Need someone to mod a game with no scum aligned kills.

[callforjudgement]

Right, the whole point behind the variously coloured (non-White) Flag setups was to remove the positive feedback of nightless so that you don't earn an extra mislynch via a correct lynch.

[PokerFace]

Interesting, I never really cared for the flag setups because they involved sides surrendering. But I didn't know the purpose of the surrender was to not allow town to gain mislynches.

Who first made the flag setups?

One of the things that gave me dificulty with xyl's Rebels_in_the_Palace was town gaining mislynches. To counteract it I ran a 9p version as it better controlled mislynch gain than a 12 player version. Introducing a Flag mechanic to RITP is likely an even better way to balance the setup, so I present to you...

Flag in the Palace

1 King
X Guards
2(X+1) Rebels

(Guards and King) Kingdom is scum

Rebels are town

When King dies, scum lose. If all guards die, scum loses. If X+1 rebels die, then rebels lose.

Thoughts?

Also please let me know who made/first ran the white flag mechanic so I know who to thank for my new setup idea

[GreyICE]

Black Flag nightless looks pretty neat.

I'd like to see that hosted

(finite number of mislynches no matter how successful town is)

Go for it.

Nightless games are rarely anything other than epic disasters

[Suzune]

Black Flag nightless looks pretty neat.

I'd like to see that hosted

(finite number of mislynches no matter how successful town is)

Go for it.

Nightless games are rarely anything other than epic disasters

I disagree, I have played in two successful nightless games.

[RadiantCowbells]

Black Flag nightless looks pretty neat.

I'd like to see that hosted

(finite number of mislynches no matter how successful town is)

Go for it.

Nightless games are rarely anything other than epic disasters

I played and won a nightless as scum. It was fun.

[callforjudgement]

Interesting, I never really cared for the flag setups because they involved sides surrendering. But I didn't know the purpose of the surrender was to not allow town to gain mislynches.

Who first made the flag setups?

White Flag isn't mine, but then it has full nightkills, and the flag mechanic only applies to scum. Black and Gray, which prevent gained mislynches on the town side in different ways, are mine. I'm not sure if there are other colours of flag around yet, although of course we can add them.

[PokerFace]

Given you used the flag with town and that is what I am interested in doing, I will credit you as inspiring this setup idea for now

The one balance item that is bothering me about my current FITP setup design is the kingdom technically already has a white flag. The same white flag that always exists in royal mafia "They lose when the king dies". Do they need more than one flag (Losing all guards = kingdom loss) OR should losing the king be their only white flag?

The current Idea I got is:
-If you want to give the guards Day Talk, then yes give them the other flag of "all guards die = Loss for kingdom" (Grey Flag in the Palace)
-If you DO NOT want to give the guards Day Talk, then DO NOT give them the other flag of "all guards die = Loss for kingdom" (Black Flag in the Palace)

Thoughts?

[callforjudgement]

So Flag In The Palace is similar to a Black Flag, with the difference being that you have a Vengeful-style Godfather (a downside role) rather than the White Flag mechanic. I suspect that adding in the White Flag mechanic too (i.e. all guards dead = loss) wouldn't make a huge balance difference, because it's relatively unlikely for that situation to come up in the first place compared to the other scum losses, and it might well end up giving the identity of the King anyway. (Also, guards should probably have daytalk because otherwise they have no opportunity to discuss strategy at all.)

In general, though, it would just depend on the numbers. I'm not an expert in balancing Vengeful/RITP-style setups, although I feel it's quite a noticeable downside for scum. Looks like the numbers we have in your proposal at Micro/Mini size are 4:(1+1), 6:(2+1), and 8:(3+1), with town losing when half of them are lynched (i.e. they have one, two, or three mislynches respectively). If you run the first setup as a White Flag, it's mathematically equivalent to a known setup (Lovers Mafia) which has a 60% town EV and a 31.25% town winrate in practice (quite a big gap!). I actually think that the royal mafia principle in which one scum matters more than the others is therefore critical to help bring town win up closer to the EV, as it makes the scum behaviour easier to observe.

Actually, after thinking things through, I have a feeling that the White Flag mechanic will help in larger setups, and hurt in smaller setups. As a simple example, take an 8:(3+1) setup with no white flag mechanic, and assume that all the Guards claim scum day 1 (and thereafter only post prod-dodges). The result is an 8:1 setup where town loses after four members are lynched, for an EV of 44% (which is too low for a setup with one scum in, and thus no associative tells). Presumably scum can do better than this by not claiming (and if they can't, they'll just claim).

OK, I changed my mind again. Perhaps what the setups actually need is no white flag mechanic, but one additional townie (who doesn't hurt the black flag threshold), i.e. one extra mislynch. You have a 50% EV exactly for 1 King,

x

Guards, 2

x

+3 Rebels, Rebels lose if

x

+2 die, Royals lose if the King dies, regardless of the value of

x

(although I wouldn't recommend running a 3:(0+1)); and 50% EV seems about right for this sort of setup (especially given the Lovers Mafia results).

[PokerFace]

Royal mafia traditionally has kingdom loose if king dies and does not give kingdom day talk

If we want to break traditions of giving guards only day talk then I think the additional scum flag, loose all guards = loss, is fitting

If we don't want to give them that then based on what you said then town should surrender when they have X left instead of X+1 left

I update the wiki again. Those ideas make sense

[callforjudgement]

You can't make town surrender with X left because then you can have an (X+1):(X+1) setup with nobody losing. This is a happily ever after situation as the game can't progress from that point. That's why I suggested adding the extra townie instead.

The reason royal mafia doesn't give the kingdom day talk is because it would be totally broken in AITP; you'd be able to identify the assassin by seeing who didn't have access to the PT. RITP is balanced differently (especially in the fact that the factions are normal Mafia factions and have flavour reversed from AITP), so daytalk wouldn't hurt there.

[PokerFace]

I wrote in the wiki "kingdom wins if they outnumber/equal rebels or they win if only X rebels left". No happily ever after because that sucks

Flag in the Palace

Adding another townie like you said is another possibility. I think I read what you wrote wrong at first. Which do you think is better "adding another townie and have it end at X+1" or "letting kingdom win via majority or when town has X left"?

Edit: Thought about your idea vs this one. Your idea is simpler. Also because RITP does not have Day talk and town has an extra member let's give guards day talk to each other only and not have the "all guards die = kingdom loss" mechanic

[callforjudgement]

I like the way this looks now. (I just copyedited the page a bit to make it flow a bit better; no changes to the meaning.) I have a feeling that the setup needs to be run with X≥2 to be fun to play (so that you can figure out the identity of the King from the interactions of flipped Guards), leading to 7:2 Micro and 9:3 Mini Open versions of the setup as being the ones to run. (Going larger than this is probably a bad idea in a Nightless, as it would take ages and the players would likely get bored. Five mislynches in the 9:3 is possibly stretching it as it is, leading to similar fatigue problems as mountainous games, although the high chance of hitting a Guard somewhere in the middle of that and producing a scumflip is going to break it up somewhat and make it more enjoyable.)

Actually, now that I look at it, the 9:3 version is one of the sorts of setup I'd really like to play in. I have more time now than I used to, so I may well get back into playing and modding. (Just need to persuade someone to take the game through the Open queue.)

[PokerFace]

You mean 7:2:1 and 9:3:1 (r:g:k)

I think it ending at X+1 and giving guards only day talk is most fair. It ending at X+2 with guards not having day talk just didn't feel right. Feels like we are hurting both sides not giving scum some kind of talk and giving town a loss when they could still have a majority of players alive compared to the original kingdom size (X+2 > X+1 and X+1 = original size of kingdom). Also I am sure some people don't like how RITP does not have scum day talk, so having a royal mafia with day talk among the guards only, sounds like a cool thing to have.

I have the modding requirements to run the game I believe. But at the moment I am looking into moving from the Youngstown area of Ohio to the Cleveland area of Ohio. So I'd rather not take on more responsibilities than I can handle. I can run the game when all is done or you can decide to not wait for me and get some one else to run it. We could also mod it together. Modding a game with you is something I'd be fine with. Would certainly make the job easier and I might be able to co-mod while going through moving process in real life

[callforjudgement]

Err, yes. I meant 7:2+1 and 9:3+1. Sorry for any confusion. You can pretty much ignore the numbers in my post because they forget about the King. We have three mislynches in a 7:2+1 and four mislynches in a 9:3+1, which are both good numbers for the respective setup sizes.

I'm not modding or playing any games right now, as I've had limited access for months. The limited access period is

probably

ending, but I'd like to ramp up commitments slowly (I've been starting with Normal Review Group reviews as they have the least commitments of the things I do, and I'll probably roll into playing and modding over time.)

[PokerFace]

K you let me know when your commitments out of way and we'll see if we run it then or wait until mine out of way as well