NY 160B - Welcome to Castle Zar - TIME FOR FIREWORKS!

[Empire]

Vote: Maestro

Just a heads up, today's my birthday and I have plans spending today and tomorrow celebrating it so I won't be able to post much if at all. Will have some good stuff for you guys when I come back though and the thread has breathed a bit.

[Empire]

Vi, you're doing it wrong.

Unvote, vote: NS

[Empire]

Nah, part of it is general agreement with Konowa's sentiment that NS trying to dull the edge off the AA9 wagon was anti-town. What really got me, though, was his vote on Konowa in #23 which is awkward and the reasoning he provides for it feels like reaching. Initially, I thought it was a joke due to its exaggerated tone but #29 implies that his vote was serious.

P-Edit: Only once. He was my scum partner in Micro 70 and he had a similar-ish awkward entrance.

[Empire]

Arthur, I don't really see how that's stretching? What's wrong with my reasoning then?

[Empire]

Seems like it's a self-conscious post where you try to justify your vote quickly so suspicion isn't cast on you. It's stretching because it seems like you just looked for anything to justify your vote.

Eh, I could see why you'd see it in that way but I always justify my votes when prodded in some fashion (hell, sometimes even unprompted) and that was basically the response to Johhog's #32.

[Empire]

Mehdi, I figured that an unexplained initial vote would have more of an impact.

[Empire]

For both the guy I'm voting and others. Basically, I anticipated that it would draw attention to myself so I wanted to lay some pressure on someone I felt had acted scummy while simultaneously fielding reactions from others.

Already have some minor reads on some people but I'm posting from my phone right now about to head to a party so I'll detail them when I come back.

[Empire]

Already have some minor reads on some people but I'm posting from my phone right now about to head to a party so I'll detail them when I come back.

...when I come back from MORE PARTIES. In the meantime, though, some questions:

@NS:

Are you going to comment on the reasoning I provided in #34?

@MoI:

Did you follow up on the Vi meta research from #43? If so, what did you find?

@Snow:

Can you elaborate a bit on why you don't like the other votes on my wagon? Is it just a gut/intuition thing or is it something articulable?

[Empire]

I don't have much to comment on; you think I'm reaching yet I'm completely serious. You view my vote as awkward. Okay, what am I supposed to do with that, give you a hug and tell you it'll be all better?

No that's fine, thanks. I just wanted you to say

something

since commenting on the initial vote and not the reasoning after seemed weird.

I just checked that game and although his entrance seems a little bit awkward, how it is similar to his entrance here?

One more question, Empire. Were you aware that NS is considered an easy target?

Answering these two together.

Yes, I am aware that he's considered an easy target. I'm

also

aware though that he tends to be really lurky/low content as both alignments and that makes reading him a challenge since he generally tends to be percieved as scummy. Hence why I voted him: I saw his first post vote on Konowa, on its own, as an awkward joke similar to the whole "vote the mod" thing in that game where I was scum with him. When he later implied that the vote was serious, my initial impression was that the reasoning behind it seemed like a stretch so I decided to place a vote down on him because: 1) he did something I felt was slightly scummy, and 2) to force him out a bit. I decided to go even further and make the initial vote unexplained to see how other people would react to it.

---

Anyway, here's where I'm at right now with regards to my reads. Game's still early but I got a couple of things I feel pretty good about though some others feel very tentative and I'm really looking forward to hearing from some of the people who haven't fully checked in yet.

I very much liked AA9's entrance into the game, liked post #7's "finally!!" as people (especially newcomers) generally prefer to be town and I don't think she would have been so excited to start the game off as scum. Find the warm friendly hello post in #8 to be genuine and I feel like she would have been a bit more clammed up as scum. I also liked her being freaked out over the quick RVS votes as it came off like she was concerned people were rushing things and the implied "slow it down" attitude of #15 to be genuine. The call to push the game out of random voting #48 seems legit too, not really seeing the issue Vi was pointing out with his #71 as there was a bit more content between the first and the second quote there. Johhog's transition from voting me to asking me if I had played with NS before #32 + #33 seems fairly natural and his reasoning for doing so in #87 is understandable given that NS is indeed a frequent ML tagret in his games so him being put off by my vote on NS comes across as a towntell. His being frustrated at Mehdi and suspecting him for not giving him an opportunity to respond to his question and the reasoning he provides in #100 checks out. Konowa being frustrated by NS trying to diffuse the initial AA9 wagon in #18 + #20 comes across as fairly townie as well. Snow being put off by the reasoning behind my wagon and singling out Mehdi for disagreeing with Arthur/Johhog while simultaneously putting a vote down on me comes off as townie as well.

Not really feelin' Mehdi this game either but for mostly different reasons than some of the others here, I think (his vote on me is fairly null). My worry about him is more meta-based - as scum, he tends to engage in this very cold, mechanical line of questioning and comes off like he's detached. Check out his scum games in Open 463 and Micro 63 and I think you can see what I mean (both games are him in hydras, but he writes the overwhelming majority of the posts). Contrast with Marketplace II and the recently finished Low Effort Mafia where I think there's a bit less of that. Need to reread those games to be more sure though. Also, not really feeling the townread on me in #75 as I think the "lacks apathy" angle is a little too easy.

Not sure what to think about Vi either. On the one hand, him agreeing with Snow about Mehdi's vote seems like something I can definitely see him doing as town but I still get bad vibes from his #71. The structure and the implied thrust of it is something I recall seeing in his scum games where he cherry picks seemingly inconsistent quotes from people to make them look bad with no accounting for any of the changes that happened in between. Need to dig into this more too though. However, looking to NS meta is something that's going to take top priority for me right now as the confident snarkiness of his responses are something new and I want to see if that reaction comes from him as scum or as town.

P-Edit: Ugh, yeah, definitely need to go over those Mehdi games again as the most recent stuff seems more like town-him.

[Empire]

The lacks apathy angle fits fairly well from what I've heard of you disliking scum quite a bit more (I've never read your scum games though).

And you read Low Effort by the looks of it and NS played more confident there as well when it came to being pressured.

Next, I'm curious why you'd need to pore over my meta again. I thought open 463 meta analysis would be enough unless that somehow was partly forgotten?

NS was pretty much a non-entity there from what I recall (he posted maybe like 3 times total?) so I don't think that game's a good one to look at when it comes to his meta - I mean, it's pretty telling that, off the top of my head, the entire scum team decided to fake a guilty on him. Also, I had a pretty tough time reading you in 463 (if you remember, I thought the scumteam was N/Thor) and while Regfan and I had an easy time with you in Marketplace, I can't really say I'm confident.

(P.S.: You should read my scum games, they're really funny and embarrassing.)

[Empire]

Erm, thought I answered it up there? Johhog's vote was fairly townie, got nothing on MoI or Arthur and have them as fairly null still, think Arthur could plausibly fake that reasoning as scum and MoI hasn't given me anything to work with you. And like I said your vote doesn't strike me as suspicious, my worry about you is based on other stuff.

[Empire]

EBWOP: Should say "MoI hasn't given me anything to work with yet."

Am I still drunk or something?

[Empire]

No first person, was meaning to use it in the sense of voicing agreement with others.

[Empire]

Why is anything that ArcAngel said alignment-relevant?

Erm, thought I explained why in #112 but to elaborate a little more: when reading newer players, I put more emphasis on tone than I usually do. This is because, well, they're newbies - they often do dumb things and they often haven't developed their skill at scumhunting so a lot of the stuff about "passivity" is something I tend to see in newer players a lot. Hell, even if you've played elsewhere, you still need to get used to the site culture/meta (I know I spent months casually following ongoing games here before I even made an account).

Since I had a different reason then one given before which I already said. I found the fact emp wasn't explaining first when I was used to him walling from the beginning to be a bit strange and voted him.

...wait, what? How can you be "used to" me walling from the beginning? You've only played two games with me, both of them were in hydras where I play very differently. This was my very first post in Open 463, hardly a wall. Every single unsigned post from that hydra after #68 is from Tammy. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only wallpost I ever wrote in that whole game was the infamous Tierce meta-case. Most of the posts from Gentlemen Bastards in Marketplace II were from Regfan, the few times I did post I did so concisely. So how in the world could you have possibly developed that meta so quickly? (Now I'm starting to see why others are calling your vote on me scummy.)

Response to MoI's #153 and DV's #204:

Taking these two together because I don't want to make this wall more unwieldy and the issues/questions they bring up overlap.
- The Vi comment was basically me fucking around since he's a friend and one of the few people I talk to off-site so I just wanted to take a little jab at him. It wasn't meant to be any sort of reaction test which is why I never brought it up again.
- Over-explanation is what I do. The running joke is that I basically play like a version of Regfan and it's (embarrassingly) true. Here are some instances of me over-explaining stuff: Micro 34 (here and here, Micro 54 as a replace-in here, and Mini 1373 here and here (on my now discarded main, satire). Furthermore, given that we only have one week deadlines you better bet that I'm going to try and draw as much as I possibly can from each game day.
- Refer to the top of this post regarding my townread on AA9. As for the preference issue, my understanding is that most people generally tend to prefer being town as opposed to scum (

silly

outliers like Faraday and RedCoyote notwithstanding). Like I suggested with my AA9 townread earlier, newer players have a habit of clamming up and struggling what to say as scum. You can disagree with it as an empirical matter but from my experience that leads to the inference that newer players are typically very uncomfortable playing scum. I'm not seeing that discomfort at all in AA9's posting which is the basis of my townread on that slot.
- No I am not a Westeros regular though coincidentally I did make an account there today =P
- MoI, I asked you the question because my impression was that you still posted during your V/LAs, only less frequently (sorry for the mistake). As for the reason behind asking you the question, it's because I've been trying to develop a meta on Vi - started to work on it a bit while in Open 463 but then stopped when the meta case on Tierce was sufficient to get the slot lynched. Wanted to see what you had.

---

Updated reads in next post as I've noticed there's been a flurry of posting since I've been writing this and I want to make sure I haven't missed anything. If I haven't responded to specific questions in here, please let me know.

[Empire]

Picking up where I left off, have a pretty decent list of townreads, though I'm a little light on the scumreads I feel like I'm inching closer to being able to PoE this game. Here's a quick summary:

Ok, I know I'm preaching to the choir here but, to use her own words, Tammy is "holy fuck" town. Her first content post of the game in #123 fits her town meta to a T, especially re: her being on the fence regarding AA9 ("her passivity rubs me the wrong way..." / "there is something that makes me lean town here but I can't put my finger on it...") as I know that kind of waffliness is the way she thinks about and discusses her reads as town. Really like her townread on Johhog, especially the meta reference to Rocky Horror too and the suspicion over Mehdi's vote on me is super genuine. I'm also liking roflcopter's entrance into the game as I'm thinking him hipfiring the three townreads in his first serious post and then following up with the vote on Mehdi + questioning in #127 fits his town meta. Fairly sure I've seen rofl set up conditional lynches like in #127 as town before (and I

think

I remember the specific game) but need to double check on this. Liked rofl calling out MoI for overreacting in #244 as I was also weirded out a bit by that too. Loved Arthur coming in, placing down a silent vote on Mehdi and proceeding to question Konowa as that kind of reaction test is what I've seen him do in Open 463 with Tammy and I - I know as town he loves to get his hands dirty, throw himself into the fray, and get reads on people by doing crazy shit like that. I remember hearing/reading somewhere (maybe from Tammy?) that Arthur's a little more self conscious as scum and I'm not seeing that at all, especially considering his responses to Konowa and MoI. Johhog looks even better in his back and forth with Mehdi as I think his frustration is genuine and his reasoning for continuing to push on him is understandable.

Honestly, as against the grain as this is going to sound, I'm liking AA9 more for town. The "slow this down" attitude of #176 and #179 rings genuine and I feel like she's really struggling to get reads this game. Liked the townreads on myself and MoI for "good reasoning" and being open minded in #186 and the whole conspiracy-based suspicion of Vi and Tammy seems really unlikely to come from scum as I think she's being genuinely paranoid, especially considering how she reaches out to Mehdi in #213 and considers the players on his wagon. #234 reaction to being faked vigged and being frustrated that Vi isn't "playing the game" is super genuine too. Why do people think she's scum again?

Not really seeing the Vi townreads myself, thinking the call for AA9 to be vigged is just Vi being Vi and nothing really alignment indicative. Really need to hear more for him re: his reads with reasoning on others. Also need to hear more from Kingmaker, Baby Spice, and DV. I'm kind of with Arthur that Baby "coming to Mehdi's rescue" by voting Johhog is strange and, looking back, her angle on NS in #64 is also weird. Liked DV's meta-reference in #204 but that's a super minor thing, waiting to hear on his reads after he goes through everything again.

Reminder to self to look at the NS meta and that roflcopter game.

Town (S->W):

Tammy, Johhog, AA9, Arthur, Snow, roflcopter, Konowa

Scum team is in {NS, Mehdi, MoI, Vi, Baby Spice, Kingmaker, DV}

[Empire]

Ok, managed to glaze over that roflcopter-town ISO I was referencing. It was Mini 1343 - The Murder of Papa Zito where he spent a large part of his early game chaining KageLord and Pine together as a scum pair. Recalled this one because it was one of the first games I followed while it was ongoing here on MS before I made my account.

P-Edit: reasoning on Snow is the same, roflcopter and him are basically equivalent on the little scale thing. What was the point of this question anyway (feels like a really minor thing to ask about)?

[Empire]

Empire, around how many games have you played as scum (solo) and in which do you think you played best?

Only have two completed scum games on-site: Micro 70 and Micro 42 (as Black Mask). Can't really tell you which one I played "best" in because I feel I played pretty terribly in both of those games.

@Tammy:

What are your thoughts on the players who have posted since your #138 (specifically Arthur, MoI, roflcopter, and DV)?

[Empire]

Trying this question again...
Empire, why should I believe you're Town?

Off the top of my head, two reasons:
1) Because you've played with/modded me as both alignments and it should be pretty plain for you to see that I'm town this game.
2) Because I feel like I've been pretty transparent with everything, especially my reasoning and the way I've shown my work, once I got the ball rolling (see above).

...actually, turn that question around. Why should I believe

you're

town this game? Frankly, you're not giving me the same vibes you did in Micro 53 where I was able to read you as town fairly quickly/easily and it's weirding me out.

[Empire]

EBWOP: Should be Micro 59, not 53, sorry.

[Empire]

...

Ok fine, you win, you're town.

(Not going to switch to Mehdi yet though as I still want to check NS's meta and we still have some time.)

[Empire]

Aha – now I see why I find you scummy – the bolded. I find tone to be a fluffy non-word that people use to justify reads that can’t otherwise be justified (aka more likely to come from scum than Town).

Think that's playstyle more than anything, dude. There are plenty of players who justify reads on the basis of gut/intuition and any time someone refers to a post/player as "awkward", "detached", "disengaged", etc. is certainly commenting on their tone. Surely any time someone refers to something being "genuine" or "ungenuine" is commenting on that player's tone. Don't really see how that's alignment indicative at all.

I also disagree completely with your “new players are passive” theory in that passivity is mostly a function of playstyle (I was damn active the second I joined MS and subsequently got Nightkilled in my first two games N1, meanwhile NS is an inactive lump of terrible-ness despite being on site for so long) and personality than ‘newbiness’.

You can disagree with it, that's fine, I was only speaking as a matter of my own empirical observation. For example, take a look at this game - most of players here basically either flaked out due to being overwhelmed (here) or just generally really struggled to scumhunt (here). I can buy the idea that it's personality determined, but generally speaking, stuff like what I've just quoted seems to be more the norm for newer players from my own observations.

Ok, I can see that as long as Vi doesn’t say “Screw that, I don’t know this joker

IRL

”.

You misunderstood me. I never meant to say that I knew Vi face-to-face (does anyone?) but rather that he's one of the few people I talk to outside the game via the Internet. Hell, when the game was up in sign-ups we talked about how excited I was that he joined.

So if this your normal style I’m back to my original position – that I don’t see the reasons for your ‘Town clearing’ of AA to be logical and reasonable. I think it’s been put well that you are grasping for reasons to say AA is Town. Everything you put forth is either based on premises that are not valid (new players prefer Town and that in general new players all conform to behavior patterns

when AA’s own posts refute that she should be considered inexperienced

) or based solely on your own personal experiences (which apply to you not necessarily to others).

The only thing I think would be a strong Town tell for AA would be her constant antagonizing of Vi through calling him bad and saying VI instead of Vi. And even that is predicated on knowing it is stupid to do so as Scum which requires her to know Vi which apparently she does not.

Bolded is where I have an issue: sure, she might consider herself "experienced" but the fact of the matter is that she's new

to this site

. She doesn't have any idea about the site meta or the site culture here (as evidenced by her being put off by RVS when that's such a regular part of our games). And frankly, her reads list in #186 really leads me to question just how "experienced" she really is. As far as personal experiences is concerned, well yeah, I base a lot of assumptions based on what I perceive of people. This is a huge part of the reason meta is very important to me - I don't believe there really are things that can be considered "universal" tells (i.e, tells that apply to someone regardless of the situation). Personality always has to be taken into account - how the specific person reacts to a situation. Because AA9 presumably doesn't have any completed games on here, my read on her is a combination of my own assumptions of what I've seen from new players and applying them her actions here. I don't know whether it's really possible to fully explain personal stuff that's not going to stop me from trying.

Sometimes I do. It depends on how much free time I have to myself which is very swingy. Currently with my daughter recovering from a broken wrist and holiday activities it is more constrained than usual.

Sorry to hear about that, man. Hopefully she has a very speedy recovery!

1. How is this against the grain? I don’t recall anyone directly calling AA anything other than Newb Vigbait.
2. How exactly are you liking AA MORE for Town when Post 112 reads a pretty definitive?

1. Mostly extrapolating from Konowa's FoS here and at least half of Tammy's mind being rubbed the wrong way here.
2. Didn't intend that post to be definitive, and my townread on her was one of the things I felt "pretty good" about at that stage. Her later posting made me more confident in that read, as I explained, hence the certainty you see in #264.

[Empire]

Can you explain this?

Much more like Vi's style of posting circa Micro 59 in the way he expresses his read on me as I feel like as scum he tends to push things differently. I delved into it a little bit in #112.

[Empire]

Emp did you find anything meta wise on NS?

Doing it now. Games I'm looking at are: Micro 70, Otherworld, NY152, and Political Corruption Mafia.

(P.S.: Your line of questioning re: Open 463 is really cumbersome and tedious and really resembles your general line of questioning from that game.)

[Empire]

In not forgetting you're checking meta? Interestingly I don't remember really getting a meta read that game (I think best was me and OS played like a hydra similarly when we hated hydra dissonance first game, but not so second game) so seeing it occur is nice.

No, I meant your recent line of questioning re: Tammy unvoting and not wanting a quickhammer (I can vouch for her that our original plan on D3 was to slow it down but we ended up being so convinced by the notion that Piggy was being bussed that we ended up rolling with it).

[Empire]

As for tammy I mainly wanted to hear her say something beyond we have time left for the unvote.

...how would her response be even remotely relevant to her alignment?

[Empire]

It didn't matter. I wasn't asking that to get a better read on her.

...then why bother asking the question in the first place?

(This is why you're probably mafia, just FYI. Asking pointless shit is your scum game to a tee.)

[Empire]

...you were scum that game and Kanye explicitly said he had no knowledge of your scum-game. Are you even serious right now?

[Empire]

But still you're point was I do it as scum. Mine is I do it as town as well and that kanye actually did put it best.

You're literally citing someone's incomplete and faulty knowledge of your play as someone "summarizing it best."

...

[Empire]

Ok, so I went over NS's games and here's what I've found re: his reactions to pressure and how he generally responds to others:

SCUM:

Political Corruption Mafia - Generally speaking, he tends to be a bit...nicer when he responds to being voted or responding to questions. Check #243's response to being voted by Johhog; while there's a bit of snark there, it mostly reads like he's trying to placate Johhog by asking him for his reasoning. Likewise with his reply to ActionDan in #179. MoI and Johhog, since you guys were both town this game, please let me know if there's anything wrong with this reasoning.

Micro 70 - Likewise, I see here that NS generally tries to placate and reason with the people who vote him. He starts off by awkwardly trying to brush aside Tierce's vote in #23 and #28 by providing reasoning with why he voted the mod and found the vote count "fascinating." He then proceeds to launch an awkward OMGUS vote against Tierce while simultaneously trying to reason with her in #35. After that he kinda fades out.

TOWN:

Otherworld - Right off the bat, there seems to be a pretty clear difference with his aggressive reply to crypto in #73 ("Bull fucking shit. Shut the fuck up or replace out.") and he also tends to be a bit more conscious about his play/status with his "haters" comment in #110. At the same time, though, there's a bit of trying to reason with people while being suspected (#149) so that kinda throws me for a loop a little bit. Vi, since you were town in this one, is there anything wrong with my reasoning here?

NY152 - Again, a bit of sarcasm/snarkiness here with his vote on BBmolla in #153 and again in his interaction with inte in #177...actually, holy shit, the snarky attitude is pretty much everywhere in this ISO.

Conclusion:

Venturing to say NS might actually be town here given his replies to me in #68 and #74 as I'm seeing that same kind of snark here. Not super confident on this though given the low amount of content in this game.

Unvote

What's Mehdi at now?

[Empire]

L-2 if I'm not mistaken.

Generally speaking those are my recollections of NS.

*checks*

Yeah, you're right.

Vote: Mehdi

L-1 for the folks at home.

Do not quickhammer please.

[Empire]

Only two days left but I feel like I have a decent grasp of this game with my townreads so as soon as everyone else is done with their business I'm fine with an intent to hammer, etc.

[Empire]

Before I forget, writing this out in case the thread closes while I'm asleep:

{

Mehdi, MoI, DV, Baby Spice, Kingmaker

} <---- Scum team is in here. NS's recent posting makes me feel better about him, particularly his reaction to Mehdi though that's not at all conditional on Mehdi's flip. Going to do some meta work on Konowa since he's my weakest townread at the moment.

[Empire]

I'm glad you are.

[Empire]

Just a heads up that I'm out for most of both today and tomorrow so I won't be around at deadline. I'm hoping I can get the Konowa meta work done before the day's over and maybe sneak in a post on it but it's unlikely.

Maybe. I frankly don’t know you from Adam. Regfan (who you claimed to be a quasi-carbon copy of) does not, in my experience deal, in fluffery so that’s the standpoint I judged your posts by.

For the record – I never give one iota of credibility to any argument I see where someone says “Players X isn’t genuine / is awkward” etc as stated I find those fluffy arguments that aren’t alignment driven. If I had a dime for every time I saw that sort of stuff aimed right at Town I’d be retired very, very early.

Judging from my experience playing with Regfan off-site and having hydra'd with him here as town in Marketplace, I can assure you he does. And well, the comparison people draw between me and him is more on the "overkill" level of explanation that we give to our townreads (personally, I find myself to be a better "townhunter" than scumhunter and would prefer to solve games by PoE, hence the strategy you see me employing here). I understand that you're skeptical of those arguments but to each his own, I guess.

[Empire]

EBWOP: Off the top of my head, Regfan initially had a minor townread on Guille for "genuinely trying to scumhunt" after his first content-post.

[Empire]

On phone. In the middle of a 12+ hour drive to North Carolina. Content post later.

@mod--I will be V/LA until the 26th due to holidays. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Empire]

@Tammy:

What was it that you wanted my feedback for from here?

Also, for my own purposes, reads at the end of D1:

TOWN(S->W):

Tammy, Johhog,

AA9

, Arthur,

Vi

, Snow, roflcopter, [gap], NS, Konowa

Scum in {

Mehdi

, MoI, DV, Baby Spice, Kingmaker}

Going to give the thread another reread when I get some time, got some theories that I want to lay down when everyone, myself included, trickles in from holiday fun.

[Empire]

It's not worth discussing at this time.

[Empire]

Hmmm...

@DV:

If you thought SnowStorm's line of inquiry was scummy, why didn't you make any comment on it D1? I mean, you replaced in and presumably would have read the whole thread and noticed that then.

(Yes, this is me building up to a scumread on you!)

[Empire]

Correction: your replace-in comes before the bulk of Snow's questioning, but my question still stands.

[Empire]

I asked because I've been hanging around Faraday too long.

When I read through that post my initial reaction was that you were manufacturing reasons to vote SnowStorm rather than just something that came about naturally since I feel a lot of the issues you have with regards to his line of inquiry were presumably easily spot-able D1 and should have been raised then (and I don't really see much in the way of Mehdi's town flip that should have colored the turnaround especially given how others approached the wagon).

[Empire]

Content post tomorrow.

[Empire]

Ugh, waiting for certain people to check back into the thread before I wordvomit.

[Empire]

Whom?

MoI and Kingmaker's replacement.

[Empire]

@mod--I will be V/LA until 1/2 due to the coming new year celebration and flight back home. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Hopefully, we get to see the fresh faces soon.

[Empire]

Alright, I'm back and I've read the thread. I'm a little tipsy right now so this post will probably be scattershot as all hell but oh well.

I had an awesome as fuck theory that the Mehdi wagon was all town and that the scum were trying to distance themselves from it for cred but there's a number of things throwing a wrench in that now.

About DGB's posting and replace-out: frankly, I don't get her posts at all, specifically her townread on MoI and the strength behind it. I don't know if she had read the game beforehand or if she was posting as she went along but if it's the latter, there is literally no way she could have read all of my and MoI's ISOs in the amount of time between those posts. Her refusal to explain her townreads seems like BS too and it's entirely possible she replaced out due to the pressure but I'm not sure. Right now, I'm just going to take her replace out as null - her actual play while she was around was pretty scummy though.

About DV/Snowstorm: Not sure at all here either, my initial impression when I read DV's case on Snowstorm was that he was trying to construe his posts as scummy in an attempt to get him lynched rather than he genuinely believing Snow's scum (hence the whole pushing him earlier today). What bothers me, though, is that I got the same impression from Snow's case on Kingmaker so that's really muddying my read on those three players. Only difference here is that I still see Snow's push in Mehdi D1 as fairly townie while I agree with roflcopter re: DV's play around Mehdi's hammer. I think I'm going to reread the entire thread again to see what's going on here.

MoI wagon is fine with me as I agree with what Tammy and others have brought up. It's really weird and unlike him to just park his vote on me and argue with me about playstyle differences/semantic nonsense and completely avoid commenting on the Mehdi wagon while it was growing. It's entirely possible here that he knew Mehdi was town and just kinda sat back and let the wagon happen in an attempt to distance himself from it but that's pretty tinfoil right now.

...so this is just a really long post where I basically say I have no clue who I want to vote today (though I'm leaning towards the MoI slot). Guess I'll just wait and see what Zach and Nacho have to bring to the table.

[Empire]

Oh empire I see where you're coming from on the snowstorm/kingmaker thing. My thing with snowstorm is that he's generally pretty hard to read and tends to be mislynch bait. I think I've only read him correctly early on a couple times and otherwise need some time to see how he develops and interacts with people and suspicion before I feel confident about my read on him.

Yeah, I get the same impression from Snow re: him possibly being ML bait which is one of the things that rung alarm bells to me when I read DV's case.

Actually, now that I think about it, here's another thing: I just read through your ISO and a lot of the rapid-fire, seemingly leading questions you ask Mehdi would seem to fall under DV's category of "attempting to elicit an incriminating a response." If that's the standard, why doesn't DV seem to consider applying it to you as well and focuses on Snow?

Another issue I have is that Kingmaker is another player that comes off like he's ML bait too. Certainly, a look at Zar's Mini Normal gives off that impression (he was really lurky/low content there).

[Empire]

Posting to say that I'm fine with a Nacho lynch and will be around near deadline if my vote is needed.

Unvote: SnowStorm
Vote: Baby Spice

Mostly for what I've said before. The biggest thing is attacking everyone who suspected Mehdi, without really trying to stop his lynch, which I feel is natural for town to do if they had such a strong townread. Otherwise doesn't seem very town either.

Regardless of Baby's posting history, her post 596 is enough to get me to lynch her.

Vote: Baby Spice

What in the actual fuck are these votes?

[Empire]

Eh yeah, whatever.

Vote: Nacho

Kingmaker was a non-entity, DGB's replacement sucked, Nacho hasn't done much except push a Baby Spice counterwagon that DV + NS are accelerating suspiciously so yeah.

That's L-1.

[Empire]

Empire, what do you think of Baby Spice?

Not sure. She was one of the four remaining from D1 I didn't have a townread on but part of me thinks she's just badtown and not necessarily scum. What really bugs me is the way the wagon is forming as I think the 3 recent votes on it were placed quickly and with thin reasoning (NS' vote being particularly shitty) and the timing of it (just as one of Nacho/Zach is being run up for a lynch near deadline) is awful.

[Empire]

God, I am seriously fucking hating myself so hard right now.

In other news, I think roflcopter crumbed an innocent on Tammy D2, have to double check.

[Empire]

in addition i'm retracting my suspicion of tammy. it was poorly thought out to begin with and a second look reconfirms that she is town as hell.

Right here.

Going to mine through interaction stuff with Baby Spice in the next few posts. Off the top of my head, this scumflip basically clears Johhog and Arthur.

[Empire]

Excuse the spam posting, but again for my own purposes:

Reads at the end of D1:
TOWN(S->W): Tammy, Johhog,

AA9

, Arthur,

Vi

, Snow,

roflcopter

, [gap], NS, Konowa

Scum in {

Mehdi

, MoI, DV,

Baby Spice

,

Kingmaker

}

[Empire]

Going to start off with the easy ones first, if there's anything you guys want to comment on or help out here feel free.

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part One (Johhog):

Baby Spice's vote on Johhog in #108 and continued criticism of his "ignoring" the salient parts of Mehdi's posts (#184) point against him being on her team. I also think the back and forth Johhog has with Baby Spice starting at #219 where he criticizes Baby's defense of Mehdi, Baby calling Johhog's vote "terribad" and the worst on the Mehdi wagon in #275, and the later cross voting early D2 (#548/#549 - especially the latter's attached reasoning) point very very heavily against them being partners. Overall, extremely confident in Johhog being town here, if not based on individual play alone, then certainly based off his interactions with Baby Spice.

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part Two (Arthur):

#176 where Arthur initially scumreads Baby Spice is a minor thing that I think he could plausibly fake as scum, but the rest of his interactions with Baby surely rule him out. For example, Baby spends a good portion of her time continuously criticizing Arthur's "lack of reasoning" for pushing the Mehdi wagon (starting at #275 - "Ser Arthur. No reason given, no reason aparent..."). Back and forth with Baby Spice about the defense of Mehdi, especially with #354's language and Arthur continuing to push for Baby's lynch later on in #526, is another thing that points against them being a team. While Baby Spice never really commits a vote here, #601, her mini-case surrounding Arthur's votes would just be really fucking weird as distancing. Another player that's pretty much cleared via interactions with Baby (and frankly, via his own individual play).

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part Three (Tammy):

Doing this one anyway in case I'm wrong about rofl's crumbing and as a precaution against Gunsmith-immune Godfather or Mafia Doctor. Very little interaction early on but Baby Spice's criticism of Tammy's Mehdi vote/Johhog townread in #275 points against them being partners given the exaggerated, drama-building language she uses (e.g., "I find it strange that..." / "Then she takes the cake for complaining about Medhi daring to scum hunt.") as well as Tammy criticizing her "rather flaccid rundown" of the Mehdi wagon in #394/the criticism that Baby is willfully misrepresenting Johhog's vote and reasoning. There's a lot of genuine frustration between the two of them, starting with Baby's #534 that I think doesn't really work as distancing. Less confident in this one than I am with the other two since they both just kinda drop the issues they have with each other, but I think what I've pointed out here (and based off what I know of Tammy's meta she doesn't get frustrated like this with her partners as scum), the possible roflcopter crumb, and her own individual play being really town all work to rule her out as scum.

I'll put up the rest later.

P-Edit: Tammy, I need to re-assess too, I feel like I've been sucking this game and this scum flip just lit a fire under my ass. But honestly, I think the certainty with which roflcopter expresses that you're town in that post makes it far more likely he checked you than guiltied MoI...if he had done the latter, I don't think he'd have ever switched off MoI and probably would have claimed considering how much of a strong player MoI is.

More P-Edit: Yeah, nice job Arthur...well, I did have her as a non-townread. Kinda wish I hadn't second guessed.

[Empire]

I was gonna say that Nobody Special looked like the best shot for scum, but I do think that Baby Spice's 596 actually clears him because of the inside knowledge it betrays. I'm having a hard time seeing her make that masonry speculation of NS is on her team.

Eh yeah, and I think the late hop on the Baby wagon makes him less likely to be her partner despite the Nacho hammer but I'll dive into it later tonight/tomorrow since I'm out pretty much all of today.

[Empire]

Empire: Care to comment on this and this?

Erm, I thought I explained my thought process fine in those posts, but I'll go over it again. Even though I had Baby Spice as a non-townread, I always had a feeling that she was just incompetent town (especially e.g., the emphasis on justification on votes and her playstyle). I didn't like how her wagon came up quickly in response to two wagons on consensus lynches Zach/Nacho whose predecessors had both done some scummy things (especially Nacho's slot re: DGB's replace out and Kingmaker's general non-existence in the game). I thought both yours and DV's votes were couched in poor justifications for jumping on the Baby wagon and had basically the same reaction roflcopter did, your reasoning being particularly shitty. So I voted Nacho thinking his slot had the best chance of flipping scum.

---

More interaction stuff in the next posts, should be able to get the rest done today.

[Empire]

Empire, what was wrong with my justification for voting Baby Spice?

Well first off, I thought the timing was weird because you hadn't really expressed any suspicion of Baby before Nacho put down his vote. Secondly, while the point that Baby was white-knighting Mehdi for cred seemed valid, I thought it was a misrepresentation to say that she wasn't doing much to fight the lynch - I thought Baby

was

actively trying to fight it by presenting Johhog as a counter-wagon option. It was a dumb as hell wagon since I thought Johhog was very townie but it was there (and honestly, that situation added to the notion that Baby was possibly just an incompetent townie).

If we could not talk about the Vig/SK until we get a claim (if we do get one), that would be amazing.

^This so very hard. Can we please stop bringing it up?

[Empire]

Actually, looking back, you did express some suspicion in #555 but there was really no follow up until Nacho put down his vote and I thought that was really weird.

[Empire]

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Party Four (MoI/Zach):

A quick CTRL + F search of MoI's ISO reveals that he doesn't mention Baby Spice at all throughout - only passing mention is in #481 where he sarcastically criticizes Arthur's reasoning for suspecting Baby and Mehdi of being a team. Baby mentions MoI a few times but not in any substantial manner, throwing a passing critique in #534 but never really going anywhere with it. Most important thing about their interaction, I think, is Baby's reasoning for not having a read on MoI in #557 referring to a personal grudge that they had in the past. I honestly have no clue if Baby would bring up a past grudge as an excuse to not have a read on MoI if they were a hypothetical scum duo, though. Zach's main mention of Baby is in #713 where he expresses some suspicion. While he doesn't commit the vote, I don't really see that in and of itself as scummy given the circumstances. Overall, though, I think this slot does actually have a decent shot at being Baby's partner but I'm not confident at all.

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part Five (Konowa):

Again, a CTRL + F search here reveals very, very little interaction between the two - only mention Konowa makes of Baby in his ISO in a passing question regarding her read on MoI's slot in #648 which Baby never answers and which Konowa doesn't follow up on. Baby only mentions Konowa in passing once in the early game, in #63 where she says she disagrees with Konowa's reasoning re: NS' posting. Looking at interactions alone, this is another decent shot at a Baby Spice partner.

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part Six (DV):

My issues with his vote on the Baby wagon are already on the record (though his recent posting does a bit to resolve the problems I had). DV's first mention of Baby is in #203 and later on in #276 where he questions Baby about her read on Mehdi and why she isn't doing more to fight the wagon. Baby condescendingly responds in #279 (e.g., "Context is a good thing you know DV") - taken together, I think it's a minor point against them being partners. #555 is where he first expresses that he suspects Baby. The one thing I really need to take another look at is his vote on Baby in #723 - I think around here the Zach, Nacho, and Baby wagons were all at equal size. Him pushing Baby to the forefront by voting her here would normally be a really weird time to bus. Normally, I think wagon analysis/VCA is a dog shit junk science but someone who actually finds it useful should look into this please. Also need to look at how DV usually treats his partners as scum. I think my main issue with his slot is the lack of consistent pressure on Baby Spice and the roflcopter NK but bleh.

[Empire]

Erm, DV, pretty sure neither of the posts you linked to were by Konowa...

[Empire]

Don't tell me that you've never seen town call for a policy Vig shot before? I maybe misremembering, but didn't Empire call AA town and agreed with a Vig shot?

No. I don't like policy anything.

That said, I think DV's point here actually rather sucks.

[Empire]

Final installments coming up! I'm a bit exhausted so sorry if these two come out a bit rushed.

Baby Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part Seven (SnowStorm):

First mention is #77 which I actually think points against Snow being on Baby's team, the way it's written coming across as an attempt to discredit Snow's vote on Mehdi by criticizing his playstyle. She does back away in #275, though, by calling his vote and explanation reasonable. #722 seems ok given the context but what bothers me is that the post comes before the Baby wagon accelerates (with DV's and NS's votes coming after the post) - aside from that, I don't really see all that much of a problem with the post given his explanation in #772. The only remaining interaction between the two slots is the minor back and forth they have starting with #734 over her NS suspicion and I'm not really sure how to take that given the context.

Bay Spice's Interactions With Other Slots Part Eight (NS):

Baby Spice first votes NS for a frankly really weird reason (#59 + #63), accusing him of "coaching" AA9 with his "nothing to fear" comment. Throughout her ISO, there are little sprinkles of NS suspicion that never really fully materialize such as in #534 and in #596. Probably the weirdest thing is NS' vote on Baby Spice and later reasoning in #735 and #740 - it just seems like a really weak and bizarre reason to jump on the Baby wagon. Have to look at the wagons again though to see if this is a bus because I think the Nacho and Zach wagons were all around equal size at this time.

---

I was hoping going through this would help me narrow it down more but all it did was eliminate the obvious (Johhog, Arthur, and Tammy). That means what's left is, in no order:

MoI/Zach
DV
NS
Konowa
SnowStorm

Going to have to reread them individually to see what I think of their play. I remember townreading NS, Konowa, and SnowStorm but I have pretty much 0 confidence in my scumhunting at the moment so I think they're all worth a second look. One thing that bugs me too is the latest night kill - roflcopter is a weird kill especially given that I don't think he made his role obvious at all (it was only after I saw his flip that I realized that remark about Tammy was a possible breadcrumb). If we're going to assume that scum killed roflcopter because he was somehow right with his reads to some extent, that points a bit to Zach and DV since he basically spent a large part of his time alive tunneling both slots.

Any thoughts?

[Empire]

Although empire real quick. I've been trying to figure out what to make of the rofl kill too, though I've also been trying to make sense of the vi kill. The one thing with rofl is that he was very outspoken. I'm leaning away from it pointing to dv though. I think that dv seems townish, and I know that nacho feels really confident in his ability to read dv and he had him as a strong town read, so I'm adding that into my own thoughts.

I've been thinking about the Vi kill, too. I had a tinfoil theory that MoI killed Vi wanting to get him out of the way since he's a really competent player but that kill could plausibly come from pretty much anyone in the room, I think. I also thought maybe Konowa could have killed him given their experiences in Dresden and Reverse Mafia Redux but there are some serious problems with that (I'll get to it tomorrow but they should be pretty obvious).

Really need your thoughts on SnowStorm since I pretty much have come to the conclusion that I have no idea and you + Arthur know him best so I'm pretty much prepared to sheep on that front.

P-Edit: I still need to finish The Wire S1 too...

[Empire]

Remember guys, not a lot of time left. I'm very unconvinced about Zach. I think he's been townish so far, and so was MoI. Sure, there are some associative tells, but that's about it. SnowStorm and Konowa on the other hand...

My understanding is that Zach tends to far prefer being town/hates being scum and he lurks as the latter, but I have to do some more digging later to see if this checks out.

Won't be able to post until late tonight/tomorrow.

[Empire]

Tammy, you're fucking telling me about being wrong...

I'm also getting the feeling that something is hideously wrong here and I'm wrong somewhere with my townreads. I think PoE should help rule out Johhog, Arthur, and you (though Arthur seriously needs to do more at the moment), so I'm starting with that. That leaves me with 5 people...gun to my head, I'd say Zach is the play today. I personally haven't found anything townish about MoI at all and Zach hasn't done much to redeem the slot, especially since he hasn't really been all that involved with this game. The roflcopter kill is pretty glaring to me right now, too. But I have like 0 confidence in my scumhunting ability in this game right now, so whatever.

I'll look more deeply at those 5's individual play tomorrow (later today since it's 2 AM here, I guess). What do you think of SnowStorm's play on its own here though, putting aside the kill speculation? (Talk to me like we're hydra'ing in Open 463 again.)

[Empire]

Also, re: setup balance, I'm not 100% sure really especially considering that I'm still very much a noob when it comes to that sort of stuff (for example, I had to have petapan give me a rundown of what to expect in terms of scum team distribution in Mafiastuck). 3-4 seems like a reasonable bet (though if it's 4, there's more wrong with me this game than I thought). Given that Baby Spice flipped goon, it's safe to say the scum team aren't completely stacked with PRs though.

[Empire]

And based on my experience with him, MoI is nicer as scum than he is as town, and a few of his Day 1 posts indicated not-nice MoI to me.

This is where I kinda disagree. He seemed really level-headed and "nice" in his back-and-forth with me and I recall him treating Arthur similarly. I think the only time he wasn't being nice was when he was addressing Johhog but I remembered that being tempered with some calm stuff. Have to re-look tomorrow.

[Empire]

Yeah, I'm getting to the point where I have no idea what the fuck is happening.

*flips table*

Whatever, hoping that tomorrow's reread will help me out here.

[Empire]

Really not in the mood for mafia right now, post later.

[Empire]

Kinda forgot the deadline was so soon <_<

Will vote for any one of the five I mentioned since I think they all have a decent shot at being scum, preference is still Zach though with my least preferred lynch maybe being NS.

Going to be out today since it's my friend's birthday but I should be here tonight and all of tomorrow.

[Empire]

One thing I will say, though, in case I forget or I don't have a chance to say this later...please do not leave DV in your blind spots. Thanks.

[Empire]

OH SHIT I JUST SAW THIS...

This game is no longer ongoing.

I was able to read MoI as town in that game fairly easily - his pushes have a lot more meat and substance to them in that game than in here and he's generally a lot more cocky and aggressive in his pushes. Compare the way he pushes me in this game to the way he pushes ThAd and The Fonz in that one and I think you can clearly see the difference. That's the main reason I was saying he wasn't being "mean" here in response to DV but I finally got a chance to bring this game up.

[Empire]

There's also a Micro (the bodyswap one) that I believe recently finished that I want to take a look at but I'll do it when I come back tonight.

[Empire]

Eh, I think Baby Spice was just trying to discredit your reads and you're reading too much into it. The back-and-forth Baby Spice had with Arthur where she tries to shit on his voting patterns would just be fucking bizarre if they're partners.

Only thing that bothers me is that Arthur hasn't done shit since his D1 really. But I think the above is enough to override it.

Ok, sleep time now, want to try to get some posts in tomorrow before deadline.

[Empire]

But here's my problem, why have a gunsmith instead of a cop if there's not a serial killer?

(Because gunsmiths can "guilty" vigs too since vigs carry guns so it vaguely makes sense as a balancing mechanic.)

(Literally woke up to get a glass of water and couldn't resist skimming this. I'm such an addict.)

[Empire]

I want to say DV is town, both be ause of my thoughts and because of nacho, but Bleh

Also would like to say ns is town bt don't feel confident at all (also rofl's kill points here)

Bleh, I don't know at all about DV. I'm not exactly great at reading him (though I thought he was super town in Mafiastuck) but I just get bad vibes from him here (P.S.: the roflcopter kill points here too as I remember him being an advocate of the whole "kill people who suspect me" view of NK's as scum - I think it was Mafia in La La Land?). Part of me just wants to sheep Nacho's townread since he's evidently great at reading him?

Back to bed now I guess. I keep hoping I'll have an epiphany and I'll be able to nail the scumteam in my dreams tonight, but it seems unlikely to say the least.

[Empire]

Erm, ok, I'll check out the scum QT for that game to be sure. Maybe I'm just confusing you with someone else?

[Empire]

Ok, I skimmed it and found a line where you basically said something to the effect of you not liking to kill people who suspect you...so yeah definitely confused you with someone else.

@Tammy:

What do you like about the two Snow posts you cited?

[Empire]

Johhog, you don't have to worry about a No Lynch. I literally don't have anything to do today so I'll be around all the way up to deadline.

Tammy, I may have asked you this before, but can you talk to me a little bit more about Snow's meta (specifically, his scum play)? I feel like a lot of his pushes have had meat to them, not just the Zach, and I don't know about Snow's level of competence as scum so I can't say if he's capable of faking all of that.

DV, approximately how surprised were you that roflcopter flipped a town PR and how competent of a player would you say he is?

[Empire]

Okay, I'm back. I'll be here until deadline...after I eat dinner.

Yeah, I just got back from dinner so I'm down for whatever.

[Empire]

Anything you want to ask me? Otherwise, I'm fine with waiting until about 9:30 PM EST to lay down the hammer (in case Zach comes in and claims).

(Literally missing the Golden Globes for this game.)

[Empire]

Yeah, can you pick me up from waffleville? I'm tired of my visit.

I would if I weren't stuck there myself.

[Empire]

Ok so, it's 30 minutes til deadline and Zach shows no signs of being here and claiming. Permission to hammer from you guys?

[Empire]

Alright...

[]==================
==================[]

Vote: Zach

Please, dear god, let this be a scum flip.

[Empire]

@mod--V/LA until Saturday, family emergency came up. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Empire]

Oh, and once again, reads at the end of D1:

TOWN(S->W): Tammy,

Johhog

,

AA9

, Arthur,

Vi

, Snow,

roflcopter

, [gap], NS, Konowa
Scum in {

Mehdi

,

MoI

, DV,

Baby Spice

,

Kingmaker

}

Whoa, I'm doing a lot better in this game than I thought!

[Empire]

Holy shit, my theory that the entire Mehdi wagon was town and that scum were off-voting to try and distance themselves from it might actually be true.

Well, it might be a little early to say but I'll do a re-read whenever I get some time. Would lynch in DV/Konowa/NS today, preference probably being DV but it's not a strong one.

[Empire]

Uh what? The Johhog kill is the only one so far that isn't weird. The dude was a universal townread, especially after Baby Spice flipped. The Vi and roflcopter ones were much weirder.

Oh, and I'm town.

(I don't believe you.)

[Empire]

Hmmmm...I have an idea but I'm not really sure if I should mention it.

[Empire]

Depends.

[Empire]

Ok I'm just going to come out and say it: I think we should massclaim today.

By the looks of things, we're looking at 1-2 scum possibly even 1 scum + 1 SK. If there's more than one anti-town role alive, we only have one ML left at best and I think it's important we lock people into claims right now before endgame. Even if there's just one scum left, I think a massclaim at this stage can really help narrow things down significantly and we can win the game today if that's the case.

What do you guys think?

[Empire]

Just an FYI: I'd really rather claim first because I don't know when I will be able to post again after today (before my V/LA ends anyway) and I don't want to hold things up. In principle, though, I'm fine with claiming first, last, or anywhere in between.

[Empire]

I have a proposed order we could try. Or we could do a popcorn chain starting with me, either one works.

[Empire]

I'll start.

I'm a VT.

Popcorn to DV.

[Empire]

So by the looks of things, in terms of power roles at least, we've got 2-Shot Vig + Gunsmith vs. 2 goons + ?

I'm actually starting to think, given what seems to be the low amount of town power (and especially considering that a Gunsmith can "guilty" a Vig), there's only one scum left.

I'll toss down a vote once I have some time to think and reread. In the meantime, Tammy (and everyone else), would love to hear your thoughts.

Konowa, can you explain your DV case in more detail please?

[Empire]

Yeah, I'm down with lynching DV.

Just want to wait for Tammy to post her stuff before I vote.

Man, if DV is actually scum and there's only 3 scum total, it means all my D1 townreads were right and I had all 3 scum in my death pool.

At any rate, I'm pretty confident that lynching in DV/Konowa/NS will win us the game so whatever.

[Empire]

Fuck if I know, that's up to you.

I mean, the fact that you chose to open this day by trying to sow paranoia in the universal Tammy/me townreads should be pretty strong evidence that you're scum on its own anyway (since lynching Konowa/NS won't be enough to win you the game as soloscum). Nevermind all the stuff Konowa brought up (which is also incomplete by the way as there are some aspects of your individual play that are scummy - I'll bring these up when I'm not posting on my phone).

Plus I think SnowStorm is on the money re: NS/Zach interactions.

[Empire]

Tammy, I think I agree. I think Konowa gives significantly more of a shit about the game and is a lot more engaged than he was in Reverse Mafia Redux where he was scum. I had a hard time reading Konowa in Rarefaction II until early D2 but looking at his play as both alignments, I think he's playing more like his town self.

Honestly, I can't see anyone other than DV being scum right now. Thoughts on NS, specifically why he's more likely to be scum than DV?

[Empire]

Oh and this post points away from Konowa-scum, I think.

[Empire]

You're so cute when you're acting so scummy NS. Do you think I'm a scared little puppy afwaid of the big bad nobody special? I'm busy...get over it lurker.

Quoting this for anyone who still has any doubts about Tammy being town.

[Empire]

Also, lmfao @ Nobody Special of all people criticizing someone for not delivering content.

[Empire]

Actually, his last post was pretty fucking garbage considering he's apparently willing to quickhammer you only a couple of IRL days into this game day despite nothing suggesting he's even thinking about the game + the tossed in suspicion of Tammy feels like he's already setting up his third ML.

DV/NS, don't really care which goes today at this point.

P-Edit: lmfao

[Empire]

Well yes I agree, but if he's scum at this stage then he's completely screwed, so wouldn't he at least try to look town?

Eh, I think it depends. For example, I could see you trying to look town even at this stage of the game. But plenty of people basically just give up once they realize how screwed they are. I know I basically did in Rarefaction I during the last stages of the game.

P-Edit: Maybe. I'll sleep on it or something? Still interested in hearing Tammy's reasoning when she's ready for it, no rush.

[Empire]

DV, would you prefer getting lynched today or tomorrow (assuming NS is town)?

(NS can answer this too.)

[Empire]

I feel like I'm just fucking around at this point because the game's a town win no matter how we do this so whatever. It'd be pretty neat if one of DV/NS/Konowa would confess if they're soloscum so we can end this game faster but I can dream~

[Empire]

Way to mess up the quote, Arthur.

[Empire]

but nothing is really certain about tomorrow

Oh believe me, if we lynch NS today and he comes back town, you are 100% absolutely getting lynched tomorrow - like, there should not even be a doubt about it.

At this point, I'm just waiting for Tammy's NS case when it comes.

[Empire]

I know, I was joking mostly <_<

I already basically said I'm fine with hammering DV after Tammy puts up her case, there's really no reason to rush at the moment.

[Empire]

Just lynch do then if people aren't even going to bother to read or listen to what I think I'm not wasting my time doing it when you're just going to lynch do anyway. If it doesn't end the game and I are up tomorrow then I'll do it, but forget it for now. If it doesn't end the game and I don't wake up just read ns and moi in conjunction with each other as I found that suspicious.

Erm, despite my lynch preference I'm willing to listen to you, ya know. I think Arthur is as well.

Going to sleep now. I'll hammer DV when I wake up tomorrow if nothing else happens.

[Empire]

Man, now that I think about it, this interaction is really awkward and shitty.

Though NS' reasoning for not giving a read on MoI is also pretty bad.

...yeah, getting stuck in waffleville now.

Sleep.

[Empire]

Hey IO just got back and i'm kinda drunk right now and there's a lot of stuff, can someone give me a tl;dr?

[Empire]

Well it would seem my assassin was successful.

what the fuck is this post?

[Empire]

Oh, I didn''t hammer because I overslept and ended up being late for a hangout/party so I rusdhed out the door and it slipped my mind to hammer you I guess?

Going through Tammy's NS case now.

[Empire]

Ok tammy, I read through your case and I think a lot of it has merit but there are some things about it I disagree with entirely. I'll write them out here, it's going to be rambly and without links and stuff so sorry for the mess but yeah let me know what you think and stuff (imagine this is Open 463 all over again except nowhere near as hard).

Re; Zach's read on NS...if anything, I found that the opposite of non-committal. He said NS' interaction with Baby "clears" himw hich is pretty strong language that I think renders the earlier part of it moot. And frankly, despite him being scum, he does have a point - Baby Spice engaging in that kind of setup spec would be really weird if she were partnered up with NS. This makes me think Snow's right when he says that read on NS was basicallyu Zach looking for cred.

Re: interaction with MoI - I can see why that's kind of weird but I don't know, I feel like he would have ignored NS entirely if they were partners. for example, look at Moi's interactions with Baby. Despite having a history of bad blood between them, he literally never comments on her doings at all...not even once in his ISO. that was part of the reason i suspected him too, MoI as town is a lot more cocky and aggressive and he would have slammed her down at least once in this thread.

Re: interactions with Baby - I could see a lot of it as distancing but idk, i feel like i remember Baby not interacting with her partners much as scum at all based off something I read a while ago (Strategy Mafia?) so that could be a factor here,

---

Ok so stuff I actually agree with you on and it's largely the reason I've grown increasingly on the fence: I think his reasoning for not gicing a read on MoI is horrible and is a pretty eerie resemblence to what Baby was saying when questioned on her read on MoI. I wasn't sure at all if NS was the kind of player who would bus, ever...in Rarefaction I, he literally dfid not interact with me or with Xalxe at all. Looking at that link, his votes on Baby Spice and Zach could totally be seen as bus votes. Also, his attack on you is literally complete garbage, based on shitty logic, and comes absolutely out of nowhere...the shift to DV also looks opportunistic as fuck. and also, I went through oen of your links that led to Zach's game and found a quote somewhere that said "If I'm not fully grounded in a game, I'm wary of putting people at L-1 for fear of not really knowing what's going on... but at the same time, this guy quickhammered someone in Masq Ball when I was scum who turned out to be the cop so I have no fucking clue here either.

I'm probably missing a lot of stuff and I realize I'm kind of rambling but yeah...and Tammy, thanks a lot for writing it, you're the best and I mean that sincerely.

[Empire]

If, by some miracle, DV is town, then Tammy is totally scum.

jesus fuck this is embarrassing.

[Empire]

I guess it's partly (subconsciously) OMGUS. I know I'm town, and your case just seems wholly fabricated. It's just absurd and ludicrous (to me). Reverse tunneling, I guess.

Anyway, based on the way your case sounds, I think you are indeed scum if DV isn't.

holy shit, you might actually really be scum here.

Man, I'm gonna have to apologize to DV here if NS is actually scum.

i don't know

[Empire]

I haven't read into it like I normally would, and I always feel that it's hard to read NS, but he's generally felt like town to me here, and obviously the scumread on you isn't giving up like I thought it was and actually seems genuine now (and weird to come from him as scum).

The main thing that makes me question him as scum is still the vote for Nacho.

If you vote for a scumbuddy in that kind of situation, then I think that you'd commit yourself to their wagon. You're basically making the decision whether to bus them or not. So if you vote for them, you've decided to bus. I don't think there was anything really that made it a good idea for NS to suddenly not bus anymore, and if he had made the decision to bus, then switching back to Nacho is the kind of thing that from his perspective would attract more attention than supporting Nacho from the beginning would have done. I think as scum, it's much more awkward to vote for a scumbuddy in that kind of situation and then unvote.

I'm not sure of this, and everyone except konowa I feel is more than he is, but there's nothing this strong for me that indicates Konowa-town, and there are things I find scummy about Konowa that I've said. I don't think your case on NS is that bad, but none of it really feels that significant to me I guess.

PEdit: Ok, and I may be wrong, but nothing brought up for him being town has been very convincing to me.

the problem here is that I think NS would attack tammy like that as scum. During Rarefaction I as scum, he did this fucking terrible omgus attack on Tierce right off the bat and drew a shitload of attention for it. and he had several opportunistic vote shifts in that game, like voting for saulres when he was drawing a lot of heat, i think he's also very aware of how people perceive him and he'd definitely take an action like switching onto Nacho like that under the assumption that people would just write him off for "being NS". i'm also getting the same vibe Tammy is re: Konowa playing to his town meta so he's definitely at the end of the list for me here out of the three of you.

you should probably read the Mafia in Triplicate Micro to get a better sense of what I'm trying to say here.

[Empire]

Meh, I'll make a decision some time tomorrow I guess. Would really love to hear Arthur's thoughts on this.

[Empire]

Her case on me (not to mention her abrasive, snarky attitude) is not town!Tammy. I'll have to dig up the game, give me a few minutes.

Yawn.

Relevant Tammy-town meta (my hydra with her).

She's not getting lynched. Period. And you're absolutely going tomorrow if we lynch DV and he comes back town.

[Empire]

In that instance, I'm auto-voting DV.

[Empire]

Given that the only PRs we seem to have are a Two-Shot Vig and a Gunsmith, yes, I think there's only one scum left.

[Empire]

MAN ARE YOU SERIOUS I LITERALLY JUST GOT BACK FROM REPLAYING SOME HALF LIFE 2 AND I WAS GOING TO READ AND HAMMER

;_;

[Empire]

LMAO WHAT THE FUCK

[Empire]

empire i thought you said you were bad at scum you looked rly town? wtf???

I thought of you and had a flash of inspiration

[Empire]

I thought our strategy of NK'ing every night was pretty boss, right guys?

[Empire]

But yeah, town played really well, and empire, you need to be more sure of yourself considering that you were right the whole time and kept saying you needed to reconsider things on Day 2 or 3 or something!

Realtalk, yeah, the first two mislynches really did a blow to my confidence and even though I was right, I had to struggle with that all game.

[Empire]

TOWN(S->W):

Tammy

,

Johhog

,

AA9

,

Arthur

,

Vi

,

Snow

,

roflcopter

, [gap],

NS

,

Konowa

Scum in {

Mehdi

,

MoI

,

DV

,

Baby Spice

,

Kingmaker

}

Yeah, I'm definitely going to make sure I don't lose confidence after I fuck up on D1 if I play like this.

[Empire]

Thank you Zar. That made me feel special.

(Someday I'll mod a game, I'll force you to play and I'll torment you until the very end!)

Just an FYI, you were fucking awesome and the town MVP this game.

[Empire]

Thanks a lot for modding the game, Zar, it was a blast and the flavor was awesome.

[Empire]

Nah, dude, looking back, I should have seen that you had an innocent on Konowa from the way you addressed him in D2.

[Empire]

Also, yeah, your reads were baller as fuck.