[OLD] Open Setup Ideas and Discussion

[charter]

My bad, forgot.

[zu_Faul]

Vengeful

3 Goons
8 Townies

Whenever a Goon is lynched, they get one kill.

[dahill1]

Nightless?

[Mr. Flay]

Has to be to have any hope of balance.

[mith]

EV-wise, that is identical to Treestump (the only differences between the two being that a sub-optimal town could lynch an innocent before they stump/an innocent could refuse to stump, resulting in an extra kill for the scum, and that the stumps can keep talking in Treestump... neither of those affect the EV, though). 3:8 is 33.4% Town, 3:9 is 38.7%.

[farside22]

Bird 7p?

Second

Winner!

[Guardian]

One Shot

3 Mafia
1 One-Shot Cop (may submit "no action" to preserve ability for later nights)
7 Townies

Day start, mandatory lynches and NKs.

This looks really good. I'd play this.

That's not balanced. you need to drop a mafia, and probalby a townie.

What is not balanced about it? Takes three mislynches for town to lose, with a one shot cop it looks pretty good to me.

In a vanilla game with 3 mafia, between 40 and 44 townies is balanced.
How many townies is a one-shot cop worth? Less than 33, obviously.

that's ridiculous. scum-play here is nowhere near good enough to make the percentages at all meaningful. this setup is balanced, and fun, and simple.

[shaft.ed]

Guardian most mini normals run 3 v 9 and that's with added power roles.

[charter]

Yeah, what's wrong with 3v8 though? Town has to mislynch three times to lose. Should be able to find scum by then regardless of power roles.

[Seraphim]

One Shot

3 Mafia
1 One-Shot Cop (may submit "no action" to preserve ability for later nights)
7 Townies

Day start, mandatory lynches and NKs.

Nominate

This seems balanced. Requires a good town though.

[Ether]

Correct me if I'm wrong: a town has never won a mountainous 2:10, let alone a 3:9. 2:9 with a one-shot cop might be balanced.

[Adel]

is Guardian trying a JDodge experiment with his alts, charter and Seraphim?

(no offense intend Guardian, you know I love you, but I am a little paranoid -- it totally isn't balanced, and I have trouble understanding why you think it is)

[Korts]

I don't think it's terribly unbalanced--maybe my balance sense isn't what it used to be?

[Elmo]

The best reasonable case seems to be town lynched d1, townie NKed & cop gets guilty n1, cop claims sometime d2, mafia lynched d2, cop killed n2. Which leaves 2 mafia vs. 5 townies.. I gotta agree with Ether that 2:8+1cop seems closer to the mark for balanced, albeit it's pretty swingy.

In particular, it seems far more likely that the cop gets an innocent, especially if they're using the investigation n1. I think the cop delaying using the action is too risky, especially with the scum% and the fact scum will be cop-hunting like mad. If they kill the cop e.g. n1 they're basically home free. At that point, you've basically got something like two confirmed innocents (assuming scum don't CC the cop). I don't see how that can possibly be compensation for being in a vanilla 3:8.

I guess I just don't understand how you envision it playing out in a balanced way; one important thing is that before I'd actually seen a vanilla 2:10, I probably would have agreed, but I think that for whatever reason people

massively

overstate the effectiveness of scumhunting in vanilla games (I thought town would steamroller 2:10 and was shocked to hear they'd never won any).

[Guardian]

The best reasonable case seems to be town lynched d1, townie NKed & cop gets guilty n1, cop claims sometime d2, mafia lynched d2, cop killed n2. Which leaves 2 mafia vs. 5 townies.. I gotta agree with Ether that 2:8+1cop seems closer to the mark for balanced, albeit it's pretty swingy.

In particular, it seems far more likely that the cop gets an innocent, especially if they're using the investigation n1. I think the cop delaying using the action is too risky, especially with the scum% and the fact scum will be cop-hunting like mad. If they kill the cop e.g. n1 they're basically home free. At that point, you've basically got something like two confirmed innocents (assuming scum don't CC the cop). I don't see how that can possibly be compensation for being in a vanilla 3:8.

I guess I just don't understand how you envision it playing out in a balanced way; one important thing is that before I'd actually seen a vanilla 2:10, I probably would have agreed, but I think that for whatever reason people

massively

overstate the effectiveness of scumhunting in vanilla games (I thought town would steamroller 2:10 and was shocked to hear they'd never won any).

I submit that 3:8 +one shot with mandatory lynches and NKs is

much more balanced towards town

than 2:10 as it is typically played.

2 scum is simply not enough scum-interaction to get a road off of. In 2:10, the scum are less likely to have a bad scum player who throws the game. In addition, there are less interactions to go off of once you get one scum dead. With three scum, if that first dead scum has a pattern of behavior towards two other players, you can really take that and run with it. With two scum, that one scum probably will not give much information. His partner is also less likely to, since I think in 2:10 there is almost no incentive to protect your partner or treat them specially in any way.

Moreover, in most 2:10 games I have read, towns have lynched and scum NK'd every day until lylo. This leads to every single day until lylo requiring a higher percentage than necesary to lynch scum. 7/12 instead of 6/11, 6/10 instead of 5/9, 5/8 instead of 4/7. If you add all those percentage differences, towns need to play 13% better -- they need 13% more townies to lynch correctly -- when they always enter the day with even numbers of townies. Compare this to 3/11-2/12 -- 10% difference/increase in the number of scum. This comparison alone makes me think the setup is at least as balanced as 2/10.

Note that towns could play better and NL day 1, and I think this would significantly change things, but in practice they have not.

In addition, most 2/10 games come as a surprise. the 3/8 would not.

In addition, 2/10 games are strictly vanilla. The 3/8 I am proposing has a cop investigation, and the cop himself is practically unlynchable for the scum.


Also in favor of this setup is the heated debate that will ensue in game and out of game on the optimal cop strategy. I think that the cop might be best suited to wait as long as until night 3 to investigate, if they feel they are playing well enough to not be targeted for NK or lynch. Also, I think the cop should definitely NOT outright claim once they get an innocent or guilty, unless they suspect they are in a probable danger of NK, which again adds more to the strength of town and fun of the game.


I think I've demonstrated why this game is a much better game to play, and is more balanced, than 2/10.

[shaft.ed]

Guardian by your logic then 4:6 is more balanced than 1:10

[mith]

Guardian, we've previously run 3 Mafia, 1 (every night, sane) Cop, 8 Townies. The scum won

easily

. One game isn't conclusive for balance, but it did demonstrate what I would expect - most games, the cop will get traded for one of the scum (sometimes the scum will hit the cop at night first, sometimes the cop will have another investigation or two first). It's not a good balance. Not unplayable, by any means, but not balanced.

"In 2:10, the scum are less likely to have a bad scum player who throws the game." - If we start to base balance on how likely a scum player is to throw the game, I fear for the future of the site.

"In addition, there are less interactions to go off of once you get one scum dead. With three scum, if that first dead scum has a pattern of behavior towards two other players, you can really take that and run with it. With two scum, that one scum probably will not give much information. His partner is also less likely to, since I think in 2:10 there is almost no incentive to protect your partner or treat them specially in any way." - Quite the opposite! There is far more incentive to protect your partner in 2:10, because you only have one of them.

It's always a tradeoff - scum can distance and hope they are able to mislead the town in later days in exchange for an increased chance of getting one of them lynched early, or they can protect and hope power in numbers outweighs the risk of giving away the whole group. Balance can't (shouldn't) take that into account; whether the town does better (or worse) than the balance of the game depends on how good the scum (and town) are at what they are trying to do.

In 3:1-shot:8, the random EV balance is hugely in favor of the scum (3:9 Vanilla is 16.5%, I'd guess this is around 25%). Sure, the town might have more information to work with, but they are further behind (and 2:10 is on the slightly questionable side of "balanced" as it is).

"Moreover, in most 2:10 games I have read, towns have lynched and scum NK'd every day until lylo." - 2:10 games typically start with a NK (so they're really 2:9). Even if they didn't, you're basically saying that because towns have played a game out wrong in the past, we should use that wrong strategy in determining the balance?

(FWIW, the difference is about 3%; 35% NLing D1, 32% only NLing in Lylo.)

All that said, it would possibly be less difficult to figure out the EV of a larger setup with a one-shot cop than a smaller setup with a full cop (California). So I may try to do so sometime soon.

[Guardian]

Guardian by your logic then 4:6 is more balanced than 1:10

Ha. Diminishing returns makes this untrue.

Guardian, we've previously run 3 Mafia, 1 (every night, sane) Cop, 8 Townies. The scum won

easily

. One game isn't conclusive for balance, but it did demonstrate what I would expect - most games, the cop will get traded for one of the scum (sometimes the scum will hit the cop at night first, sometimes the cop will have another investigation or two first). It's not a good balance. Not unplayable, by any means, but not balanced.

If you think not, I would like to see more 3 Mafia 1 cop, 7 townie games run with mandatory lynch/NKs. I think the game you mention is an outlier. I would imagine the town would win most if not all.

If it could be arranged for alts of mine to be the cop every game that would be even better :P.

"In 2:10, the scum are less likely to have a bad scum player who throws the game." - If we start to base balance on how likely a scum player is to throw the game, I fear for the future of the site.

Why? By "throw the game" I mean give away connections to buddies. And by that I mean, if there is more buddies, more likely the bad scum player gives away connections to at least one of them. More buddies is more chances for bad players and moreover more chances for those players to mess up.

"In addition, there are less interactions to go off of once you get one scum dead. With three scum, if that first dead scum has a pattern of behavior towards two other players, you can really take that and run with it. With two scum, that one scum probably will not give much information. His partner is also less likely to, since I think in 2:10 there is almost no incentive to protect your partner or treat them specially in any way." - Quite the opposite! There is far more incentive to protect your partner in 2:10, because you only have one of them.

I flatly disagree. In 2:10 vanilla, the inventive is to play as much like a townie as possible. Make the town have to randomly lynch you to find you correctly. In a 3:8 game with a cop (let's say a full cop for the sake of argument) you want to protect your partners as long as the cop lives, because if a few of you die early the cop will break the game later.

It's always a tradeoff - scum can distance and hope they are able to mislead the town in later days in exchange for an increased chance of getting one of them lynched early, or they can protect and hope power in numbers outweighs the risk of giving away the whole group. Balance can't (shouldn't) take that into account

I really disagree with this. 2:10 vanilla all the incentive is to play as town as possible, and ignore your partner. 4:8 nightless is somewhere in the middle. 3:8 with a cop you have to protect your buddies if they are getting lynched since a day 1, or even 2, scum lynch is disastrous.

In 3:1-shot:8, the random EV balance is hugely in favor of the scum (3:9 Vanilla is 16.5%, I'd guess this is around 25%). Sure, the town might have more information to work with, but they are further behind (and 2:10 is on the slightly questionable side of "balanced" as it is).

I do not think the percentages are meaninful.

"Moreover, in most 2:10 games I have read, towns have lynched and scum NK'd every day until lylo." - 2:10 games typically start with a NK (so they're really 2:9). Even if they didn't, you're basically saying that because towns have played a game out wrong in the past, we should use that wrong strategy in determining the balance?

This is a strawman/misunderstanding. People are comparing 3:8 to past 2:10 games, based on how those 2:10 games actually went. I am saying that an advantage to my game, for the town, is it forces towns to play well. In those 2:10 games people are making anecdotal comparisons to, the town played badly. I am eliminating the town's option of playing badly.

(FWIW, the difference is about 3%; 35% NLing D1, 32% only NLing in Lylo.)

This percentage I find slightly meaningful, though I am distrustful of it. I think that the advantage gained is much more significant than the number "3%" appears.

If you won't run 3:7+1-shot, run a few 3:7+cop. I would be very, very surprised if the town does not win a majority -- unless the cops play pretty badly. I think the town should expect the cop to get 1.3 scum in those setups, or so, in a combination of clearing townies and finding scum.

[Adel]

If you won't run 3:7+1-shot, run a few 3:7+cop. I would be very, very surprised if the town does not win a majority -- unless the cops play pretty badly. I think the town should expect the cop to get 1.3 scum in those setups, or so, in a combination of clearing townies and finding scum.

3:8+cop is strawberry which is a setup that I do not like, as I said in the open setup certification thread:

3-1-8 Strawberry is very tough on the town; the best they can realistically hope for is that they can trade the Cop for a Scum, and then it becomes a 2-X setup that's worse than 2-10 (already in the Scum's favor). 3-1-11 would be a more reasonable balance, or 3-1-9 with cop headstart.

not to mention that the performance and survival of a single player is the single most important variable for town success. That equates with a crap 12-player setup in my book.

Re: Strawberry, again I don't think we're here to say if a set up is interesting. We are here to say if it is broken and reasonably balanced.

it isn't broken. It isn't especially balanced for a 12 player game, but it is probably within the standard we used for smaller games.

I just don't like it, even at 3:9+1

[Guardian]

I disagree that, even the 1-shot cop, should expect to settle for only 1 scum death in value worth, on average. He should be able to prevent a townie lynch or get a scum lynch without claiming, and should be able to stay alive long enough to be making him confirmed to matter, at least some of the time.

not to mention that the performance and survival of a single player is the single most important variable for town success. That equates with a crap 12-player setup in my book.

What if we called the cop the "king," the townies "guards," and the mafia the "assassins"? It would be OK then, amirite?

[Adel]

I disagree that, even the 1-shot cop, should expect to settle for only 1 scum death in value worth, on average. He should be able to prevent a townie lynch or get a scum lynch without claiming, and should be able to stay alive long enough to be making him confirmed to matter, at least some of the time.

not to mention that the performance and survival of a single player is the single most important variable for town success. That equates with a crap 12-player setup in my book.

What if we called the cop the "king," the townies "guards," and the mafia the "assassins"? It would be OK then, amirite?

the king is a much more simple role to play well than cop... and the guards fucking up is the major cause of town loss in that game, right?

[Guardian]

I disagree that, even the 1-shot cop, should expect to settle for only 1 scum death in value worth, on average. He should be able to prevent a townie lynch or get a scum lynch without claiming, and should be able to stay alive long enough to be making him confirmed to matter, at least some of the time.

not to mention that the performance and survival of a single player is the single most important variable for town success. That equates with a crap 12-player setup in my book.

What if we called the cop the "king," the townies "guards," and the mafia the "assassins"? It would be OK then, amirite?

the king is a much more simple role to play well than cop...

I dispute this.

the guards fucking up is the major cause of town loss in that game, right?

If two townies fuck up in this game and get lynched ==> loss.

And palace flavor is just so baller.

[Adel]

I believe that we are at an impass then.

And palace flavor is just so baller.

agreed.

Ironically, the use of "baller" is not

[Wall-E]

edited for content

[mith]

And by that I mean, if there is more buddies, more likely the bad scum player gives away connections to at least one of them. More buddies is more chances for bad players and moreover more chances for those players to mess up.

Ok, that's a difference sense of "throw the game" than I read it as, but even so. This is a poor argument; getting a bad player in the group hurts the scum, sure, and it's more likely with a larger group (although arguably more deadly with a smaller group, since if you are in a 2 man group with said bad player and he gives you away, you lose). You're also more likely to get a really good player in the group. You seem intent on assuming the worst for the three man group and the best (or at least neutral) for the two man group and then drawing a comparison. It's silly.

In 2:10 vanilla, the inventive is to play as much like a townie as possible. Make the town have to randomly lynch you to find you correctly. In a 3:8 game with a cop (let's say a full cop for the sake of argument) you want to protect your partners as long as the cop lives, because if a few of you die early the cop will break the game later.

The incentive in

every

game is to play as much like a townie as possible. I'm not talking about defending your buddies in obvious ways, just nudging things slightly as necessary.

The fact is, most players aren't good at acting "like a townie" when they are scum. That's what makes Mafia a viable game, why it's not in the town's interest to lynch randomly. At the same time, Mafia have the advantage of numbers; if they were a good enough player to act completely townish, they would still have the incentive to push lynches away from their buddy some of the time (and if we're assuming they are good enough to act town, they are good enough to do this as well). Only bad scum players

want

the town to lynch random; good scum players want to control the lynch as much as possible.

Anyway, for this specific setup, going out of your way to protect your partners has just as much risk as reward; if you are successful, but then the cop pegs one of you, you may have just lost two scum instead of one.

(FWIW, there is a 7/180 - ~4% - chance that the town will randomly lynch scum the first two days and the scum will miss the cop the first two nights. And even then, the cop is by no means certain to catch the final scum with his investigation. You are badly overstating the cop's chances of "breaking" this setup.)

I really disagree with this.

~shrug~ Then you are wrong. Sorry.

This is a strawman/misunderstanding. People are comparing 3:8 to past 2:10 games, based on how those 2:10 games actually went.

Er, yes. People are comparing to how those games actually went, which was generally

starting with a NK

; at least, the three of them I ran did (all scum wins).

For the record, Strawberry has been run three times; two were scum wins, and in the game the town won, the Cop died the first night. Additionally, one of the first Mini games was a 3 Mafia, 1 Cop, 8 Townie setup (mentioned in my previous post) which the scum won handily (essentially trading Antrax for the Cop). So no, so far the results don't agree with you, and while that's not a large enough sample size to say anything definite, it's with a full cop, where as you are arguing for a one-shot.

I would suggest that your time would be better spent thinking of how the town could have improved their play in those games than arguing that your setup is balanced; it clearly is not.