Newbie 1714 (Game Over)

[mhsmith0]

Btw, sick was generically the optimal peek, but not for the reason you think. Want to guess as to why sick made the most sense?

[Zyf]

Because I had nothing to judge mh on the whole game aside from fox's judgemment

[Zyf]

Btw, sick was generically the optimal peek, but not for the reason you think. Want to guess as to why sick made the most sense?

Because the alignment wasn't clear?

Also gtg guys
See you in an hour or so

[mhsmith0]

Sick was d1 counter wagon. Counter wagons are extremely likely to survive the night (they are HIGH information kills, which wolves generally don't want - better to leave the d1 game state shrouded in as much mystery as possible). Zyf was a widespread town read, and therefore not any kind of lock to survive the night.

Zyf might have been a good track (if wolves made the town read of their bunch make the kill) or jail (ditto, plus he could be a target), but the realistic chance zyf would be shot made it IMO a bit sub optimal as a cop peek.

Just my $0.02 though.

[Raskolnikov]

Definitely, I think zyf is the last choice you want for a n1 check here.
But he was scumreading him so like that's just how it is.

[mhsmith0]

Also: knowing that day one wagons were t / t makes it far likelier that at least one wolf was off both wagons. (Likelier one than two though). As of that moment in time (3 on each, 3 off), in fact both wolves were off both town wagons.

That sort of evidence is super hard to parse out, but I think that in a world where it was known sick was town on d2, beebpy/me/rask would have been a good place to push. Otoh, vandit looked pretty Wolfy, and it would have been super hard to not lynch him d2. I even thought coming in I was replacing as his buddy lol.

[Raskolnikov]

Sick, me, ranger or maybe beeboy as n1 decent invests I think.
Oddly enough I think a vandit check would actually have been low value because he was almost definitely lynch next day regardless, and even if you found an inno there I don't think you could have saved it without exposing yourself and dying for it.

[mhsmith0]

Yes agreed. Id thought FOX simply erred there.

[Zyf]

Also I probably would've policy lynched vandit anyway

[F-oh-ex]

Eh, in my previous game I was Tracker and despite trying to hold back my instinct to townlead, I gained a massive towncred. I wanted to avoid it this game so I played badly on purpose. I wanted to be just scummy enough to be "next lynch" target and not to get NKed. I was going to claim day 3, whether it was 1v4 or 2v3. Had I survived N2, we'd have won probably.

Zyf, I scumread you and since you were leading, that read affected the way I perceived the game a lot. Confirming your alignment would allow me to read the game better. Also, I didn't see you getting NKed in case you were Town because you were obviously not a PR.

[mhsmith0]

It's kinda funny because I thought FOX was pretty clearly town and wanted ZERO part of trying to get him lynched lol.

I'd also say that kinda hiding out is fine as a PR, but sometimes pr hunters will explicitly look out for that kinda stuff. Otoh being super aggressive will get you town cred but make you a target that way too. Dice roll either way tbh.

[Sickofit1138]

GG guys.

Hope we get to play another game together.

Zyf you did a great job towntelling the whole game, it was pure paranoia that ii scumread you at the end of the game.
I just couldnt believe a mh/rask scumteam tbh. if i did get one i would not have gotten the other.

GG

[Zyf]

Same sick
Maybe one but no way the team
Frikin twilight trolling chibi fox humanoid

[Zyf]

Just so you know, we finished before game 1699.

[mhsmith0]

GG guys.

Hope we get to play another game together.

Zyf you did a great job towntelling the whole game, it was pure paranoia that ii scumread you at the end of the game.
I just couldnt believe a mh/rask scumteam tbh. if i did get one i would not have gotten the other.

GG

Also looking forward to another w you guys (preferably w me being town).

I will say that for you guys to associate me and rask, you really needed to do it d1 or MAYBE d2. By d3 we had strong incentive to create false associations and alliances (me and zyf and beeboy vs rask and sick) that were also explainable by other reasons (like rask/sick being the team and panicking). In this game, d1 is where the town lost it.

Also, ftr, if we'd shot bee instead of fox, then despite doing really well in d1/2, we'd have still lost. This is why cops are SUPER cheap. If I had my druthers, there would never be a cop in a newbie game. Cops are drugs and crutches that let towns avoid scum hunting and learning how to scum hunt. I don't think there's anything MORE detrimental to learning how to scum hunt than getting bailed out by a cops night actions Poe solving the game.

Just so you know, we finished before game 1699.

Amusingly, my prior newbie game (1691) dragged insanely long. In meaningful part due to my own indecisiveness. These can be crapshoots.

[beeboy]

Newbie games are really cutthroat honestly >_>
I feel as though regular games are 100x less daunting then most newbie games.

[Zyf]

Newbie games are really cutthroat honestly >_>
I feel as though regular games are 100x less daunting then most newbie games.

That's why I wish there was a general matrix6 queue
I like the setup a bunch but once I'm better at this I want to play with other people I know on a setup I like e.e

[mhsmith0]

Matrix6 is generally just newbie games, because site norm is 13+ player games (also because matrix6 is structurally unbalanced and town sided, but that gets balanced to a fair extent by most slots being newbies who are learning how to play)

otoh there are other open setups,most notably c++ or jk++ http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=JK9%2B%2B beeboy also has modded fire and ice, a fully open multi ball setup which is also interesting, he could tell you more about that one and what it's like to play.

Also if you want to play w people you know, keep an eye on pre-ins for specific games, or just on replacement queue in general.

I would say, though, that for your first few games you're better off just /in-ing without worrying about being w people you know or not.

I'd suggest mini normals
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... start=2175

Or micros
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=66237

Try one of those while you're also in the newbie queue. Two games at once is an added challenge,mbut it's a step forward and you may enjoy it. I would NOT recommend /in to more than two at once though; take that first step, make sure you can handle the load, and THEN think about maybe making it three at a time.

[mhsmith0]

Game commentary
Day one
Day one is (barring getting bailed out by PR's or mafia screwups) where towns can really lose a game. Here, day one was where town lost the game. Key issues:

1) The quick hammer without a claim. This was on vandit. Town got lucky that sad wasn't just a PR hiding out. This is poor by a wolf (because a "maybe we'll hit the PR" quick-hammer isn't really worth getting lynched D2, which is the likely outcome of the quick hammer) and even worse from a vanilla townie (because not only might you hit a PR, you're also likely the D2 lynch).

2) The sad wagon itself. Essentially, the sad lynch was a lurker lynch, and this game demonstrated the issues associated with that sort of thing. Bizarrely, this was a lurker lynch of a town lurker, and there were ZERO wolves on that wagon. Normally a policy lynch (of which lurker lynches are a subset) that hits town can be a great opportunity to look for wolves who voted for it. This time, there wasn't one.

So why do wolves like to lynch lurkers? Policy lynches in general are pro-mafia because they can pretend to be scum-hunting without actually having to commit to reading, thinking, or anything that might in the process expose their insincerity. Lurker lynches are even worse, because not only are you doing that, you're going up against a target that can't, or won't, fight back. If you're going to lynch a lurker D1, it should be because there was something substantially wolfy to their postings, or because you've gone through the roster and developed solid town reads, and more or less POE'd your way to the lurker lynch. Just kind of sliding into a lurker lynch is anti-town behavior that should be reserved for wolves. If you're town, pick targets that can and will fight back, and through that process get the data you need to make meaningful assessments of peoples' alignments.

3) Not being engaged and involved with all the issues on the board. The most notable example of this was beeboy's early wolf-read of rask. Beeboy kept on that read for quite some time (on and off throughout the game, including again on D2 at 247). Meaningful engagement on that read (i.e. legitimate questioning of both beeboy and rask) could have given town important data (i.e. whether beeboy was sincere in the read, and whether rask could defend his actions).

This was an important moment in D1, and town just kind of ignored it. And that choice to ignore it meant that on D3, I had the option to sell the idea that beeboy and rask were wolf bros who were just distancing and pretending to fight (I chose not to because I figured sick was the easier mislynch). After all, beeboy's read never went anywhere; maybe that was because beeboy WANTED it to never really go anywhere. By the time D3 rolled around, there was simply no way to know for sure, since it was LYLO and every single interaction between every single player could plausibly just be insincere and strategic. The time to sort beeboy vs rask was day one. That was a major missed opportunity, probably THE major missed opportunity of the game for town. And that was a town-wide failure. Beeboy should have pressed harder, and the rest of the town should have cared. Rask certainly wasn't going to care, so long as no one else was interested. dvds (and then me) weren't going to care, especially with easier targets floating around to attack. The wolves didn't care because they didn't want to get into it. Town didn't care because they let themselves get distracted by seemingly bigger issues.

But all issues are big. In a larger game, sometimes you can decide that an issue isn't important enough to sort right away, because there isn't enough time to go around for everything. But in a small game like this, every issue is important. Every issue could contain the key bit of information you need to solve the game. If an issue is important enough for someone to vote on it, then it's important enough for town to get into it and figure it out.

Night one

1) The Ranger kill was one of a few highly defensible options. The only clear no kills were vandit (the day 2 mislynch) and sick (the day 1 counter-wagon). Anyone else was fair game. Ranger was killed not because her reads were good, but because they were NOT good, and Rask (rightfully) feared that her day 2 reads might have been a lot better. Moreover, Ranger's relatively low level of participation on day 1 was plausibly because she was a PR laying low. Not a gimme by any stretch, but FOX was doing something similar, and he actually was the PR. So that logic generically held in this game, it was just that rask happened to pick the wrong player to apply it to on night one.

2) The Zyf check wasn't terrible, but it wasn't optimal. There was a realistic chance that Zyf (if town) would have gotten NK'd, and then the cop check becomes wasted. Generically, cop checks in a game this size should be:

- unlikely to get night killed
- high information
- likely mafia

The highest information cop check target on the board was sick. Sick was the counter-wagon on D1, and making it public knowledge that he was also town would have thrown D1 into much sharper relief. If sick AND sad were both town, then it was pretty unlikely that Zyf would have prominently pushed sad to L-1 (unless he was with vandit), and it was very likely that the wolves were doing relatively not all that much on D1 (and it turns out, both wolves were off of both wagons). Knowing sick was town would have made it pretty likely that it was either Zyf-Vandit exactly, or one, or MAYBE two, of Beeboy-Rask-MHS was a wolf (both wolves off both wagons is unusual, but not 100% impossible).

Day two
1) This was a super difficult day just for the circumstances town was already in after day one. Town was a bit lucky in that FOX and his peek both survived, but it was always going to be super difficult to NOT lynch vandit after the day one lol-hammer. It was good that town was trying to think about other options, and trying to get more info into thread, but seeing vandit as town in that spot was just incredibly difficult. I subbed in and I was sure it was vandit; it's not fair to expect town to do any better than my read had been there.

2) FOX - honestly, you were in a tough spot. I thought that your 277 did a very good job establishing your town read of Zyf WITHOUT making it super obvious that it was just a cop/tracker check (i.e. it could have been you seeing Zyf visit someone who survived, making Zyf the doctor). I wasn't sure what you meant there by Rask hard-core tunneling, I think that it was an accusation against Sick, but am not sure.

3) One thing that town might have been able to pick up on is Rask's 283. Compare that to 173, and "this posting is, no exaggeration, the scummiest I have ever seen here." Town!Rask is probably continuing suspicion on Vandit, or pushing harder, etc. Here you see Rask pulling back from his day one read, even though Vandit's actions since that read were objectively even more suspicious than at the time Rask made his original read. In these posts, Rask is expressing a preference for a Vandit lynch, but isn't committing to it, and is starting to pull back his certainty. That's a suspicious shift in read given what had already been put on the board. FAR from a smoking gun, but it was worth poking and prodding at. Zyf poked a bit at it, but otherwise it basically got dropped.

4) @sick: for the record, wrt 329, sarcasm generally IS a townie thing to do. Context matters as always, but being unafraid to poke at people and potentially make in-thread enemies is an attitude that generally is town-motivated.

5) This was pretty subtle, and not really an AI tell, but you should take a look at my 309 (point #3), 316, 357. I was pretty intentionally trying to throw some dirt onto sick and beeboy, in anticipation of possibly needing to push on one or both of them D3. Not enough to derail the vandit wagon, but enough to possibly create some extra options on D3.

6) Look at vandit's last will at 416. It could be that vandit correctly ID'd the sketchiest vote on him, OR it could be that the mafia had successfully engineered a mislynch while letting someone else take the heat for it. If the latter, Rask was cheerleading the wagon without being on it, and Zyf's unvote was a bit odd. It was pretty realistic that one of the two off votes were mafia, and given the (possible) cop check on Zyf, that meant that Rasks's day two wagon positioning was very suspicious (this was why I wanted to make damn sure I was on that wagon, and I was especially pleased to not be forced to be the hammer).

Night two
1) I'd like you guys to take a serious look at what I was posting in mafia chat. I put a tremendous amount of time and energy and thought into figuring out who could be a PR. I didn't just wildly guess, I actively game-solved, and made a reasonably confident assessment that FOX was JK/cop/tracker. I also explicitly rolled the dice, becuase I suspected that it was FOX tracker, beeboy doc, and if beeboy was doc, and saw FOX as tracker, the kill could have been blocked, and the game could have been nearly locked. As it was, if I'd targeted beeboy instead, the game would have been nearly locked for town, to the point where only a convincing fake PR claim could have bailed out the wolves from FOX winning it by PoE.

I will also say that this is a big reason why I hate cop roles - town winning that way, in a game where the wolves were winning the day game, is IMO cheap and unhealthy for players' development. If town had won this game just because FOX's cop checks bailed town out, sure it's nice to get a W on the resume, but what would be learned? Mistakes were made in this game, and town DESERVED to lose.

Deserving to lose but backing into a win is terrible. Feeling the pain from a game gone wrong is HEALTHY. Take that pain, and channel it into improving. My first newbie game here, I mis-hammered on final LYLO, and that was TWO MONTHS of effort down the drain because I made the wrong call at the key moment. Hating how that made me feel compelled me to improve my town game (and my town game is I think legitimately good, despite my really crappy record as town). Hating how my losses as wolf made me feel compelled to improve, and I think I've been getting better there (though I still think there's a lot of work I need to do on that end). The last game beeboy and I played together, I was TERRIBLE as anti-town (a one-man killer against 8 townies), falling YET AGAIN to a quick lynch. I hated it. HATED it. So I've put the work into getting better at looking reasonably town when I'm not. I'm not there yet. But it's getting better.

Day three
1) By this point in time, the game was basically lost. Barring a major screwup by the wolves, town simply didn't have the information it needed to game solve. Decisions made on days 1 and 2 (mainly day 1) starved the town of useful alignment-related interactions, and made it extraordinarily difficult for town to figure it out barring a major screwup by the mafia.

2) I'd actually been intentional about not PR claiming, but not for the reason Zyf thought at 464 (I'd intended to be a VT claim all along). A townie perspective is to not really care what people think about your actions; I intended to project that aura wrt my claim timing. I certainly attempted to project that with 474; I might as well have just posted "to people who suspect me for not quick claiming or spamming insta-analysis onto the board: bite me".

3) Zyf's on and off sick voting was pretty reasonably townie. OTOH, it was ineffective if intended to trap anyone into quick voting.

4) I think my 512 was about the towniest post I made all game. This was presented as a genuine and legitimate attempt to sort sick, asking aggressive questions, that still had potentially plausible responses. I don't think I'm as eager to make this sort of post on D2; but on D3, I have options, and with the cop dead, I don't actually need to worry about protecting my wolf bro and targeting any one specific townie, so I can be much more townie-like in my work, EVEN IF in the process somehow sick gets cleared.

5) Sick's beeboy vote was sub-optimal, but he'd very clearly been backed into a corner with VERY few options. I don't blame him for that one.

PS I apologize in advance for this being mostly criticisms. One thing I really would like to say is that you guys were TRYING. The effort absolutely was there. My hope is that you take this experience, and really do your best to learn and improve from it. I think you guys can do it.

[Zyf]

What I learned from this is that day 1 needs to be the longest because you can get everyone's input cleanly in for later reference. If we had been given more time without the quickhammer we would have perhaps had a better chance since ranger would've been able to read further. Furthermore, all the lurky people would have had to come out of hiding, and replacements would be able to be much more scrutinized with everyone alive. I mean, ranger never even got a chance to /see/ mh.

[mhsmith0]

Day 1 doesn't need to be super crazy long, but it does need to be long enough to see meaningful interactions. If nothing else, barring a super obvious wolf on the board, it's usually good to have two solid wagons with everyone FORCED to take a meaningful opinion on each. It's harder for wolves to hide in the shadows when you shine bright lights on things.

[Raskolnikov]

I'm kind of hoping for a ranger review at some point even though I know she's probably really busy and it's maybe selfish to hope for considering the situation and that everyone else wants it too so it'd prob be lower priority.
I know I'm se but this was my first scumgame where I didn't get instalynched day 1 so I really do want to know how beeboy f-oh-x scumread me here plus what cause ranger that paranoia and "bad vibes" or something too.

[Ranger]

It would have been nice to have gotten a notification from the mod that this game was over, since I was V/LA.
I'm coming off of it, so I can give feedback tomorrow.

[mhsmith0]

It would have been nice to have gotten a notification from the mod that this game was over, since I was V/LA.
I'm coming off of it, so I can give feedback tomorrow.

Looking forward to it. This was my best wolfing to date, but it had some holes in it, and any advice you can provide on how to identify and plug those holes would be appreciated.

[JaeReed]

Super excited for Ranger feedback xP I mean, I know I wasn't in the game or anything, but still....

Also grats to the wolf team.