EPT
Assassination Mafia Analysis
Contents
Ver Town Centric Analysis
Incognito Town Centric Analysis
Reflections on the Mafia
Setup Thoughts
Final Lessons
WELL...game may have been short but I think there’s some good lessons to take from it.
This game can basically be described as scum helping give the town leads, the town roles making a lot out of a very messy thread, and some luck due to the enormous Palmar swing+no assassin use. Some players played pretty well but there weren’t any outstanding performances outside of maybe Sandro. Due to the outcome this won’t be as detailed as usual in terms of uninformed analysis, but will look at principles and strategic ideas too.
My extra information from the start consists of knowing that the captain role exists, that the traitor is a mason with unlimited 1on1 pm power, and that the puppeteer can be mafia only. Hapa told me he would change up some of the roles from what I knew so I don’t know things for sure. Mafia can have any town role except martyr and medic I think. A couple people (stutters, half the sky, ksc) also accidentally sent me night action pm’s night 1 but I don’t think it changed anything since a lot claimed in thread anyway and none of them were up for consideration as last mafia anyway.
I also got Incognito, who if you don’t know is a rusty but incredibly skilled player, to look at the game and offer his thoughts (he had zero information), although I think he got bored after we figured out most of the game day 1 and there were too many posts so his stuff is truncated.
As town I like to start with a premise derived from game setup/player list to give me a pattern to search for. Mafia has an overwhelming amount of information in it, and you need methods to narrow your focus onto the most useful aspects. Sometimes this isn’t always possible but this game is unique enough that I think the following is a good heuristic:
Most mafia will either enter the thread late or with nothing substantial to say. Mafia have a lot to concern themselves with from the start here: they have to choose from a large pool of roles and plan their strategy against a variety of town blues and limited flips. Because of that necessity of dividing their attention, they will have less to spare on trying to seem townie right from the get-go. Thus my awareness will very heavily be on “night 0” and the first 12 hours of day 1. Mafia posts (if at all) will be ones that just try to “skate by.” As for the inverse, people who post substantial reasoning early that must have taken them some time/focus to think will almost assuredly be town. People who take a long time to post anything will be highly suspected.
The premise doesn’t need to be anything insightful like this. For example in Sicilian I looked over some contemporary games and saw mafia making bad first posts with certain patterns, so I started the game looking for that. Over the course of the game I’ll generally change change my focus a couple times. For example this game I knew the BM nuke would be a very divisive incident, and was looking closely for how people handled it.
According to this assumption, Bill Murray is highly likely mafia. He has made 2 posts. This is his entrance:
On May 10 2015 11:11 Bill Murray wrote:
Hey guys. This is going to be tremendous fun. With a group of players this good, I know that I will be improving my play. I don't care to give some general questions for everyone as well.
1) How do you rate yourself in terms of your play?
2) How do you rate others in terms of their play?
3) What would you change about your play?
Hey guys. This is going to be tremendous fun. With a group of players this good, I know that I will be improving my play. I don't care to give some general questions for everyone as well.
1) How do you rate yourself in terms of your play?
2) How do you rate others in terms of their play?
3) What would you change about your play?
His second post is giving posts to another player (who has only used 8 posts).
??????
I cannot possibly see a town player making these their first posts. Maybe I should explain this more but I think if you approach it from this perspective, Bill is almost surely mafia.
-KelsierSC sees this bad post, points it out, but doesn’t realize the gold mine he found I don’t think (just tells BM to make a better post wtf?). Okay this is actually an important point: I’ve never seen the value in giving people “wakeup calls.” It’s incredibly important to deny information to the mafia, as it is a LOT harder to catch mafia on their guard early on than relaxed. I caught nearly every mafia this game because they were simply not ready and made a couple weak posts at critical moments.
Right now Bill Murray is relaxed, he is not double checking his posts and make sure his stance is consistent with a townie ideology; he messed up. If you notice Bill Murray’s posting improves greatly over time, enough that he even made quite a few people believe he was innocent and even get pardoned. Remember all you need to do as town is to find one post or context where they have an action/words that cannot come from a townie frame, and you found a mafia. You do not need them to keep posting!! Bill Murray looked innocent the more he posted but it was irrelevant because his early posts and actions made him mafia. Case Closed. Next.
Day 1 Starts
-Also following the premise, Damdred, Visceraeyes, Glowingbear, KelsierSC , TalkingDead, LightningStrike, HalftheSky Rsoultin, and Trfel are not mafia. Too easy right? But these players are all clearly thinking about the game in detail, meaning their initial focus is not on a mafia strategy, making them much less likely to be mafia. This is a heuristic, so maybe I’m wrong on one of them, but I think this is a strong start.
-batsnacks traitor? just a feeling…If I try to put that intuition into logic, what he is doing from a town pov doesn’t make sense but he’s also focusing on what’s at hand, unlike a mafia. May as well ignore him for now.
-Rest of the first bunch of pages just smells like townies arguing unproductively with townies. Don’t see anything important said.
-Sandro is actually the only player impossible for me to figure out on day 1. I always think he’s town no matter. So I won’t even try, as he gets lazy as mafia days 2-3+.
-BILL MURRAY NUKES. Then nukes again haha. Blazinghand moves up the innocent chart. Still possible that he’s mafia for that, but that will be easy to see later on with a congruence test. The action itself is incredibly pro town as there’s no real case on trfel or marv.
Okay now this is an extremely important moment that you want to pay attention to. Most of the posts in the thread are just a waste of space since they are not leading townies any closer to finding mafia, but here is a weird situation that people do not know how to react to since it is completely unexpected. This means it’s a great time to figure out the mafia based on certain clues, so all my focus will be on how people react to this. As a bonus, I think its 99% certain Bill is mafia so I’ll be checking how people try to defend him. The key is not to see whether they defend him, but how.
-[Written postgame] For the people who defended Bill or were uncertain of him being mafia, I think this happened because they were focusing on the wrong things, like the possibility of him being an insane townie. But the idea that crazy people are more likely to be town (because of lack of fear) is not a rule, it is a heuristic. Thus it can be wrong. In order to confirm your heuristic usage, you need to bring in other factors. The best pairing with the “he wouldn’t do something crazy as mafia” is the congruence heuristic. Are his actions/words aligned? Does he keep his story straight? Is he coming from the same base point each post?
If you apply that to Bill, it should be quite obvious he fails the test hard. Several people noted that his posts were all over the place and not consistent at all. Just because he’s trying doesn’t mean anything. Thus the “insane townie” heuristic gets overruled because congruence is more important. The best mafia cases all come from when multiple quality heuristics converge. Some are more accurate than others, and in such cases where they conflict you have to go with the most precise ones first. Those are generally congruence and “he can only do/post that from a mafia mindset.” Both those apply to Bill.
Marv and Sandro are my two favorite players atm calling out BM like that. Damdred also looking quite solid, and Halfthesky gives off a good vibe. A few other players are looking town but don’t really help the town with their posts.
-4 mafia likely found.
BM Xatalos JAT Vivax. See the common pattern here?
On May 11 2015 23:25 justanothertownie wrote:
I know what you are doing if you are town but you need to keep in mind that this is a heavily post restricted game. This could be really counterproductive.
You want to lynch BH for saving a townie. What...?
The relevant question here is: Is scum BM also batshit insane? I know he is as town. This nuke has to be the worst scumplay 2015 if he is mafia.
I know what you are doing if you are town but you need to keep in mind that this is a heavily post restricted game. This could be really counterproductive.
You want to lynch BH for saving a townie. What...?
The relevant question here is: Is scum BM also batshit insane? I know he is as town. This nuke has to be the worst scumplay 2015 if he is mafia.
On May 12 2015 01:47 justanothertownie wrote:
BM has done really scummy stuff, yes. However he did it so blatantly and unnecessarily if he is mafia that I have my doubts about it.
Vivax on the other hand just can't help it.
BM has done really scummy stuff, yes. However he did it so blatantly and unnecessarily if he is mafia that I have my doubts about it.
Vivax on the other hand just can't help it.
On May 12 2015 02:50 Xatalos wrote:
About BM: Never played with him before. His nuke spectacle was basically an anti-town way of using the ability, so it might be necessary to policy lynch him or just Vig him. Typically crazy plays come a bit more often from town than scum so that holds me back from just saying anti-town -> scum.
About BM: Never played with him before. His nuke spectacle was basically an anti-town way of using the ability, so it might be necessary to policy lynch him or just Vig him. Typically crazy plays come a bit more often from town than scum so that holds me back from just saying anti-town -> scum.
On May 12 2015 02:52 Vivax wrote:
On my read so far I also had the feeling JAT was mafia but I really had nothing I could justify it with. On the other hand lots of people seem to think the same but I will need to find something tangible on my own.
The nuke business was pretty interesting. Trfel was in the scummish list of BH during N0 and D1 BH didn't really bother to even figure his alignment out before deciding the anti-nuke. He only asked a question but doesn't seem puzzled about whether he should use it or not.
On my read so far I also had the feeling JAT was mafia but I really had nothing I could justify it with. On the other hand lots of people seem to think the same but I will need to find something tangible on my own.
The nuke business was pretty interesting. Trfel was in the scummish list of BH during N0 and D1 BH didn't really bother to even figure his alignment out before deciding the anti-nuke. He only asked a question but doesn't seem puzzled about whether he should use it or not.
Key here is that they all felt they had to address BM but didn’t want to push him hardcore, so they have this awkward situation where they try to not get BM pushed but not look like they’re ignoring it. That’s what you gotta pounce on. Vivax did this with JAT actually, so I’m building a lot on association here, but I think the base is pretty strong still. The worst point about Vivax is that he’s ignoring BM completely while still obviously paying attention to what’s happening.
I always pay attention to the order people post things in. Oftentimes it's irrelevant, but mafia will sometimes unconsciously “hide” the incriminating things about their fellows they feel forced to write. In addition, when they are indecisive about busing, they will always a) start with the bad evidence against them b) find some excuse to not push too hard on it. My intuition is absolutely glued on this pattern; it’s easily one of my most successful tools. Of course it only works when mafia have suspicion they need to deal with...Thanks Bill Murray for doing that!
Damdred is possibly the 5th mafia for the same reason, but I also have to balance it out with the fact that he passed my start of game heuristic by solidly contributing when mafia should be focusing on their own planning, and I detect no other incongruencies in his posts. I can’t make a definite conclusion one way or another, so I’ll put this to the side for now.
On May 12 2015 01:41 Damdred wrote:
Can we not policy lynch vivax today XD maybe a day vig could just take him out lol.
I agree roughly that the pregame where BM gave his posts up and didn't do much is kinda meh. It helped me immensely at that juncture though. As such the excuse that BM used to fire the nuke isn't necessarily the least believable thing I've ever read. It's based on meta yes but I didn't feel it was horrible, it could have led to some really useful information and its a pity that it didn't.
(10)
Can we not policy lynch vivax today XD maybe a day vig could just take him out lol.
I agree roughly that the pregame where BM gave his posts up and didn't do much is kinda meh. It helped me immensely at that juncture though. As such the excuse that BM used to fire the nuke isn't necessarily the least believable thing I've ever read. It's based on meta yes but I didn't feel it was horrible, it could have led to some really useful information and its a pity that it didn't.
(10)
-Can’t really figure out the last mafia at this point. I’m guessing the last player is someone more skilled not to fall for this trap. I introduced Incognito to the game, and after some reading he came to literally the exact same conclusions as me with no prompting, quoting the same posts.
-More useless posts just murking up the game for town. Let me make this clear: there is no valid case against Blazinghand. Stopping those nukes is a pro-town move, so if you want to move on him you better have some damning evidence otherwise, and there is none that I’ve seen. Frankly there’s not really much of a case even on him, just a bunch of rationalizations that began with “I don’t like his attitude.”
-Oh maybe got the last mafia, Palmar was doing a good job I felt until two posts:
On May 12 2015 23:09 Palmar wrote:
you're right that was a bit dick-ish, sorry LS
But the point stands. Sandroba not posting as mafia in one game does not mean he cannot post in another, and because of the filter limitations it's not exactly hard to post 3 pages of stuff in one game.
Same with RoL. He's lazy and shit as either alignment. But he did jump a dumb remark from me (apparently a lot of people here are literally sheldon).
Like maybe I'm just wrong and bad about sandroba, projecting my own personality on him too much but he's now done two things this game where I just think "If I was towndroba in this situation I'd have reacted completely differently". Aside from my initial point about how him saying he'd keep an eye on marv was basically a pointless sentence that doesn't fit in (If he doesn't say that, can we then assume he's not keeping an eye on marv? Isn't the default position in all mafia games to always keep an eye on everyone?), there is more too.
1). Sandroba's reaction to me calling him scum.
Dismissal. He doesn't defend against my point and he doesn't try to use it to pry into my own alignment. He just outright dismisses my stuff, only to come back later and say:
Which implies he doesn't know why I think he's mafia, when I had already explained it then.
Also
2). His reaction to the BM pardon.
Sandroba literally just made this case on BM:
And his primary scumread gets pardoned.
This is fucking sandroba people. Not some random scrub who doesn't know jack shit about the game. Again, I may be projecting my own personality but I'd be so mad at this.
Think how I would've reacted if anyone would've pardoned GB in mini mafia mini thing or someone had pardoned WoS in noir 3. I was mad enough with people just not listening to me. But someone actively shutting me down? Fuck that.
I don't think sandroba cares, I think he didn't defend my case and instead chose to dismiss it and I think my initial point was very good.
We should lynch sandroba.
you're right that was a bit dick-ish, sorry LS
But the point stands. Sandroba not posting as mafia in one game does not mean he cannot post in another, and because of the filter limitations it's not exactly hard to post 3 pages of stuff in one game.
Same with RoL. He's lazy and shit as either alignment. But he did jump a dumb remark from me (apparently a lot of people here are literally sheldon).
Like maybe I'm just wrong and bad about sandroba, projecting my own personality on him too much but he's now done two things this game where I just think "If I was towndroba in this situation I'd have reacted completely differently". Aside from my initial point about how him saying he'd keep an eye on marv was basically a pointless sentence that doesn't fit in (If he doesn't say that, can we then assume he's not keeping an eye on marv? Isn't the default position in all mafia games to always keep an eye on everyone?), there is more too.
1). Sandroba's reaction to me calling him scum.
Dismissal. He doesn't defend against my point and he doesn't try to use it to pry into my own alignment. He just outright dismisses my stuff, only to come back later and say:
Which implies he doesn't know why I think he's mafia, when I had already explained it then.
Also
2). His reaction to the BM pardon.
Sandroba literally just made this case on BM:
And his primary scumread gets pardoned.
This is fucking sandroba people. Not some random scrub who doesn't know jack shit about the game. Again, I may be projecting my own personality but I'd be so mad at this.
Think how I would've reacted if anyone would've pardoned GB in mini mafia mini thing or someone had pardoned WoS in noir 3. I was mad enough with people just not listening to me. But someone actively shutting me down? Fuck that.
I don't think sandroba cares, I think he didn't defend my case and instead chose to dismiss it and I think my initial point was very good.
We should lynch sandroba.
On May 12 2015 19:52 Palmar wrote:
Okay let's ignore you being mafia for a bit.
You even put a caveat into your own analysis. This is basically a policy lynch for BM being retarded. If you want to policy lynch today RoL is a much better option. Bill is being insane, but he's being active and insane. RoL's "Bold proposition" post was awful and sounded forced and his vote on me was equally terrible.
Okay let's ignore you being mafia for a bit.
You even put a caveat into your own analysis. This is basically a policy lynch for BM being retarded. If you want to policy lynch today RoL is a much better option. Bill is being insane, but he's being active and insane. RoL's "Bold proposition" post was awful and sounded forced and his vote on me was equally terrible.
On May 12 2015 19:55 Palmar wrote:
I'd have to confirm this because my memory kinda sucks but BM is basically insane when he's town. when he's mafia he's much more constrained and basically cannot help himself from being right.
Like to me, just the fact that he thinks I'm mafia makes me more skeptical he is.
I'd have to confirm this because my memory kinda sucks but BM is basically insane when he's town. when he's mafia he's much more constrained and basically cannot help himself from being right.
Like to me, just the fact that he thinks I'm mafia makes me more skeptical he is.
On May 12 2015 23:25 Palmar wrote:
Dismissal count: 2
Go on
And yes, I told you didn't think BM is mafia and I still don't think he is. There is no reason at all for him to antagonize a ton of potentially strong townies and to use nukes randomly as mafia. I loved Gb's pardon and I also had already given a semi-tone read on him.
I've talked about rol and I've talked about you. I've hinted I think VE is town.
So yes, I have given plenty of insight.
Dismissal count: 2
Go on
And yes, I told you didn't think BM is mafia and I still don't think he is. There is no reason at all for him to antagonize a ton of potentially strong townies and to use nukes randomly as mafia. I loved Gb's pardon and I also had already given a semi-tone read on him.
I've talked about rol and I've talked about you. I've hinted I think VE is town.
So yes, I have given plenty of insight.
Palmar’s posts before these against Bill Murray I think were pretty congruent and gave a townie rationale of why he felt uncomfortable lynching him. But these posts were a lot worse, and on top of that, there was the very contrived case against Sandro. Props to Sandro for immediately realizing this and pouncing on Palmar. Makes me really want to think he’s town. If he is, he deserves protection 100% as he is an enormous town asset, rusty or not.
-Glowingbear pardons Bill Murray. You have got to be kidding me….There are a plethora of points against him. I might be wrong, but I’m guessing GB’s conclusions about BM come from just not reading his posts thoroughly enough, since even if you ignore my evidence, other people like Marv Sandro and a couple I forget bring up quite accurately that his motivations/posts are inconsistent over the course of the day. Props for having the guts to use the pardon, I think this is the first town pardon I’ve seen since Ace pardoned an obvious green and got lynched for it years ago.
-Damdred kills Bill Murray. Great !? Only is a problem because I have a lot of association evidence here and not seeing that is crippling. But you can never complain about killing a mafia day 1. Wish he could have been nuked instead, but oh well.
-I have no idea why people thought saying “pleb” meant anything. For all they know Mafia have the townie role pm from the start (they have no idea what the mafia know, I don’t either). Highly dubious gambles here, as it is exceedingly dangerous to make assumptions on what the opponent may know when you cannot confirm either way. (I wrote this later on but I’m cutting my analysis short so for theme sake I’m moving this up here).
-Okay this Blazinghand case is abysmal. There is still zero evidence against him, why is he up for consideration. My earlier points still apply, as just because he isn’t perfectly cooperating with the town does not make him mafia. That is a bad heuristic. On the other hand, glad to see lots of people see the problems with JAT, Xatalos, and Vivax. I’m surprised JAT isn’t up for lynch as well.
Here’s the problem: townies have gotten quite a few of the probable mafia right, but everyone has so many “reads” or accusations that the lack of focus is letting people out of the spotlight like JAT and Xatalos become more forgotten. This is a classic case of too many people thinking their opinions matter. This vote should be between Xatalos and Vivax 100%, because if on the 1% chance one is town, the mafia have to make hard choices. Instead Xatalos will fall off the radar probably, and since the town is pressuring him he will probably step up his lousy posting and convince more people he’s innocent.
Day 1 Lynch
-Vivax was mafia…? What! The way he defended people almost certainly mafia is quite shocking. But this is a good moment to look at thought patterns: my team of 5 was wrong. How do I reassess this?
After you push for someone who flips innocent off of your mafia list, you have two ways of approaching it:
- You believe you are on the right track, and this is simply an inevitable % miss. Analyze why you were wrong, and stick to your guns on the rest if your mafia % is high.
You are not sure you know what’s going on, and thus need to reread the dead players posts in context and reread the entire game to refresh your mind.
The reason I think was wrong here was I used a high probability heuristic and didn’t find ironclad “must have done this as mafia” evidence. If I’m trying to figure out the entire mafia team on day 1, I will inevitably have to use non-perfect heuristics, so this miss is reasonable.
Some other helpful questions I asked here:
- 1) Is there anything wrong with the other 4 people I have as mafia?
2) What group of people is the last player hiding in?
3) Who didn’t care about the lynch, as so far as I can tell it was between 2 townies?
My answers after some thought:
- 1) They are heavily linked to each other in multiple bad posts. I think I’m still on the right track.
2)I feel it’s likely I caught all the less experienced players in this simple pattern, and thus like Palmar, the last mafia probably is someone who’s sharp enough to avoid the danger. This may be wrong, but it’s a good starting point. Maybe someone who was pushing a Bill lynch even.
3) This is a very good question to ask generally, and I found surprising results. The town’s frantic fighting over the lynch gave a lot of good quality information. Marvellosity, JAT (another nail in the coffin), VE, Onegu, and TalkingDead. I guess I can’t assume Marv is town after his good case against BM. VE still feels congruent though, and I can’t find any other dirt on him. Onegu and TalkingDead are both worth investigating as well.
Then there are the inactives, oh boy. RoL, stutters, maybe another I forgot. The last mafia could very well be there, and I have no clue how to figure that out.
In my reassessment with my focus more narrowed, I went over the day 1 nuke shenanigans and I noticed something strange: I automatically assumed BM’s first nuke was fake and second was real since a) he knows town has anti nukes b) that is just common sense, but what if it wasn’t?
trfel certainly reacted to BM’s nuke, and Marv reacted to BM’s nuke on trfel. But why did Marv not care a bit about BM’s nuke on him? That is a gaping hole that extremely likely indicates mafia.
That combined with this day 1 lynchtime post which gave me an odd feeling (the way it gives him an out and feels incomplete in a benefitting mafia way) makes me have him as my #1 candidate for last mafia. It could be RoL or something too, but Marv is most likely.
On May 13 2015 08:37 marvellosity wrote:
##unvote
##vote: vivax
HtS coming back reminded me i've quite liked her posting and by extension i don't like vivax's read on her
##unvote
##vote: vivax
HtS coming back reminded me i've quite liked her posting and by extension i don't like vivax's read on her
I gave the correct mafia to Hapa at the start of day 2, but like a jerk he says nothing and makes me wonder for another day. I don’t think there’s much point in analyzing stuff beyond day 1 as there are already excellent pieces of evidence for each mafia and the mafia kinda gave up after Palmar died and so many dumb blues outted themselves.
A Different Way of Thinking About your Town Play
This may just be correlation and not causation, but one technique I’ve found helpful is to figure out your mafia accuracy %. Of course, you have to be honest about it, and you need a decent sample size. I built my skill off of reading lots of games and internalizing the patterns, and would keep track of my accuracy for each cycle. When I first developed this, my own % came out to 70-90% depending on the cycle and how sharp my senses were that year. By day 3-4 it approached to near 100%. That means, assuming rust right now, if I find 5 mafia with good but not perfect heuristics on day 1, I’ll probably be right on 3-4 of them. That means that, if I feel that I am on the right track, being wrong on Vivax means I am much more likely to right about the other 4. Funny how that works right? Most people think the opposite. But this seems to hold true for me. Being wrong once or twice doesn’t necessarily mean you are off your game, mafia is an inexact science and nobody can be 100%.
This is also a wise way to keep your ego in check, as you’re forced to be honest with yourself and focus on only your most important reads. Having a big ego in mafia can be helpful, but only if you have the accuracy and persuasion to back it up. Firstly, tons of people this game give off a lot of weak opinions on people. If you don’t know, you don’t know and that’s okay. “Slightly town read” is absolutely irrelevant and just clogs up the thread.
If people limited their focus a lot more, the atmosphere would become a lot clearer and mafia would be forced into taking much more decisive stands, which kills their endgame potential.
Secondly, if you care about winning each specific game and your mafia accuracy % is pretty low for certain days, YOU SHOULD NOT TRUST YOUR OWN READS. Force yourself to not have an opinion! If your accuracy is really really terrible, it may be even better to take the opposite of your own opinions lol. Here the best case is to figure out the person making the most sense and become their mouthpiece. Honestly this is harsh but I think logic and evidence makes it a reasonable approach. Towns can only have so many “leaders,” and this game definitely has too many, so a ton of townies are butting heads unproductively, and good targets are slipping beneath the cracks.
Maybe you’re better at determining innocents, so you can invert the problem and focus on that instead (that can also be a % you can test for, but it’s a lot harder to be accurate since by RNG you’ll be right 75-80% of the time). Note that this attitude may not be the most beneficial for long-term growth, so you have to make some choices.
Incognito Town Analysis
On first inspection, the role list contains very few information roles, but a decent amount of KP. Town definitely is going to be hurting for information. Given this, the mafia should really focus on an information strategy. Mafia should definitely pick the Janitor, plus perhaps KP (nukes/Mafia Assassin) and pardoner if those are available. Make chaos and shoot someone day 1 and hide the body as well as the day 1 lynch. If you hide and lynch the right people, town permanently loses information without any benefit, giving you a severe advantage. This strategy requires mafia to keep the town in chaos. This means that you want to prevent sharp lines from forming that can polarize the town and force you as the mafia to pick sides. Getting a couple townies up for debate for the lynch is a good start. If one of you gets caught in the fire, you must have enough thread presence to convincingly force a mislynch. The fact that you can hide the body is an added bonus you can use to cause more chaos Day 2 and keep town in the dark.
---
Nobody really catches too much interest except BM and batsnacks. Batsnacks’ play is weird compared to Aperture 4. Responding to BM’s trash post just doesn’t feel right.
All major posters seem fairly open and transparent.
Day 1
BM nuke combined with bad day 1 nothing post + giving away posts really early? Sounds like some easy mafia to me.
Combine with the fact that BM is all over the place in his first few posts of day 1. Bill decides to contribute by nuking the first inactive he sees. And then “oh wait a second there’s a bunch of other shady inactives I could have nuked! But oh well, I don’t care”.
In fact, what does BM do with his first few posts?
1. Nukes Trfel because he’s inactive.
2. But then later finds out that Palmar, Vivax, RoL, and Stutters are inactive. Take a look at these few early posts...
On May 11 2015 13:18 Bill Murray wrote:
Wow I should have nuked fucking Palmar
Guy has even less activity than Trfel
Very unusual for Palmar
Wow I should have nuked fucking Palmar
Guy has even less activity than Trfel
Very unusual for Palmar
On May 11 2015 13:42 Bill Murray wrote:
I guess I'm just used to Palmar from a few years ago.
Vivax hasn't posted yet... a few others I've seen with like 1 post
RebithofLegend pops to mind... his one post was... weird... though... Full of Allcaps and just generally sarcastic and scummy.
I guess I'm just used to Palmar from a few years ago.
Vivax hasn't posted yet... a few others I've seen with like 1 post
RebithofLegend pops to mind... his one post was... weird... though... Full of Allcaps and just generally sarcastic and scummy.
On May 11 2015 13:45 Bill Murray wrote:
Stutters695 has one post.
Stutters695 has one post.
Making a laundry list of inactives (and that’s all this is) can’t exactly be seen as a contribution. It looks more like trying to appear like you are active and contributing. BM just points out inactives, picks the first he sees, and shoots him?? All the while bragging that:
On May 11 2015 13:10 Bill Murray wrote:
When I bag scum with this (Trfel was super active last game, and is literally just skimping by posting to not put his neck out there this game) I want you all to bow down to me.
##Nuke: Trfel
When I bag scum with this (Trfel was super active last game, and is literally just skimping by posting to not put his neck out there this game) I want you all to bow down to me.
##Nuke: Trfel
Of course, BM also goes ahead and agrees with a few other people’s remarks (Kelsier on TalkingDead and Damdred on Xatalos). One potential incongruency though:
On May 11 2015 13:11 KelsierSC wrote:
not sure why TD won't answer my initial questions, pretty sure he is mafia.
- did things I didn't like early game, the yamato as top town, the town-town business.
- very contradictory big list post, talks about GB like he is mafia then says it's town-town between dam and gb
- calls me town with "terrible reads" but he shared the majority of my reads, wouldn't explain this
- generally obstructive
- when he does explain it felt like an over explanation and he was twisting quotes to fit his narrative , too much information gleaned is what it felt like
- wants us to talk about other people without giving his own opinion of them.
I think sandrobo is town, his progression seems reasonable to me.
as for my fight with damdred...i guess town can disagree with eachother sometimes,
anyway im off to sleep
peace.
not sure why TD won't answer my initial questions, pretty sure he is mafia.
- did things I didn't like early game, the yamato as top town, the town-town business.
- very contradictory big list post, talks about GB like he is mafia then says it's town-town between dam and gb
- calls me town with "terrible reads" but he shared the majority of my reads, wouldn't explain this
- generally obstructive
- when he does explain it felt like an over explanation and he was twisting quotes to fit his narrative , too much information gleaned is what it felt like
- wants us to talk about other people without giving his own opinion of them.
I think sandrobo is town, his progression seems reasonable to me.
as for my fight with damdred...i guess town can disagree with eachother sometimes,
anyway im off to sleep
peace.
On May 11 2015 13:14 Bill Murray wrote:
I agree Kelsier. 100%. He is tunnelvisioned too.
That town-town shit was shady. I didn't like how rude he was to you, and it was very frustrating not being able to post about it due to giving my posts away to Damdred. Every single post Damdred made, however, made me smile.
Whoever it was... OWS or someone... Who said Damdred was crazy... Completely disagree with them
I agree Kelsier. 100%. He is tunnelvisioned too.
That town-town shit was shady. I didn't like how rude he was to you, and it was very frustrating not being able to post about it due to giving my posts away to Damdred. Every single post Damdred made, however, made me smile.
Whoever it was... OWS or someone... Who said Damdred was crazy... Completely disagree with them
On May 11 2015 13:21 Bill Murray wrote:
I wouldn't feel comfortable lynching Sandroba or TD. Both are contributing. There are a lot of people who are just coasting by. My first 2 filters of the night have produced 2 suspicions (Trfel, Palmar) one of which I've already acted on with one of my nukes.
I wouldn't feel comfortable lynching Sandroba or TD. Both are contributing. There are a lot of people who are just coasting by. My first 2 filters of the night have produced 2 suspicions (Trfel, Palmar) one of which I've already acted on with one of my nukes.
BM agrees with Kelsier “100%”. Does this mean he agrees 100% about TD being rude AND being mafia, or just about TD being rude? Because if he does agree “100%” on Kelsier’s statement that TD is mafia, then this clearly doesn’t fit with BM’s statement a whole 7 minutes later saying that he doesn’t want to lynch TD because TD is contributing. What?? There’s certainly some explaining that needs to go on here. Town BM is all over the place, but at least he tries making cases on people. No such luck here. Combine his day 0 posting and early day 1 posts, and there’s a pretty compelling case that BM is mafia.
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BH anti-nuke should be seen as definitely pro-town at this point given that there isn’t any real reason to kill Trfel and that BM’s reasoning is just bad. All this talk about maybe BH does it to gain town credit is bad. Town credit is overrated (see the mafia guide here)
For reference:
As mafia, you may often see that townies who are generally accepted as “pro-town” early in the game can hold a disproportionate influence over the town. You might think to yourself, “We need to prevent that from happening, or at least, become that person”. The first part of that statement is correct; the second is not.
Although the temptation of appearing to be the most “pro-town” player may be great, you often cannot hold this status for long enough as mafia for it to truly benefit you. Town players who gain the “pro-town” status usually are able to hold onto it because their motives are consistent throughout the game. However, as a mafia, the longer the game goes, the harder it will be to keep your story straight, and the easier it will be for you to lose your status. In other words, “town credit” decays over the course of the game. Against a competent town, don’t expect that you can set yourself up for a free win by acting too pro-town early in the game. Many newer players will often erroneously overvalue town credit. In reality, town credit is very fickle and lynches are seldom based solely on someone's town credit.
Although the temptation of appearing to be the most “pro-town” player may be great, you often cannot hold this status for long enough as mafia for it to truly benefit you. Town players who gain the “pro-town” status usually are able to hold onto it because their motives are consistent throughout the game. However, as a mafia, the longer the game goes, the harder it will be to keep your story straight, and the easier it will be for you to lose your status. In other words, “town credit” decays over the course of the game. Against a competent town, don’t expect that you can set yourself up for a free win by acting too pro-town early in the game. Many newer players will often erroneously overvalue town credit. In reality, town credit is very fickle and lynches are seldom based solely on someone's town credit.
In this case, an anti-nuke only makes sense as mafia if the target is actually mafia. Anti-nuking a real nuke just wastes 1 of your own KP. “Town credit” isn’t worth trading away 1 KP. It is better to just take this anti-nuke at face value. It would be dumb for a mafia BH to anti-nuke unless perhaps Trfel is mafia. But if you look at the evidence (BM’s play + Trfel’s play subsequent to the nuke) it’s pretty clear this is not the case. The simplest explanation is BM is mafia, and BH is town.
On May 11 2015 23:25 justanothertownie wrote:
I know what you are doing if you are town but you need to keep in mind that this is a heavily post restricted game. This could be really counterproductive.
You want to lynch BH for saving a townie. What...?
The relevant question here is: Is scum BM also batshit insane? I know he is as town. This nuke has to be the worst scumplay 2015 if he is mafia.
I know what you are doing if you are town but you need to keep in mind that this is a heavily post restricted game. This could be really counterproductive.
You want to lynch BH for saving a townie. What...?
The relevant question here is: Is scum BM also batshit insane? I know he is as town. This nuke has to be the worst scumplay 2015 if he is mafia.
This post is horrible. It’s JAT’s first post since the start of Day 1, and it screams “hi guys I’ve read the thread enough to know what’s going on, but I’m trying to look like I’m saying something while saying nothing”. He lashes out at Palmar, but clearly thinks BH saved a townie. Then “BM’s anti-town play is so anti-town could he be mafia???? But that would be such a bad mafia play. I want to defend BM as insane town without having to get caught having defended BM if anyone ever looks back at my posts.” JAT plants a seed of doubt without taking a position. Classic way to defend without risk of being connected to it later. Combine with BM’s actually anti-town play suggesting they’re both mafia, and the fact that JAT is clearly engaged in the thread, but contributes nothing but doubt.
On May 12 2015 02:42 Vivax wrote:
To post a list or to not post a list
To post a list or to not post a list
On May 12 2015 02:43 Vivax wrote:
Ahh fuck it I'll think about it after a game of dota.
Ahh fuck it I'll think about it after a game of dota.
Vivax promises lists and tries to play it cool after lurking hard for the first day. But the timestamps suggest otherwise (see filter).
No list is forthcoming, and Vivax definitely doesn’t play a game of dota after saying he will. He just continues posting for the next few hours.
Notice horrible post here:
On May 12 2015 02:52 Vivax wrote:
On my read so far I also had the feeling JAT was mafia but I really had nothing I could justify it with. On the other hand lots of people seem to think the same but I will need to find something tangible on my own.
The nuke business was pretty interesting. Trfel was in the scummish list of BH during N0 and D1 BH didn't really bother to even figure his alignment out before deciding the anti-nuke. He only asked a question but doesn't seem puzzled about whether he should use it or not.
On my read so far I also had the feeling JAT was mafia but I really had nothing I could justify it with. On the other hand lots of people seem to think the same but I will need to find something tangible on my own.
The nuke business was pretty interesting. Trfel was in the scummish list of BH during N0 and D1 BH didn't really bother to even figure his alignment out before deciding the anti-nuke. He only asked a question but doesn't seem puzzled about whether he should use it or not.
“I agree that JAT is suspicious but I have no proof. Let me try to find some”. Vivax never gives an attempt to find any. Seems to be a common theme here--”Hey guys I’m being useful making lists and finding evidence on people” without actually providing such analyses. Classic attempt to appear active while saying nothing.
Vivax mentions the “nuke business” without mentioning BM at all. So out of the 3 in the trio, Vivax mentions BH and Trfel but BM is mysteriously absent. Vivax passively criticizes BH while implying he is suspicious while conveniently sidestepping BM. “Hey guys I’m contributing but I’m afraid of taking sides on BM”. Vivax is clearly reading the thread, but always promises content “later”. Of course, later never comes.
Following the theme of people avoiding the BM issue while trying to stir up dirt on BH/Trfel:
On May 12 2015 01:41 Damdred wrote:
Can we not policy lynch vivax today XD maybe a day vig could just take him out lol.
I agree roughly that the pregame where BM gave his posts up and didn't do much is kinda meh. It helped me immensely at that juncture though. As such the excuse that BM used to fire the nuke isn't necessarily the least believable thing I've ever read. It's based on meta yes but I didn't feel it was horrible, it could of led to some really useful information and its a pity that it didn't.
(10)
Can we not policy lynch vivax today XD maybe a day vig could just take him out lol.
I agree roughly that the pregame where BM gave his posts up and didn't do much is kinda meh. It helped me immensely at that juncture though. As such the excuse that BM used to fire the nuke isn't necessarily the least believable thing I've ever read. It's based on meta yes but I didn't feel it was horrible, it could of led to some really useful information and its a pity that it didn't.
(10)
This post is definitely off. But Damdred does a decent job in Day 1. Not completely sold on Damdred since have bigger fish to fry. We can save this for later.
On May 12 2015 02:46 Xatalos wrote:
What struck me as most scummy so far is probably LS. I just can't get over the uncomfortable feeling I get from posts like these:
It's just... so typical scum play. Posting large, inconclusive paragraphs and questions that don't really show any insight or real interest in the game.
What struck me as most scummy so far is probably LS. I just can't get over the uncomfortable feeling I get from posts like these:
It's just... so typical scum play. Posting large, inconclusive paragraphs and questions that don't really show any insight or real interest in the game.
Let’s take a look at Xatalos’ first post since the nuke. “I think LS is most suspicious so far”. 4 minutes later:
On May 12 2015 02:50 Xatalos wrote:
About BM: Never played with him before. His nuke spectacle was basically an anti-town way of using the ability, so it might be necessary to policy lynch him or just Vig him. Typically crazy plays come a bit more often from town than scum so that holds me back from just saying anti-town -> scum.
About BM: Never played with him before. His nuke spectacle was basically an anti-town way of using the ability, so it might be necessary to policy lynch him or just Vig him. Typically crazy plays come a bit more often from town than scum so that holds me back from just saying anti-town -> scum.
Again defending BM without actually defending BM. Note the tentative language here though. This isn’t a straightforward “hmm this is certainly anti-town but I think he’s probably just crazy”. Xatalos uses hedging language to mask his thoughts on the situation. Certainly sounds more like a dismissal of the situation rather than a thought-out assessment. Note the use of the intro words “About BM:”. Xatalos doesn’t want you to focus on BM. He uses this intro to make his comments on BM sound like a casual observation/afterthought or an aside. He wants you to think that his most important thought is his views on LS being mafia, not his views on BM. But he still wants to mention BM since after all, it would be quite suspicious if you had no opinion on the most interesting events of the day. Then 10 minutes later:
On May 12 2015 03:01 Xatalos wrote:
If Trfel and BH are both scum, it's obviously a must-do to just prevent it. Them both being scum makes sense. If BH is scum and Trfel town, then it doesn't make much sense to prevent it (better save it for a teammate). It only makes sense if he has lots of uses for it and he doesn't need to worry about wasting it. If BH is town, it *somewhat* makes sense to immediately use it (considering the random way BM went about using the nuke) but it's still quite weird to just use it so easily.
All in all I think the most sensible explanations are BH+Trfel being scum or BH being scum and Trfel being town, but BH having enough uses of the ability to afford using it on a townie.
If Trfel and BH are both scum, it's obviously a must-do to just prevent it. Them both being scum makes sense. If BH is scum and Trfel town, then it doesn't make much sense to prevent it (better save it for a teammate). It only makes sense if he has lots of uses for it and he doesn't need to worry about wasting it. If BH is town, it *somewhat* makes sense to immediately use it (considering the random way BM went about using the nuke) but it's still quite weird to just use it so easily.
All in all I think the most sensible explanations are BH+Trfel being scum or BH being scum and Trfel being town, but BH having enough uses of the ability to afford using it on a townie.
“Let me spread doubt by trying to divert your attention from BM to BH/Trfel!” These three posts in conjunction are clearly biased. Then after some random posts, Xatalos gets back to jumping on the LS train. Given this progression of events, its really hard to see a townie thinking that LS is a superior lynch choice to BM.
---
Taking a look at other mafia candidates, we have a few lurkers in RoL, Batsnacks. Potential mafia could be here. Its funny though that even some of the relatively quiet people seem to be on the right track. VE and Stutters both have few posts, but seem to be on the right track. Of the talkative crowd, some are throwing out some wild accusations, but nothing too crazy. Its hard to see that any of them can be mafia in this environment. Sure, there’s some instances of people waffling, but overall many of the top posters seem to have a simple agenda and not a complex doubt-laden one. Its unfortunate that BM’s nukes were both shut down, but I’d say that it’s still a good idea for mafia to use the Janitor Day 1 if they have it. Assuming BM is lynched, you need to push hard and try to spread chaos with the “BM was insane town and mafia took advantage” card. If BM flips red, JAT, Xatalos, Vivax are left really exposed.
GB, KelsierSC, Yamato, Trfel, Damdred seem pretty townie at this point based on posting style (they seem to have a genuine interest in helping town). This doesn’t leave much room for the mafia to hide.
---
So Day 2 we have Vivax dead as town, which is quite surprising to me. I’m not quite sure this invalidates the case on Xatalos/JAT though. Looking at the fact that Sandroba/Damdred/Palmar are dead:
Damdred kill makes total sense in my opinion. He kills BM (day vig shot isn’t the best way to get rid of him but its hard to see Damdred being mafia at this point. He also pushes hard on Xatalos, fitting another mafia target so it makes sense that mafia want to shut him up here.
Sandroba also gets BM/Xatalos/Palmar early, and he’s actually quite dangerous to leave around if Palmar is mafia. Shot totally makes sense given this is a threat you don’t want to fight against.
I wasn’t expecting Palmar as mafia given his response to BM (I didn’t read much into the Vivax lynch vote since then but in anycase that’s a nice pick on mafia there). Reading through his filter doesn’t give much insight though. He picks a dangerous fight with Sandroba and accuses JAT for seemingly no reason.
At this point, its hard to justify a scenario with BM as town. RoL probably isn’t mafia...why claim weak medic protecting Palmar if you’re mafia? Stutters is essentially town following that Palmar shot. Vivax, Sandro, Damdred are dead town. BH anti-nukes are pro-town and from posting behavior this seems to fit the profile. VE, Kelsier GB, Trfel, rsoultin likely town on day 1 posting.
Some of the other posters seem to have a consistent town feel to them. They speak clearly and openly, and you can follow their train of thought without getting the sense that they have an alternative agenda. HalftheSky and ObiWanShinobi seem to fit this profile. At this point I feel like even though Vivax is wrong, BM/Xatalos/JAT are all mafia. With the thread at over 80 pages I don’t really feel reading too much more to find the last mafia. He’ll probably out himself in due time. After Ver points out Marv’s strange reaction to the BM nuke, that seems like a pretty ironclad case. Case closed at this point.
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Mafia
Mafia always have to skirt a tricky equilibrium between disappearing from public eye and pushing their agenda. This means that when the heat could potentially be on them, exposed members should be retreating (or finding a good stance to make themselves look better) This is a complicated, subtle topic that is hard to put into words, so ask questions if I don’t convey it well enough.
Instead, here’s what the mafia did. They found themselves in a town that has little idea of what’s going on and promptly showed them the light. Normally it takes good town play to manipulate the mafia into making incriminating posts. These incriminating posts either come from feeling forced to defend mafia or having a big event thrown at them without warning . Mafia have a very hard time reacting to sudden changes of events in general, so the town wants to surprise them the best they can. Instead Bill Murray himself surprises the mafia, and multiple players clearly had no idea how to react to it. So instead of the mafia being able to create a decent thread persona with no pressure on their team and focus on the offensive of encouraging bad accusations, now they have to dilute their focus from just themselves and the attack to saving their ally far too early on in the game. This led to several mafia being exposed far too early, with too few tempting bad townie cases floating around.
The difference of proper mafia play would have been for certain members to push the erroneous reads of vocal townies at the right time. And oh boy, there were a lot of bad reads just waiting for a coordinated mafia team to exploit. For example, the way Marv fueled the Vivax lynch. Marv forming the mini-coalition with VE also helped considerably, unfortunately he was alone at this point. The whole point of the Bill Murray nuke strat is to create an atmosphere where the town is uncertain of things. Thus it’s not a bad idea, just poor execution. Bill’s allies, rather than contributing to his strategy, mostly just revealed themselves because of it, and clarified matters for the town.
I think overall the mafia were thinking too much like mafia this game, not like townies (and this was probably exacerbated by the chaos of Bill’s nukes). If you know everyone’s alignment, you have this inherent little hesitation in jumping on a push on someone you know is innocent. But townies don’t know they are innocent and if the evidence seems good enough will go for it. That is a better mindset to have as mafia than reactive, scared one which (I may be wrong) seemed to be the case here for several members. I think if Bill did the same actions as town his posts would have been very different, for example.
Mafia shouldn’t have been afraid of suspicions/accusations and should’ve just focused on encouraging the misguided townies to keep pushing their misguided reads like they did with Vivax. Marv and Palmar played well until Palmar’s very questionable attack on Sandro, and the mafia really made things cloudy by the end of day 1. But otherwise I don’t think they were aggressive enough in pushing their agenda, and it cost them severely. If Jat/Xatalos had been under a little less suspicion and driven home the conundrum of BH harder in the night 1 phase, Stutters might not have been so willing to shoot Palmar. Had stutters shot BH/trfel etc, the mafia all of a sudden are in quite a comfy position.
Lastly, I think mafia should 100% have picked Janitor. I cannot fathom why it wasn’t taken. As the OP clearly shows, the town have very limited information but lots of KP. Thus it’s critical the mafia makes that kp misfire. The whole Bill Murray double nuke insane townie plan ONLY makes sense if they have a Janitor. With hindsight Damdred neatly solved that problem, but it should have never been tried without it. What if Bill Murray is nuked and flips red, and now people go back and see all the mafia trying to subtly divert the lynch from him. Game over.
Incog Mafia Analysis (done night 2-postgame)
In terms of mafia strategy, there definitely doesn’t seem to be one. Palmar goes off stirring up a sandroba/marv sideshow, BM’s attempt to cause chaos just backfires because of how anti-town he is. I’m not sure if this was an intentional part of the mafia strategy, but this certainly raises some questions. If BM’s nuke was planned, was this a good plan? Probably not. Xatalos and JAT become really suspicious for soft defending BM. Marv potentially gets “town credit” for attacking BM, but again town credit is overrated . Going for this play also costs you a mafia. As well as the fact that Xatalos/JAT should now be suspicious. Not a very good tradeoff imo. Palmar does a good job blending in though on the BM at this point (though his apathy later in the day about the lynch could cause some trouble later on unless you can pass it off as aloofness). Is the intention to allow BM to die, or is mafia trying to save him? Palmar/Xatalos/JAT are certainly playing as if trying to save him, but Marv certainly isn’t. This doesn’t seem like a coherent play given that BM is easily leading the vote count up to the day vig shot. The mafia doesn’t seem to be creating much chaos here, and only manages to offer up a mafia for free?
Palmar tries to stir up some dirt on Sandroba/Marv, but it is largely a sideshow to the rest of the day’s events. Sandroba really isn’t ever a viable lynch option, and Palmar shows no interest or ability to control the lynch. Potentially this is a possible setup for a vig hit, but Palmar is not a vig! Very strange choice here as Palmar is the only person who can come close to pulling off a day-vig shot and surviving the blowback.
BM’s nuke is begging to be anti-nuked. This nuke has no setup, and BM gives weak reasoning defending his nuke. This is definitely not the way you want to spread chaos as you draw a lot of attention to yourself and risk wasting your KP to an anti-nuke. You absolutely either have to set up your nuke by building a case and a consensus first around your target, OR present a strong compelling case as to why this nuke is pro-town. (For example, build a compelling case on a player, or if you are more sophisticated - come up with some excuse as to how your nuke is part of your plan to smoke out the mafia). In other words, you need to set yourself up so that you don’t trigger backlash for your nuke.
Likewise, JAT has weak posting in the thread and has almost no chance of getting off his day vig shot and not draw suspicion for anti-town play. In fact, JAT previously implies that he thinks rsoultin is innocent by saying that Onegu’s read on rsoultin is awful (Onegu thinks rsoultin is mafia).
On May 13 2015 05:05 justanothertownie wrote:
I have no reason to townread him if that's what you want to know.
I would lie if I said that I did not think about his stuff n0 being a traitor claim but it wouldn't be the first time for Onegu to just complain about not rolling scum as town.
His rsoultin read is awful and he doesn't seem to be willing to reconsider. Does that make him scum? Probably not.
I wouldn't mind him dying but I would not lynch a question mark like him over someone who is really obviously scummy like Vivax.
I have no reason to townread him if that's what you want to know.
I would lie if I said that I did not think about his stuff n0 being a traitor claim but it wouldn't be the first time for Onegu to just complain about not rolling scum as town.
His rsoultin read is awful and he doesn't seem to be willing to reconsider. Does that make him scum? Probably not.
I wouldn't mind him dying but I would not lynch a question mark like him over someone who is really obviously scummy like Vivax.
And then later out of the blue, JAT shoots rsoultin. Of course, by this time JAT is widely suspected, but lets zoom out a bit: JAT’s shot is basically a reaction to his impending doom. There is no attempt to set up a shot by building up a case, and he has no conviction reads. JAT and BM essentially both waste their KPs by failing to back it up with thread presence.
The interesting thing about this setup is that while mafia have some extra KP in the form of Day Vig/Nuke, they both encourage and require active play. Unlike some easy extra night KP or night vig powers, this KP takes skill to use. You must have compelling in-thread posting in order to successfully pull off the lynches. Yet BM and JAT both squander this opportunity simply because of weak posting.
I almost certainly thought Janitor would be picked by the mafia 100% as it is so strong, given that Janitor + Chaos day 1 + a nuke or mislynch could cause some serious problems for the town. The fact that this isn’t picked is eyebrow raising, even if the mafia does get lucky with the Damdred day vig hiding BM’s alignment.
On the same note, mafia did not punish GB hard enough for his two big mistakes: pardoning BM and executing blazinghand. Palmar attempts to push hard on people’s tame reactions after GB pardons BM, but this doesn’t go nearly far enough. There is totally room for chaos/panic/a well placed day vig shot, especially after the BH execution.
Overall
Normally in mafia, the scum are supposed to make things murky and the town have to work hard to find clarity through the fog. This game, the town tried to make things murky, and the mafia instead tried to clarify matters. !?
Alakaslam was obsing with me and mentioned that he found the whole first 48 hours (so halfway into day absurd and a timewaste, since it was all fluff and weak accusations over baseless “reads” or suspicion against people who weren’t producing any “reads.” There were some good points in there, but it wasn’t until Marv/Sandro/Damdred (among others) bringing up strong reasons against Bill and Sandro dissecting Palmar’s attitude switch that the town really had some strong reads to act on.
Here’s the problem. A lot of the people giving out “reads” this game were all over the place. Let’s take rsoultin (not to single out, just a good example of the discrepancy): she was the only person who noticed the horrible incongruency of Marv not caring about BM’s nuke against him in this post. This should have 100% signed his death warrant because the only way Marv doesn’t care at all about getting nuked is if he knows it’s a dud or it will be anti-nuked (mafia in either case). But if you read her filter, how the hell are you supposed to find that brilliant gem? Her posts/filter are very unfocused . Not only that, but her key insight is hidden within a massive wall of text at the very center with nothing eye-catching to draw people to it. No wonder it wasn’t really picked up on.
Obviously the town needs content, but here it seems people were satisfied producing any kind of content instead of good contributions. This does not necessarily mean accusing only mafia, but posts that bring clarity instead of more doubt. Giving off giant lists of reads does not provide clarity. Taking decisive stands on people, or trying to figure out a plan and posting the results (like I did with my initial premise) are what create a clear atmosphere.
By posting too much, you dilute the power of your words, bury your good arguments, and effectively spam yourself out of the thread. Congratulations! You just did mafia’s job for them by allowing them to ignore your good arguments and continue hiding (its a lot easier for mafia to avoid responding to your good arguments if you have a lot of garbage arguments along with them). I think the mafia this game focused too much on the pressure on their team/themselves instead of letting it roll off their back and diverting the town’s attention onto bad townies. Too many people posted too much with a scattershot of thoughts. (Did I write this or Incognito? lol)
Setup
Stutters shot on Palmar plus Palmar not using his Assassin power night 1 decided the game. True, Bill was dead, but the town mislynched and the town does not know the massive ramifications that come from Bill being mafia. As a Dreamflower, this was a huge risk, especially for someone who wasn’t sure of what was going on, but credit to him for listening to the right people. The town was incredibly dumb about role claiming so openly, but the sheer luck of the assassin dying prevented mafia from punishing it, encouraging more townies to claim and boxing in the remaining mafia. There’s no point in analyzing Day 2 and beyond as I don’t think JAT would have made his illogical and unsubstantiated shot on rsoultin if Palmar as alive, and the town had enough bad cases that a serious mafia could have diverted attention onto. This was a pretty swinging setup in the first place, and the death of the assassin with so many questionable blue claims was the biggest swing possible.
Setup wise I think there were two flaws. Hapa and I were both pretty meh about the weak medic but due to some miscommunication we decided to keep it. I don’t think it is bad balance, just that it doesn’t fulfill the purpose of the role (to punish bad play) properly, plus it incentivizes him to use his role as a suicidal cop check which is very stupid.
However, him dying is not definite proof of scum whatsoever since he needs to crumb it which means mafia will always know it. So let’s say this game RoL claims he’s protecting VE and mafia shoot RoL. Town doesn’t know why RoL died, or even that he was necessarily blue. They can’t lynch VE off that alone. If RoL protects Palmar, mafia can simply doublestack another target, making it look like they shot RoL and Palmar is innocent. Or they can just assassinate him if he claims too openly and now there’s 3 kp and it looks like a vigi fired. Or if Rol is ambiguous and since he flips green, nobody knows if he’s telling the truth.
The other flaw was the gifting posts. It was supposed to be an emergency safety measure in the event of last 12hr vote switches or new evidence, but instead spammers just used all their posts and asked for more from lots of quieter people to continue being useless. As a result the game ended up pretty spammy and quite long. Sorry for not delivering on this front.
Proactivity vs Reactivity
-Lao Tzu
”Do the difficult things while they are easy”
-Lao Tzu
Maybe having a quote here is a bit cheesy but I always marvel at how insightful that statement is. Definitely worth deep reflection.
I think the most important lesson to draw from this game is the importance of being proactive, when as humans our default is to be reactive. Easy to say, very very hard to do consistently. I tried to emphasize that in the setup by giving the night 0 organization time and not giving mafia a QT initially since while easy and comfortable to use, it inherently leads mafia teams to being reactive and not planning ahead. Mafia chose to use a QT, ok no problem, but then were extremely reactive and it cost them badly. The communication tools are just tools, but whatever you use you need to constantly take proactive steps.
For example, here’s one way to approach the game as mafia. Once you get your group list, start creating an overall game vision. What are the strengths of each player and what roles can each best fulfill? What does the game setup require the mafia play like? For example, this game both sides have massive kp but town is information crippled. This means the mafia need to dictate the game early on and snowball; it’s very risky to try and blend in. This can be done by creating an environment of confusion or high emotions where lots of vigis either are too unsure to fire or too riled up and shoot the loud townies. Then you examine what steps each player on your team can do to make this vision a reality. Once this is decided, pick roles accordingly (but plan first, roles second).
Then over the course of the game, you should have a vision for how you want each day to go and what steps each player should do to make it happen. Ideally you want to have an idea of how each mafia member will look on future days as well so you can calculate the repercussions of certain stances easier. Who are potentially problematic townies and how can you limit their ability to destroy you? Lastly, it’s very useful to brainstorm about “what if” scenarios, so your team has a planned out response to sudden potential catastrophes instead of having to react off the cuff, which is where most mafia mistakes come from. There are certainly other good ways to approach mafia strategy; this is just a methodology I’ve had excellent success with and may be worth trying.
Sidenote: probably the number one way mafia teams lose here is the town has no idea what is going on, so the mafia get cocky and lazy and stop trying as hard. Then hoards of mafia just fall one by one since they weren’t prepared and didn’t do what was necessarily when it was easy. Mafia are inherently incentivized to try less than town in the thread, so they have to fight extra hard to make sure they are preparing for future days even when no suspicion is on their team. Town inherently gains strength over the course of the game, but mafia often think without actually thinking that because the town is clueless days 1 & 2 that they will remain so even if the mafia stop trying. Oops.
I’ve focused more on the mafia for this, but it equally applies to town. The average town player is extremely reactive, while the best town players I've seen are not swayed by the moment. Ask yourself how many times per game you reread dead players posts in context (i,e not just a filter glance)? How often to you first stop and think about what mafia patterns to look for after a new event occurs? It’s quite obvious reading the posts that all but a few players this game were just addicted to the moment and jumped around to whatever new thing was in their face. Look at your results and ask whether it brings you the best results? It might for a couple people, but I’m guessing for most this is an area you can improve in.
Best of luck in becoming a better player.
