NY Mafia 155 - New Age Mafia II - Game Over!

[Hoopla]

Hey everyone.

[Hoopla]

Some observations:

- Given this is the sequel to OGML's previous Large Normal that also featured 19 players, I think it's likely this setup is again 4:1:14.
- That game featured two Trackers and two Tracker-Millers, which showcases OGML's flair for creativity. Rhinox's claim is highly likely to be true. I don't see mafia ever claiming such a role, as it means it will have had to have created an extra layer of fabrication, as opposed to just claiming NK-Immune - scum typically don't lie superfluously if they can help it. There are many more safer claims for an SK, so I'm ruling that out too. The claim makes much more sense as a town role, given a vig and SK exist to potentially kill it.
- OGML is capable of deviating from town/scum neighbour meta that seems prevalent in most neighbour games, so this isn't an implication for Glork.
- If anything, he is slightly town for his massclaim suggestion even though it is likely suboptimal in a game this large - with more than one scum faction you've effectively ruined any chances of crosskills (nice), not to mention early massclaims' uncanny ability to stall games during the most important time for creating information.
- iamausername's tell on nhammen is neat and I feel like a sucker for believing it, but I kind of do. It might be a coincidence/irrelevent, but it might be a psychological leak - maybe knowing he's a liar, it's subconsciously the most truthful way of claiming? Not sure. But I don't think it's something you can completely write off as null.
- I think Tierce, JDodge and Primate are town too.
- Gutscum reads on AGar and Quilford.


Will do some proper analysis a bit later.

[Hoopla]

Singer, you really need to claim. An unfinished massclaim is worse than both a full massclaim or no massclaim, and since one of those isn't an option any more, claim.

[Hoopla]

Hoopla's slot needs death.

Why?

[Hoopla]

What don't you like about it?

[Hoopla]

Tierce's play has been weird and obnoxious, but it's pretty clear it's coming from a town mindset trying to portray a certain image of herself, rather than it being an elaborate act as scum. She's a capable scum player, but I think her taking this approach as scum would be unusual, given she alludes to blatantly questionable tactics such as channeling scum meta and overaggressive wagoning - exactly the sort of recklessness that townies produce in the name of "generating information". I think JDodge's posts addressing her have been accurate and fair (although blunt), when he could have easily taken advantage of her position without much blame. There are a handful of other points he's made that have been insightful and constructive in ways that show he's clearly thinking about the game/people's alignments, for example, him calling out Rhinox on my predecessors early wagon. He's also one of the few keeping this game alive in a period of serious quiet.

In a game like this where many people know each other and have a penchant for wagoning, the early wagon on my predecessor was probably not as informative as people like Tierce want to believe. Herd mentality kicks in far swifter when there is familiarity in a group. There are enough people in this game ballsy enough to place L-1 and hammer votes as town and plenty that are savvy enough as scum to understand the wagon for what it is - it wasn't really going to catch anyone out. If anything, the chance of false-positives (whatever they are) seem just as likely - it would have been akin to ending the day with little to no information.

I have a gut town read on redFF. His posts lack caution and seem simple in a way that looks like he isn't trying to fabricate. As town, I think he is very likely to bandwagon umoms even if for no other reason than a laugh - as scum, I think he could do the same, but there are many more scenarios where I don't think he would. Like if he had zero reason or idea of what to claim as a reason, if he already had buddies on the quicklynch, or he may have even just decided to have avoided it in general. There are simply more possibilities of him doing this as town than scum. I think newish, minimal players like redFF tend to comply with this blueprint. Absolutely reckless as town, slightly more sensible as scum.

There is no way iamausername fakeclaims Cop as scum in this game. He essentially is forced to play the "I've been roleblocked every night" game, and even then, I doubt it would work. Slight meta tell, but I don't think he'd flake after committing to a gambit so monumental. It's also obvious he's town by the way he's scumhunted this game too. Bodyguard and 1-shot Vig are probably confirmed town and

maybe

the Gunsmith, although I wouldn't rule out OGML giving scum a 1-shot Gunsmith to effectively act as a weak role-cop. The fact that a Gunsmith almost certainly exists (regardless of its alignment) ought to confirm the likelihood of roles with a gun being true (Vig, Cop, Bodyguard?) and given these are all (typically) protown roles, those three ought to be confirmed. I wouldn't rule out some setup weirdness/trickery, but those three are probably reliable.

This paints the Roleblocker as slightly suspicious, but it would also be weird to claim it outright as scum, given a much more valuable use stems from keeping it hidden and being able to use it on town roles safely. Regardless, this ought to be one of the roles the SK should be targeting if he's to target our pool of PR's (it depends on the SK's immunities to the investigation roles), so this might be a problem that solves itself regardless of Staeg's alignment. Again, really need to see singer's role too.

Quite clearly, we should be lynching from the VT pool today - there ought to be 3-4 scum in there, which is good odds for us to hit and one of the few perks of massclaiming this early. The value of "locking scum into claims" is irrelevant if we can't wipe out the VT pool at a similar rate to scum eliminating the confirmed townies, as an endgame of 2:5 with all claimed VT's and a neighbour isn't particularly valuable. A lot depends on how the SK acts - if the SK feels comfortable in the pool of VT's, he

might

shoot there for us helping us narrow that half of the claims down quicker, but if the SK is not the towniest player in the VT's it will likely shoot our PR's removing chances of crosskills and also whittling down the confirmed/probtown side of the claims quicker.

Of the claimed VT's (me, Quilford, Tierce, nhammen, scooby, redFF, Simenon, Flameaxe, JDodge, Quag?), I'm really only comfortable lynching Quilford, nhammen, scooby, Simenon or Flameaxe.

Quilford and scooby have both bordered on active lurking at times, and both provided weak or reasonless votes and inquiries throughout their play (although I know this is how scooby always is). I'm okay with testing iam's tell on nhammen and Simenon and Flameaxe haven't been noticable enough to think of reasons for them to be town, which isn't really a point against them, but more PoE when I can think of a reason for everyone else to be town. Shameless townhunting in my post, but I've been finding that's a lot easier (especially on D1) these days.

[Hoopla]

I think it goes without saying that the Bodyguard protects the Cop or the Gunsmith tonight. I think both investigation roles should investigate someone from the VT pool, as since scum will be eliminating PR's, we don't want to waste our (likely) only investigations. It might be sensible to break down the VT pool into two groups for each role, so both roles don't by chance hit the same player in the event both survive. I also think the Roleblocker should target the VT pool to try and block scum.

VOTE: nhammen

Singer isn't the lynch today, but she still needs to claim.

[Hoopla]

First things first: I have no idea who scooby keeps referring to as 'Koffing'. Granted I've been mostly ignoring scooby, but inquiring minds etc.

Koffing is Quagmire.

Hoopla, why is singer's claim more important to you than the fact that Quagmire has refused to claim?

I'd like his too, but I don't really think I'd be able to get him to cooperate.

Hoopla says red is showing an attitude he wouldn't as scum; how familiar are you with red's games, Hoopla? Can you provide evidence supporting this?

I'm not overly familiar with his games. I'm familiar with this type of player though.

[Hoopla]

Someone else read AGar's ISO and tell me if you think it's scummy too.

It doesn't matter if it is - he claimed vig.

[Hoopla]

I don't understand what that has to do with anything, other than yes I do agree we shouldn't lynch him D1 and stick with a VT. 'Tis a great excuse for the gunsmith to not waste his time with him.

He claimed prior to the Gunsmith claiming, so he wasn't claiming to avoid a possible Gunsmith's gaze. I highly doubt scum is claiming vig in this setup.

[Hoopla]

So, nhammen was scum - nice work iamausername. My gut says Psyche is gambiting in an attempt to make singer claim and actually play the game instead of posting excuses.

I'll happily vote singer when he confirms 100% he is being truthful.

[Hoopla]

I was kind of expecting an additional nightkill if there is an SK in the game (which I think is likely) - so Staeg's block on scooby makes him an early candidate.

[Hoopla]

It's pretty fucking weird to have a faction-specific immune town neighbor; seems like less of a stretch to have a serial killer neighbor. I feel the lack of a second kill is explainable by (if there is an SK) the SK targeting either Primate or Primate's target (I'd assume that Primate's target was Psyche; if so, then we can assume that the serial killer doesn't have immunity to standard investigations) moreso than it is by Stag blocking whoeverthefuck it was he blocked.

It's a claim so weird you need to ask why would he fakeclaim that as scum or SK - it'd almost be a creative lie for the sake of lying, when something simpler would also suffice and stand out less.

Would the Bodyguard absorb two shots, though? There's no way the SK targets Primate directly. One of the following must be true:

1) The SK and mafia targeted the Cop AND the Bodyguard absorbs two shots.
2) The SK was roleblocked by Staeg.
3) The SK no-killed.
4) There is no SK.

I think 2 is the likeliest given it's probable the SK is in the vanilla pool anyway, so it's not unrealistic to think Staeg fluked a block. Even if scooby isn't the SK, he could be mafia and should be lynched some point soon, so there isn't really much hinging on getting this equation solved one way or another.

[Hoopla]

Good point. I should have thought of that.

More incentive to lynch scooby.

[Hoopla]

there is a problem with lynching scooby

I am town

that is

sorry bro, u dying soon

[Hoopla]

Lol.

[Hoopla]

I'm still content with lynching scooby, but will also consider Simenon. Even though the value of scooby being an SK seems diminished, the chance of him being mafia still remains, and given he has been largely useless and is in the non-confirmed VT pool, he's a fine candidate. If scooby is an SK, it might have been a good play to not kill, given he was coming under pressure from that angle - that's a little tinfoil though, so I'm not going to give too much credibility to it.

Bella -

Innocent Child

Staeg -- ROLEBLOCKER (RB'd scooby N1, Tierce N2)
AGar -- 1-SHOT VIGILANTE (Used. Shot Quilford)
bv310 -- 1-SHOT GUNSMITH (Used. Tierce is NOT carrying a gun)
Rhinox -- BULLETPROOF TO MAFIA, NEIGHBOR WITH GLORK
Glork -- VANILLA TOWNIE, NEIGHBOR WITH RHINOX
Tierce -- VANILLA TOWNIE
Hoopla -- VANILLA TOWNIE
scooby -- VANILLA TOWNIE
redFF -- VANILLA TOWNIE
Simenon -- VANILLA TOWNIE
Flameaxe -- VANILLA TOWNIE
JDodge -- VANILLA TOWNIE
Quagmire - ???

~~

The only active power left in the game is the Roleblocker, so it could get to the point where if Staeg is town, an anti-town faction will kill him for us, meaning we don't waste a lynch on him. At the very least, we should at least wait another couple of days to decide what to do with him if he hasn't been NK'ed yet. There is still at least one more scum in the VT's, so we should still be lynching from there until we find more scum. Scum will likely be targeting the PR section at night, narrowing it down for us without us using any lynches there.

The single kill last night has opened up the possibility of this not being a 4:1:14 setup:

4:15 - If there isn't an SK, this is the likeliest setup, with probably one PR being scum.
5:14 - Less likely, but possible if none of the PR's are scum.

~~

It's to make hard to any acute declarations when we're still missing Quagmire's role from the list. So,

I'll request Quagmire to claim now

. He had a good run with town letting him do what he wants, but I'd hope he cooperates.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: scooby

[Hoopla]

I'm going to go ahead with a bold assertion and say that Quag shouldn't claim unless his claim will have an incredibly obvious immediate benefit to the town; I believe securely in his towniness and feel that bit of uncertainty that we can have over the scum is quite nice at this point.

You know he's done absolutely nothing since he read his role PM? All his helpful stuff came early in the game. If anything, his reluctance/apathy around deadline when we had two scum wagons running is suspect.

There is value in him not claiming, but it's at the expense of setup speculation, and given the town decided to massclaim, it makes little sense not being able to make deductions with full information. Since we're only going to be lynching VT's the next couple of days, him waiting isn't a horrible idea - it makes setup spec harder, but whatever conclusions we come to, we probably shouldn't be lynching a PR anyway, so whatever, I guess.

As long as he claims before I die.

[Hoopla]

Interesting.

[Hoopla]

The first New Age Mafia had two Trackers and two Grave Diggers, so two 1-Shot Gunsmiths isn't incriminating. I could see one potentially being scum, though.

[Hoopla]

Scum reads on AGar, Rhinox... and Glork's given me a bad gut all game long.

AGar is a confirmed killer - how can you classify him as mafia?

There's no way Glork proposes massclaim as scum here. I think it's obvious he did it because he believed town could get an edge from it, rather than trying to secure town credit from the ploy. If he were to do it as scum, he'd probably have to warn his buddies pregame and plan for it - because you really risk trapping your buddies if they react badly or claim poorly (like singer did). So, if they did plan for it pregame, why would singer fuck up so badly D1?

[Hoopla]

If there were two scumteams, we would have got family names with the flips like in OGML's Mafia 95. The only way there are two scumteams is if there are werewolves - but that doesn't make sense given this is a sequel to a game with zero reference to werewolves, and the fact we haven't witnessed any additional kills this game.

[Hoopla]

Oh and

unvote vote tierce

because despite the gunsmith result and the fact that this is probably a pretty unpopular vote, her D1 actions surrounding both singer and nham make it pretty obvious to me she's scum.

But she's very likely to only be scum if bv310 is a scum Gunsmith. So, wouldn't it instead make more sense to vote bv, since bv could be scum independent of Tierce's alignment?

I think the existence of a scum Gunsmith is plausible, and if one is, it's probably bv310, given Quagmire has less incentive as scum to truly claim his role after seeing someone else claim it (not to mention needing to clear another townie). If both Gunsmiths are town, scum

could

have some kind of catch-all investigation immunity GF to Cops and Gunsmiths - but it isn't really the sort of thing we should be seriously considering on D2. We have many more obvious targets to get through first before we start exploring low-percentage territory.

[Hoopla]

In looking at the differences in power roles between New Age I and what we have claimed here, I'd be very surprised to see a godfather + scum power role...if anything, I think we'd see a repeat of 3 goons + GF (likely) or 3 goons + 1 power role (unlikely, unless that power role is powerful...for example, Staeg). The former is especially likely if the GF is gunsmith-immune and investigation-immune, given the information roles that are in this game.

New Age I had much less power than claimed this game. In other OGML games, he's shown he has a knack for creative design, with no real pattern in the amount of scum power he's given. In Mafia 95, he ran a game with asymmetrical scumteams, one with two players (with Encrytor/Double Immunity GF) and one with three players (with a Commuter). If it turns out there is no SK this game, that's enough indication to show he's not afraid to deviate from New Age I's structure, which means we shouldn't necessarily expect a repeat of scum power.

[Hoopla]

I hadn't really considered bv310 scum, I was more thinking about it being a false negative, and I think there are enough possible reasons other than investigation immunity that makes it not really that much of a low percentage play.

Like what?

[Hoopla]

bv got a result on Tierce - so that rules out everything you mentioned there except unrecruited Traitor. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are dabbling with low-percentage theories. For Tierce to be scum, one of the following must be true:

1) bv310 is scum and claimed a "no-gun" result on his buddy
2) Tierce is a GF immune to Gunsmiths
3) Tierce is an unrecruitable Traitor

~~

1) I doubt this to be true, since it's dependent on two variables being true instead of one, and also means, this is likely the last two scum, which is just really unlikely and means every other possible two player combination is false. Come on. It's also a lower risk play to go the wifom angle and claim an inno on a townie and set them up as your buddy if you ever flip scum.
2) There might be a GF immune to Gunsmiths (I put it at maybe a 25-50% chance), but it still needs to land on (of all people) Tierce. Very unlikely.
3) This is an extremely left-field role and barely worth considering, when the other alternate explanation is...

...she's town and you just happen to be wrong.

[Hoopla]

Can we just get on with lynching scooby? He's gotta die at some point, so we might as well do it now. I don't see the point in fluffing around and trying to secure the optimal lynch each day, when we should have a clear set of lynch candidates that we need to cycle through before lylo.

[Hoopla]

This is a shamelessly contentless post - still waiting for scooby to die.

[Hoopla]

I really only see (at most) one of the PR's being scum - either one of the Gunsmiths or maybe Rhinox (my gut says he's town, but he probably needs to die at some point). So, it makes more sense to lynch from the VT pool.

4:15 - 1/2 scum in the VT's and 0/1 in the PR's.
4:1:14 - probably the same as above, with the SK likely in the VT pool too.
5:14 - 2/3 scum in the VT's and 0/1 in the PR's. A fifth scum would probably require the majority, if not all the claimed power to be town on balance, I would think.

~~

Simenon and Flameaxe are the next players I'd be lynching with my say.

[Hoopla]

Well, I'm willing to switch to Rhinox if only to get on with the game, so I can get back to lynching the VT's tomorrow. Be quick Michel.

[Hoopla]

Then you're an idiot.

Me too?

[Hoopla]

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Flameaxe

[Hoopla]

Flameaxe's reactions to his wagon forming is making me more confident about this. Lets do it.

[Hoopla]

I have a very limited vocabulary.

[Hoopla]

VOTE: scooby

[Hoopla]

Why are you quoting that particular vote count? Why not the one that includes you as the hammer vote on nhammen?

[Hoopla]

I think that particular votecount shows precisely they way scum distributed when they had no idea who was going to be lynched.

Seems like the logic you're using is pretty arbitrary. Why are the players off those wagons at that point in time exempt? I'll point out that during the lead up to that vote count, activity was quite low, so some players may not have had an opportunity to bus even if they wanted to before then. Key example being you:

This is the vote count you're using to make your point:

singersigner: 6 (

JDodge

,

nhammen

,

Staeg

, Flameaxe, Simenon,

bv310

)
nhammen: 6 (

Primate

,

iamausername

, Rhinox,

redFF

,

singersigner

,

Quilford

)

Which was post 472, yet your last sign of meaningful activity was post 385, when the leading wagons were this:

singersigner:

4 (

Quilford

, JDodge,

nhammen

,

Staeg

)
Rhinox: 3 (umoms, Tierce, redFF)
Glork: 3 (Rhinox, scooby, Quagmire)
umoms: 3 (AGar, Rhinox, Glork)
redFF: 2 (

Flameaxe, iamausername

)

nhammen

: 2 (

Primate

,

singersigner

)

My point being, some may not have had an opportunity to bus at the earliest sensible time even if they wanted to (ie; you) - the above isn't a drastic scenario for scum that requires heavy bussing. Why should you be getting credit for not being on a double scum wagon, when you weren't even around for its development? And why should it make others more likely to be scum on it at that particular time (at 6-6)?

[Hoopla]

I never asked for credit for not being on the wagons.

Both wagons tied at 6 means scum had no idea who was about to be lynched, so I'm expecting a 2-2 distribution, simply following "scum don't put all eggs on one basket" theory.

You're indirectly giving yourself credit for being in a contrary position to those you accuse. If we're to expect a scumteam of four (which is most likely), you're suggesting that all the scum were on either nhammen or singer at this stage;

singersigner: 6 (

JDodge

,

nhammen

,

Staeg

, Flameaxe, Simenon,

bv310

)
nhammen: 6 (

Primate

,

iamausername

, Rhinox,

redFF

,

singersigner

,

Quilford

)

When realistically, it was the fourth, fifth and maybe sixth votes on each wagon that locked those players in as realistic candidates. If anything, the players providing those tilt votes deserve minor credit for essentially locking it into a nhammen vs. singer race.

I'm planning to do a bit of wagon analysis today, but I'm not really seeing anything you're seeing at the moment. A third scum could have been on those two wagons there, but I think its likelier that scum bundled on after it became obvious it was only going to be singer or nhammen, and I don't think it was set in stone when players like Rhinox, RedFF (and to a less extent Simenon) jumped on.

[Hoopla]

He's my next choice.

[Hoopla]

No, I don't think I want to vote Rhinox. I want to vote whoever pushed that god awful Flameaxe wagon yesterday. Because holy shit that looks so bad it's not even funny.

It wasn't that bad - he needed to die at some point.

[Hoopla]

Apologies - have been busy too. I'm around and will be making effort soon.

[Hoopla]

I think I like Michel's recent post - makes me feel a little bit better about that slot, although it will never really escape scrutiny given how PoE driven this game is going to be. From my perspective, him suspecting an extremely narrow window of players is a protown sign given his position at this point is chiefly etched in eking out as many mislynches as possible before he dies (if he's scum). Having said that, refining his list to so few makes it easier to attack one or two players with fervor, which could be a more efficient method of surviving a couple more days. On a gut level, a lot of his conclusions seem sincere and I get where he's coming from.

Still not jiving with scooby's attempted VC analysis because it comes to weird conclusions without much thought put into it. Doesn't make him scum though - I think he'd serve up that sort of tripe as town too, and I keep forgetting about him being roleblocked, which I should really be factoring in.

I've kind of written off redFF as town earlier in the game, and I can't really remember why. It's probably about time I reread him without the confirmation bias.

I honestly don't really know who I want to lynch today, but it should probably be in the VT's still. I'd be happy powering through one or two more quicklynches from the VT pool, but that's just me. Even the players who were driving this game through inactivity seem uninterested (including me), so lets just get our hands dirty and do this.

[Hoopla]

I tend to get really disinterested really quickly in any game that becomes "scum must be in this pool, lynch all of these until we win"

I suspect I am not alone here

Blame Glork for strong-arming the town into a massclaim D1 then.

[Hoopla]

You wanna lynch it then?

[Hoopla]

Your vote hinges on Quagmire being scum, ergo he is the slightly more sensible vote if you've resigned yourself to gambling on conspiracy theories.

[Hoopla]

@Hoopla: do you still believe a Scooby wagon is the way to go today? There are two significant bandwagons at the moment, and Scooby's not one of them.

I'd rather lynch you over redFF, I guess.

UNVOTE:
VOTE: Michel

[Hoopla]

Noone has correctly explained why exposing the entire town's power role structure has benefitted the town. As I said, Psyche's result on singer was a pretty lucky flip, otherwise we'd be in over our heads. How is it possible you're still defending the idea?

I think it was a poor idea overall, but we've netted some good results for that. Glork couldn't have predicted nhammen's slip, given nhammen was never even conscious of it to begin with, so he definitely gets no credit for that. But if scum-Glork was going to go down the route of proposing a massclaim to strangle the town power early, he needed to be 1) confident in buddies' abilities to survive a decent amount of the game, 2) have his buddies claim succinctly and without suspicion (something singer completely botched) and 3) be reasonably sure the structure of the towns' power can't make serious inroads to scum by being able to coordinate.

Given the complete ineptitude of singer's claim, I find it hard to believe a Glork plan was behind it all, when he would absolutely have warned his teammates pregame about employing such a play - and if he did, singer wouldn't have failed so hard. Occam's Razor again, but the convoluted nature and amount of variables that need to be correct for Glork to be scum isn't worth considering, when the simplest answer is, he's town and thought it would be a good idea.

We even have early evidence of that being the case, with these sort of posts:

I'm being 100% serious. It should have worked in both Almost Normal and Closed Normal in Team Mafia, had the town done it right. I think people are terrified of massclaims, but it's such a struggle for scums to fake something D1 and maintain it throughout the game. They basically can't claim any information role other than regular-cop, which seems to have fallen out of favor in today's meta. They can claim Doctor, but if there's any SK, multiball, a real doctor, etc., they're walking corpses. There are very few fakeclaims scums can come up with D1. I want it to happen.

There's your town motivation for Glork to want to employ a massclaim. Not to mention this sounding pretty sincere in general. I think he believed it was the right play, or at least one worth taking a chance on.

~~

The one-shot vig + 19p with only a roleblocker that can prevent kills does bother me.

This is also an interesting point - not sure what to make of it. A SK laying low is a seductive answer, but I wouldn't put it past being a Normal Review Group oversight - some don't think about the consequence of kills in a game this large, as there's so many variables to predict anyway, you tend to just view the setup by weight of power alone, rather than their interactions. This observation didn't register with me, and I've reviewed dozens of setups, so I don't find it unlikely the reviewers just missed it, or didn't deem it an overly important factor.

[Hoopla]

I think Michel has been hammered, so we'll have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

[Hoopla]

The risk of putting the town in even numbers for the entirety of the game is a valid point of discussion if the reviewers were considering balance in any serious way.