Mini 1217 - Campaign Mafia (Game Over!)

[Shadow Dancer]

No I did not read the five pages of thread you have aggregated over night.
Does it mater - no - because no way I am voting for Maruchan today. Who seeds irresponsible behaviour will earn just the same...

vote timeeater

Look up the latest vote count now...

[Shadow Dancer]

High five!

[Shadow Dancer]

Why hasn't maru been quickhammered yet? Quicklynch him, it's the best strategy. Chances to hit scum even by pure chance are never as high as today due special game mechanics. Long discussion only plays into scum's hands, they have a nasty fat voting block in this game.

[Shadow Dancer]

Hard to realize that there are more than 3 to 5 players i this game... Whatever.

Quicklyncing Maru was the only correct play for town, don't try to second guess that based on his flip.

If you really want to nominate players I hope you are wise enough to realize that nominating town reads is the way to go. I won't support any other course and I will certainly refuse to nominate myself at this point in time. If you are clever you wait for scum to nominate me. End of discussion.

And don't expect me to give you any reads on players other than actual candidates. You will see where my vote goes soon enough.

[Shadow Dancer]

No, all we will do is tell scum whom

they

should nominate. They are overhelming in numbers, thaey have the second pick and they can beat any town strategy.

So I won't discuss non-nominated players. And I won't nominate players to volunteer because that would require me to give my reads.

I trust no one. It's the only winning strategy. The sooner you realize this the better.

[Shadow Dancer]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I caught up by now.

[Shadow Dancer]

@Jo: Nominate for info is by far the best way you can go, because info is the best you can hope to get out of a strategy, just saying.
@Twisted: I don't know why you require any justification for the machu lynch. He justified that lynch himself with his very first post.

[Shadow Dancer]

I have certain plans with this game... which pretty much involve folowing my game plan and win this. Not giving any prospect into what I'm goning to do at any point in the future is key element of it, though. Watch and learn.

[Shadow Dancer]

[...]
@Shadow Dancer Your I have a mystery plan that will win scenario seems iffy to me. Could be a gambit.
[...]

Could

be? Of course I am gambiting. And being iffy is obviously and neccessarily part of it.
Just don't later on get the strange idea I claimed to have a sure win breaking strategy. There is no such thing for this game.

[Shadow Dancer]

Could, please, just some one who is not Hip, Tov or myself just volunteer now so we can finally start to do something useful? It is a shame there's still no dice function for the forums, we'd desperately need it now. But random.org tells me that Quilford has an urgent need to please me and be our next candidate. So I suggest he uses his next post for something useful and campaigns.

[Shadow Dancer]

Coluld you please stop discussing any one who is not in a campaign? There is no sense in discussing people you cannot vote for, that is so trivial that I ask myself why I have to explain this to you...

[Shadow Dancer]

WIFOM is a game that inherently favours the side that has the most information. That is undoubtedly scum in this game, s don't try to be clever, just be straight forward or even plain random.

[Shadow Dancer]

vote Jo

[Shadow Dancer]

Hi, Duplicity.

[...]I also strongly disagree with Shadow, although only two people can be voted today there's no need to limit discussion to them and them only. Doing so lets mafia know the very specific action they have to fake and leads towards a lot less information to use when deciding who should be nominated or voted for election in future days. We should most certainty be nominating town-reads though because doing so gives us a good idea of who we'll likely elect whereas electing a scum-read will not help at all if mafia nominate another scummy player to up against them.

Nononononono! Scum has the second pick and the upper hand in WIFOM. I don't want them to know which of their candidates would actually be elected in advance and you shouldn't want that either. It is really that simple.
You can stil read people based on what they are posting about the candidates, their voting behaviour etc. But keep it to yourself until it actually matters.
The "mafia knows what to fake" point is invalid. I never found scum based on

what

they were doing, but a hell lot of them based on

how

they were doing it. Fake is fake, no matter what you fake. Just playing along an agreement never brought any one town points.

Fixed some tags.
-Crazy

[Shadow Dancer]

Firstly, it wasn't posed as a questions, and secondly, I don't know how scum are thinking through this game, because I'm town and have been approaching it with that perspective. So I don't know if that's what they're thinking or not, but I'm going for a logical reason that Johhog is scum that should make sense to everyone, not just to me, because I know I'm town.

This is a very interesting post. Do you know why? Because I have been thinking very hard all the time about this one thing: What scum would best do to win this game. And now I am asking myself how you could end up on the wrong side of the "know your enemy" game.

[Shadow Dancer]

[...]
Pomegranate (Confirmed)
Packbat (90% sure)/hiplop (5% sure)/Duplicity (5% sure)
Lurconis (55% sure,)/SD (35% sure)/Quilford (8% sure)/Twistedspoon (2% sure)

Usually I think that Mafia shouldn't be broken down to numbers, but I'll make an exception here as this game has some quite special mechanics.

And what about the special mechaics of this game makes it especially and exceptionally prone to be broken down to numbers like that?

[Shadow Dancer]

@Dup: Wrong. At game start mafia was utterly ignorant concerning almost everything about this game aside the rather trivial fact who the actual scum are.
Best thing for town would have been to keep it just this way, forcing mafia to act blindly, making this a game of uninformed majority vs. uniformed cowardly minority who desperately need to hide to not be stomped in endgame.

I hate how every one just switches into mafia-auto-pilot mode, playing this like any other game of mafia, as a game of disoriented majority vs. fully informed minority, absolutely disregarding the fact that we have a special lynch mechainc in place that paves the way for a much more effective and efficient approach (simply put, you cannot just tunnel on a random subgroup of two players and get a guaranteed 50% scum probability on both of them in any normal game).

[Shadow Dancer]

No, it's much easier to brainfuck others than realizing when you are brainfucked. Please burrow your ego till this game is over and realize how wrong most townies tends to be in a majority of games and especially in mountaineous setups.
Focussing forces scum to buddy or distance to people that can actually be elected rather than some random person that does not matter at the moment. And they will much easier come into a situation were they are forced to block vote their candidate to get him through or sacrifice a day in hope for town credits.

[Shadow Dancer]

[...]I don't see why we should keep discussing it as like Shadow says all it does is give the scum even more info to work with.

How dare you misinterpret me this way! Discussion about whom of the candidates to elect it perfectly fine and required.

[Shadow Dancer]

Packbat's latest post is a prime example for my point why WIFOMing it up with scum is a horribly bad choice, by the way. It's as if one picked up the part of brainfucking oneself in one's own hands, so scum doesn't need to do it.

[Shadow Dancer]

I'd like to kindly remember Pom to adress my post #442 and Joh to answer my post #444.

[Shadow Dancer]

=====[]

...

[Shadow Dancer]

Damn... Misclicked when locking in...

Hey, Duplicity, it's your happy day. Random.org demands me to urge you to be our next volunteer. You surely don't want to argue with or disappoint random.org, do you?

[Shadow Dancer]

Because randoming denies scum any read on me.
And discussion before the nomination has to be kept short for reasons already stated. Let nominations be the scum's problem and reserve your reads for the voting phase, because that's the only phase wherein you can really influence things.

[Shadow Dancer]

No, hiplop is a lurker. Any excuses why you don't volunteer yourself, twisted?

[Shadow Dancer]

I'm going to go ahead and use the excuse that there are so many mafia in this setup that it's quite hard to tell the two players apart.

Really? Seemed easy to me.

[Shadow Dancer]

No, hiplop is a lurker. Any excuses why you don't volunteer yourself, twisted?

because it's too soon

but I'm sure the townies will vote me should the time come

If you think you'd be elected than it would be your best move to volunteer as any allignment. What exactly are you waiting for then?

[Shadow Dancer]

for a start Luc hasn't arrived to give his thoughts

I don't like how you're trying to rush into this mr. Enigma

Who the fuck is Luc?! And why is it so important for him to have arrived?

And I already explained why nominations should be made quick.

[Shadow Dancer]

This is... Interesting...

[Shadow Dancer]

Come on you two, sling a bit more dirt at each other! I want to have some fun watching.

[Shadow Dancer]

I think I figured it out... But I had the headstart yesterday and this is interesting to watch... Also I don't want any one to make any lame "I don't want to vote with Shadow"-excuses... So... People, stop to try lurking this out!

[Shadow Dancer]

That's in deed one of the things I've done, twisted. But maybe you want to help me out anyway, might well be that I haven't seen the same things that you want me to see.

[Shadow Dancer]

So you go from "hip's town" to "hip's iso is the scummiest thing I've ever seen" from one moment to the other. If it is so obiously scummy you can certainly point out the striking scummy behaviour patterns that he, according to you, displays.

[Shadow Dancer]

@Pack: If at all possible at least place your vote.

[Shadow Dancer]

looking back at his iso it's just fluff to me

no analysis or anything

Yeah, I admit I lurked. But I did post content, just victim of circumstance I suppose.

Doesn't explain why you're still doing it, though...

[Shadow Dancer]

ts without referring to hiplop please tell me why you're town 'coz i'm not seeing it

Then explain why twisted is scum, eh?!

[Shadow Dancer]

@Dup: Please realize that you are only accusing twisted of changing his opinion about hip after hip was nominated against him. Inconsistency, contrary to what far too many people believe, was never a scum tell and most especially is not in this case.

vote Twisted

[Shadow Dancer]

I won't elaborate on any analysis that is based on assumptions who might be scum... But just look at the bot of them.
We know for sure that one is town and one is scum, i.e. one is honestly trying to win this for town and the other one is trying to drop the right town tells that he zhings we want to hear.
Now read them in ISO and it looks pretty clear who is what.
Sorry if I cannot give you better reasoning than what you could as well summarize as "gut", but I am not going to produce some WoT, quoting my way through the ISOs and making comments that likely no one will ever read. In the end I want you to draw your own conclusions anyway.

[Shadow Dancer]

@Dup: Please realize that you are only accusing twisted of changing his opinion about hip after hip was nominated against him. Inconsistency, contrary to what far too many people believe, was never a scum tell and most especially is not in this case.

vote Twisted

the thing i find odd is that he refuses to admit those things. He had a a BIG town read on me, and suddenly he only had a slight one on me due to PoE. Why is he lying?

I cannot see the developement you describe. Even less I can see a lie.

[Shadow Dancer]

I say Packbat nominates next. Totally random of course

[Shadow Dancer]

Whaaaat?

Lurconis volunteers next.

I don't care.

[Shadow Dancer]

O_o
Kinda saw it coming.
I just hope you have the wisdom to see why they nominated me. Keep in mind that they cannot afford to lose today's election.

Lurc's Joh vote was obvious town cred fishing.

Theredore he needed to be early on the Twisted waggon because he had been called out on it (by Dup I think).

Last scum is almost surely Pack. But I'll do complete ISOs of every one alive later, so don't rush it.

[Shadow Dancer]

Nice try, Lurc, but I was obviously refering to this post:

can someone just vote johog to prove packbat wrong and scum once and for all

Yes

VOTE: Johog

No explanation whatosever, just a quick hammer on the town waggon when it was already clear that Pom wasn't gonna make it.

I will not WIFOM myself.

What do you mean - "WIFOM

yourself

"?! Split-personality disorder?
Anyway, if you have not understood what I meant by town exposing itself and becoming predictable for scum, I cannot help you anyway. You'll have to find it out the hard way.

No time for a complete reread and analysis now. Whoever hammers me is scum, remember that all my reads have been spot on so far (you can't count maru, because he was so blatantly anti-town that nothing could have safed him). If you mislynch me you'll need my final judegement in LyLo.

[Shadow Dancer]

Vote: Lurconis

Hammer stolen. Lurconis or ShadowDancer should be online in an hour or two to state if the games over or not but I'm expecting that it is. I'd also love to see what mafias thoughts were when putting hip up against TS.

You better hope the mod does not count that unbolded vote because esle I predict that you just lost town the gmae, you goddamn stupid moron.

[Shadow Dancer]

I honestly thought I would be heading into this long weekend with a completed game on here. I really feel if you read my iso and shadows iso it is apparent who is town.

On my way to work please post any questions you have for me today as depending on wildfires I may be V/LA from later today through Monday.

Too bad for you. Why again should we rush a lynch for your convenience?

I'm not sure whether this is townie or not considering that town wouldn't lose the game if mafia were elected at the moment.

Hurrr.

I need to look at lurc's ISO. And I'm now worried about Packbat voting for Lurconis.

Then let me explain this: From the three of you that are left for I can tell tell right now (i.e. pre reread) I am almost sure Dup is town, I think a dup nomination would win this for tow even if you mislynch me. However in this constellation Dup mishammering me would be the worst possible outcome for town by discrediting him.

fuggit

I just meta'd SD and he's more active and obvious than this as town

but I don't know why scum would present such a weird plan

and I want to know why Dup's feeling angsty about Lurc

That shouldn't surprise you. I never play "my ISO". I am a player that approaches each game on its own basis. And I decided that the special lynch mechanics of this game required a nonstandard approach. I have always been transparent about this to you. You might not agree with it, but you should at least concede that I justified it.

I have no time to ISO tomorrow, it's only 27 pages, half of that from dead players, but it'll still need some time. I am confident that I can manage it on Sunday.

[Shadow Dancer]

Just in short for now: I am almost absolutely sure now that Pack is the last scum and that Quil and Dup are town.
I'll elaborate on it more tomorrow when I have more time.

[Shadow Dancer]

Just in short for now: I am almost absolutely sure now that Pack is the last scum and that Quil and Dup are town.
I'll elaborate on it more tomorrow when I have more time.

Please note that this is exactly what scum is forced to say in this situation.

Please note that this is exactly what scum is forced to say in this situation.

(Sorry... This is funny, I couldn't withstand the temptation... I mean the

this

could really be a self reference to that post... I guess I have a weird humour)

[Shadow Dancer]

OK, quite some long posts incoming. I think I'll have a look at the general flow of votes first, than have a closer look at the roles that Lurc and Pack play in the sceme of things in particular and finally I'm going to briefly comment on why I thin Quil and Dup are town. I have abpout half an hour, so not sure if I can manage all of it today, if not the rest will definitely come tomorrow.

[Shadow Dancer]

So let's start with a look at the general flow of votes:

I.Maru vs. Time

Maruchan

(1) - hiplop

Timeater

(4) - Quilford, Packbat, Pomegranate, Lurconis

Not voting

(4) - Tovarish, Johhog, Twistedspoon, Shadow Dancer

Quilford votes for Time pretty soon and it becomes immidiately clear that maru's anti-town play would cause an almost undisputed wake of outrage against him. So Pack, Pom and Lurc all jumping onto the waggon in short succession cannot surprise, even if all three of them are scum, after all it was both in scum's best interest to vote their buddy and even by far the safer and more unquestionable spot to put one's vote.

Maruchan

(1) - hiplop

Timeater

(5) - Quilford, Pomegranate, Lurconis, Shadow Dancer, Twistedspoon

Not voting

(3) - Tovarish, Packbat, Johhog

Packbat unvotes after his buddies stacked on the waggon and it becam apparent that town would drive it through without much scum interference required...

II. Joh vs. Pom

Johhog

(2) - Shadow Dancer, Twistedspoon

Pomegranate

(0)

Not voting

(5) - Packbat, Duplicity, Lurconis, hiplop, Quilford

The Joh waggon starts of with two fast town votes on it.

Johhog

(3) - Shadow Dancer, Twistedspoon, Duplicity

Pomegranate

(1) - Packbat

Not voting

(3) - Lurconis, hiplop, Quilford

A third town vote on the Joh waggon, things get pretty narrow for scum. Packbat, obviously destined to play the role of "bad scum" tries to establish at least somewhat of a counterdynamic - for more than shady reasons (more aout that later).

Johhog

(3) - Shadow Dancer, Twistedspoon, Duplicity

Pomegranate

(2) - Packbat, Quilford

Not voting

(2) - Lurconis, hiplop

Quilford, predisposed to fall for bad scum WIFOM, falls for it, however, it's still pretty bad for scum and they'd have to stack all their votes to succeed in pushing the Pom waggon through, which would eventually and almost inevitably expose them to suspicion on all of them.

Johhog

(4) - Shadow Dancer, Twistedspoon, Duplicity, Lurconis

Pomegranate

(2) - Packbat, Quilford

Not voting

(1) - hiplop

So Lurc decides to think in longer terms and go for some easy town credits on an already unstopable ttown waggon by quickhammering Joh.

III. Twosted vs. Hip

Twistedspoon

(1) - Lurconis

hiplop

(0)

Not voting

(4) - Packbat, Duplicity, Quilford, Shadow Dancer

Hip was obviously picked by scum for supposedly having realistic chances to beat Twisted, not to get rid of dead weight. However, scum also have to take into consideration that they'd eventually have to win at least one more election to have any chances of victory. There only halfway promissing candidate left is Lurc and another shady vote would not look good on him, so he decides that he'd better play it safe this time and be the first one on the town waggon.

Twistedspoon

(1) - Lurconis

hiplop

(1) - Packbat

Not voting

(3) - Duplicity, Quilford, Shadow Dancer

Now it's starting to become interesting. I withhold my vote to see what Pack would do if he cannot bring forth connective WIFOM to justify a misvote - and unsurprisingly he places it on hip, equaling out the waggons (double voting Twisted would have obviously been a terrible move for scum), justification for the vote? - nil.

Twistedspoon

(2) - Lurconis, Shadow Dancer

hiplop

(1) - Packbat

Not voting

(2) - Quilford, Duplicity

I place my vote as planned....

Twistedspoon

(3) - Lurconis, Shadow Dancer, Quilford

hiplop

(1) - Packbat

Not voting

(1) - Duplicity

Twistedspoon has been elected. He was a

Townie

.
hiplop has been lynched. He was

Mafia

And Quilford hammers...

IV. Lurc vs. Shadow

Lurconis

(1) - Quilford

Shadow Dancer

(0)

Not voting

(2) - Packbat, Duplicity

Quilford spontaneously votes Lurc...

Lurconis

(1) - Packbat

Shadow Dancer

(0)

Not voting

(2) - Duplicity, Quilford

And guess what happens when people actually try to question their votes and start real scumhunting? Packbat's there to try and safe the day by voting his scum buddy.

---

If this little abstract did not convince you or you think I just mention the one interpretation among many that seems to suit me the most - then you'll have to wait for my further analysis on individual player behaviour.

[Shadow Dancer]

VOTE: Lurconis

Retard.

[Shadow Dancer]

Quil might be scum in fact, if any one other than Dup nominates he needs quick and clean rope.

[Shadow Dancer]

I'll spare you the rest of my analysis, Dup has enough brain of his own I guess and It'd be lost on whoever of the other two is the last town anyway, I've got better things to do with my time.

yep, in hindsight I should've gone with the 'no scum would do something so blatantly anti-town as keep their talking to a minimum'[/quil]
If you are town what you should have done "in hindsight" is waiting for the rest of my analysis, where I point out how blatantly Lurc was bussing his alleged buddy Pack (dominant tactic if scum can influence the timing of their flips!) and how both of them where trying to misrepresent my approach when rushing a lynch or vote or general scummy lurking seemed appropriate for them... Just to name some highlights.
How Packbat's pseudo-WIFOMy justifications for his votes can almost impossibly come from a townie doesn't need further explanations, I guess. You'l have do the work yourself now.

By the way, SD, this made me not vote for you

It was pure recounting

Did you miss the part where I promissed the actual justifications for today? One of the most important virtues for playing mafia is patience.

Anyway reads as they stand: ShadowDancer (Confirmed Scum) Duplicity (Scum) Packbat (Village Idiot) Quillford (Town)

anyway now we have this delicious bit of WIFOM to deal with

*braces for Duplicity's wrath*

Yeah, the most likely town is suddenly scum, the guy he bussed all game is now just VI and poor newbie Quilford gets his ration of buddying...

Also the WIFOM of 'would Packbat really vote all the scum players as scum'.

Yes, he would, Pom and Hip nominations were aimed at winning and not dropping dead weight. Scum never wanted to drag this out so long and having one member consistently vote "wrong" while bussing him is not the worst thing to do, especially if you can pick a newbie for the task.

[Shadow Dancer]

@Crazy: Please fix the tags.

Fixed.
-Crazy

[Shadow Dancer]

Damn...
Packbat is the single most abysmal town player I've ever encountered in any of my games I guess... I mean - 100% wrong over four or five elections?

Regfan's idea goes into the right direction, similar to my random suggestions that every one just ignored, quick nominations that scum cannot influence, let scum pick their candidate in the dark and then have an intense but focussed discussion on the actual candidates. Too bad that som people actually prefered to mark me scum for playing this game with a strategy
Short deadlines are not a problem, in general long deadlines favour scum because they allow town to drift far into wrong directions. With the very focussed permanent 1on1 nature of this game any longer deadline wouldn't have been needed anyway and we never came in trouble to achieve a lynch at deadline.
The more I think about the maru situation the more I think that some mod-legislation would have been appropriate. Not reading one's role PM pre-game before posting a vote or, in this case, entering an election is absolutely against the spirit of the game. Since this is an open setup any combination of force replacement and redistributing role PMs wouldn't have been too much trouble.

[Shadow Dancer]

@Maru:
There was absolutely nohing wrong with the quick nomiation, quite contrary it was exactly the strategy I was advertising for.

What was just absolutely bad was the not reading your town read part. There is no town motivation to do that and it's just plain inacceptable behaviour.

Had you just read your role PM and laid down why you considered a instant nomination a favourable tactic for town it would have been perfectly fine.

As with almost everything in mafia the mistake was not in doing it but in

how

you did it.

[Shadow Dancer]

It makes perfectly sense for mafia to not read their role PM, magua. Good scum play simply means to blend in as townie perfectly - and not reading your role PM and hence being ignorant about who your partners are makes that a whole lot easier.
That's why it's inacceptable behaviour.
Besids that maru's play was in no way equivalent to a post 1 dayvig. And besides, optimal control of information flow in a information based game always depends on which side has the initiative or can make the more educated decission, and inthis game it's alot about scum nominations which give scum the upper edge which is why town should play less open than normally.

[Shadow Dancer]

I'm aware of the Quagmire argument; I simply don't believe it. If you are bad enough as scum that you think not reading your Role PM will make you better scum, you'll be *twice* as obvious D2 when your (apparently transparent) behavior changes.

Unless you just do this to get "honest" D1 reads and then just go from there D2. However I don't even want to discuss how this would best be done as scum... The point isthat is should not be done at all. Scum motivation to not read their role PM might already be pretty bad, but there is absolutely no motivation for town to do so whatsoever and it is not playing the game and mods should take care that it doesn't happen.

(Or to put it another way: if it were good play, everyone should do it. If everyone did it, would the game improve?)

No, but it would have no real impact on D1 town play because for being entirely ignorant about everything, which is a the typical townie's initial situation, not having read you role PM does not have much of an effect. The game would definitely not improve. And as I see it it is breaking a rule (a mostly unwritten one, but that's only because people normally have enough decency to not do it anyway), the discussion wheter breaking it constantly would improve the game is besides the point.

The fact that there are times when it is a good idea for town to do things that deprive the rest of the town of information does not mean that every time this happens, it is a good idea.

So this is

some

argument for... er...something... and in this

special case

...er... because

in general

you shouldn't... So you

never ever

should... Or something... *lol*

[Shadow Dancer]

Shadow Dancer, you're agreeing with everything I'm saying, so I'm really curious as to why we're arguing.

<_<
>_>

Exactly my point!

[Shadow Dancer]

I definitely would give this setup another try. The D1 policy lynch and resulting mostly unreadable waggon spoiled this game quite a bit.