Micro 948: Noughts and Crosses Blitz [Game over!]

[maxwell]

as of this post, Maxwell AND rozyroz were both last seen online at 6:09 pm PST (my time), which was after day start at 5:50 PST, yet neither posted in the thread.

it's a little weird that they were both last online at literally the same minute, I'm wondering if that has to do with how the forum checks for activity, but regardless, both can be charged with seeing their day start PM and electing not to post in the thread! I find this suspicious!

VOTE: maxwell

Guilty as charged. I saw the day had started, saw it was early RVS, and decided to peace out until there was something more substantial. Normally I wouldn't mind messing around but I feel this setup needs to be played strategically so it's better for me to project Seriousness. I'm satisfied with what's been posted now to form reads, though. Going to start writing those up now.

[maxwell]

Townreading one other corner while putting up some kind of scumread that the other two slots can't defend against as well. Am I the only one getting bad vibes from this whole thing? If I am, I'll back off so do let me know.

One quick thing before I get into this: Why would you back off just because nobody agrees with you? This makes it seem like you're looking for support, rather than having a real conviction.

[maxwell]

I ammmm willing to reconsider Clover I think

What changed for you since #79?

[maxwell]

I put a lot of thought into the setup while I was waiting for the game to start and while I'll say more later, day 1 should be played for a long-term strategy. Getting strong townreads can basically win the game automatically. Still need to develop reads to get there, though so I'd rather see day 1 play out 'normally', I just ask that no one be put at L-1 because any quickhammer is severely damaging to the gamestate.

It's already way late here so I can't spend all night typing things up but I'll try to give some quick thoughts:

despite finding the reasoning in his last post somewhat odd, I actually like Clover as town here - his push on guiltylion feels genuine with the way he's investigating his stances rather than trying to push on something cheap.

I like that guiltylion actually bothered to investigate my activity, on first pass I thought he was town but on a reread didn't like his back and forth with clover as much. I'm tired so my thinking is not the best. Still shows more evidence of tying to be proactive than most.

If I could confidently townread Blair I'd declare the game to be won already, but I can't - the early excessive setup talk comes across as avoiding scumhunting, and felt like she hands out townreads too easily in #40 and #73.

Dunnstral has been fillery, devoid of content, with a rather awkward start. Don't see what other people are seeing in the townread there. I'll be reading Micro 639 to see if that's just his meta/if he's easy lynchbait, though.

T-Bone's opening was fillery/useless, lot of talk about the setup and past games. Do kind of like his empty vote on Dunn, though, becuase I didn't like his start either, but it does look off given he started the game similarly.

Kanna: really fillery start, plus a weak sheep of clover's vote on guiltylion while only committing to "I kind of agree" in #67. probably the scummiest of everyone who's posted.


Well, that took me too long and I'm not super happy with it, but I need to sleep.

[maxwell]

The excuse in 82 is very strange. You make such ugly noises when you overexplain, maxwell.

Well, it's the truth and I can't help it. The fact is I wasn't concerned with appearing active and wanted to wait until there was something more to comment on.

If I'm being less reactionary Maxwell put up a blanket 'this person is fillery' read for everyone who wasn't talking about mechanics

If anything, the opposite? I said over-discussion of the tic tac toe mechanics be rather empty. I do have a strategy in mind for what people should do but posting mostly about board mechanics feels rather empty, a way to talk without advancing the game state.

And finally, I hate *most* of this post and I can't quite put my finger on why (basically all the quick thoughts). Probably hanging several "player X, Y, and Z are devoid of content" while being devoid of content. Self-awareness not being shown at this point. But they are quick thoughts? IDK.

I don't that's true, I at least tried to evaluate everyone I could even if my reads weren't particularly strong.


Gutfeel of noobtown from rozyroz's opening posts.

[maxwell]

So was it a lack of self-awareness or something else?

I flat-out disagree with your assessment, is what I'm saying. My posts were either questioning people on their stances or assessing other players. They had a purpose.

I think if Maxwell is scum, he's one of those "just try to emulate how you'd play as town" types and isn't bothering to plan for long term strategy in the game right now

I've thought a lot about strategy in this setup, but all from a town POV. Had thoughts about potential scum strategy while writing this but I'm not going to say any more because I don't want to give anyone ideas.

Guiltylion's recent string of posts make me feel more confident in him as town, at this point I'd probably be willing to stake the game on having both guilty and clover as town.

Lynching on the sides day 1 is just suboptimal though, best play here is to get two confident townreads in adjacent squares and lynch the corner opposite to them. Town can direct the kills from that point forward so that only those 2 players survive.

[maxwell]

Lynching on the sides day 1 is just suboptimal though, best play here is to get two confident townreads in adjacent squares and lynch the corner opposite to them. Town can direct the kills from that point forward so that only those 2 players survive.

why aren't you voting Dunnstral?

Actually don't terribly see a need to vote at this point in time, I think my words are enough to get my views across and the vote should be more about the optimal play rather than anything else. I still find dunnstral somewhat suspicious, although his posts on the last page are a little bit better, and lynching him day 1 is obviously optimal for me, but I'm not arrogant enough to include myself in my own survivor pool especially when it seems most of the game doesn't townread me. I'm perfectly okay with putting myself in line for elimination as it means I'll flip town and hopefully my views will be trusted - There's 7 other players and I should at least be able to pick out 2 as town.

[maxwell]

Actually, reading back after the reference to dunnstral made me notice something:

[snip]

Scummy post relating to me & T-bone

I think T-bone is scummy; I think Blair said they were town because they were talking about mechanics early? I don't buy into that, I don't see a reason for mafia to avoid talking about mechanics - I do it all the time as mafia, actually

Okay, why is my post talking about you and T-Bone scummy when you suspect him as well?

[maxwell]

I still think you should be voting somewhere though... again this is a blitz, we have two days until deadline, town needs to be pushing and doing stuff as relentlessly as possible. There's not really any reason

not

to be voting

That's a fair enough point. I think I've settled on a decision which I'll get to in a moment.

(Though I do not believe for even a moment that Maxwell, who has otherwise given detailed responses to everyone, did not see this post about him)

I saw it, I just didn't care to offer a response in any way. I've already explained that I think talking about general setup strategy without regard for the players in the current game is an easy way to fake content for scum, as they don't have to be dishonest about their opinions. There were players who I think did start scumhunting in earnest in that time frame

Anyway it's really completely unimportant to me to convince you that I'm town, and so continually defending myself in this manner is a waste of time especially when I think there's a pretty good chance you're scum.


Not impressed with Cat Scratch Fever's entry posts at all. Feel like random selections of posts to comment on, no real insight, riding off of things other people say. Doesn't improve my view of the slot at all.

Why is this weird if you and Dunnstral have different reasons for suspecting T-Bone?

Do we have different reasons? Maybe let him answer the damn question first. He seemed to be attacking him for similar reasons, though.

[maxwell]

Luck controls life. It is a terrifying force that cannot be fully understood.

Where path is Lady Luck ushering us towards? rozyroz or maxwell?

There's a way to kill both of us, and it starts with voting rozyroz. From there, mafia shoots you night 2. Then town lynches Cat Scratch Fever, forcing Dunnstral to be the night 2 kill, and I'm forced as the day 3 lynch. Of course, this loses the game if both mafia are within T-Bone/Clover Ebi/GuiltyLion/Blair, but I'm willing to bet the game on at least 1 scum being in one of the bottom 3 squares.

(you could also start with me, but then you'd have to kill guiltylion and either T-Bone or Clover instead. I don't townread T-Bone but I'd prefer getting Cat Scratch.)

So all the strategy I've alluded to in previous posts is this: By voting players in a certain order, we can force the scum kills for nights 2 and 3 to be on certain players, leaving us with only one corner of the board (I saw this was discovered in a previous game when I read through it, which made me feel less smart). So, what you should be doing as confirmed town in what is likely your only day alive is picking two players in adjacent squares you have strong townreads on, and plan a pattern that lynches everyone but them. I can illustrate this later but it's late not

So that being said, VOTE: rozyroz

I know I said I had a gut townread on them, and still do, but this sets up getting rid of the kanna/cat scratch slot, which I want to make happen. I could always be wrong about that read on rozy as well, that type of statement certain can come from a newbie scum player who doesn't know what to push on, my instinct is just that newbie town basically have to be honest when they don't know what to do while as scum they can just make something up and usually will.

(I feel bad putting my vote on an obviously new player day 1 especially when it doesn't really have anything to do with their play).

If you decide to get rid of me day 1 I'll accept it but I'd request that you then lynch rozy so that T-Bone and Blair are the next two to die. I don't want clover/guilty getting killed and an end board with blair/cat scartch/dunnstral on it is supbar as I don't find any of those players to be towny.

I won't vote guiltylion unless it's 1 minute before deadline and there are no other lynch options.

[maxwell]

I just posted a plan that guarantees my own lynch day 3. You, I definitely want dead, though.

[maxwell]

max, if you want me lynched tomorrow, then why are you voting rozy over dunn? Doesn't lynching dunn bring you closer to victory given your scumreads (or not-townreads more accurately) are in that bottom right corner?

Strictly speaking, yes. but a day 1 dunnstral lynch guarantees I live to the final 3 unless town decides to play absurdly suboptimally (lynching opposite corners back to back is an automatic loss for town if both slots are town), and and as I'm not townread by a majority of players I'm not going to propose a plan that involves me surviving to the final 3. A dunnstral lynch also still runs into the issue of losing the game if any of {t-bone, clover, blair} are scum together, so it's not terribly different from adding guiltylion into the pool (and I don't think he's likely to be partnered with any of those).

If I accept that Maxwell actually wants to sell this plan, then he can really only be scum with GuiltyLion or Clover. GuiltyLion is more likely, because Max can't guarantee that everyone will follow his Day 2 plan just because they followed Day 1- and if T-Bone were lynched Day 2*instead of CSF, that would jeopardize Clover, but still not GuiltyLion.

It's weird to think scum would suggest a plan that lynches themselves - but if it saves their partner, then it is less weird than a townie proposing a plan that lynches their townread Day 1 and themselves Day 3, when they could have proposed the mirror image of that plan and lynched their scumread Day 1 and their townread Day 3 (I would rather lynch a town read than lynch confirmed town [self] under most circumstances).

It's completely irrelevant to consider though, because if I'm scum (I'm not), I get lynched day 3, and you can adjust your views as to who my partner is based on my flip. I'll flip town, though, so you don't need to worry about that in the slightest.

If you're really, truly, absolutely confident I'm scum, then take a death pact: I get lynched day 1, and when I flip town, town lynches rozy, forces the kill onto t-bone, and you get lynched day 3. If you're confident, no problem, right?

[maxwell]

Why is this weird if you and Dunnstral have different reasons for suspecting T-Bone?

Do we have different reasons? Maybe let him answer the damn question first. He seemed to be attacking him for similar reasons, though.

I wasn't going after him for a lack of content, I was talking about different things

...what was it, then? You can type more than 1 sentence per post, you know.

[maxwell]

It's completely irrelevant to consider though, because if I'm scum (I'm not), I get lynched day 3, and you can adjust your views as to who my partner is based on my flip. I'll flip town, though, so you don't need to worry about that in the slightest.

Yeah... I'd rather not wait until 3p lylo to start sorting that out, sorry.

If you're really, truly, absolutely confident I'm scum, then take a death pact: I get lynched day 1, and when I flip town, town lynches rozy, forces the kill onto t-bone, and you get lynched day 3. If you're confident, no problem, right?

Spoiler:

So that's a yes, then? You'd agree to that lynch order?
(Spoiler Alert: He won't flip town)

I'm getting too lost in thinking of lynch combos and night kills when I should just focus on the game itself at the moment. Mostly because this talk on all the plans makes me think of all the ways it can go wrong.

There's effectively no way for scum to block a rozy-cat scratch-dunn-maxwell-tbone pattern, if they break sequence and shoot someone other than the IC there's a corresponding move to maintain control. Unfortunately maxwell-rozy-tabone-blair can be blocked but town ought to have a contingency for that event and I'll demand Blair's head no matter what in that situation. I think it's most important to focus on reading other players but in this setup your lynches on day 2 and day 3 are contingent on who you vote day 1, so long term planning is absolutely paramount as town ought to maximize control of who dies, to do otherwise is handing scum a massive advantage.

P-edit: Clover, my plan after lynching roz mechanically ensures that I will be lynched day 3. It is literally impossible for me to escape being killed if town follows through with it.

[maxwell]

Those townreads are atrocious.

[maxwell]

T-Bones posts are basically minimal contribution, taking very few stances, with some slight interjections or commentary to seem active. The only real stances are a scumread on dunnstral which he hasn't really justified at all, a slight townread on you, and saying he hates a post by me. In a game like this it's crucial to try to read as much of the board as possible and he simply has contributed very little in the way of scumhunting. Blair is a bit harder to explain but as I said earlier I felt she was handing out townreads too easily for superficial reasons, did a lot of posts on tic-tac-toe strategy without regard for how the game interacts with the mafia gamestate (this is a good way to appear to be posting content while not saying anything useful). Past that they're very soft, sheeping guiltylion's vote onto me and then finding reasons to justify it after the fact in everything i post, while not saying a lot elsewhere, throwing shade on a few people here and there, it looks as if their posts past voting me have been those of someone looking to keep their options open. The insistence on taking me out first when my plan has literally no value to me as scum and guarantees my death reads like they're afraid of what will happen if it's followed through on and want me out first because it's strategically beneficial to them and they can try to worm their way out of the lynch pattern. It's completely ludicrous to be so paranoid I'm scum setting up a plan to get my partner to 3-way and so I absolutely have to die first - There should be absolutely no issue because even if I were scum you'd be able to read off my flip to find a partner.

I want to see if Blair accepts my death pact, though because my views are contingent on that.

[maxwell]

I did accept it. You quoted my acceptance.

Okay, just making sure. Ironically that means a blair/t-bone team is pretty unlikely, seeing as my vote on rozy would give them the win while going after me would ensure a loss. Possibly they could just not be thinking about that possibility but I'd think they'd want to avoid that degree of direct confrontation. I still like my plan with my vote on rozy better (because cat scratch fever needs to die, especially after 191, and the thought of them being in final 3 annoys me) but I'll gladly consent to being the day 1 vote if town agrees to follow my plan (I'll post contingency strategies for scum killing a non-celeste space if that is what people decide on).

[maxwell]

Like, this is really weird from the standpoint that maxwell and Dunnstral are scum together. So there's that.

Just overall is a weird plan as both alignments. The best lynch for scum!maxwell is Dunnstral, as it ensures maxwell goes to LyLo. Weird as town though, because from any town perspective, you already get to eliminate two people because of Celeste. I can see not being concerned with survivability, but if you're town you'd rather be the nightkill, no?

Right, were I scum with Dunnstral I'd either be bussing the hell out of him or self-voting, as either of us dying day 1 is optimal. Being nightkilled/lynched doesn't make a difference, because of the setup town is able to force the N2 kill from scum to be on a particular player (and the N3 kill, if you play it right). If I'm not confidently townread I'm willing to take myself out of the mix as long as it also takes out someone I scumread. Voting out rozy then T-bone means I die n2 for the exact same board outcome, but it means a loss if the Cat Scratch slot is mafia with one of {guilty, clover, blair} and between the CSF slot and you I want CSF gone far more.

[maxwell]

Yeah, I agree that it looks like a reach - but it's kind of a townie reach? How does scum!Dunnstral benefit from townreading the opposite corner and scumreading an adjacent corner? That's a bit too risky to be a manufactured read.

He has a buddy that holds another position on the board.
I opened the game expressing I wanted to roll scum, I have 24 hours left, reasonable to assume I am not just opening the game in 2 or saving myself in that time.

IC has also already voted me.

With 24 hours left, if you're town you really need to start outing reads fast.

[maxwell]

Oddly enough I actually town read Maxwell. He has a range of interactions and pushes which feel townie to me, I liked the way he opened up the thread, feels consistent with his style of play. Hasn't touched up on board play much either so it kind of makes sense.

Just one point of clarification, I haven't played on these forums on any account in five years so I wouldn't take any of that to be alignment indicative, I literally don't remember how I used to play.

I actually like beeboy's readlist though, it doesn't feel like he's just looking for a safe push in it. Unfortunately the CSF slot is still my preferred day 2 vote, I'll vote whichever of beeboy/dunnstral there's support for even though I really don't find beeboy's slot to be scummy.

I won't outright vote CSF day 1 because if I'm wrong and they happen to be town I think it has the potential to put the board in a very bad gamestate

[maxwell]

They probably push Guiltylion next

I'm not really seeing this tbh. Looks like I'm on the chopping block tomorrow

I'd be voting you right now if I thought it made sense tactically. Actually might run the scenarios for that when I get a chance.

[maxwell]

Not impressed with Cat Scratch Fever's entry posts at all. Feel like random selections of posts to comment on, no real insight, riding off of things other people say. Doesn't improve my view of the slot at all.

This? I don't feel the need to repeat what other people say when I replace in, and I think I've made my reads clear soon enough after I replaced in. I don't think people need to come up with an original reason to scumread someone. Why is it scummy to agree with someone else on a read?

My feeling is that you're not showing any real amount of analysis or attempts to find mafia and mostly just conversing instead. I engaged Blair in a fairly contentious way and had her agree to a 1v1 if I was voted out today, and your reaction was to post a meme image, it struck me as a lack of seriousness toward that engagement, I'd expect a player who's seriously attempting to scumhunt to at least come away from that with some form of opinion on us.

[maxwell]

Am I missing something? Can't in theory we lynch the person on the other side of the square? Not just beside them. So if max was lynched we have 4 options not just a 1v1? Or am I incorrect.

You can technically vote anyone you like, but if you vote opposite squares on the board it guarantees an automatic loss if both are town and at any rate for any combinatio of opposite squares, there's a way to kill both while deciding which two other players get killed. There's no reason to cede control of who dies otherwise.

[maxwell]

I'll take the Dunnstral vote if people agree to it, I definitely think beeboy is likely town at this point and a sequence that gets CSF and Blair is ideal for me based on where my reads are. Sort of bothered by how static clover's reads are with them seeming to be based on stuff in the first couple pages but not enough to change my read on him, just knocks down my confidence a couple of rungs.

[maxwell]

I'd really take the gamble on csf day 2 over blair. I just don't like that slot at all and Blair's probably less likely to have a teammate of t-bone or clover.

The last time I got framed as trying to set up lylo was by scum.

@max Why does it matter if my read developed early game when there was still clearly content to work with? I don’t think when the read happened is that important more so the progression on the read itself.

The issue is that I don't really see that progression from you anywhere? All you seem to have been reading from is those early posts and haven't made much if any evaluation on subsequent things. It kind of seems like you just made your mind up that that was how you wanted to read those players and have stuck to it. I wouldn't mind you having the same reads if you were saying their latest posts reinforced you opinions but I don't see any evaluation on that level.

[maxwell]

Hopefully they do believe they're baseless, because they are.

[maxwell]

Was your death pact a bluff? Because it feels like a bluff.

It's not, but I'm also not going to selfvote. Should I die day 1 then I want to make absolute certain you go down. I wanted to see if you'd commit to it.

Really it's strange how for someone who started off the game by posting a chart (ooh! so helpful!), suddenly when I begin discussing how to use the board strategically to influence who lives and who dies you suddenly become very averse to doing so.

[maxwell]

Yeah, apologies for not staying up to type out a reply at 3:15 AM EST.

Please show me where I have been averse to doing so.

It's equally strange, by the way, that someone who entered the game scumreading me for analyzing the game board immediately began plotting to lynch their town read *for the game board*

I've made it eminently clear that the townread on them was weak, at best (how couldn't it be, they had all of two posts), and that doing so was to get rid of the CSF slot and dunnstral (and also T-Bone, who at the time I didn't like. More recent posts put him somewhere around null). My offer included my own self-sacrifice because I perceived many players, including the IC, did not trust me. This isn't hard to understand, but of course you're not trying to do that. You're selectively zoning in on a small part of what I said and using that to scream "see he voted his townread! scum! scum!" while ignoring the rest of my thought process. You know as well as I do that only the corners are a viable lynch option day 1 (I tried thinking about the side squares last night but there's too much potential for things to go terribly wrong if you're mistaken and end up mislynching). If my top scumread's in a side slot, I need to vote a corner next to them. Fairly simple concept.

And again my issue with your strategy talk was that it was generic, lifeless, and offered little relevance to the game of mafia as it is played on the board. I've no problem with people discussing tactically what group of players they want to get rid of and what they want to keep alive, but you're seemingly refusing to apply any of that strategic thinking to how the game will proceed, it's just tunneling me then justifying your reads elsewhere based on what I do.

[maxwell]

I'll take the Dunnstral vote if people agree to it, I definitely think beeboy is likely town at this point and a sequence that gets CSF and Blair is ideal for me based on where my reads are. Sort of bothered by how static clover's reads are with them seeming to be based on stuff in the first couple pages but not enough to change my read on him, just knocks down my confidence a couple of rungs.

People are agreeing to it, you would put Dunn at L-1 if you moved your vote.

Right.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Dunnstral

I do think he's the least town of any of the corner players right now but this is primarily still a consequence of having scumreads on both the CSF slot and Blair.

[maxwell]

Just want to note that if scum break script and shoot me, the play tomorrow should still be to go along one of the bottom or right hand sides, town just needs to start with voting beeboy or guilty first in order to preserve the pattern.

[maxwell]

This is fine as long as it's not Blair + one of the top left trio.

I think it's pretty unlikely, her insistence on going after me when I outed a plan that keeps her and clover alive would be really foolish if they were partnered unless she's just straight-up not thinking about the gamestate at all.

[maxwell]

what do you all think of Blair's 330 that feels like scum desperation or nah? I'm prob tunneled but I think her insistence on maxwell being scum doesn't feel genuine

I'm with you there (& the desperation over the dunnstral corner vote doesn't seem plausible when it's a manuever I avoided advocating for most of the day), but of course I'm very biased in my assessment at this point.

[maxwell]

Yeah that basically confirms CSF-scum. There's no way a T-Bone/Clover team makes that shot as they'd be throwing away a win and given that CSF lynch was the generally agreed upon plan I don't think a Blair + T-Bone/Clover team does that, either. Only issue is if we lynch blair today that guarantees a forced lynch of the IC day 3 and that's dumb as hell. I think the play is to vote out GuiltyLion to force the Blair NK and I'd probably say with 90% confidence that just wins the game.

I'm annoyed because it seems near certain at this point that all 4 corner slots are town and there's just really not a great play if your scumreads are on the side squares. It's just so hard to forego the safe play that gives you control of the board. I'll have to ponder on it more.

[maxwell]

In common that leaves Bone, Clover, and CSF. That means one scum, and potentially both are in this trio.

Yeah, there's at least one scum in those 3 and it's almost certainly CSF given every single other team had a potential autowin unless town decided to change their minds overnight (which I had contemplated, tbh, but now we get more or less the best of both worlds).

Actually it occurs to me that if Blair actually is scum in this configuration, it's an automatic win regardless, we can form a tic-tac-toe safely.

[maxwell]

Actually it occurs to me that if Blair actually is scum in this configuration, it's an automatic win regardless, we can form a tic-tac-toe safely.

Ah I hadn't thought of this tbh, that kinda makes me think Blair isn't scum after all lol

I mean, the problem is there's no other potential universe where i don't want to get rid of her today - we're guaranteed to lose if we mislynch T-Bone or Clover since mafia can kill to force you as the D3 lynch, basically making the same decision I'd have to make if Blair does flip town but giving her the win if she's scum and that's obviously suoptimal

[maxwell]

Yeah, again if scum were in the upper left corner it was a virtually guaranteed win, there were more than enough votes willing to go on CSF to guarantee she'd be the lynch, blocking that would be a straight up toss. If you're actually town you need to stop the nonsense and give real reads although I suspect it's already over for scum and this'll be game.

[maxwell]

Serious Question (and yes I know this prolongs my own life by a phase) - What's the worst way things could go wrong if we did the thing scum seem to be trying to stop us from doing anyway, and lynch the conf-scum today?

Even assuming a CSF scum flip, potential outcomes after are:

celeste shot - > GL lynch forced - > blair shot forced
This assumes both GL/blair are town. functionally it's no different from what happens if we vote GL today, but takes away the IC a day earlier (I'm not sure I care that much).

T-Bone shot - > my lynch forced - > celeste shot forced
me shot - > T Bone lynch forced - > celeste shot
Assumes both T-Bone and I are town, gives mafia a GL/clover/blair threeway.

GL shot - > celeste lynch forced - me shot
Basically the nightmare scenario? Assumes GL is town (which, come on, of course he is at this point) and leaves a T-bone/Clover/Blair 3-way and that's basically a toss-up, I think second scum would want that scenario.

[maxwell]

I don't think Kanna was making a high level play there to make people think she wouldn't sheep her partner but it's not implausible to be a low level play where she just doesn't care how sheeping her partner looks. Most likely scenario is not teammates, though.

The Celeste shot is probably the worst from where I'm standing, because it leaves a lylo with more than one of my PoE alive. But since I'm dead in that scenario, my PoE is less important anyway so maybe that doesn't matter.

Well, scum are going to take whatever the best shot for them is regardless, it's basically a no-win scenario for town.

[maxwell]

If there's a scum flip on the right side, it's town autowin and I'm the optimal lynch to set up a trap where last scum kills one of celeste/clover and we lynch the other for a tic-tac-toe win, which isn't very exciting but it means we were going to win after day 1 anyway. We'll see, though. Not so sure of that anymore.

[maxwell]

VOTE: GuiltyLion

I'm not sure I have anything else to say today.

[maxwell]

Lol yeah okay, I don't need to see any more, vote on guiltylion today means a town autowin

[maxwell]

Is it better to lynch someone we all think is scum right now?

In practical terms, no, even if you think me or T-Bone are scum, you'll have opportunity to vote us tomorrow, voting us today loses the IC and in all likelihood the game because GL has to die after the IC shot (and he's clearly town). You could still vote us tomorrow with the added benefit of a blair flip, but like I said I think thi is flipping red, she's trying to divert the lynch today because her dying puts scum in autoloss when it wouldn't make a significant difference as town, hence the vote on the IC

[maxwell]

Blair, you truly are cold, callous, and in dire need of calcium. However, I underestimated you when I stated you were a junior detective. You are more like a... it is only now that I realise there is no word in the English language that indicates a level between "junior" and "senior". How troublesome. I suppose you could be a junior senior detective.

VOTE: Celeste

I welcome death.

Stop this NOW. Unvote. This is a massively bad play that is an autoloss for town if T-Bone is town, and I'd much rather see the right side flip than do this.

[maxwell]

Even if you suspect either of us could be scum it does the gamestate absolutely no favors to remove yourself from it, and I'm completely not keen on handing Blair a victory here if she's scum, which I think is honestly highly likely as I don't see how the NK clears her at all, if she's scum with CSF it was autoloss if they didn't block his vote today.

[maxwell]

Do you disagree that it is Cats + one of the top left trio? From my perspective, this eliminates 2 of the three. Mafia will have predicted the GuiltyLion lynch plan and so it's almost certain one of you three contains mafia. What they

won't

have predicted however, is the lynch the IC plan, so wouldn't have been placing any chips on this.

Lynching maxwell to force a nightkill on me makes no difference, I could care less, expect it means GuiltyLion will be lynched instead of T-Bone. Despite his condescending thinking pose, GuiltyLion is less likely mafia.

No I don't agree and I think Blair making the survivalist play here speaks volumes, I could be very wrong here but I have trouble scumreading either T-Bone or Clover after their argument, which I know is weird but it's the truth. The beeboy kill actually makes far less sense for any of us in the top corner than simply letting you die, as all of us were almost guaranteed a trip to the final 3 if we did that (and I'd be nearly lynchproof, no sense putting myself at risk to protect the CSF slot when they've been basically useless).

[maxwell]

If you're confident I'm scum I give you permission to sort that on day 3 but you selfvoting here is a disaster for town, period.

p-edit: T-Bone beat me to the punch by saying the exact same thing more or less

[maxwell]

If Blair is mafia, why nightkill beeboy rather than maxwell? If she killed maxwell, we would lynch Cats, and it would force us down a Cats D2 > beeboy N2 > T-Bone D3 > Celeste N3 route.

Blair then has a fair chance to win 3p lylo with Clover and GuiltyLion. The route she has chosen here by killing beeboy however leaves her no chance of winning if she is mafia.

I said explicitly end of day 1 that if I'm NKed beeboy or GL should be the lynch instead of CSF/Blair because it lets us take out a board side without killing clover or T-Bone, sticking to the original plan. Additionally, if either of them made that kill, it

would

put them up as a lynch target if we hanged CSF or Blair. Especially from a T-Bone scum perspective that makes absolutely no sense. By end of day 1 a final 3 spot looked inevitable, what do they gain from this? Very little in my view whereas if Blair's scum that kill needs to be taken to prevent scum autoloss.

[maxwell]

I think I got crossed up in my mechanics reading in my last post, sorry. Doesn't really matter. Still think that shot is way more likely to come from scum that are cornered into autoloss and are now trying to get out of it.

[maxwell]

Oh right, there's actually an extremely good reason I wouldn't be the NK for a Blair/CSF scumteam:

maxwell ​ O	Clover Ebi ​	GuiltyLion ​
T-Bone ​	Celeste ​	Blair ​
beeboy ​	Cat Scratch Fever ​	Dunnstral ​ X

This is what day 2 starts like. Seeing as I'd strongly scumread CSF, the obvious play is to lynch beeboy, forcing the NK on CSF. Once again, I said as much end of day 1.

maxwell ​ O	Clover Ebi ​	GuiltyLion ​
T-Bone ​	Celeste ​	Blair ​
beeboy ​ X	Cat Scratch Fever ​ O	Dunnstral ​ X

From there it's again mechanical town autowin, you lynch GL and scum can't prevent town from getting 3 in a row. Even if town went for GL - > Blair, the result is the same and there's basically no reason to go to the sides instead. Like I said, this was their only play.

[maxwell]

I should just act like I'm 100% confident T-Bone is town.

[maxwell]

I'm fully prepared to eat shit in lylo if I'm wrong about this.

[maxwell]

I love to forfeit autowin as scum for no good reason, throwing games is my passion

[maxwell]

The desperation from both of us is entirely reasonable given that from either of our PoV, your vote kills 2 slots we know are town for only one unknown flip, and if that slot is town it's a town loss. Zero benefit and enormous downside. I'm not self-sacrificing to get a single unknown flip that's not a strong scumread. Could just as well ask why you're so desperate to deflect this vote when your death doesn't put the town in a potential autoloss gamestate (and really I think we both know the answer to that).

[maxwell]

I think I have fairly good reason to believe Kanna wouldn't interact with Clover the way she did but I'll cross that bridge if and only if I need to.

[maxwell]

This was my first game back after not playing on any account in 5 years and I have to say it was a thoroughly pleasant game. Thank you all for making it that way. I've had some bad memories of games and at times I've let myself get overemotional out of frustration, and luckily this game was nothing like that. Thanks to you all for making it that way. (although I wish celeste would dial down her gimmick a few degrees). I suppose I'll stick around for a while.

I do think it's a fairly difficult setup for scum - while they rolled a favorable distribution of spaces (the side squares are so much stronger than the corner ones in terms of their value in the mafia game), it's very hard in this for them to emulate the willingness to self-sacrifice that townies have. I was able to pick up a couple of townreads pretty quickly and from there the game got easy. Truth be be told, by the end of Day 1 I was starting to townread Dunnstral's stubbornness as well but didn't want to say anything, lest anyone were to grow paranoid of me for it. I think we probably could have voted CSF outright day 1 but it's hard to steer away from a plan that gets you the most flips.

I don't fault Blair for going after me for what I assume was a shot at the outright win, but I think the scumteam could have been a bit more pliant when I made the move to compromise on the rozyroz/beeboy vote - They still had a decent chance to win if either of them hammered that day. I do think it would have helped if her first partner hadn't flaked, it hurts to have a teammate not pull their weight like that. I'm not sure how I'd play as scum on this setup, I only really began to work out how to play it after I'd signed up and I've no idea how I'd approach this as scum, I think you pretty much have to play to get 1 teammate to the final 3 unless town really screws up.

Also, hi T-Bone. I miss the hypnotoad.

[maxwell]

I would've selfvoted for the lols