Serum & Steel 2: The Rise of Phyrexia--Endgame

[Lord Mhork]

Meta is dumb.

Trustworthy I'm mostly getting irritated. No one was listening to me before I started yelling about ABR. I'm actually getting more votes for him just yelling at people than when I was rationally arguing for it

PEDIT:
I don't remember her ever saying anything about me being scum, but ok then

[Chandra Nalaar]

I'm actually getting more votes for him just yelling at people than when I was rationally arguing for it

Welcome to Mafiascum.

[pixel]

That's two people yelling about their pet wagons.

That kind of stuff doesn't usually convince me.

And iirc your abr read is meta-informed so

[Trustworthy]

Meta is dumb.

Trustworthy I'm mostly getting irritated. No one was listening to me before I started yelling about ABR. I'm actually getting more votes for him just yelling at people than when I was rationally arguing for it

PEDIT:
I don't remember her ever saying anything about me being scum, but ok then

Yes, but you asked why you were being ignored just now, that's why I am.

Also, I just remembered we were partners in too many heads. I thought I didn't have any information on your scum play. Hrm.

[Lord Mhork]

It's only meta informed in that I know he does shit as town. Its meta informed in that I'm not giving his loafing a pass.

[F-16_Fighting_Falcon]

All right, I haven't caught up fully but I'm going to be really busy over the next few weeks and have very little time for mafia and probably won't get a chance to analyze the game or re-read so I'm going to put my thoughts out there. For a frame of reference, I read the first 23 pages really closely, skimmed until page 40, and read the posts after I replaced in.

So, I'll start off with my strong townreads in this game. Five players I'd bank the game on at this point.

Antihero, Titus, Trustworthy, pixel, and PeregrineV.

The first two are obvious as is Peregrine to some extent. I may explain it if I find time though.

Trustworthy

: I'm feeling incredibly stupid at this point based on the way I tried to sort Trustworthy upon replacing in. I just saw all the "dumb" and "antitown" comments directed at Shadoweh's plan, by multiple people over and over, so I get the annoyance at that being brought up and the irritation. And then the ABR stuff about policy lynching hydras that they needed to deal with. Their disengagement makes so much sense affiliation regardless and I feel so bad I kinda just want to give them a hug and treat them like an innocent child. The claiming metal thing wasn't even a bad idea to put out there either. Shadoweh, I'm really sorry for being so tactless and for my entrance posts and later posts to Tammy as well. Anyways, I'll lay down my reasoning here so I don't second guess myself again. I'm moving Tammy/Shadow into the strong town pile because Tammy's play doesn't seem orchestrated. I have a few markers for her based on Fantasy Camp and her play there basically felt like a version of her town game - in hindsight, I felt that she had put on a theatrical performance. She had all these standard responses ready to dish out whenever questioned and nothing that she is doing here feels like she is trying to emulate her town game. One was the way she handled ABR which reminded me of the way she tries to help town even in the face of poor play (Mobile Suit game was a good example of that). The second is that her interactions with me make a ton of sense in hindsight. I'd think if she was scum, she'd demand that I should see her as town as that's what I'd expect. The third is the way she tried to figure out Titus and the hive issue and it felt incredibly genuine.

Pixel

: The majority of my townread came from how Ffery reacted to pressure. The cool way in which she was observing the wagon dynamics and commenting on them, her interaction with Antihero, and her confidence that Mastin and Tammy will eventually read her right. I do think that Antihero's points were valid in a way because Ffery's early posts came across as unexpected and wasn't how I thought she'd play the game. But as time went by, she did a lot of things that she can't fake or would do differently as scum. Her posting seems like that of a wise old man sitting on the sidelines and musing at the interesting developments that are taking place in the game which is incredibly different from how she reacts as scum where she acts in ways to derail her lynch or confuse players especially by posting lots of analysis.

~~~

There are five other players I'm either unsure on or leaning scum at this point:

zMuffinman, Mastin, LordMhork, PanderBears, ChandraNalaar.

I'm not sure how to make sense of the interplay between them. Muffin is pushing Mastin and Mastin is calling Muffin town which makes sense if Mastin is scum and Muffin is town. But I found it odd that he consistently puts it off and starts talking about how Mastin won't be lynched today. His push on Chandra came mostly after I made a case on Chandra - one that he doesn't fully agree with. And then he suspects me, and continues pushing Chandra who I made a huge case against while still waiting for me to catch up and I don't follow that thought process at all. Chandra himself came across as manipulative and I hated some of his posts. I hate Post 309 because it feels like someone in control of the game. That's how Tammy caught SleepyKrew in Quickness. The way he talks to Ffery feels a little complacent. Like he knows exactly what to do. On the other hand, his wagon is comprised of a lot of sheep besides me, Muffin and Antihero and that makes me hesitate. Mastin feels a lot like she does in Tales of You especially the emotional vibes so I don't know what to make of it. I've been trying to think of how his play was different in Attack On Titan and coming up blank. I need more time to think this through. Mhork is too sure about his read on Chandra and that makes me wonder as well. I gave my thoughts on PanderBears. Sorry, I have no clue what I'm doing at this point.

~~~
The final list are the low activity/low content posters which to some extent feel very interchangeable. A lot of them seem very disengaged from the game and not really following what is going on.

11) Kagami

- Quoting from my earlier post: Kagami is a fairly strong townread for me. I liked the things that she is picking up on such as her Post 488 where she notes that Ffery-reads list has some glaring oddities which feel a little bold for scum which is exactly what I was thinking with regards to the Pixel slot. Some of her other comments like "

I have a theory about the gamestate that implies peregrin is town, but I'd rather not elaborate

" feel genuine and like she's holding back on things to see how they develop. Her vote on PanderBears resonates with me because I lean scum on them and calling it a sheep of Muffin in Post 529 feels carefree in a townish way. vote but I lean scum on them so it resonates with me. Her setup spec starting in Post 692 reminds of the way she tried to break the game in Attack On Titan and I get the overall vibe that she's genuinely trying to gamesolve and the rest of her ISO feels pro-active especially with regard to the gamesolving. I have a feeling she might do this as scum too, but I doubt that her questioning and gamesolving would feel as genuine and as persistent. I want to meta-dive later on in the game to make sure though.

12) sharpest-knife-on-tree

- I'll quote this from my earlier post as well so it is in one place: I have a moderately strong townread on SKOT[/u]. This is also the basis for why I hate the pushes on him from Cephrir and Pander Bears. I don't find it scummy of SKOT to push on Vezok for that self-serum vote in Post 21. It feels merely like his philosophy on mafia. He seems to be of an extreme school of thought that mafia is strictly a team game and any actions that benefit yourself over the town as a whole are scummy. His push seems reasonable from that POV. This is corroborated in Post 30 where he defends his position and in Post 118 where he explains his POV. Cephrir isn't considering this at all and though Ceph has superior debating skills to SKOT, the way he is bullheadedly pushing his position in Post 120 strikes me as him taking advantage of SKOT. SKOT's response of "

I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and consider you as probing here but your tone says otherwise

" feels genuine and resonates with me because its the same impression that I got. I like his concern with PanderBears's Post 24 about "politicking" as it was similar to my concerns with Ceph/DV in Tales of You and I had those same vibes that they were being manipulative. His vague paranoia in Post 119 about there being an agenda feels genuine as well. His townread on Titus in Post 76 resonates as I was thinking along similar lines. I have mild townvibes from the way he attacked Kaze's readslist in Post 505. His pushback on MagisterLudi in Post 686 for his push on Titus resonates with me as well. There were a couple of things made me unsure about SKOT. Post 143 didn't feel like he was actually sorting CN and felt more like "stop tunneling me or if you are scum, continue to do so" but it is still an understandable reaction considering his Post 476 feels like he is just annoyed at Cephrir's playstyle of "harping on him" and Post 483 substantiates that. I didn't like the "if he keeps on picking then maybe I change my mind" though as it seemed like an implicit threat. He didn't give lots of reads or analysis but it may just be a playstyle thing. Overall I find him town and the reasoning used to push him from Ceph and PanderBears (his initial vote on Vezok) is rubbish.

13) massive

- I dislike the kind of things he is picking up on in Post 283. They feel peripheral and non alignment-indicative and it's his first real post in the game. I also don't like Massive's Post 289. He is essentially not playing the game. I don't know what it means for his affiliation though. He returns in Post 312 and Post 313 and his focus is again on a small subsection of the game while ignoring the larger things going on. I hate massive's Post 546. Leaning scum here.

14) Magister Ludi

- There is almost nothing I like about MagisterLudi. In Post 53, he votes Titus presumably for asking Vezok why the SKOT vote is serious (when Vezok had already explained it). Basically for not reading the game. Then he returns in Post 514 to continue to push a case on Titus while ignoring nearly everything that hapenned till then. He clearly didn't read the Titus/Trustworthy confirmation posts. I also find it absurd to claim that Titus is posting useless questions and posturing because Titus's play felt incredibly obvtown. Then he complains about readslists which is completely pointless. His Titus case in Post 554 is horrible both by itself and in the context of the game. His Post 1305 felt genuine though and I can see why Kagami's posting style would make someone gloss over her posts. I don't follow why he is townreading PanderBears beyond there being a wagon on them and I dislike his whole body of work. Tunneling Titus, coming back much later, criticizing a major wagon. It feels like he has no grasp on the game. He then joins the Chandra wagon in Post 1457 having never mentioned Chandra before in the game.

15) Albert B Rampage

- I have no idea what to make of him. I feel that in any game that I've seen ABR as town, he has been productive. I specifically remember watching the Red Wine game where once ABR was lynched, he commented in the dead QT about how similar our reads were. He had nearly the entire scumteam pegged as well. So, here all is doing is hating hydras and not being productive. The biggest thing that bugs me though is that he starts out with a policy lynch all hydras shtick which he then changed onto actual scumreads on Titus and Trustworthy in Post 318. And now he has forgotten all about them and is voting Chandra who is the leading wagon. I don't like his play here at all. There is a part of me that thinks he would be more strategic if he was scum and that's what makes me unsure. His Post 327 feels really silly and Post 329 felt like an implicit threat.

16) PHANTOM

- His Post 205 where he leans town on PV and Titus for "making strong posts and asking the right questions" is somewhat generic but the reads themselves resonate with me. A couple of questions here: Can you point out those strong posts and the questions that are "the right questions?" You say you are leaning town on SKOT, more because you agree with his view on self-serum votes and that it's suspect when somebody is trying to push the wagon to give them more power which you feel is scummy. At that point zMuffin had asked for serum votes on him twice in Post 60 and in Post 179. Why didn't you mention him?

17) Vezokpiraka

- Vezok's Post 36 responding to Mhork and PV asking him why the vote in serious by explaining that using random.org in RVS is scummy. While it isn't, and while it fits SKOT's meta, it is a legitimate town thought. When he returns in Post 270 with his reads, I find some of them plausible although calling Antihero scum feels like a massive stretch. I like the way he backed it up in Post 397 though and I particularly felt that the meta reference was genuine coming from someone like Vezok. I also like Post 525 which felt like very original and interesting reasoning for his SKOT scumread. I don't entirely follow the progression of him saying Chandra is "town as fuck" in Post 270 to voting Chandra in Post 1302. It hapenned over a thousand pages later but he basically said nothing about Chandra in all these thousand pages and suddenly wants to wagon him because his "meltdown" doesn't seem real. I am suspicious that he is hopping onto a bandwagon at an opportune time. I am conflicted about Vezok overall.

18) Tattletale

- Tattletale is another player that feels disengaged from the game. He votes Titus early in Post 57, and returns in Post 385 which was a decent post. But he doesn't comment on anything else that hapenned in the game. He simply makes a comment to Mhork that resonates somewhat but that's about it. When Titus enquires about it, he gives a response about SKOT saying that Titus is likelier scum than Trustworthy. It isn't very impressive. His Post 465 is hypocritical considering he hasn't said much about the game either. Post 480 is one of the few posts that are pro-active as opposed to reactive and even that isn't unfakable. I like his observations in Post 910 but his followup in Post 1265 is again hypocritical and I don't understand why he is placing an importance on "not commenting on game events" as a scumtell while he has barely been commenting. I love his pro-activeness in Post 1390 and checking Red Wine but I wonder why he isn't reading

this

game. His rudimentary scumhunting in Post 1503 and Post 1506 is decent enough. I am conflicted here too.

[Trustworthy]

You can join me in the kiddie pool too falcon. We have a basket of wine. Take your pick.

[Trustworthy]

Also you don't have anything to apologize for.

*hug*

[Antihero]

for a second i thought f16 would contnue being a pile of mushy poo

thanks!

[Antihero]

thanks for the wall... too bad im too drunk to read it right now.......... tomorrow

[F-16_Fighting_Falcon]

You can join me in the kiddie pool too falcon. We have a basket of wine. Take your pick.

Let's see. EOS looks good.

~~~

I was hoping to hear your take on the Mastin/Muffin/Chandra interactions. Also, do you have a read on DV yet?

[Trustworthy]

Then enjoy!

My take on those interactions is something I'm still working on myself and will have to wait until tomorrow or so when I can sit down with fresh eyes and look at it. I have no idea why I haven't actually passed out yet, but I expect that to happen any day now.

I don't have a read on DV yet. I think shadoweh liked them earlier though.

[Lord Mhork]

Obligatory god fucking damnit Mastin is she

I'm beginning to wonder why I bother

[pixel]

I'm not sure what to think about your reads f-16.

With very few exceptions they mirror my thoughts about the game so far. I don't expect us to see games from similar perspectives.

[F-16_Fighting_Falcon]

I'm not sure what to think about your reads f-16.

With very few exceptions they mirror my thoughts about the game so far. I don't expect us to see games from similar perspectives.

Really? I barely have any reads that I am confident about and I am conflicted on a lot of them. I was hoping you would give me your input. What are your updated reads at this point?

[pixel]

Town: Zmuffin, Kagami, Titus, Antihero, Pere, Phantom

Maybe Town: Trustworthy, Mastin, Chandra, Iamsteve, ABR, Pander Bears

More Data Needed: Lord Mhork, Magister Ludi, Vezok

Not So Town: SKOT, tattletale, Massive

Updated:


Town: Zmuffin, Kagami, Titus, Antihero, Pere, Phantom,Trustworthy

Kinda Town: Vezok, Lord Mhork, Mastin, F-16, ABR

Maybe Town: Chandra, Pander Bears, SKOT

Not So Town tattletale, Massive, Ludi

Not a lot of separation between maybe town and not so town right now.

This was my latest list.

I have Vezok as kinda town because I think of him as a VI. I've been thinking about dropping him lower because his stances are inconsistent, where from what I've seen in other games his stances may be terrible, but they're consistent - whatever it is that he latches onto he doesn't usually let go of, even if he moves his vote.

I've talked about my ABR read and why it's gone mushy.

I feel like my Chandra read has been overly influenced and I want to rethink it.

I feel like I may be missing scum-Pander here. I wanted to see more BPC. One of the last BPC posts I recognized had an overabundance of exclamation points and that pinged.

I still like my bottom three reads. And it was your agreement on those three reads that surprised me. Mastin has pushed back on my Massive read and zmuffin has them in his poast moar pile.

[F-16_Fighting_Falcon]

What has your Chandra read been influenced by? I quickly skimmed through a game with Chandra in it and I realized that his play is different from Cephrir's. For instance, with this alt, he is a lot more aggressive in his pushes. The thing the made me wonder was that his early push on SKOT didn't seem to have any external motivation beyond the obvious, attacking an easy target. I specifically remember in Tales the way he attacked Mastin D1 and me later on. Both had very manipulative intent. Mastin was frustrating me at that point calling everything I do scummy and Cephrir attacked Mastin saying stuff that at that point resonated with me. He then did the same thing after me and Tammy had an argument. Him and DV had a field day picking apart everything that was said and offering their own comments. That's part of the reason I thought he was being manipulative at first with the way he townread Trustworthy rather easily and then defended you from Antihero. I don't know what to make of his later posts to zMuffin though and his play doesn't seem as *smooth* as in Tales. I actually remember making these three posts about him and it was a similar thing that bugged me here.

How have Vezok's stances been inconsistent? I actually felt his stances on SKOT and Antihero were pretty consistent and he was scumreading both of them. The only one that doesn't make sense is his Chandra read and he is one of the players that is making me paranoid that Chandra could be town. To be fair, there was a thousand page difference between his stance changes but I worry about the lack of a trajectory? (I can't think of a better word) there.

I actually think ABR played pretty well in Red Wine. We had similar reads and everything. I've played and watched a few other games with him in it. My feeling is that he is switching up his meta to see what works and that's part of what is making it difficult to get a read. If I remember correctly, you were also in the We're on a Boat game which ABR was in. How do you compare his play there to here?

I lean scum on Massive on Ludi. I am more conflicted about Tattletale. What do you think of the fact that he went and checked the Red Wine game to comment on ABR's meta? My Pander scumread is mostly based on his interactions with you. What is your take on them?

[Tattletale]

There is a part of me that thinks he would be more strategic if he was scum and that's what makes me unsure.

Well... I think he

can

be (-from memory, I think he was active and strategic day one in Star Wars -- I could be thinking of a different game) but that isn't consistent. You should read his recent Large Themes. My opinion is that he struggles to imitate his town play in very large and active games. His disinterest leads him to be lazy.

The reads he posted with when I asked are nonsense, and he flatly ignored my question about his massive read.

Your paragraph about me is out of date with my ISO, however. I still have not read all 60 pages, but I ask questions about things that stand out to me nevertheless (Mhork, sharpest-knife-on-tree, ABR, Antihero). I see no lines of similarity between my play and ABR's, so I do not understand what you consider hypocritical. I am trying to figure out the game. He is not.

[F-16_Fighting_Falcon]

*on Pander's interactions with you I mean.

Pedit: @ Ffery

[Tattletale]

...however I just now realized a hidden variable that could explain why ABR is active in some games as mafia and not in others. Tomorrow I will need to look at his past games again and decide whether it is relevant to this game.

[Tattletale]

I

think

I like the way you are making multiple passes through the thread to refine your reads, F16

[Tattletale]

One of the last BPC posts I recognized had an overabundance of exclamation points and that pinged.

(I may come back to this later)

[Lord Mhork]

I love how much ABR defense is meta based. This is a really good way to discern someone's alignment.

[Chandra Nalaar]

There is a part of me that thinks he would be more strategic if he was scum and that's what makes me unsure.

Well... I think he

can

be (-from memory, I think he was active and strategic day one in Star Wars -- I could be thinking of a different game) but that isn't consistent. You should read his recent Large Themes. My opinion is that he struggles to imitate his town play in very large and active games. His disinterest leads him to be lazy.

The reads he posted with when I asked are nonsense, and he flatly ignored my question about his massive read.

Your paragraph about me is out of date with my ISO, however. I still have not read all 60 pages, but I ask questions about things that stand out to me nevertheless (Mhork, sharpest-knife-on-tree, ABR, Antihero). I see no lines of similarity between my play and ABR's, so I do not understand what you consider hypocritical. I am trying to figure out the game. He is not.

I'm not sure what it is, but something about the end of this post strikes me as very town.

Also, I don't want to write off F-16 as town for doing tons and tons of work, but his thought processes look pretty solid as well (yes, I did read the whole post, though it was a struggle. Break up your paragraphs for god's sake, it really is okay), and I know I'm biased but I do love the back off on me, I have a soft spot for people weirdly backing off of reads. There's also one other thing I liked about it that's honestly too silly to be worth mentioning, but suffice to say such a thing exists.

[Chandra Nalaar]

I have Vezok as kinda town because I think of him as a VI. I've been thinking about dropping him lower because his stances are inconsistent, where from what I've seen in other games his stances may be terrible, but they're consistent - whatever it is that he latches onto he doesn't usually let go of, even if he moves his vote.

I consistently nullscumread vezok in every game and he's been town every time so far. I don't know what to look for with him, and it's frustrating.