Newbie 2051: Iceland! - End!

[fairyprincess69]

hey guys! not quite sure how replacing into a game at this stage is gonna go, but i figured id give it a shot to test myself. i was decently confident of my slot being town based on a quick skim of the last few pages - i felt her frustration at not being understood and her decision to leave abruptly was coming from a town's POV. i'd much rather replace into town than scum, so yeah.

how would you guys like me to approach this? read through the whole thread first or provide reads bit by bit? im thinking the former will be less annoying, but i'd like to ask questions about the early stages of the game even if it's from like 2 weeks ago. tell me wat ya think.

VOTE: quiet this dude's maf btw

[fairyprincess69]

Hey guys, just to confirm I am making my way thru but it's taking a fair bit longer than anticipated. Just got through esoteric's massive reads post on page 18, was like yeah this guy is obvious town, only to then realise he was night killed

Anyway, here are some thoughts I have at this stage (page 18). I think it'd be interesting to note my observations now to see how these players develop later on once I've read the whole thing.

flow trap

flow trap is an intriguing, often times irritating player to read. i think their slot is very townie at this point though. they're continually playing with a kind of reckless independence that i don't see mafia being able to pull off very well. they're trying plays and gambits and i really get the sense they're trying to actually play a game rather than trying to portray a particular image of a townie person. this seems to be catching them a lot of heat at this stage, but they're unwilling to compromise on their gameplay. lots of crypticness and evasiveness but i think there's a kind of internal logic to it that only flow trap seems to be able to understand. posts like #288 and #362 show this willingness to experiment/ have fun w it.

i think their interactions and FOS on salsabil, whilst an absolute headache to read through, is quite townie. they first vote sala on post 218, then again at 368 after they had interacted some. the read/vote seems consistent to me - sala was voted initially because of posting "fluff" (which i can see) then reinforced after unfavourable interactions. obviously i disagree with the read, but i see this as a genuine attempt at finding scum. flow trap doesn't really seem to be concerned with what other people think about salsabil either, which shows a willingness to go against town consensus.

do you guys vibe with this formatting? the linked posts don't actually link to the post just the page which is annoying. wondering how it's best to format, quotes maybe?

[fairyprincess69]

YOOOOOO WELCOME

I concur that flow trap's early game comes off as fairly town, mostly in seeing that a lot of how they choose to engage with others is consistent and probably stylistic. I also found the partner pairings town for the effort. I'm a lot more concerned by their play today but there's a big gap between my top scumread, floo, and everyone else.

hmm. i like some of floo's early reads; there's a depth of thought there that looks like he's contemplating the game. his posts seem VERY cautious though, like he's terrified of using the wrong word or saying the wrong thing. i could see that as conscientiousness rather than scum, though. that's about all i've got floo since there's not much content

[fairyprincess69]

Ah, realization

Ok I TR Salsa but very easily changeable

why did you start townreading salsa at this point?

I also agree that Enchant is acting scummy

how did enchant go from your townread to scumread? he was acting the same

@flow trap

[fairyprincess69]

I believe I have said the Enchant TR was a bluff as was the Salsa TR

a bluff how exactly? what were your motives in outing a TR in those two players in that moment?

[fairyprincess69]

See https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.p ... #p12523050

what's the purpose in putting potential scum in a relaxed state?

[fairyprincess69]

gonna make a quick note here that as of page 30, spartan townreads Enchant according to his #746, while the wagon is pretty firmly on enchant. interested to see if he will commit to defending his townread or just let him die (i think he had been compiling this reads posts for sometime while the wagon was forming, so he might not have caught up with the events of the game yet)

his analysis of Prism in #746 is also pretty interesting, in that it reads as a null or even scumnull conclusion. i'm expecting scum to just outright townread Prism here to avoid a confrontation. also interesting that Spartan completely ignores Prism's interactions with Frederick, or at least neglects to mention them. Spartan's man fos is Frederick, so i'd expect him to take these interactions seriously, as i think this is potentially some ammo for his scumread. wouldn't he also factor into his analysis of Prism the fact that Prism is pressing Fred pretty hard? This is Spartan's main fos afterall - weird how he doesn't mention it.

i don't like Spartan's read list overall. he's just picking out things people have done/said and calling them scummy or towny. there's no focus on people's play

holistically

. i don't townread this math assessment of people - the "well they did 3 scummy things and 3 townie things, so overall null" there's no focus on how someone's play has evolved throughout the game. i'm hoping for better reads that i can resonate with later.

[fairyprincess69]

Spoiler:

I don't like how you are more concerned with voting with the pack and joining a train rather than following your scummiest scum read, that stinks of scum wanting to hide amongst town.

It bothers me on your disregard for who your voting, rather than having some more pinpoint accuracy on how scummy your read is, instead youre happier to vote off anyone who you may have a scum lean on rather than a more solid read on.

In post 446, esotericzoomer wrote:
i would like to ask for towncred

EZ seems much more interested in being town read than act

Oof. This post scumpinged me hard. And I was really liking Spartian up to that point.

These feel like really bad faith arguments. EZ also had some previous suspicion on them from floo and at least one other, so it would be a sensible place for scum to push on. This post earned you an iso.

also, I’ll note that flows response to Prisim’s post was more...flow being flow. Little one liners, quick statements. The form culture shock and arrogance as a defense mechanism were both nice touches. I read flow has enjoying themselves, and the response NAI like every other thing they’ve done. Sound like a broken record, I’ll probably not post about that slot any further today.

So there was a interesting, slightly emotional/confrontational set of interactions between flow trap and Salsa in the early 400s. I don’t read it as AI for either of them really, though at this point I maintain my null on flow and lean town on Salsa. However, this quote from Prism really caught my eye.

I really hate to be blunt but it's better I do it now than later.

flow trap, you need to put your ego aside this game. It's getting in the way of you being effective and are making you elim bait.

You've taken the exact same dismissive attitude to players repeatedly throughout the game. Your explanations for why range from lackluster to promises of galaxy brain plans. Stating that you're not vulnerable to bias due to experience misses the entire point of bias.

I support you pressuring for a read but I don't support you continuing to be evasive/dismissive of concerns and questions under the guise of big brain. It forces me to guess whether you're being egotistical, malicious, or both.

I read this as incredibly towny. Faking solving the game is one thing, but faking trying to fix a town dynamic that could lead to a miselim based on your reads (as in, faking building town cohesion) seems...really really hard.

Prism is way more experienced, so I guess it’s conceivable that this is within their scum range, so like flow trap to some degree I probably want to be a little slow with my townread. However, this is such a specific play, and it feels super towny to me.

fug it lmao quiet is townie af. im continually resonating/mind melding with everyting quiet is posting.

>spartan opportunistically pushing EZ
>prism wanting the game on the right track
>flow playing for fun [mentioned this in my earlier assessment of flow]

really felt safebet could be a scum slot but now im having doubts. lets see if i continue to agree with his assessments of the game

[fairyprincess69]

UNVOTE:

inb4 selfhammer

To explain more, just because Enchant is unpredictable. I don't want to risk any hammer while this conversation between quiet and Enchant is still ongoing

this is phenomenally townie imo. unvotes when there was surely momentum for a hammer with the intent to keep a potentially useful conversation going. noting this here as i think it's relevant with an Enchant town flip and to see if anyone else will pick up on it later on.

[fairyprincess69]

gonna make a quick note here that as of page 30, spartan townreads Enchant according to his #746, while the wagon is pretty firmly on enchant. interested to see if he will commit to defending his townread or just let him die (i think he had been compiling this reads posts for sometime while the wagon was forming, so he might not have caught up with the events of the game yet)

so spartan's 838 is totally in line with what i would expect from Town spartan. a defense of enchant which matches with his earlier assessment of enchant. it's a shame this defense has come so late when enchant is all but hammered. i find the confidence in enchant being town slightly suspicious? i mean, enchant HAD claimed mafia goon afterall. i think i can conclusively rule out a spartan frederick team at this point though. the amount of stall on the wagon means i expect a spartan scum would at least be a

little

weary of town switching to fred, with so many people suspicious of fred at this point in time (and an utterly unpredictable flow trap prowling about.)

i think overall this is townie from spartan. shit balls now the game is getting really tough, i have reasons to townread all 6 remaining players at this point. hope someone starts scumtelling later on

[fairyprincess69]

so the initial charm of flow trap's erratic/unorthodox playstyle has completely worn off for me by page 35. every single question directed towards him is just answered with some iteration of "i can't reveal reasons to anything i say or do!! because of reasons that i can't say!!" it's becoming tiresome at this point.

i can't ascertain his position at all on this enchant wagon - does he fos enchant? what does he think about enchant's self vote etc? his thread presence during the enchant wagon is normally what i would consider scum - non-commital, passive, not trying to sort enchant's role, or anyone for that matter. but because it's flow wolf do i just throw all orthodox mafia theory out the window?

Ok, my TRs at this time are Prism & Floo

VOTE: PrismWill most likely not stay on this but I want a 3-way tie dynamic

he's townreading Prism earlier, then votes them. is this another bluff? is this another galaxy brain flow trap gambit? at this point who the hell even knows or cares. at least it's consistent with how he's been playing all game, but utterly inconducive to getting any kind of real read from him.

@

flow trap

one thing i'm really waiting from you is the payoff from all these bluffs and gambits. how exactly has your playstyle helped you find scum? because at page 35 i so far see NO results whatsoever. doesn't that sorta give you a hint you should think about adapting your play? let's see if you can take some proper stances later on in the thread.

[fairyprincess69]

finding quiet continually positing town[enchant] theories but not willing to unvote or provide another name to be slightly obnoxious

[fairyprincess69]

Spoiler:

You want a thousand post day 1.

Fair enough.

Fine, I’ll bring it up, this could get us there.
Do we want to gamble the game day1 that Enchant is just self hating town that had a shitty experience getting miselimed and feels that this is the best way to play? Following the principal of flipping my mind, what if

Yes I know this is stupid

We just townlock them, don’t reconsider till ElLo, and get back to hunting?

Downside: they’re always making it to ElLo, which has challenges both if townEnchant or scumEnchant.
Downside: it’s def not GTO (optimal) play, this would be like a huge exploit that could easily screw town day1.

Upside: kinda think Enchant might be town
Upside: gives us 5 more posts
Upside: let’s me ask the question, if Enchant was off the table, who gets elimmed today?

Also why isn’t Enchant elimmed already? It’s an incredibly strange wagon dynamic that so many people seem to be just paying passively, not commenting on the Enchant wagon or what happened, and not declaring if they’re going to vote or not vote. I would not expect the game to freeze like this.

That’s at least marginally useful.

Also flow vote Enchant please and put this day out of its misery.

from lets locktown enchant to please end this day in 5 posts lmao

[fairyprincess69]

Spoiler:

Back to post, sorry for being inactive lately. I read through the thread up to this point.

If Enchant is Mafia, they are playing very poorly. The selfhammer drama is a wonderful gift for anyone (town or scum) who wants to push Enchant. Without it, Enchant would probably not be hammered soon, and would instead have several IRL days for themselves and their partner to redirect a wagon. My question throughout the drama has been, "where is Enchant's partner?" No player has taken Enchant's actions to draw attention to himself. And it is doubtful that a scumpartner would even let Enchant post insanity in the first place.

The only post that stood out to me as partner-indicating is

If I were to try to make a readlist of my own, I would definitely "screw" something too. Hence, my reads are very fluid with players that were more likely to be town to me turning into more likely to be scum and vice versa.

Right now, given what I have read, my guess of the scumteam is Salsabil Faria and quiet with a higher than random chance of being right. Random chance is (1/28). Odds of right to wrong are (1:27).

I'll assume that Fredrick is Enchant's scumpartner in this paragraph. Fredrick does not mention an Enchant read in this post or any other post so far post-drama, not even to analyze anything Enchant has done. At this time, Enchant is the most important read, but he has none (865), with an excuse of not having caught up (866). Instead, he redirects attention to two other scumreads but admits that there is a low chance of his reads being correct. So his strategy is to a) avoid discussing Enchant because any position in the Enchant drama will result in (eventual) suspicion, b) propose some other scumreads while admitting inconfidence to avoid angering his (town) scumreads or explaining his reads too far, and c) hope his partner's gambit and his own pivoting will allow them both to survive Day 1.

My point is not that Fredrick is likely Enchant's partner, but that if the two are scumpartners, Fredrick is pursuing a rational strategy. A desperation strategy is possible because the scumteam was in an awful position at the time, both members being widely scumread and the two most voted players.

I want an Enchant vote, even just for the information. But without the consent of other players, I can't risk selfhammer.

Finally, to Enchant. Yes, you are hurting town. Not because you are bad in the first place, but because your vision of yourself being bad has led you to make confusing and self-defeating plays. You did not try to self-hammer yourself because you really were a net negative at the time. You made yourself a net negative by trying to self-hammer. If there's one thing you can do for town, escape the loser mentality, then you will start contributing to the town.

Stuff I thought up before but I want to post now. Not a full readlist because I don't have the time.

flow trap:

as I explained before. Nothing too scummy has gotten my attention, granted that I've mentally filtered out contradictory or silly statements. Seems sincere.

Salsabil Faria:

She has relied on incorrect assumptions in some of her reads that town has no reason to lie or hide their thoughts, but has not changed her beliefs even while some players have pointed out the mistake. I also get the feeling that she confuses long-paragraph or intelligent-sounding analyses for town. Is contributing to the town, but too often uses the aforementioned assumptions in her reads.

Enchant:

scumread right now per what I've written before.

esotericzoomer:

Complaining about flow trap feels more like scum defending town for towncred now. Absolute confidence in Enchant scumread also suspicious. Scumpool candidate.

Fredrick A Campbell:

Between the read pivoting and invalid read justifications as pointed out by other players. Lack of Enchant read, even "this player is unreadable," is concerning. Scummier if Enchant flips Mafia than Town as the most likely partner. (Unrelated, but keep in mind that Fredrick has gotten more suspicion for not posting reads than flow trap.)

I have not read enough of Prism, Spartan, or Quiet (safebet) yet to make an informed read.

find this post (1005) weird because it's essentially an indictment of Frederick, not of Enchant. the language he uses here ("if Enchant is Mafia, they are playing very poorly.") ("Enchant would probably not be hammered soon")("I want an Enchant vote, even just for the information.") seems to imply Enchant is a townlean overall, and he's only scum in relation to Frederick. why he doesn't just make a case on and push Fred i'm not sure. It also makes no sense for Fred to be partnered with Enchant here - he's completely AWOL from the thread and would likely be targeted tomorrow if Enchant was his scum partner. but i can see that as being a difference of opinion since EZ thought the same thing. we can see from 1014 that Enchant really is a scumread, so why all the psuedo-defending in 1005? why not jsut say yes i think this guy is mafia and we should vote him?

im pretty sure this read is a load of crap by me since it's nearly 6am and i can barely think straight but i just wanted to get something out on floo

[fairyprincess69]

Sorry shadow slug is me. When is deadline? Spartan would be my hammer but I’m not fully caught up yet

[fairyprincess69]

@Fairy Can you be more specific as to what you're seeing on Spartan/not in floo? Last post of yours had Spartan town, what changed?

i thought his treatment of EZ was scummy in that EZ's massive wallpost did nothing to change spartan's read of him. he didn't really engage with many of the reads made in that post. he eventually downplays his fos on EZ (which coincides with other people townreading EZ at this point) and focuses on Fred. i don't think he really tries to get fred voted out at this point though. his defense of Enchant is a townlean for me, but only because it's consistent with his earlier townread on enchant. but after dropping a townread on Enchant and his thoughts on fred, he pretty much dips out of the thread and lets the wagon happen without much resistance.

[fairyprincess69]

finding quiet continually positing town[enchant] theories but not willing to unvote or provide another name to be slightly obnoxious

On the topic of this + positing the locktown enchant or elim thing:

What other name was there day1? It’s practically RVS and enchant dominated the discussion from the moment I replaced in. From my perspective, and I stand by this, in that circumstance you have literally two options: locktown and don’t second guess as much as scum will try to get you to, or if you fear that you might waver on that, then elim with extreme prejudice. It’s a polarizing spot where they have to be either exactly scum or exactly town, and frankly, I wasn’t ready to gamble the rest of the game on them being town and never rethinking that read.

Who else would you have elimmed day1?

why on earth are the two options locktown or elim? i find these polarizing options baffling - if you're starting to suspect there's a world where enchant is town, why don't you unvote and look for those other names? you're umming and ahhing over this enchant wagon constantly but you never unvote. i just find the progression of [enchant could be locktown -> floo please hammer] in the space of a few minutes to be ... strange.

[fairyprincess69]

>Maybe I should have considered Fred there, but Fred was seen as a decent enchant partner, so at that point why not just elim enchant?

was fred scummier to you than enchant?

also UNVOTE: quiet

[fairyprincess69]

It's irrationally defensive at best, arrogantly scummy at worst. The underlying thought process in any case is "I'm so towny, how could someone scumread me?"

floo i find your basis to begin scumreading salsa confusing - doesn't this indignation suggest a town mindset rather than a scum one?

[fairyprincess69]

I don't want to lose, in short, and am risking a lot by going against my scumread to do so. This is more than a single vote to me.

i'm beginning to gutread spartan as town as im making my way through the thread and would willingly sheep you if you feel that strongly about floo

[fairyprincess69]

but lack of objectivity has to be a town trait - you know you're town, so you're going to treat suspicion agaisnt you flippantly/dismissively. there's a sense of entitlement in playing town in which you can't see why people would think you're scummy

self consciousness is inherent in playing a scum role. people have legitimate reasons to suspect you're mafia since... well you're mafia.

[fairyprincess69]

FML wrong account again. I really need to learn not to do that. @quiet am i correct in understanding you have only played 1 prior mafia game to this? what about other websites?

[fairyprincess69]

??? Fairy can you explain your progression on the two slots more clearly, why do you keep pingponging lmao

dude I keep rereading and changing my mind lmao this is really hard

you're my only LOCKTOWN townread. i keep thinking quiet is gonna join that list but then i think he's not committing to anything or taking bold stances, which is actually a ridiculous reason to suspect him since i'm in the same boat. then i think spartan is actually townie because of his relentless pursual of frederick and his incredulity that noone is joining him. now i'm reading through floo's treatment of salsa and overall i think it's pretty fair! frederick doesn't seem to care about how he's perceived at all, and flow trap is just being flow trap. so you can see my predicament.

this is why i'm willing to defer to your read on floo - it's not as if i have a really concrete scumread on spartan, i'm simply not confident on mafia right now.

[fairyprincess69]

Spartan117, it is brilliant of you, knowing how little time I spend per day on this game, to continue making wall after wall with the expectation that I will respond to it and forget to read the rest of the thread.

Actually, Spartan117, I am kind of getting why you are scumreading me now. Not that I can do anything about it, though.

oh wow spartan makes a case on and votes quiet in 1319. WTF? what da heck happened to Frederick?

[fairyprincess69]

Oops didnt mean to quote those two

[fairyprincess69]

why the everloving hell has spartan completely backed off Frederick who he's been gunning for the whole game

Ftr - prism locktown, quiet solidtown, spartan minor townread, floo slightly less than that. Flow trap and Fred is my scumteam guess lmfao

[fairyprincess69]

@prism

i feel at least partially your read on floo is influenced by your attitude towards mafia games, and perhaps of life itself. you love diplomacy, social harmony, emotional intelligence. i think when you're reading floo you're putting yourself in

his

shoes and coming away from it knowing you'd treat Salsa completely different. and that's fine. i just don't think floo has any motive to accomodate salsa's feelings - he scumreads her afterall, and his entire MO in that exchange was provocation for reactions. do you think the difference in philosophy could be skewing your read a bit?

[fairyprincess69]

Ur doing great spartan, that helps me understand thank you, and my top vote today would actually be flow trap.

[fairyprincess69]

I think I've been talked out of Spartian/floo today. This means I want Fred or Flow Trap, and Flow Trap just confuses the hell out of me so idk about that one. It seems like fairy, myself, spartian, are all willing to vote Fred.

woah wasn't flow chart the chaos god one of your top townreads?

[fairyprincess69]

I have 1 completed game in newbie queue. I have played no other games on any other sites, I watched some decently high level Zoom mafia on youtube which which is what got me into wanting to play mafia (a lateral from my interest in incomplete information games and poker + game theory in general, but mostly as it relates to microfinance and sustainability stuff, which is wayyy outta scope for this kinda thing). So basically no experience prior to the last month or so playing form mafia, but a good amount of thinking about related topics.

On a semi-related note, in my first newbie game, someone tunnled me based on, in part, believing me to be misrepresenting my experience.

not sure i believe you. you use a ton of forum mafia lingo that i don't think would be accumulated in such a short time frame. i'm not sure if this has any bearing on your alignment, but you're most assuredly a mafia progidy if you're being truthful about your experience

[fairyprincess69]

Part of what makes this so implausible w/ floo is that we have similar backgrounds in chat mafia. The amount of indignant/self-righteous town in chat games is insane and is a huge part of what can make it insufferable to play, it can quickly degrade to ego "I was obviously town you're trash for voting me" slapfights. Mafia quickly learn to do the same. You literally have to play around town doing exactly what Salsabil was doing and worse every other game.

but isn't scumplay in chat mafia very reflexive, emotion driven because of the lack of time required to make good arguments? i can see Salsabil's reaction would look even

more

scummy in that context.

[fairyprincess69]

I believe I have said the Enchant TR was a bluff as was the Salsa TR

but according to this post many of your supposed TR's are bluffs, so are those real reads or not?

[fairyprincess69]

I have 15 minutes before I lock in my vote

on who, exactly?

[fairyprincess69]

which site did u play chat mafia on btw?

[fairyprincess69]

Area of Effect/Elimination, basically just thinking about possible scum combinations and what it could be given the people I TR, and given that I feel strongly that prism, fairy are tr, I know I am, that limits the area of my search a great deal.

Fred makes sense to me because of how many people I TR, and how of the remaining group, {floo, flow, spartian, fred}, most combinations don't really work without Fred being scum.

Maybe that's not a real term, sorry.

are you really that set on me being town? i find that surprising

@floo oof dude ive been defending you

[fairyprincess69]

i really, really think we should get flow trap before we're in lylo and we have to work on sorting his slot for real - he's a brick wall and i don't think that's gonna change anytime soon

[fairyprincess69]

it's genuinely impossible to get any sense of fred's read progressions since he never shares his reasoning. like in 1272 spartan is misrepresenting his posts (scumtell) then in 1353 it's quiet and floo. why? he never gets round to explaining anything lol. im thinking MAYBE with another day we'd get more from fred rather than flow trap who, whilst he's here most of the time, we never get anything from anyway. flow trap's game just dropped significantly for me since it's clear his whole playstyle never was utilised to find mafia - it's just chaos as quiet likes to say. i just think that chaos is coming from a self-preservation mindset now.

[fairyprincess69]

is fferyllt around? vote count plez?

[fairyprincess69]

I still want floo first and please note that requires only 2 votes

i'm sorry prism, i know how badly you want this vote but you did say you'd rather people go with their own hunches than just follow you, and i'd much rather flow trap than floo, and frederick over floo at this point in time.

VOTE: flow trap

this has to be the vote we make for final 5 sanity

[fairyprincess69]

is it 4 votes for a limmo

CMON BOYS WE CAN GET THE TRAP MAN

[fairyprincess69]

damn the way you hyped me up prism makes me wish i put more effort in now sorry i couldn't be a more worthy adversary!

as immense as prism was, that play by spartan at the end of day 2 there really sealed the win for scum, because i was very ok with chopping him up till that point. that made me do a 180 and focus on flow/fred, which i knew was never going to be the maf team, but i just couldn't get a doggone read on anyone!

town don't have to feel disappointed about that loss. i don't think anything other than a very strong and coordinated town team could have caught prism there, and other things didn't go our way like enchant claiming goon and cop dying. i wish i had played since the start; i don't think i will replace into games of that length since i prefer to build up reads organically.

lesson for me is definitely trust and look into my instincts more - i knew there were aspects of prism's play i didn't like; i didn't see floo scum really at all, brushing over the townreads on salsa/eso too much, but i just didn't have the confidence in myself to challenge more. that locktown was definitely based on prism's raw emotive power, which jesus christ is a scary skill. the whole ffery narrative felt farfetched but you were able to back it up and convey it so seamlessly. i really felt like you believed you're an anime protagonist with a point to prove LOL. and as you mentioned in your notes, switching from diplomatic to terse - i remember feeling that so palpably, how you were getting annoyed at me for not seeing your read but also wanting to remain calm and how that fits perfectly with your narrative of an obsessive player that can singlehandedly ruin games and your wish to rectify that

god DAMN dude. i dunno how im gonna trust anyone again after this.