Micro 279: Uncommon Mafia - OVER

[serrapaladin]

Wasn't directed at you...

But anyways, that's where you draw the line? Having an arsonist scum-team with two town red herrings is completely reasonable, but god forbid the mod decide to put one of them on the scum-team?

[yessiree]

I don't think it's impossible, I just don't see the point is all.

[callforjudgement]

No, it isn't, not in the current gamestate. If the game started 6:2:1, it's currently 3:2:1. Given that we have overwhelming evidence that the scumgroups are asymmetrical in their killing ability (there are two of them in a Micro and nobody's died overnight yet), and thus the Prisoner's Gambit can't be used even as a last resort, town cannot win a 3:1:1, 3:2, 3:2:1, or 2:2:1 going into night (barring a 3:2 if the 2-man scumteam has no killing ability at all, but you seem convinced that that isn't the case, given that you feel one lynch). Thus no matter who you lynch, you lose.

3:1:1 is winnable, and I think some of the others might too (except 3:2). If we go into the night 3:1:1, the only way for the game to be over tomorrow is if 3 kills happen (and even then a mutual cross-kill would give a town-win). 3 kills will only occur if both scum factions decide to use their kill and none of the arsonist primes from the previous 2 nights overlap with any of the lynches or the alien kill, which is actually fairly unlikely.

If we go into the night 3:1:1, and even 1 kill occurs overnight, that leaves the setup as 2:1:1. That setup is a town win if the scumteam can crosskill, and a scum win if they can't (because town can't survive the lynch of anyone during the day and if there's a no lynch, scum won't move the setup to 2:1 because they know they'd lose it). I did forget the possibility of one scum killing another tonight, though, which rather invalidates my reasoning. I nonetheless don't believe the setup is actually 6:2:1, though, and don't think there's any evidence it is.

I'm not saying BB would be compelled to stick to roles/alignments of the page, just that in the balance of things a 2-man arsonist team is very unlikely. The Captain and Conspiracy Theorist are both alien-related roles (i.e. roles that would be red herrings if we have no aliens).

I'm leaning towards mac's derping being town, so yessiree is scum (follower or perhaps rolecop) framing him. I don't think both investigative roles would be controlled by scum, so the second scum is probably CFJ.

@cfj: why is bob almost certainly town if his role isn't actually pro-town?

These two questions actually have the same answer. The Conspiracy Theorist is not, in fact, entirely useless; there's a Follower in the game, and thus yessiree could confirm Bob's role any time they wanted (it would show up as being investigative on a Follow). The setup seems to be balanced entirely around the Follower, in fact; I'm guessing it's being balanced much like a Gunsmith (with "misc" being the guilty result), with some false positives and clear negatives thrown in. (This explains why "self-vanilliser" rather than "vanilla townie"; it nerfs the investigative role by preventing it getting reliable results Night 1). In fact, Bob is soft-confirmable in multiple ways (by the Follower and the Captain). Combined with my role, this gives me the feeling that the setup designer (presumably the mod) wanted to help the town aim lynches early, which is consistent with the fact that there have been no nightkills early (i.e. there's a larger playerlist to lynch from than normal, so town needs some help). Finally, pretty much nobody but Tarharlindur and Vi would consider putting a Mafia Miller into the setup while telling another townie that that player is a miller (and only Tarharlindur would actually

do

it). It adds a huge layer of complexity for no good reason at all. (It's pretty much impossible for both Alduskkel and Bob to be scum, because we know that at least one of Mac and yessiree is scum, and I can't believe that there are three scum without you being one of them.)

The other reason I think Bob is town is purely based on play, without any setup speculation involved. I read his entire ISO in the light of his responses to my questions, looking for something to ask further, along the lines of "but if you were thinking X, why did you do Y?". I didn't find anything at all that made me suspicious.

[Alduskkel]

I don't get it serra. Why aren't you suspecting me anymore?

[callforjudgement]

Err, Follower is like Tracker, not Gunsmith. It doesn't catch scum who aren't performing the kill (assuming it's some sort of delayed action kill because we haven't had any nightkills yet, most likely arsonist because of the Firefighter flip).

[callforjudgement]

(that post was me correcting my own post #627, upon rereading it after seeing the thread had been updated)

[Mac]

I don't think it's impossible, I just don't see the point is all.

You didn't answer my question. Do you have an answer such as "no action" or to that effect?

[yessiree]

Yes, I will receive "No Result"

[Mac]

VOTE: yessiree

then you're lying about what I did last night, it's as simple as that (when I'm not a moron)

[callforjudgement]

Mac, while you're here, care to answer my questions?

[Mac]

Oh yeah, I'll take a look.

[Mac]

@DarkLightA/Mac: You've done nothing but setup speculation, claiming and waffle since… #268? (With the exception of #480.) Do you have any reads at the moment based on anything other than claims?

aside from yessiree fakeclaiming, I'm not sure.

serra has backed off of me which feels like a weird move if he's scum and I was being such an idiot about my role - he could easily have taken advantage of it I feel and pushed through my lynch. it's made me feel slightly better about him, but I'm not yet sold on him.

Other than that it leaves Aldi/Bob - aldi being scum would be strange given he's directing a PR, and I agree with your assessment on bob's play from earlier. You are a worry of mine because I'm running out of suspects for one, but unlynchable *could* be a scum role of sorts since it looks like town has alot of help here.

[callforjudgement]

Yeah, part of the reason I think you're scum is that there's no obvious partner for Yessiree. serra/yessiree is possible, but as you've noticed, you're rather more linked to serra than yessiree is (hyposcum-serra not pushing your lynch is most easily explained via you being his scumbuddy). Alduskkel/yessiree is the only other team I'm even prepared to consider in which you're town.

BTW, what sort of scumteam do you think we have this game, based on the lack of kills?

[Mac]

It's hard to tell.

I'd say arsonists but it could be aliens, I have no idea. I feel aliens would have killed bob/aldi already... (which has totally led my mind to think they might be aliens elaborately fakeclaiming)

[yessiree]

yeah Mac is ConfScum at this point. I'm not lynching anyone else today

[callforjudgement]

Why would Aliens fakeclaim roles that specifically interact with Aliens? There's a very high chance of getting counterclaimed, because there are so few roles that do that. This is much the same way as it'd be utterly stupid for an Arsonist to fakeclaim Firefighter, because there's a really high chance you're just going to get counterclaimed.

Anyway, I think this is enough information to set out my case for the rest of the game (given that it's probably lylo, we need to consider scumpairs today). I believe the scumteam is serrapaladin and Mac, and there's lots of evidence of this (although I also consider the other possibilities as well, at least partly because I think I'm tunneling). This is pretty much regardless of the nature of the scumteam, although Aliens is impossible (you don't put in a faction-specific cop and then make all members of that faction Godfathers if you want your game to be remotely balanced.) Arsonists is a strong possibility, because there have been no nightkills yet and there's been a Firefighter flip, both of which make that seem like a likely scumteam.

The Case for scumpairs: Setup speculation reasoning

Out of the 9 players we have, the only parts of roles that are potentially useful for Town in terms of their active abilities (as opposed to getting Followed):

• Firefighter (Bert, flipped town)
  
• Follower (yessiree)
  
• Conspiracy Theorist (Bob)
  
• 1-shot unlynchable (me) is useful only if there's an attempt to lynch me and town benefits from having a lynch stopped.

Visitor is negative utility, Self-Vanillizer is mostly useless and serves mainly to nerf a Follower, and Captain is basically just indirect knowledge about the setup in a setup like this one.

Additionally, there's very strong evidence that the Conspiracy Theorist is incapable of finding a useful result. If we have aliens as scum, then serrapaladin and Mac are both town via investigation; Bob can't get a useful result if Alduskkel is an alien because Alduskkel chooses the target; Bob is not an Alien unless Aldusskel has reason to lie about his role (Aldusskel has mod information that Bob is an Alien miller); leaving only yessiree/me as the only possible scumteam on the claims given. The setup arranged like that does appear to be approximately balanced, though (there's a weakened Cop who can fail to act due to the Cop or Captain dying, balanced – if you take my and yessiree's claims as true – via a scum role that can find the Cop, and an unlynchability that doesn't help mathematically but may mislead town when it activates). I know I'm not scum, but for everyone else who wants to discount this possibility, I'm happy to answer questions, and would refer to the game's dayplay so far, in addition to some reasoning below.

If we discount the Conspiracy Theorist as a useful role for town, then we have to assume a scum faction that's limited in its ability to nightkill somehow (either it doesn't have one, or it's Arsonist-based, or perhaps something more exotic). Against this, we have a Firefighter (only useful against arsonists). If we then assume that yessiree is scum, and the scumteam has a Follower, Rolecop, or anything else that could allow them to reliably fake Arsonist results, the only conclusion is that the scum has no nightkill of any kind; it seems very likely that they're not one-nightkill-per-game because we discounted Aliens earlier. Note that, and #351 shows that yessiree knew serra's action via role information or being scum with him (it happened before the Visitor claim, and roleclaiming an investigative role unprompted with a blind guess about what happened is not a very high percentage play). If we assume that yessiree is town, which makes much more sense from a balance perspective, then Mac is scum due to having been caught lying about his role.

In short, the

only

sensible scumteams based on setup analysis:

• Me + yessiree
  
• yessiree + serrapaladin
  
• Mac + anyone but yessiree

Klick (serrapaladin slot) has essentially claimed to be a miller for Followers (in #360, after yessiree claimed). Miller claims are rather suspect, especially given that there'd be no point in including a follow-miller if the Folllower were scum. I cite this as evidence that yessiree is town and thus I'm town too. What about the yessiree + serrapaladin team? This would require one member of a scumteam to claim a guilty, and the other to claim miller in response to that. This seems to me to be an incredibly unlikely strategy for a 2-man scumteam to try; the risk is very large and the payoff is pretty small, given that it mostly just makes serrapaladin look scummier. As such, on setup speculation basis, I think serrapaladin + yessiree is unlikely.

So if yessiree is town, we know Mac is scum. Who's the scumbuddy? There's no strong setup speculation evidence that it's serrapaladin, but some weak evidence (the setup doesn't really make that much sense with a Visitor on the town side if the scum are Arsonists, because a follow-miller doesn't help balance much there, although the resulting setup is still tolerable; the setup with Bob as an Arsonist is just stupid, so that leaves Aldusskel or me as the other possibilities, and I'd have to be fake-claiming if I were scum because a 1-shot unlynchability on an Arsonist is really unbalancing).

The Case for serrapaladin/Mac: Dayplay reasoning

Some scumtells coming from the slots in question (many of these are weak, but they add up):

• Mac's claim is incredibly unsure, looking like it's an attempt to copy the "VT-equivalent" town claim rather than reading a PM to be sure: #425
  
• Mac has painted himself into a corner with reads (#255 has both me and yessiree as town, and we'd both need to be scum for him to be reasonable as town; he didn't say much else on the subject until #575 for yessiree, and didn't say anything about me until the very recent #636); running out of reads is more likely for scum (who have more knowledge of the setup and so are more sure in their townreads), than it is for town (who don't know much at all)
  
• Both Mac and serra have come up with very implausible theories about the setup (e.g. serra's 6:2:1 theory, or Mac's suggestion of a Bob/Aldi Alien scumteam in the previous post
  while he's in a 1v1 and thus knows that's not the case
  ); this is a scumtell in my experience because town tend to have little enough information that they consider likely theories first, and scum can get onto unlikely theories much more quickly if they know something weird's going on, and serra admits this is a scumtell in #549; serra's #621 is particularly weird because nobody else considers serra's setup theories plausible, which should be a sign that maybe those theories are wrong, rather than that they're trying to ignore evidence
  
• serra and Mac have been suspicious of each other earlier (e.g. #454, #439), but are now easing off on each other now that it's probably lylo, without much reasoning (especialy Mac; see #636 for a reasonably blatant case, where he decides serra is town based on serra backing off of him, when he's short of townreads; that could also be read as scum-Mac attempting to buddy town-serra, though)
  
• Mac unvotes in #254, an action that (given the timing and the players waiting to hammer) probably prevented serrapaladin's slot being lynched that Day
  
• Both Mac and serrapaladin are voting for yessiree, meaning that if there isn't at least one scum in {Mac, serrapaladin, yessiree}, an Arsonist scumteam would be able to quickhammer for the win if they had two currently living townies doused
  
• Also one other point that I don't want to bring up just yet, but will talk about later (and explain why I didn't bring it up just yet)

On another, setup-speculatory, note, I'd like to point out that I only just realised that the 2 kill-less scum + Arsonist 6:2:1 setup is completely impossible in terms of the mod-provided knowledge about the setup; this game is no-lynch at deadline, meaning that if all the killing roles died, town could just sit there no-lynching and night-actioning and scum would not be able to do anything about it.

Finally, I've realised that because this is not a traditional lylo situation (in that there are 6 alive but unlikely to be more than 2 scum), so I can actually place a vote without risking quickhammers (so long as it's on a player who currently has no votes for them). I believe in always having a vote out so as to make myself easier to read, and of the scumteam I'm reading, only one member has no votes currently:

VOTE: serrapaladin

[Alduskkel]

Good analysis, but why'd you pick serra over Mac?

[Alduskkel]

Some other questions:
What do you think the scumteam is (Arsonists, Aliens, no factional kill at all...?) If Arsonists, then why did Mac perform the dousing instead of serra?
Why was Mac such a derp with his claim? It almost reads like really really dumb Town (no offense Mac), although yessiree's guilty still close to seals Mac as scum to me.

[yessiree]

because if bob and you is the scum pair you can quickhammer?

[Alduskkel]

Is that even a valid theory at this point?

[yessiree]

not from my perspective, but it's plausible from TCFJ's

[callforjudgement]

Good analysis, but why'd you pick serra over Mac?

serra had no votes before I voted, so less quickhammer risk, and I didn't work out the scumteams that would have to exist for a quickhammer to happen; it's just a theory thing for me to avoid allowing quickhammer situations when there's plenty of time before deadline, no matter how unlikely.

Some other questions:
What do you think the scumteam is (Arsonists, Aliens, no factional kill at all...?) If Arsonists, then why did Mac perform the dousing instead of serra?

I think Aliens is impossible. Arsonists seems most likely because we have one role hinting at it and no kills yet. No-factional-kill isn't compatible with this game's deadline rules (unless BBmolla really screwed up, which is possible but unlikely); additionally, my lynchproofness doesn't make much sense in a game with no nightkills (given that its main use in a setup is to give the town a chance to recover if something goes really screwy with nightkills). I think there's a possibility of some sort of other screwy nightkill scumteam, of some nature that hasn't been suggested yet, but I don't have any idea as to what it might be.

I hadn't considered the "why did Mac perform the dousing" issue, though, and it's a good one. Certainly, Mac would want to in order to maintain his mistaken beliefs about his fakeclaim worked, but serra should have corrected that in the QT; serra seems unlikely make the same mistake Mac did. It's possible that serra/Mac have an unclaimed action that they needed/wanted to take, leaving the other to perform the "kill", but that also seems unlikely. So in short, I have no idea what's going on there.

Why was Mac such a derp with his claim? It almost reads like really really dumb Town (no offense Mac), although yessiree's guilty still close to seals Mac as scum to me.

Normally, VT is a pretty safe claim for scum in a massclaim; you don't think about it too much, you just say it. That's consistent with the way that Mac's been acting. I don't think it's unbelievable to imagine that a player might get very confused among discovering that VTs didn't act the way they thought they did. This can happen with town too, though, so I think the main upshot is that we learn that Mac likely still believed yessiree to be town at the time (regardless of what he might say he thought after the fact).

[Alduskkel]

This is tricky. :/

[BBmolla]

Votecount 3.02

yessiree - 2 - serrapaladin, Mac
serrapaladin -1 - callforjudgement
Mac - 1 - yessiree

Not Voting: Alduskkel, Bicephalous Bob

Deadline: (expired on 2014-02-10 02:45:00)

With 6 alive, it takes 4 to lynch.

[callforjudgement]

@Mod

: I'm voting for serrapaladin, not yessiree.

Just in case:
UNVOTE:
VOTE: serrapaladin