Micro 885: Crown on the Ground (Game Over)

[Dunnstral]

VOTE: popsofctown

[Dunnstral]

Advance Wars is a dead series

Check out Wargroove on steam!!

[Dunnstral]

Can you post alignment indicative stuff soon

:shifty: A post like this is unexpected coming from you - since when were you the type to pressure people for content at the start of a game?

[Dunnstral]

[Dunnstral]

Yeah... no

There were different, mechanical reasons not to mess with the slot I replaced into in that game, and we won as scum through mechanics after the day 2 lynch

You're looking scummy this game pops

[Dunnstral]

I want to crown Dunnstral.
That way we don't crown scum.
Then he gets shot and we don't lose someone with good reads

...?

[Dunnstral]

I have a feeling the crown abilities aren't gonna be as powerful as cop checks, I think they'll be a lot less significant than that.

RCEnigma:

I think you're town, only way you'd be scum was if you were scum with me - so only a slight scumlean for now.

Anyway, why Gameplay as I as the two scum?

So do you think he's town or a slight scumlean? Also, I don't understand your reasoning.

[Dunnstral]

UNVOTE:

[Dunnstral]

Does that include taking pot shots at me every few posts?

[Dunnstral]

VOTE: Correspondence

On the grounds of inconsistency.

They still scumread egduf but don't scumread Hectic because their partner would have come to their defense to protect them. Which correspondence' scumread did. That's...not organic to me.

I'm over having to individually read Hydra heads.

Unfortunately that's not something you can be over (I get what pops is saying now)—if you consider that it's a hydra then that's not scummy for them, so voting them amounts to a sort of policy vote. Or am I wrong?

[Dunnstral]

Tie breakers will be determined by whose name comes first in the alphabet.

So who gets lynched, the person whos name is later in the alphabet?

[Dunnstral]

OK, but the question still remains as: who gets the crown

[Dunnstral]

15. My color is

Royal Gold (#FF8000)

. Do not use it or a similar color.

That's orange

[Dunnstral]

How is that weird? They weren't pretending to be a newbie, were they?

[Dunnstral]

pops I ~don't know~ what you're expecting from me

[Dunnstral]

I don't have any scumreads

[Dunnstral]

Unfortunately that's not something you can be over (I get what pops is saying now)—if you consider that it's a hydra then that's not scummy for them, so voting them amounts to a sort of policy vote. Or am I wrong?

But the inconsistency isn’t between hydra heads, it’s within one post from Henrietta.

I begin to suspect we were wrong with regard to Mr. Hectic. While he is certainly erratic and strange, the rush to condemnation seems overly hasty. I suspect that if he were part of some nefarious enterprise, his partner would rather protect him, and conversely the real criminals would be all too eager to use him as a scapegoat. Therefore, I believe he is guilty of little more than being a young man, prone to the eccentricities of callow youths and little more.

My greatest concern continues to be Miss Egduf. While I consider her most likely in league with Mister Drew, she continues to be suspicious of her own accord.

Fondest regards,
Henrietta

I thought it was over multiple posts?

[Dunnstral]

Dunnstral when the most mysterious things to you are who gets the crown in a tie and what is the true soul of Royal Gold and not who are the people who can secretly kill me at night it becomes a tough sell for me to believe that this is the first game we've rolled the same alignment.

is it or is it not orange?

[Dunnstral]

Egduf's position is that she demands equal treatment to Hectic

When?

[Dunnstral]

I read one of Drew's scumgames he plays pretty aimlessly as scum. In a complete vacuum I think that would actually temper my read. If someone like you flipflopped day1 for example I would townread that (jk I would probably townread you for taking any kind of stance in day 1 of a mafia game. But let's say...if Dunnstral did that)

You seriously have this weird obsession with me this game where every few posts you're taking a jab at me and it's not just trying to get me to give content

[Dunnstral]

Starry Night town!Dunnstral had a lot more townhunting and a similar total lack of scumhunting.
I don't want to link that game it gives me PTSD

That game had specific mechanics that changed the way I played

You saw me in guns and roses too, albeit briefly, I wasn't townhunting in that game

Dunnstral do you scumread me right now?

Not really no

This evidently makes you incredibly difficult to read

Is this a slip? :0

I don't get it

Dunnstral did a lot more townhunting in that game, and actually gave out reads, even a few scum ones. Still happy with lynching him. Correspondence>Dunnstral>Drew.

I townread Edguf, pops, and RC, and townlean gameplay and Aa.

That game was 199 pages long, had 17 players in it, and was on page 69 at 48 hours into the game

While this game is 13 pages long, has 9 players in it, and was on page 3 at 48 hours into the game

Oh and the playerlist is less exciting this game

You've got little to no basis behind your reads on Correspondence and Doctor Drew, you're just going after everybody who posts the least

[Dunnstral]

Yes

VOTE: Hectic

[Dunnstral]

Aa:

Help pls

With what?

is it crazy how saying sentences backwards creates backward sentences saying how crazy it is?

[Dunnstral]

Won't have to read him if he's dead *man tapping finger to forehead*

[Dunnstral]

Aa:

Help pls

With what?

Do you think the mod color is Royal Gold, or is it Orange?

[Dunnstral]

Dunnstral should not be getting a pass for his posts this game. His ISO rings massive alarm bells of non-committal scum, and he's barely giving out any reads. I'd like to see an earlier game of his where he's done this as town, if he or pops could provide that for me please.

Still scumread Correspondence and will leave my vote on for wagon purposes, eagerly awaiting their response to the suspicions on them.

You sound like Correspondence isn't your top scumread here, and it is instead either me or Dr Drew, and that you're just voting Correspondence because there's a wagon there already

But then a short while later you indicate that Correspondence is your top scumread

[Dunnstral]

Master Aa - The owner of the Inn, having recently taken over its management from his departed cousin maya, is an anomaly. We have yet to draw firm conclusions on the innkeeper, as all of our interactions with him have been terse and passing. The best we may say about him is that Master Aa seems engaging and interested, with no suggestion of impropriety. Thus, we pass his further interrogation on to you, good sir.

But this is your first post since they've replaced in, so what interactions?

Or are you just saying random mafia sounding words for your gimmick or what? Because it's not just confusing anymore, it's misleading

[Dunnstral]

Well, we can't just go around switching wagons until half the town's claimed their roles. His recent thoughts and VT claim does concern me, but I think he's the lynch here.

scummy post

[Dunnstral]

Hectic could have hammered, SS could have hammered (though it's not out of his scumrange to let it slide)

I don't think that makes Hectic town

[Dunnstral]

Hmm... Is scum just two goons I wonder?

Why did you say this if your role is bodyguard?

[Dunnstral]

How is Drew scummier than hectic?

[Dunnstral]

Drew has no reads this game which occasionally happens to town but happens twice as often to scum.

Oh yeah, that scummy no reads

[Dunnstral]

RCE is really mad that we are going to lynch his scumpartner and then he won't be crowned AND he can't shoot at whoever is crowned without losing the game and he has to 1v7 against a series of PRs as a goon

Damn I thought claiming BG as goon so we can never kill the crown target was foolproof. Got me.

You can just claim to have been roleblocked though

[Dunnstral]

There's likely no mafia roleblocker,

He can still claim there is if he's mafia
And maybe there's a roleblocker who can't target the crown, though admittedly that's a bit of a stretch



More importantly, I think we should be lynching hectic for being actively scummy rather than dr drew for being kinda lurky

[Dunnstral]

Is there a reason not to coordinate on who we're crowning before it happens?

[Dunnstral]

I'm not sure how you replacing into this game rather than being here from the start has an impact

You replaced in early too

[Dunnstral]

We're crowning pop.

That's a weird way to spell gameplay

[Dunnstral]

I don't mind if we crown pop though

[Dunnstral]

Where did the talk of crowing edguf go?

When were people talking about that?

[Dunnstral]

popsofctown : pops
Dunnstral : egduf or pops
Hectic : pops
Egduf : probably egduf
Aa: ??
Correspondence (secret hydra) : probably pops
gameplay506 : gameplay
RCEnigma : Egduf in the scenarios were we aren't winning anyway

it looks like i'm pretty likely to lose to egduf on alphabet tie, if you TR me more than egduf i'd enourage you to vote me rather than toss your vote away on yourself gameplay (or if you TR egduf more, vote her to secure her win/alphabet tie, by all means)

I don't remember ever saying I'd crown egduf though - I mentioned gameplay

[Dunnstral]

I'm mason

I sincerely doubt that

[Dunnstral]

VOTE: Drew

[Dunnstral]

I was under the impression that there was only one crown and we can't crown anybody else until pops dies and drops it

Am I wrong?

[Dunnstral]

VOTE: Correspondence

Poe vote, least confident in them being town

[Dunnstral]

If it's a PoE vote, towncase RCE or Egduf for me

You just said that you wouldn't lynch RCE because if they're town they're a bodyguard. Same thing from me - I'm not townreading them, no, but there is 2 scum left alive so that doesn't really impede a poe I feel

Egduf looks townier than correspondence to me and I think gameplay has a point that Egduf voting herself with nobody else is town indicative

There isn't really anybody I'd be ok with lynching other than correspondence and that's why I'm voting them right now - other scum can be found through mechanics/roles

[Dunnstral]

I'm also of the belief that pops should claim today and that town benefits from having all information out, even if it doesn't necessarily benefit you individually

[Dunnstral]

How would that situation be different from right now.

It's a different setup

[Dunnstral]

Bottom 3 would be corresp, dunn, egduf
And I do like egduf but the push is on me is eh
Corresp is eh
Dunn is ok

If I'm ok why am I 'bottom 3'

[Dunnstral]

Outing yourself as bp isn't a bad thing by the way, we can bodyguard the mason and crown another vt and see what happens

[Dunnstral]

I'm not, but I'm trying to demonstrate how stupid you're acting

[Dunnstral]

pops do you think you are going to die night 2?

I don't understand your stance right now

[Dunnstral]

I agree with pops here, I don't think she should claim. Pops is no way the 100% kill for mafia tonight, town!pop could easily be alive tomorrow if RC is scum or scum target me anyway and kill town!RC. And we don't want to give scum the opportunity to play around any ability she might have.

So scum RCE kills the person he's supposed to bodyguard and then what does he do?

[Dunnstral]

I don't know whether I am going to die night 2. Why does that matter?

I think it's in towns best interest for you to claim your role today

If you die tonight we miss out on potential info, especially if nobody can parse your crumbs which is a very real possibility with you I'd imagine

[Dunnstral]

If there was a scum roleblocker they would have probably been on Pops last night

[Dunnstral]

If I get nightkilled the crown ability is incorporated in my flip

Did you ask about that?

[Dunnstral]

If it flips with you then fine, it's not as important

[Dunnstral]

mine does, in a general sense he might say no

???

[Dunnstral]

does your rolefishing ever end

Not when I think it benefits town no

If there was a scum roleblocker they would have probably been on Pops last night

That's what I'm thinking so scum!RC can reason for scum!pops in that case which is why she's alive while scum have a roleblocker. I mean, I considered it myself in an earlier post.

Egufd:

What do you think of Correspondence now? They were your main lynch target for the majority of yesterday.

I doubt the team is RCE and pops though

[Dunnstral]

Crown Vote 1

popsofctown (4) - popsofctown, Correspondence, RCEnigma, Dunnstral
gameplay506 (2) - gameplay506, Hectic
Egduf (1) - Egduf
Correspondence (1) - Aa

Not Voting (0) -

popsofctown has been Crowned!

The deadline for Night 1 is August 29, 9:00p.m. EST. I don't know if this is accurate (expired on 2019-08-29 00:30:00).

Either there was at least 1 scum voting for pops to get the crown here, or gameplay/edguf are a team and both voted for themselves (which would be weird, I think)

[Dunnstral]

I'd feel more excited about a Correspondence lynch after an egduF greenflip.

But I'm not as sure I want to flip egduF as of now.

Decisions decisions.

What's the correlation?

[Dunnstral]

Incidentally, I thought the crown vote was going to be pops vs Egduf, I would have voted for gameplay if I had known they would have been crowned with my vote (Due to alphabetical nonsense)

[Dunnstral]

I'm going to make a push for that alphabet type rule to not be allowed in the future, except in bastard games. Arguably allowing Aa to replace x maya changes the game in a somewhat significant way after it has already started, and the waters can be further muddied if player zzz was denied from replacing because the mod didn't like them or something. Basically, it introduces mod interference, whether the mod intends to or not.

[Dunnstral]

It can also be argued that x maya replacing out gives their team an advantage.

[Dunnstral]

The person I'm voting

[Dunnstral]

I don't think I've been secretive with my reads either

Gameplay
Pops
Edguf
Rce
Coresspondance

But willing to ignore Rce

[Dunnstral]

I'm confused about why Correspondence townreads Dunnstral and why anyone doesn't scumread Dunnstral

It's my townie disposition

[Dunnstral]

I agree with Hectic here, RCE has to be Town at this point.
I don’t think it makes sense for me and correspondence to be a scum team. Speaking of correspondence, I’m still not a fan of them, and really didn’t like their recent reads list.
I know I haven’t really been keeping up with the game properly recently, sorry about that.

Scum scum scum scum

Then why don't we vote him instead of me?

[Dunnstral]

I thought I was poe? Why am I "scummy"?

[Dunnstral]

You don't have reads.

I've given my reads multiple times.

[Dunnstral]

VOTE: popsofctown

Thinking about it some more pops scum here is very possible. I think they planned to push on me from the start and they're saying things that aren't true.

[Dunnstral]

Let's get a crown power claim today.

[Dunnstral]

History repeats himself and shows that I'm not too good at reading pops. Also that we're always opposite-aligned.

[Dunnstral]

The more I think about this the more right it feels. Anybody else on the same page?

[Dunnstral]

I'm an even-night Follower - I'd prefer to not be lynched

[Dunnstral]

Maybe next game pops and I will both be town. Not this game though.

[Dunnstral]

I'm looking forward to Dunnstral's opinion on the game I am positive it is and should be more complex than "pops is amazing at mafia and won".

Sure, here are my thoughts:

A) Base Balance

Personally I feel like just having 2 masons in a micro is dubious for game balance, you can imagine how I feel about 2 masons, a bodyguard, and then the crown mechanic (which is in fact townsided and I'll talk about that in a bit). A bit of research on masons in micro's brings me to this:

Subject: borkjerfkin Micro Normal Review

I think 2 Masons + 5 VT versus 2 Goons is doable and close enough to balance, although it's hard to assess the balance of because it's hard to fit Masons into a game this small.

I guess you can reasonably compare it to setups like Cop + 6 VT versus 2 Goons; in that setup, the Cop confirms two players if they live until D3, in this setup we have two players who can confirm each other. The difference is that that setup leaves room for fakeclaims and counterclaims and this one doesn't really (more townsided); however, that setup also allows for the Cop to potentially confirm themself, and to potentially catch scum directly (more scumsided). This one still leaves room for PR hunting (scum benefit from killing a mason early), though, so it's not entirely dayplay.

Alternate mason in a micro game example can be found here: https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=79835
(Mason Mailman, Mason Encryptor, miller, 2 goons, 4 vts)

Cursory research when reviewing the setup would have prevented this setup from coming forth, so... this shouldn't have gotten past review phase as 2 masons + bodyguard, regardless of the crown, unless the crown was somehow tilted in mafia's favor (it wasn't). Micc reviewed this game? This shows that he doesn't understand balance in his own area of setups, or even bother to do a little bit of research or consider what other people think on balance. I guess that's not a requirement for being a queue mod in the first place, just.... he should get somebody else to look over his setups because letting this one go through is shameful.

A seeker mason is weaker than a mason, but not by much, certainly not when looking at the game from a balance perspective. In fact seeker mason was so out there that it actually lent credence to Hectic's claim and prevented him from being lynched with his last minute claim.

Another aspect of balance that was overlooked: Mafia don't really get to

choose

who they kill this game. And that's not because of the crown mechanic, at all, which is what makes this setup really bad - mafia have to kill both of the masons and the bodyguard, they don't get to kill a player who is suspecting their whole team, or a frame kill, etc.

B) The Crown

The crown mechanic was neutered to fit in a pair of masons, but the crown mechanic really should have been the focus of the setup. As it stands, I think a better name for this setup would have been "Two masons and a bodyguard" really, because that ended up being the focus of the setup instead. The masons being revealed as IC was both a cheap "gotcha" for a town that trusted the masons, and a cheap "gotcha" for the mafia if they decided to try to make the masons look like the mafia (removing every last bit of counter-play).

Speaking of the crown mechanic:

Dunnstral was the main one to dig into the mechanic, pointing out it was probable that at least one scum voted me for crown.... with which I agreed... seeing as Dunnstral did...

What I failed to mention, but definitely noticed, was that the crown votes at the end seemed to be ordered in the same order that they were made. I'm not sure if that's the case or if it was just a coincidence, but you'll notice that I was the last person to vote for Pops - if I was town I would have absolutely pointed to that as mafia who was deciding where to vote in their pt vs town who knew what they were picking going into twilight. I'm not certain if it was clear that this information would have been public or not, or if it's just extra stuff that was added. It does mention that the vote result would be revealed so... I guess it was implied, though some additional clarity in the rules would have been nice. Actually, it shouldn't be showing that information at all in my opinion, but as long as it's clear what is happening the specifics don't matter as much. Nobody else seems to have caught onto that this game, but it is the kind of thing that mods

really

need to be keeping in mind instead of kind of just doing things.
With that said, there were townies who didn't even realize that the crown vote was made public, or who didn't think it mattered (which is bad play and should contribute to your faction losing IMO).

I believe the crown mechanic itself was townsided in general, without considering the what the roles were. Looking at the actual roles, It seems townsided - town can get extra investigative roles to find mafia, but mafia can only get investigative roles to find the masons, the bodyguard, or the crown powers - but nothing to actually stop any of that or neuter the increased investigative power, and they are

very

limited on what kills they can make in the first place, so even if they find, say, a voyeur, they might still need to kill the mason.

Voyeur: Can be used to find the bodyguard and to figure out what the crown user is doing
Motion detector: Secretly a really strong role in this setup, on par with a tracker, and starting in a micro. The only thing that holds it back is town assuming mafia have powers they can target people with, or not trusting the person with this power.

C) Mass claiming and Mafia decisions

I balance all of my games on the assumption that town mass claims on day 1 (I think this is usually THE play regardless of alignment, but we can discuss that later). From there, I wanted mafia to really have to choose between letting a townie use an unknown power versus leaving a confirmed town player alive.

There's so many things wrong with this statement it's shocking. I will go over all of them.

First of all, I'll point out that one of the mafia crown powers is a role cop. What's the point of that if town massclaims on day 1? It becomes a useless role, so if you balanced around that you really shouldn't have.
Second, mafia didn't really get to choose anything - either they kill both of the masons (and the bodyguard by extension), or they automatically lose the game. If there was an actual choice where a townie had a real crown power... why should mafia be driven into a corner by towns bad play?

Town mass claiming all of their roles on day 1 should put them in a position worse off than where they started. Instead, the opposite happened, and even though the entire town was outted with their roles, AND we lynched town, AND the crown power was very tame (neighborizor), AND we knew what the crown power was because it targetted mafia.... it still felt like we were the ones being cornered - and we were - because the setup was straight up broken.

Mafia had absolutely no answer to the entire town massclaiming on day 1 - that's a design FLAW, not a feature. That's not how setups are designed on this site generally, and yes mass claiming day 1 is, and really should be, bad play. I'd go as far as to say that a mass claim from town on day 1 should almost always result in a loss, so the fact that town wasn't hampered in the slightest, and instead seemed to have benefited from this is pretty bad and goes against a lot of the design principles I've seen on this site.

And you don't deserve to say that this is how you balance your games, from now on if you want to continue to design setups like this please say it's how you "make" your games - a small distinction, but you're not implying that you're looking out for balance, it's just how it is.

I wanted the mafia to really have to grapple with their nightkill choices in this game because I feel like Micros are inherently scumsided due to their small size.

Again, the opposite was accomplished and there was really no choice.

D) The Alphabet Rule

Voting is plurality based, which means it will go to the person with the most number of votes. Tie breakers will be determined by whose name comes first in the alphabet.

This rule is not ok and there's a case to be made that the game is classified as a bastard game because of it.

The case is as follows: You determined that a persons name is at least partially significant for the events in the game. When a player replaces out, you see the new player's name and decide whether to allow them to replace or not. That means that every time you allow a player to replace in, you're stepping in and making a mod decision that changes the course of the game - that's a mild case of mod intervention every single time somebody replaces in, and there's no way for it to not be mod intervention without changing the rule.

Allowing AA to replace xmaya is

just as bad

as if you had said "no, but I'd allow a player named XX to replace in"

One small change, where the order was determined at game start and wasn't changed due to replacements, even if it was still alphabetical.

What did Micc say when he saw this rule in the review thread? Did he say... nothing? Does he realize that this is, essentially, a rule that turns this into a form of bastard game, and that every time you replace somebody, that is an action for a bastard game as well? I am now very concerned with the state of the micro game queue, but only if Micc continues to try to review micro games himself. I don't think this game was reviewed to an acceptable degree before entering play.
I'm sure he does great with his other duties, managing the queue etc, in the same sense that a person can be a great driver but have to blow into a breathalyzer attached to their car before they drive - I think we need somebody in the micro queue thread assigned to review games when the responsibility would otherwise fall to the queue mod.

Postscript

Those are my unbiased thoughts on the game, or maybe I'm just salty that I lost, who knows.
Pops I do think you are good at mafia and have generally good insight

Mr. Dunnstral

- Hey buddy, the "lurk and they won't notice me" thing is useful sometimes, but in a Micro it was deadly.

It seemed to work out fine for you