Smuggler's Port [Game Over]

[Something_Smart]

I have a question about the mechanics, namely: is it actually net beneficial to have investigations or not?

It had better be, otherwise this setup is so scumsided it isn't worth playing.

And I think it is. The assumption is that scumhunting will be more effective than daughter hunting.

[Radical Rat]

Misclowns are much more dangerous than a sub-optimal inspection in this set up

Say what? Inspection is the only advantage we have, otherwise the game is the scumsided hellscape that Moment described. Most games have town executions because no town has perfect read accuracy, especially on D1 when we have no information from the mechanics yet (aside from Icon coming out).

I'm not saying we DON'T investigate. In fact, that's literally the opposite of what I'm saying. I'm saying we use today's investigation specifically to get 100% confirmation about the alignment of a slot that could just as easily be easy misclown bait as it could be suicidal scum. I'm pretty sure he's scum, but we have the means to be absolutely sure, so I think we should use those means.

And yes, most games do have town executions. Most games also don't have a mechanic where scum can turn a loss into a win by pointing out a specific Town player. Extra caution is warranted in this case, to prevent doing scum's job for them.

[Something_Smart]

We also have the means to be absolutely sure of 3-4 people being town. That doesn't sound better to you?

[maxwell]

I have a question about the mechanics, namely: is it actually net beneficial to have investigations or not?

It had better be, otherwise this setup is so scumsided it isn't worth playing.

And I think it is. The assumption is that scumhunting will be more effective than daughter hunting.

I actually think the net advantage of being able to investigate a group of players all at once is really strong if if people have good townreads. Ultimately we can get 8-9 cracks at finding 2 scum within 15 people, those aren't terrible odds. It's only if you miss with most of your reads that things get really bad.

[Radical Rat]

Okay, what if they're all scum? We execute one, and then what? We check the same people again?

That is extremely unlikely, but: tomorrow, if we find tea in that group, we eliminate one, and re-inspect half of the remaining players in our day 1 inspection, no matter what. If we eliminate scum AND catch them with the second inspection, great! We literally win the game because we had a good pool and PoE'd scum early.

This is great if it works, but my problem is the only way we get definite information is if the result is innocent. But in that case, scum benefits more than we do anyway because it's removing 3-5 names from their pool of TD candidates. A list that is already down to either 12 if NK is Town, 13 if he's not. Right now we have an opportunity that is unlikely to present itself again. An unconfirmed player outside of the potential TD list, who is in danger of being executed. A clear result on NK and NK alone provides scum with 0 new information, AND saves us a misclown. A guilTea result gives us a guaranTead scum kill, and still gives no new information to scum.

For the remaining checks we can do the small group method, but this particular check should be specific.

[Radical Rat]

We also have the means to be absolutely sure of 3-4 people being town. That doesn't sound better to you?

Under normal circumstances, yes, however:

Okay, what if they're all scum? We execute one, and then what? We check the same people again?

That is extremely unlikely, but: tomorrow, if we find tea in that group, we eliminate one, and re-inspect half of the remaining players in our day 1 inspection, no matter what. If we eliminate scum AND catch them with the second inspection, great! We literally win the game because we had a good pool and PoE'd scum early.

This is great if it works, but my problem is the only way we get definite information is if the result is innocent. But in that case, scum benefits more than we do anyway because it's removing 3-5 names from their pool of TD candidates. A list that is already down to either 12 if NK is Town, 13 if he's not. Right now we have an opportunity that is unlikely to present itself again. An unconfirmed player outside of the potential TD list, who is in danger of being executed. A clear result on NK and NK alone provides scum with 0 new information, AND saves us a misclown. A guilTea result gives us a guaranTead scum kill, and still gives no new information to scum.

For the remaining checks we can do the small group method, but this particular check should be specific.

[Something_Smart]

Scum do not benefit more than us.

Right now, assuming random executions and random guessing, we have a 21% chance of executing two scum in five tries, and scum have an 8% chance of guessing the daughter. That gives us an EV of 20%.
If we clear 5 townies, we would then have a 42% chance of executing two scum in five tries, while scum would have a 13% chance of guessing the daughter. That gives us an EV of 37%.

(I could calculate the numbers for other sizes but the point is the same.)

[maxwell]

This is great if it works, but my problem is the only way we get definite information is if the result is innocent. But in that case, scum benefits more than we do anyway because it's removing 3-5 names from their pool of TD candidates. A list that is already down to either 12 if NK is Town, 13 if he's not. Right now we have an opportunity that is unlikely to present itself again. An unconfirmed player outside of the potential TD list, who is in danger of being executed. A clear result on NK and NK alone provides scum with 0 new information, AND saves us a misclown. A guilTea result gives us a guaranTead scum kill, and still gives no new information to scum.

For the remaining checks we can do the small group method, but this particular check should be specific.

I want to scream.

Ultimately, we are going to have to remove names from the pool of TD candidates anyway

. We could do this one at a time, checking one player and investigating 1, over and over until we win or time runs out. This ensures we give as little information to the smugglers as possible. It also gives

us

the fewest chances at a correct hit. If you were to, instead, take 3 of the players you were going to eliminate/investigate over the next few days and check them now, you get a result on them. If it has tea, you know you were right, and you can eliminate from that group of players

like you were going to do anyway

. If it does not have tea

you save yourself several days' worth of wasted eliminations and can start over

.

Doing a group of players on day 1 is the absolute best time to do it because then you can re-check those players on subsequent days. This gives us more information. Checking NK15 alone is low information and antitown.

[Not Known 15]

Doing a group of players on day 1 is the absolute best time to do it because then you can re-check those players on subsequent days. This gives us more information. Checking NK15 alone is low information and antitown.

this

[Radical Rat]

My primary concern is that a guilTea result on a hypothetical Town!NK who is on a ship with other slots is a wasted execution, because realistically there's no way in hell he's getting away after being caught on a tea boat after this stunt.

If it were literally anyone else, I wouldn't be pushing this so hard because it will be much harder for scum to push a misclown without a fakeclaim to attack.

[maxwell]

That's why we punt him here and now rather than having to continue to fight about it over and over, and use the ability that lets us check a group of people, on an actual group of people.

An aside: I think RR is arguing from a place of genuine conviction rather than disingenuously pushing a bad strategy but an outsider's perspective would be helpful here.

[Radical Rat]

Okay, I'll relent on this actually.

After typing and deleting many attempts at both, my previous post and this one, I've come to the conclusion that I'm being pessimistic with regards to our collective ability to scumhunt in the presence of Objectively Anti-Town Behavior, because it just feels too easy, while simultaneously being optimistic about our collective ability to scumhunt just through conversation. As a result, I'm getting caught up in unlikely scenarios that haven't happened yet and losing objectivity.

I do maintain my earlier stance that having a claimed PA is more of a liability than an asset, and I do still think we should wait to execute NK15 until tomorrow, but I'll let the inspection happen in a group. I'll also volunteer myself to be in that group because I know I probably don't look super great right now, and wouldn't mind getting cleared alongside NK if it comes down to that.

[Radical Rat]

UNVOTE: Execution

[Titus]

I think we need to lynch NK 15. I am not 100% sure what he'll flip, but I think RR is right. If NK is scum, then we learn something from our investigation. If NK is town, then we have to guess everyone else right in order to save him. That's unlikely. So he'd be a mislynch tomorrow. We then would spend that entire day learning nothing.

If NK wasn't such a contentious slot in VCA and by claim, then I might see defending him. Here it's just too antitown.

VOTE: NK 15

[Titus]

Dat ninja.

[Not Known 15]

I think we need to lynch NK 15. I am not 100% sure what he'll flip, but I think RR is right. If NK is scum, then we learn something from our investigation. If NK is town, then we have to guess everyone else right in order to save him. That's unlikely. So he'd be a mislynch tomorrow. We then would spend that entire day learning nothing.

If NK wasn't such a contentious slot in VCA and by claim, then I might see defending him. Here it's just too antitown.

VOTE: NK 15

This is L-2. Stop voting me at this point. We don`t have the three people Iconeum wanted to provide tomorrow, and those three aren`t - obviously - on the investigation. The investigation atm is almost random. Any further vote at this point is ridicioulsly anti-town.
I ask that someone removes a vote on me to prevent this catastrophe from happening.

[Radical Rat]

VOTE: Execute Not Known 15

[Radical Rat]

UNVOTE: Execution

[Radical Rat]

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[maxwell]

I'll also volunteer myself to be in that group because I know I probably don't look super great right now, and wouldn't mind getting cleared alongside NK if it comes down to that.

GOD DAMN IT, NO ONE ELSE DO THIS.

DO NOT VOLUNTEER YOURSELF FOR ANYTHING. NO ASKING TO BE CHECKED.

if the PA decides they want someone in, they go in, but otherwise no one should be talking about themselves this way because it's just giving information away.

---

ugly vote from titus, tbh

[Umlaut]

Trying to catch up now and it looks like everyone is talking mechanics.

There are a number of people who have already been spewed not-TD in the process of this discussion. In their case the damage is done. Why don't we just put all of them (or a subset of them) on the shipment to be inspected? Then we don't give scum any information they haven't already gotten, all we do is determine whether there's scum in that pool.

[Umlaut]

Want to also reiterate I am very much in favor of executing NK15 today, if only because it frees us from the need to play "which of these two wagons do we execute" games that leak information

[Not Known 15]

There are a number of people who have already been spewed not-TD in the process of this discussion. In their case the damage is done. Why don't we just put all of them (or a subset of them) on the shipment to be inspected? Then we don't give scum any information they haven't already gotten, all we do is determine whether there's scum in that pool.

We are just waiting for Iconeum to announce the pool, AND Iconeum wanted all of us to give them their proposed pool of 3 to be checked... with me being outside as the lynch. So start giving reads!!!

[NorwegianboyEE]

VOTE: norway

Voting me while i’m internet-less, that sucks.
Mena, ur a butt.

[Moment]

@Menalque, If you want some posts to explain my maxwell read you can pretty much look at the ones on this page.

As a side note, this may be my confirmation bias speaking, but reading this post gives me the feeling that Umlaut has been keeping track of who is not the TD.

Trying to catch up now and it looks like everyone is talking mechanics.

There are a number of people who have already been spewed not-TD in the process of this discussion. In their case the damage is done. Why don't we just put all of them (or a subset of them) on the shipment to be inspected? Then we don't give scum any information they haven't already gotten, all we do is determine whether there's scum in that pool.

Also, I wanted to say that I'm taking back my Maki townread for now.