Newbie 1691 - Game Over

[Ircher]

True... If I saw what you did D3 though, my mind would've changed quite some.

[mhsmith0]

But, @Smith

Not having absolute confidence/doing things carelessly is quite common for me. I voiced my opinion even if not well.

Yeah, but if that's going to be your play style you'll get lynched pretty consistently, whether town or not. Hypocrisy in voting behavior, ESPECIALLY EOD when it really matters, is a wolf tell. And general careless behavior isn't a good thing. I mean, in our other game together I had to actively argue "oh Ircher is just ML bait" way too early to take the heat off of you, which outed myself as your mason-buddy to KC (and possibly others). The stuff people suspected you for in that game was legitimately suspicious.

I mean, my biggest weakness are:
1) I'm flat-out horrific at faking my town process when I'm not town (just read http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... alad-Mafia and http://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/thr ... Princesses - I'm AWFUL at looking town in those).
2) My second biggest weakness is that my reads aren't all that good.
3) My third weakness is that I can be a bit too wordy and tunnell-y (although in my defense on that point, I'd like to note that I actively tried to do better on that front, and actively rethink my reads, most notably in the aftermath of the UTL-SIW fight).

These are things where I'm actively trying to improve. Some of them, I'm honestly not sure HOW to improve them (#s 1 and 2 especially, although simply getting more experience hopefully helps), but I'm at least aware of the issues and doing what I can do figure out how to do better (and if someone wants to tell me something different should make that list, I'll look at it and try to learn from it too). I really would suggest you try and look at your own processes and try and do better. 7 ML's and 0 NK's in 10 games is a really not good record.

PS I'd say my biggest strengths are:
1) I sometimes get really good intuitive insights
2) I generally put a lot of effort into thinking through games (part of why I keep getting lynched as wolf is I just can't fake it well)
3) I look generally look obv!town as town

Those don't overcome my weaknesses, but it's at least something useful that I can lean on (except when I'm not town of course ).

[mhsmith0]

PS @Ircher: to clarify, you represented to the thread that you had absolute confidence. But acted as if you had anything but absolute confidence. That was a big deal to me, and my argument carried D2 (unfortunately).

[Ircher]

I do try to do better ya know, but still... Playstyle is playstyle & miracles dont happen.

[mhsmith0]

btw, @KAAG: That clanger was way less bad than you thought. I admittedly only skimmed, but the main takeaway from there was YA super lurked as a wolf, and his whole engagement looked different this game. That's one of those "it feels like an obvious goof" when you already know the answer, but when you don't, it's way less bad. Or I was too lazy while reading. I'll admit that as a possibility

@Ircher: yes, that's true. Changing playstyle is HARD, and sometimes not fun at all. The real question is whether you really want to improve, and if seven ML's in ten games is OK or not. At the least, there's probably stuff you can do around the edges to improve, which could be as simple as mentally listing specific behaviors that people view as suspicious, like:
- rolefishing (the other game, IIRC you did that with Anen)
- (seemingly) lying to thread about your confidence in your reads (this game)
- whatever other things you've gotten lynched for
and just not doing those things. If nothing else, it should at least help reduce the frequency of mislynches you get subjected to.

[Ircher]

1 of them was a Dayvig actually. And, I'm not sure what I did wrong in the Modified Greatest Idea game......

[mhsmith0]

FWIW, it's actually kind of funny that I'm 0-2 as town in games where I'm getting reasonably positive reviews, and 1-0 as town in games where I basically got carried by more competent teammates. Maybe I should just coast more often

PS KAAG was still my first ever legit wolf catch (and given a game state where SO many easy reads pointed to YA/Egg, I do think that was a solid catch), and we didn't get swept. Both of those are pride points, even though we lost. I also consider it a minor moral victory that I didn't just say "screw it" and lynch A50 on D3. He just seemed so utterly obv!wolf every time I looked at him and his posts. My earlier suspicion of a KAAG-YA team just couldn't hold up against that, especially since KAAG-Egg (I thought) made reasonable sense given the game state. The really, REALLY big moment of doubt for KAAG-Egg was

I will hammer before deadline!

Note: i am hyper-active: this will give 24 hours at least.

The question, which I never could answer, was whether he truly intended to hammer Egg (in which case it probably couldn't have been a team, although giving up on a teammate was at least somewhat possible), or whether that was an empty statement intended to drive people away from the wagon. And given that people DID abandon the wagon soon after, I couldn't discount the possibility that he wanted people off the wagon, and so couldn't discount the KAAG-Egg team. There were definite points where KAAG was going to bat for YA (notably his "I'm gonna move him to fence!town, his posts lately are better" bit on D1)... but that could have been just an empty read instead of trying to save his buddy. Just too hard to tell for sure. Sorry, town, for letting you down

PPS Given the game state, and the sheer volume of dead reads pointing to Egg/A50, lynching Clumsy would have been a hero read. And hero reads are (from what I can tell) pretty often wrong. I mean, if I'm sufficiently confident I'll go against the graveyard (like I did with KAAG), but I just wasn't. If A50 looked reasonably town (even if just on D4), I might have swung for the fences... but even though I was (clearly) wrong, I just don't know that I should have gone the other way given the in-thread information I had on hand. Picking between mislynch bait and the right lynch is just so damn hard. Although if there WAS clear evidence that made Egg clearly town (instead of plausible lurker wolf slot), please tell me. I hate being wrong, and I'm kind of competitive, so I really want to know so that next time I'll be likelier to actually get it right.

PPPS I'll take some responsibility for the overly slow gamestate. That said, the one time I tried to hurry things along was when I mislynched Ircher. So speed didn't work very well either

[mhsmith0]

btw, as a side note, somewhere along the way I had the gut sense that shannon had trackered Egg on N1, and that was why she was on ircher instead of egg, which I think was part of why I didn't want to go after Egg on D3. And then I think I totally forgot about that, and only now looking back was I like "oh yeah, that happened, I probably should have kept that higher in my mental priority list". Oops on both counts I guess

[shannon]

btw, as a side note, somewhere along the way I had the gut sense that shannon had trackered Egg on N1, and that was why she was on ircher instead of egg, which I think was part of why I didn't want to go after Egg on D3. And then I think I totally forgot about that, and only now looking back was I like "oh yeah, that happened, I probably should have kept that higher in my mental priority list". Oops on both counts I guess

I tracked Ircher because I thought he was scummy, and when I got no result, I legit thought that he must have known Town was on to him, and had a partner make the kill. That's why I joined the lynch. I also couldn't explain my no result without outing myself as tracker. In future, should I have jumped in and mentioned the no result once the wagon was on Ircher?

[Ircher]

No, but you should've been more catious in voting me.

[Ircher]

*cautious

[mhsmith0]

btw, as a side note, somewhere along the way I had the gut sense that shannon had trackered Egg on N1, and that was why she was on ircher instead of egg, which I think was part of why I didn't want to go after Egg on D3. And then I think I totally forgot about that, and only now looking back was I like "oh yeah, that happened, I probably should have kept that higher in my mental priority list". Oops on both counts I guess

I tracked Ircher because I thought he was scummy, and when I got no result, I legit thought that he must have known Town was on to him, and had a partner make the kill. That's why I joined the lynch. I also couldn't explain my no result without outing myself as tracker. In future, should I have jumped in and mentioned the no result once the wagon was on Ircher?

I'll defer to expert, but in general I'd say hell no. Just like a cop innocent result, just keep it to yourself.

But... there were so many people who were in various states of suspicion, that at the least it was reasonably possible Ircher would have made the kill as wolf.

Basically, I'd say you should have been leaning/voting Egg (who was also a serious suspect at the time... or alternatively pushing YA or someone else), and been solidly off the Ircher wagon barring a slam dunk no doubt case. If you track/JK someone and the kill still goes through, it makes it mechanically pretty unlikely they are wolf. Obviously not lock (unless one is already dead)... but you should have been off his wagon. Otherwise people will read the wrong result from your work.

PS I'd also suggest (and again, experts please correct me if I'm wrong) you generally track someone in the "general opinion" null to town range (especially if you personally are more suspicious of them). For instance, if you'd tracked Summer, you'd have seen her visiting me and had a mechanical clear on her because you'd have KNOWN she was doc. If you'd tracked me, you'd have been clearer on me, and if you'd tracked KAAG, that's a fun way to out a mafia.

[SummerInWonderland]

Hey guys, I just skimmed through this. Smith, don't be sorry for losing the game! If I was alive, I would have definitely voted almost50. He looked significantly scummier than anyone else in the game. He really had a weird tunnel thing going, I wouldn't have given as much time as you. I think you played just as well as you could have with almost50 playing as he did!
KAAG, I liked playing with you a lot Even though you were scum, you were super helpful, and I really had fun talking to you. I like the way you play, and you helped me learn so much. I mean, if you didn't explain some things to me about scumhunting, I would have never realized you were scum I think you sounded very...objective and not bias (even though you are, obviously), which really helped me in my first game. I'd love to play with you again!
I had fun this game regardless, thanks Jackall!

[Ircher]

@Mhsmith
What would you say my strengths are?

[mhsmith0]

@Summer: It was fun playing with you too! GL in future games, and maybe we'll be together in one again before long!

@Ircher: I'd say your biggest strength is fearlessness. That can be a weakness too, but playing in a way that suggests you DGAF can be towny. Aggressiveness is good, you just have to watch the outright mistakes. There's a player on Playdip, condude1, who reminds me a bit of you. He also gets mislynched a LOT as town, but is still a fun player to be around, because he's fearless too. The key, I think, is channeling it appropriately. Be unafraid of going out on limbs with reads and potentially making enemies, but be cautious about gambiting. "I'm just doing stuff to see what happens" and "oh that's just my meta" will get you lynched pretty often, especially if you're in a game largely with people who haven't played with you before.

PS @ those who were calling me super obv town, can you clarify exactly what made you think that? I keep finding it difficult to fake my town process when I'm not town, so the better I can understand it, the better I'll be able to lean on it when I have to.

[Almost50]

@smith:

Oh, well.. you live and you learn. Now I know your town play is so scummy and you know mine is too. Perhaps we both should give eachother a break in future games

[Ircher]

I dont know what made you tunnel smith.....

[mhsmith0]

@smith:

Oh, well.. you live and you learn. Now I know your town play is so scummy and you know mine is too. Perhaps we both should give eachother a break in future games

*shrugs* you were the only person on the board who thought my play was anything other than town (some thought it was super obv!town too). Go read graveyard chat. Your play WAS wolfy... you just weren't the wolf. I feel bad about getting it wrong... but you invited that read/vote. If you'd simply just lurked after joining, I'd probably have ended up on YA on D4. If you'd put serious effort into changing my mind on D4 (as opposed to various empty AtE stuff), I at least MIGHT have moved onto Clumsy. I just couldn't mentally get out from all the stuff you were doing. Some day I'll get good enough to reach that point (I hope), but this game just wasn't that point.

[Ircher]

Its fine smith.

[SummerInWonderland]

Oh, well.. you live and you learn. Now I know your town play is so scummy and you know mine is too. Perhaps we both should give eachother a break in future games

Smith's play was very very obviously town to every single town player. Not a single one even remotely scumread him. If you had listened to a single dead/confirmed town player, we probably wouldn't have lost this game...

[mhsmith0]

Yeah, it's just super frustrating. I hate losing, especially in a game where I was really putting in a lot of effort. It's a game that shows the limitations of my current abilities (as town anyway), and while it does motivate me to improve, it also just sucks mentally, especially in the immediate aftermath. I want to figure out what I can do to avoid this happening again... and it's hard. "Guess right next time" is certainly something I could do, but I don't even see what I could have / should have been looking at instead of what I was actually looking at. I guess I could/should have fought harder against UTL/Radja lynch D1, but I was also pretty surprised at the early hammer. And if the D2 Ircher lynch was bad... I want to know why, because I certainly didn't see it at the time.

[Almost50]

I dont know what made you tunnel smith.....

smith's playing characteristics: indecisiveness, tending to extend the day as possible, town reading someone then degrading them for the same reasons. I'm not sure what exactly it was, but if you reread the thread and concentrate on his relation with YA slot you might see where I came from. I knew I was town and knew YA was scum, so how he treated my slot vs how he treated Clumsy's slot was my main indicator.

But I do understand his confusion. I said it twice and I don't mind saying it one more town. As a spectator I did read Egg as scum, and even thought he was scum with Summer. I myself was surprised when I got the role PM in green!!!

[Ircher]

Sounds like me to a lesser extent tbh.

[Almost50]

Smith's play was very very obviously town to every single town player. Not a single one even remotely scumread him. If you had listened to a single dead/confirmed town player, we probably wouldn't have lost this game...

If that's the case then he should've been NK'd by the mafia! Why would scum leave an obv!town alive to LyLo??

[Ircher]

Read scumchat. Also, SIW protected smith both nights.