Newbie Student Mafia XVIII - Page 24

On December 30 2015 23:27 Fidei86 wrote:
I have re-read the game from the start (yay no work!) and here is where my head is at at the moment. The reads are generally ordered from towniest to scummiest.

Town

Irishbound - I liked that from the outset he considered a wide range of players (see #408). Although I am null-y on Scott, it is hard to fault Irish's reasoning. Moreover, the fact that he has been on Scott for his posts, rather than some of the other low activity players (eg Onegu, Gigya) suggests that he's scum-hunting rather than looking for an easy out. Finally, I thought that his read on me was honest and the fact that he asked Alex for guidance (at #416) felt like a genuine cry for help.

Shapelog - I really, really don't like Shape's approach to posting. Spam posting like he does is a pretty effective mafia tactic to confuse the thread and dissuade people from reading their filter. HOWEVER, I note that he had more than a page of filter in pre-game. Moreover, his posting has struck me more as someone who wants to play the game and is impatient with everyone else (see eg #232). That, to me, is something that a relatively new player would find difficult to replicate as mafia. I also liked him criticising GB for giving him a town read at #302 - as mafia it's much easier just to take the read and pocket it rather than challenge it. Finally, his list post at #448 covered all the bases for a town list post for me.

The Cow - I am a sucker for people who post infrequently but give detailed reads and thoughts. His read on me seemed very genuine and is actually something I agree with, in that I struggle to condense my thoughts down as far as I would like, and I tend to focus on ephemera (tone, overall posting strategy) rather than digging down into the weeds of detail. I like that he comes in with strong reads on Scott and Kmatt, then follows them up with helpful questions. I think most people (myself included) have been giving Irish a free-pass so far, so it's very useful to have someone sense-checking that as well.

Null

Mderg - I like his pressuring on Noon/Kush as well regarding D1. Someone said in the thread earlier that they lynch scum 60% of games D1. I don't think it's that high for me, but mderg is right that a successful d1 lynch for town reaaaaally fucks scum. He has a couple of short posts that give interesting insight (eg #376), but generally he seems pretty focussed on pushing his kush / GB association without looking wider than that.

Alex/NM - Alex pointed out in an earlier post that my read on Scott was based on playing with him only as town. Fair enough. My reads on Alex are coloured by the same thing - we've been town together twice. He is doing his usual prodding / poking and asking lots of questions. One concern I have is that I see the progression for his Scott read, and his GB read seems to be foreshadowed at #391, but I'm not sure he really has given any particular read on Kush/Noon to date? I agree with the read, but I'm not sure how he got there.

GB - I have played with GB a fair few times before, but he plays differently every time and I usually rely on others to give a good read on him. Here, he has really given out town reads with very little supporting evidence (he 'liked' Alex's opening at (#195), when that was a JOKE OPENING!), and then placed a vote on Kmatt without explanation (#333). As an experienced player, this sort of high-read / low-analysis approach would be easily explained as either lazy/distracted town or mafia. Someone said that GB is in another game at the moment, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. There are definitely better lynches today.

Kmatt - The big red flag for me here is what others have already pointed out - he seems very reluctant to give reads. That is understandable for a new player in his first game (#383). He does make an interesting point on GB that I kinda agree with (#197 - GB trying to buddy up to the thread). I think there are a lot of better lynches than Kmatt, but he's definitely someone to look back at if he doesn't start firming things up through D2.

Scott - This is ugh. I think I'm actually better qualified than most people to read Scott, given that we've played three games together and I have given him a lot of attention in each. Yes, he and I have been town in each. HOWEVER, as I said before he has a number of different playstyles that seem to accord to how busy he is. And this is probably a mean thing to say, but I don't think he switches it up to keep his meta clean and I'm not sure he could. All that said, his content is totally garbage. He has had garbage content before as town. His read on Noon ("why would he TR me going against thread sentiment") is utterly idiotic, mostly because at that point there wasn't much thread sentiment against Scott AND because Noon's read was obviously weak. I don't want to jump straight onto Scott today because I think there are better lynches, and because (unlike others) he is very capable of coming back into the thread and being useful.

Scum

Gigya - He has a filter almost totally devoid of reads. His one TR is Irish (#214) but at the same time in his post at #192 he actually says that as Irish is experienced, the post could have been faked. ???. He also suspects GB for his "matter of fact town read", even though he agrees with it? The only thing keeping this from moving into policy is that he has a couple of posts where he talks about non-game stuff (#225, #228). If you have time to do that, you have time to play as well. This is how newbie mafia play, imo.

Noon/Kush - This whole filter makes me want to facepalm. He TRs Scott for saying he could "possibly jump" on someone else's read. WTF? I just don't understand this read at all - mafia are the ones who are going to hedge and give weak reads, not town. He then goes into a day-long "woe is me, D1 is so hard" stupor, which is (a) totally destructive to town, and (b) effective at hiding his thoughts on the game. Having said that, he then seems to basically mindlessly sheep GB onto his read onto Kmatt. I also don't follow his point about NM and KMatt whiteknighting, since a bunch of other people also came into the thread to say that timestamp analysis wasn't helpful. He then also prods a bunch of people into giving reads, despite the fact that he himself has given almost no content.

Policy

Onegu - Please all think of a world where we get to LYLO or LYLO-1 and Onegu still hasn't said anything, still hasn't been modkilled and still hasn't been lynched. He does this EVERY GAME HE PLAYS. And it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for town to win if it gets that far, because he is a total coin-flip and the easiest ML in the world. His content is totally absent.

I'm going to vote Gigya for now, but I'd consolidate onto Onegu or Kush if necessary later.

##Vote -- Gigya

On December 31 2015 00:53 Fidei86 wrote:
How many games have we lost because you've been a coin-flip until the end, and then you've been mislynched? And the sad thing is that in any of those games you could easily have been mafia as well. There's no way to tell because you don't post. You're more concerned about preserving your f'ing meta than you are actually helping to win the game and it drives me bananas.

If you actually want to help then give your thoughts on Scott/Noon/Gigya, or anything else really.

On December 29 2015 05:45 nooniansoong wrote:
When is this game starting though! I'm looking forward to it. I like playing with newbies like onegu.