, I thought that as you said it in your last post.

I daresay Hayley would have more reason than most to see just how strong a converted town is without stripping their powers.

Spoiler:

Damnit, running out of time on back-read to finish it and be useful.

Okay, quick thoughts.

Might be willing to lynch katagi or Aeiou to test theory on mafia fake-clear. Probably more katagi than Aeiou. ezzelin technically fits in here, but not... quite as much because I'm 90% sure the kill on her was from town.

Reasoning:

I thoroughly believe mafia sent a kill on me N1 and then tried to get me and Five N2. This would mean they submitted two kills onto Five and one onto me, which would be all three. If this is the case, presuming mafia has exactly three shots and not two and a recruitment (which is reasonable), then that means the shots on katagi and ezzelin came from town, actually.

There's a chance a town might have shot me or Five. Five dying last night might have been coincidence if mafia intended to fire a second shot at me to kill me and fired one at Five because yolo, and a town happened to shoot her, too. Consensus seems to be there wasn't much impetus to shoot Five or myself. If anyone would shoot Five, it might've been N1 after her claiming comments. On D2 all she did was back what I was saying about roles and didn't want to lynch Rasei based on what we understood, as I did not wish to either, and some others (Lucas, iirc).

If a town suspected a bandwagon NL to save Rasei, they'd get more from shooting Rasei, Lucas, myself, or someone that actually voted NL on Rasei. Five did not vote, iirc? Or maybe she did. Still reading.

My overwhelming assumption is that two mafia shots were fired onto Five to kill her. This is in line with how I've noticed people treat her when she's town.

Given this, that leaves the mafia at 1 kill and 1 recruitment, or 1 recruitment effect. If the former, I want to say it's most likely I was shot last night to try and kill me and happened to get jailed by town. If you guys are firmly in the mafia jail category, my only understanding would be town shooting me, which is why I keep asking if anyone had any clause to shoot me so I can better apply process-of-elimination.

If the shots were hypothetically straight-forward onto myself and Five, that would have meant mafia intended town to be at 4:6 today, which is a terrifying swing. I can see this.

Further, I'd say it's a lot easier to rule out mafia shooting ezz because it accomplishes little if they are doing a double-shot on Five (theoretically) and a recruit, versus just shooting myself, Aeiou, or katagi, who had all been shot and presumably lost our bulletproofs if we weren't protected.

If ezz's theory of a more broadcasted/telegraphed "kill attempt fail = conversion" from my perspective that'd mean only she could be the convert. This is why I am watching her carefully, but her responses aren't giving me strong mafia vibes right now. I think.

Thus if I want to do my top theory:

N0: Aeiou - NK
N1: katagi - Town!vig; Luxaria - NK
N2: Five - Maf!Vig, NK; Luxaria -Maf!vig; ezzelin - Town!vig

This would then mean there wasn't a fake clear attempt by mafia, in which case the plan was not as clever as I thought. Brutal evaluation (sorry): Which actually makes sense because if Five is town, I'm town, that leaves Tiki and probably Lucas and ezz as ruse cruise mafia candidates in the capacity I envisioned re: katagi or Aeiou being maf receiving maf!vig or NK. I feel like Tiki was probably town at the start of the game, though no guarantee. I also feel like ezz and Lucas have been fairly pro-town, though I've wavered on both at various points, so there's no guarantee there. There's always a chance I could be blindsided so I'm not completely abandoning ruse cruise theorems. However...

This does increase the recruitment chance on Aeiou or katagi. That said, the reverse of what Tiny says is true. If ezz is right and it makes a player vanilla, it's still arguably advantageous to take away a town that hasn't lost bulletproof, because that's still effectively stripping two required kills from town instead of just one. Why bother sending a kill in on a target on N0 or N1 that you might later recruit? Unless your end strategy was to recruit a pro-town target looking target, which is possible.

Regardless, this brings me back to Rasei

katagi, ezz, and TLF in that order voted on Rasei early. If katagi was a fake!clear, then her going after Rasei makes more sense. If katagi was town like my speculation might indicate, hmmm. ezz joined it, then TLF, and near the end She-Ra and Aeiou hopped on it. Aeiou again falls into the same issue as katagi.

Okay, D1 She-Ra got the second vote of the phase from Lucas, and then not long after Aeiou did a No Lynch, followed eventually by Rasei, then Tiki and Tiny by phase end. Aeiou's reasoning makes sense. Rasei's focused on not wanting to lynch Tiki and mentioned nothing of She-Ra, iirc. Tiki was mostly absentee, Tiny used new and proud comments.

On D2, She-Ra got the first vote of the phase this time also from Lucas again, and then the votes after this were drandahl voting ezz, and then katagi and ezz onto Rasei.

I'm focusing on She-Ra here because she was the only one that had votes both D1 and D2, as well as being in an interesting spot. At the time, She-Ra could have done NL to tie or put it onto Rasei to push it higher. So that's interesting. I need to re-read her reasoning, as well as katagi and ezz's reasoning.

So did anyone try to save Rasei... Tiki and Rasei's NL votes make sense. Lucas felt uncomfortable just about when Five and I were feeling uncomfortable, at which point Sammiya and Tiny also jumped in, with Sammiya mostly backing what I was getting at, I think. Sammiya's mostly done that this game, I think.

So was Rasei pushed or saved... Lucas started the save by saying someone probably voting on Rasei was mafia.

@ Lucas:
Between katagi, ezz, Tiny, She-Ra, and Aeiou, which player or players would you consider to be mafia?


Okay, so if we consider a mafia was pushing Rasei, were they doing so to save anyone.

It wasn't really contested at te time, meaning at most it was Rasei against She-Ra and ezz at one vote. On D1 the people saving Rasei, arguably, were first Aeiou and Rasei. Curiously Rasei was the one She-Ra was pushing on. So now we wonder: Did She-Ra gain anything as a mafia from pushing a lynch onto theoretical mafia Rasei? If they were going to recruit and try for a kill and/or double-kill, a ML brings them really in close of winning. She-Ra helping to lynch a mafia helps vet herself. Depends on how you weigh it. My guess is She-Ra and Rasei were not mafia together on D2 if we're being practical.

Okay if that's the case, Aeiou's votes both phases are awkward to parse given her timing and timezone, and also the light reasoning. I need to go back to read her vote on Rasei, which I will do in a moment. That said it helped to hammer short of a sudden jump of votes, which happened. It also means if Rasei was town or mafia, Aeiou would have the advantage of holding her vote to not appear too strongly attached to lynching a town, but also holds out hope a mafia might be saved. That said Aeiou had the option to push a kill when she voted D1 without looking too, too suspicious, and she didn't. Couple this with spec, it might be feasible to say Aeiou was probably town before last night phase and that her vote on Rasei had nothing to do with hammering her.


tl;dr:
I feel like I want to vote anyone from:

drandahl, (Lucas*), Sammiya, and possibly katagi.
I might be persuaded to vote any of Tiny, Tiki, and Rasei. I'd sooner vote Tiki of those three. Tiny I almost put in the lynch category, but I need to re-read some recent posts. Rasei I'm still parsing.
I'm not sure where to place She-Ra. She can fit into any of these groupings.
* Edit: Come to think of it, might remove Lucas from the specific "willing to vote this phase" considering he swung it off Rasei, who might have been town. Unless they're both mafia together, hmmm. Probably bump Tiny and Tiki up into the willing to vote category, more Tiny than Tiki, though some of Tiny's recent posts haven't been too bad. Edit: Plus come to think of it Tiki did feel pro-town due to meta circumstance D1 for whatever it might mean, though he could have been recruited. But that's a lower chance than just being mafia outright (1/4 vs 1/12).
I want to hold off on voting ezz and Aeiou for this phase, I think. A few factors indicate they might be town. I have no reason to trust either of them. I have no reason to trust any of you.

Going to back-read more for 30 minutes and THEN. TRY. TO VOTE.

Hmmmm.

Did I miss something...

I probably did...

Random thought, voting out someone with bulletproof theoretically intact arguably hurts us even more than usual if it's a mislynch. But someone with bulletproof punctured has a higher chance of being town unless they were converted. Bear in mind there's a chance the mafia are probably out or nearly out of vigilante shots.

Have I mentioned I hate the concept of conversions?

Edit: actually, re-reading my own spec, it might make more sense to flip Aeiou and katagi in that listing given that Aeiou was deliberately a kill from mafia and might have been a "setup" to look more town, whereas katagi arguably has a higher chance of appearing to be originating from town. That said... I also feel like Aeiou's timing of votes indicates possibly more pro-town play.

But then again conversion, but I'm trying not to look at that 100%. Especially given converting a target with a bulletproof might be better.

Hm why do I actually trust ezzelin.

must investigate.

unrelated I should probably study the definition of "quick" or "preliminary".

edit: I forgot how to spell cruise, apparently. cruse.......

I REQUIRE POSTS.

FROM EVERYONE.

YES YOU, THE ONE READING. EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT PLAYING.

actually come to think of it, an interesting point about balance to just clarify one thing that's been a little up-in-the-air at a few points during the thread and other places (read: my mind that builds towers of theories up into space)

I believe what we're seeing prevent kills is a bunch of bulletproofs instead of killproofs, which may be obvious but thinking about it, if everyone had a killproof that might be too difficult on town to have to do two of either a lynch or kill to get rid of a mafia. Nigh impossible.

So that said, if it's just bulletproofs, would mafia have them...

I mean I've been saying presumably, but if it'd always take two town shots to kill them... then again it'd always take two town shots to kill a town, assuming two town shot the same town target. So I guess that's fair, but also, doesn't that kind of invalidate the point--well, not really, because I don't think the gimmick of the game involves actually being able to reliably kill people so much as mess with people mentally by distributing roles as such because the host is a little shit. I guess there's just the chance to shoot mafia if town's really coordinated, which does reward good play, and meanwhile town can always lynch mafia as they're supposed to do.

That said if the theory of the convert being made vanilla holds true--and it does make sense given context and other factors--then that's one target that's easier to shoot. Might make sense if the recruiter is also without bulletproof, but we have no guarantee or assumption of that. We arguably know nothing of mafia beyond just what logic dictates they are probable to have based off of what we believe and know to be in town's possession.

Hmmm.

Lux your posts are awesome. Personally while I still think the convert would be someone with bulletproof I also agree with whoever said we should disregard that for now for reasons of not losing focus on the 3 consistantly mafia mafia folk we can go for and also because Lux's thing of not accidentally torching a bulletproof townie sounds pretty sensible.
I don't know who to vote for, but I don't want to vote tiki or lux and probably not Lucas (only because Lucas is nice and I haven't got much else to go on).

Also Lux, does bulletproof only apply to vig shots?

Luxaria wrote:I REQUIRE POSTS.

FROM EVERYONE.

YES YOU, THE ONE READING. EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT PLAYING.

I'm sorry. I'm catching up. I been playing Stardew Valley all day and got distracted.

Bulletproof: Prevents a death from being the night kill or target vigilante shot or guns or similar.
Lynchproof: Prevents a death from being lynched.
Killproof: Prevents one death from both of the above.

Luxaria wrote:Hm why do I actually trust ezzelin.

must investigate.

because I'm cute.

Also, while converting someone with a bulletproof makes sense in terms of getting rid of a bulletproof they'd otherwise have to shoot through, converting someone that's already used up bulletproof makes equally sense because they'd be recruiting someone that hasn't been considered suspicious. Both have their own benefits and I cannot agree purely on this that mafia would opt out to recruit someone with intact bulletproof over someone with not, especially if we are to assume three shots were mafia-originating last night, because that much firepower would leave space for gambit shenanigans tbh.
(To be fair, I'm not saying it's likelier that someone that's already been "cleared" by using up their bulletproof has been converted, but rather that in light of this, both are equally likely, tbh.)

ezzelin wrote:
(To be fair, I'm not saying it's likelier that someone that's already been "cleared" by using up their bulletproof has been converted, but rather that in light of this, both are equally likely, tbh.)

That makes a lot of sense actually. All the theories seem to have equally likely counter theories how do I even pick a vote.