Open 421-Pamplona II: Electric Bullgaloo! Game over

[callforjudgement]

This 3:2:1 ending was pretty interesting, I should go analyze it fully at some point. (I thought something was off with the ending negotiations while I was reading the ending there; nice to know that Bitmap was screwing up his setup theory intentionally in order to manipulate the scum, it was a nice twist.)

@NS: The rule that Near would have violated in most rulesets is the "no provable randomness" rule, but it seems not to actually be in your ruleset. I recommend adding it (especially as it's required for Newbie games, after various ingenious sorts of abuse). That sort of townie-townie communication works by establishing a random number that both players know, so it's a provable randomness violation. (Oh, and Near, your scheme doesn't actually work; anyone can look at the timestamp on your post and compare that to all the links you gave, to figure out what the time was when they're followed. For it to work, you'd need an online clock that changed the rate at which it ticked randomly over time. But don't do that, because it violates most mod's rulesets.)

[callforjudgement]

Here's how it looks in my ruleset:

4. Don't use hidden or small text, cryptography, or provable randomness. (Breadcrumbs are OK.)

An expanded version looks like this:

Making random decisions is OK, but you must not make them in a way that other players can be sure wasn't rigged. (So, for instance, you can roll a dice and tell everyone you rolled a 5, because there's no way for them to know if you actually did or not; but using a dice tag is against the rules.)

Come to think of it, though, this might not be enough to stop what you were doing; I can imagine an actually secure version of what you came up with which involves no randomness. (Imagine two townies who know each other in real life, and come up with something like "If your sister's name starts with A, I'll protect X, otherwise I'll protect Y.") I haven't seen rules against this in mods' rulesets yet, but they may be necessary.

[callforjudgement]

Oh, and to answer the question of endgame analysis: this was a town win. I believe 2:1:1 to be a town win in all situations with reasonably normal roles, except ones where the SK is 1-shot bulletproof with an unused shot

and

the Mafia know it, or the SK is full bulletproof (regardless of whether the Mafia know it).

On day 6, both of the townies should have voted for a no-lynch, forcing a no-lynch as they formed half the playerlist on that day. (Preferably before the scum can start discussing anything.) Then the game collapses into the Prisoner's Gambit: both remaining scum have the choice of cross-killing or shooting townies, and no matter what the other scum does, they're better off shooting the other scum than a townie. (And the townies shouldn't be protecting the SK any more, so the SK has no NK immunity any more; and even if the SK

is

NK-immune despite everything, then the townies can lynch them the next day.) Additionally, even if both scum cooperate and go for the draw, they only have a 50-50 chance of each shooting a different townie (if disallowed day-phase communication), which should just make them more inclined to go for the win. So scum almost certainly crosskill on night 6, and town wins.

[callforjudgement]

The SK had strongman shots left (infinitely many, in fact). He was relying on the fact that town would try to cross-protect for the win and forget about the strongman ability, and the plan worked just fine.

[callforjudgement]

It was in the last three days or so, even if it wasn't earlier. He might have been strongly losing during most of the game, but he won the endgame.

[callforjudgement]

Hmm, the very first case is different from my analysis; if the townies

don't

cross-protect, then suddenly the Mafia shooting at a townie gives an SK win if the SK shoots the Mafia. It's thus in town's interest to persuade the SK that they won't cross-protect, but even though it's to their advantage to prove they will, I don't see any way for them to actually do that. So your analysis is correct here, not mine.

The correct play for the SK is to no-kill with a very high probability (say 99%), and kill a townie the rest of the time. (And make this plan known to the other players.) That way, the Mafia can't dare to shoot the SK, because they'd be risking an instant loss if they did. Eventually, they'll hit that 1% chance, and kill a townie, and the Mafia will no-kill or whiff on a doctor in the process; they can't possibly know when the chance is going to be hit. (Use a 10% or even 20% chance if you want to speed the process up, but this raises the risk of the Mafia trying to get lucky, which is bad for you no matter whether they time it right or not.) In other words, the game will go to 1:1:1. (Also of note: you could simply lynch a townie to speed the process up; no player would have any objections to that, as the Mafia and town can't do anything about that, and the SK doesn't want to do anything about it.) So we'll end up in 1:1:1 for sure.

I believe 1:1:1 to be usually a town win but not always; it depends strongly on when the individual players can get online. (I've changed my mind somewhat from my previous writeup of the strategy, due to noticing extra strategies for both town and scum.) I'll go write up my thoughts on it in MD some time.