Forced moves and information theory

[Ümläüt]

After having played as scum a few times, I'm of the opinion that it is in the Mafia's interest to have a confirmed townie, especially an outed PR, around. Failing this there should at least be an obvtown or two around.

No, really!

Conftowns are useful because they are players the Mafia

has

to kill at some point, and whose death is therefore not informative to the town. Remember, the Mafia's goal is

• to kill townspeople,
  
• without being identified as the culprits.

If I as scum kill someone whose reads worry me, whether because they're accurate or based on meta with that player, I am leaking a certain amount of information. A sufficiently advanced player can use this to increase their credence that I am scum.

BUT BUT BUT if that someone happens to be

confirmed town,

then they were slated for death no matter what, and so their death doesn't point to me. Arguably a little information can be gleaned from the timing, but nothing like if they were generally a null read or even a weak town read.

Personally I will always play as scum to minimize the information I give to the town. I don't think this is the only viable strategy, but it seems to have worked quite well to date. I won my very first game on the site as scum, and I attribute this mostly to the game being pushed down such a narrow, fixed path that by lylo the town had really learned nothing. (Cop claimed Day 2 with a green, my scumbuddy counterclaimed and was believed, and so the Day 2 and 3 lynches and one nightkill were pretty much set in stone at that point.)

This all seems like straightforward reasoning to me, and yet I don't recall ever seeing this sentiment expressed. Is it obviously wrong for some reason I've missed, or so obviously right that only I would bother to say it out loud?

[Creature]

There are players that ignore NKA, so you might be fine.

[Psyche]

the sort of information inferrable from a night kill is so noisy and dubious that it's generally fine trading it nearly for any other advantage

[Zachrulez]

The information gained from a kill tends to be overvalued in the first place. More importantly often in a game there is a town player that is much better off to the scumteam dead and confirmed townies can really get in the way of that.

[Infinity 324]

You know if you're so worried about handing out info then you can just kill someone random or do a WIFOM kill. It's basically the same result or better than if that same player was confirmed town. Yes it's great if someone that's a threat is conftown so you can kill them, but as said before a lot of players don't even do NKA anyway.

[Vi]

Good vanilla Town players in games with powerful Town power roles make for situations where you really, really want to kill someone and really, really can't.

[mykonian]

I fear I do look differently at this than you do. It might be great and all, but it's not as if you can control it. Yes you'll usually shoot confirmed town, but confirmed town appear without your involvement. Best you can do is make someone obvtown... and you might not want to do that to a person who suspects you so you want to shoot them (as their voice would count for more if they were put on a pedestal). Idk, this doesn't really bother me, if you get what I mean.

As for shooting conftown: nope, you shouldn't do this all the time. Many games have protective roles, you could probably get a rough percentage of the chance that happens in your game. Protective roles also shouldn't protect conftown all the time (anticipating that scum would in part shoot outside the confirmed town to at least get a kill in), but we all know nobody actually dares to do this. The wifom isn't in balance atm, given the equilibrium is quite far away from 95%, I did the maths years for an open game, both mafia and protectives overtarget the confirmed town, pretty sure. So you could get a small edge mixing in that you don't shoot or don't protect the obvious target once in a while. Forgive me if I don't know if it was in the order or 1/5th or 1/4th of the times.

[kuribo]

The idea that NKA is useless has become so ingrained in site meta that scum now rarely kill to frame others or for WIFOM

I've used this to my advantage by killing exactly who I wanted dead without repercussion. Sometimes after flat out implying I'm going to kill them.

I've caught people with NKA too. Most scum will kill whoever they need dead the most, be it a PR, someone they fear, or even a wildcard because they don't know what the slot will do.
Hell, I've killed people just to make my fake claim easier.

NKA is like VCA, or rageposting. It isn't the final answer to scumhunting, it's a tool in your belt.

[Gamma Emerald]

Tangential thought: I have great reads when I try, which makes VT sometimes appealing, as I feel like I put in less scumhunting effort as a PR.

[RadiantCowbells]

Good vanilla Town players in games with powerful Town power roles make for situations where you really, really want to kill someone and really, really can't.

There may be disagreement as to whether I constitute a 'good vanilla town' player but usually they just shoot me anyway

[Flubbernugget]

You're leaving conftown around because they're an informationless kill?

I must be misreading something because no information should be another bullet on the checklist of why to kill a conftown

[callforjudgement]

You're leaving conftown around because they're an informationless kill?

I must be misreading something because no information should be another bullet on the checklist of why to kill a conftown

I think the point is that if a player randomly becomes confirmed, it helps scum in a way because it lets them make a no-information kill. OTOH, it also hurts scum by preventing them getting rid of strong town voices or power roles, so I'm not 100% sure I agree with the OP.


Incidentally, I looked a bit into WIFOM game theory a while back. The conclusion was that if you're in a situation where you have the choice of making a helpful kill that implicates you, or a WIFOM kill that doesn't really help your situation other than via making you look innocent, you should choose the helpful kill most of the time, but not always. Randomizing your kill always prevents you giving away information, but you can normally do better by biasing the randomization towards the helpful side.

[implosion]

Incidentally, I looked a bit into WIFOM game theory a while back. The conclusion was that if you're in a situation where you have the choice of making a helpful kill that implicates you, or a WIFOM kill that doesn't really help your situation other than via making you look innocent, you should choose the helpful kill most of the time, but not always. Randomizing your kill always prevents you giving away information, but you can normally do better by biasing the randomization towards the helpful side.

This is what the game theory would say. At least, it's what game theory would say to do under the assumption that if you use a suboptimal strategy, your opponent (i.e. the town) will take advantage of it. In practice, the ideal play would be to shift with the meta. In a meta like the one kuribo describes (which I also agree with, incidentally) it suddenly becomes better to skew even more towards the helpful side.

The point being made by this thread is true to the extent that having a free "informationless" kill allows you to avoid the possible losing repercussions of killing a townie with good reads. But it also avoids the possible wins of correctly guessing how the town will react. Townies can and do react with "this kill must have been a wifom kill" (there's a great example of that in a recent game of mine... hint hint, her reads were really damn good). It's good from a standpoint of optimality in that you avoid possible negative repercussions but it's probably not something that's going to increase the percentage of games that you win more than the lack of freedom over who to kill decreases it.

[Gamma Emerald]

Implosion speaks of the MariaR kill in Mini Normal 1838, fyi

[Accountant]

Personally I like it so when people ask how come Accountant hasn't been NKed yet despite being obvtown I can tell them it's because the mafia were too busy picking off confirmed town to kill me.

[kuribo]

Personally I like it so when people ask how come Accountant hasn't been NKed yet despite being obvtown I can tell them it's because the mafia were too busy picking off confirmed town to kill me.

last time I NK'd you it was because you wouldn't do exactly what I asked you to do without hesitation or question and you had a guilty on me

[Accountant]

Personally I like it so when people ask how come Accountant hasn't been NKed yet despite being obvtown I can tell them it's because the mafia were too busy picking off confirmed town to kill me.

last time I NK'd you it was because you wouldn't do exactly what I asked you to do without hesitation or question and you had a guilty on me

Sad!