Micro 1075: The Coalition of Imaginary Creatures (Game over)

[northsidegal]

wow, i must be psychic, i checked mafiascum right as the thread started

HEAL: northsidegal
VOTE: keychain

[northsidegal]

hold on, i need to harness this psychic energy while it's still in my body



yes... yes, i see it....

the scumteam is keychain and delta

[northsidegal]

sorry to ruin the game immediately guys, i can't control my abilities. we can play it out pretending like it isn't solved though anyways

[northsidegal]

Also yes fun intro, but either you're

way

quicker at finding images than me, or I assume this opening was planned out considerably ahead of gamestart

well that would mean that i was lying about the psychic coincidence of checking mafiascum right as the game started, no?

is that what you think?

[northsidegal]

Some dead person's razorblades suggest that you were just the last person to confirm and not actually psychic, liesidegal.

his razorblade would be incorrect, then – i'm certain i was one of the first to confirm, not at all any time close to the thread opening.

You can plan out a post and also be psychically checking ms as the game starts, I don't see how the two are related? My comment was more sparked by Umlaut saying he(?) liked the intro and adding you to his coalition, since I personally wouldn't get much tell from a pre prepared post. Also semi interested to see if you'd admit you prepared it.

perhaps my third eye is just closed, but to me i would say planning out in advance a post about what an amazing coincidence it is that you checked mafiascum just as the thread opened opened would be redundant / probably dishonest. it's not really clear to me what explanation there would be otherwise – i wouldn't consider repeatedly refreshing the page or anything to really be a "coincidence" or "psychic".

to actually answer your question, no, i didn't prepare anything. i just googled "crystal ball"

[northsidegal]

For instance, I don't trust meta reads at all - over the years I'm confident that I can play with and against my 'meta', so I'm inherently distrustful of meta reads and doubly distrustful when players are self-referential in meta.

ahh, nostalgia

[northsidegal]

{nsg}
{umlaut}
{dunnstral, delta}
{keychain, bingle}

[northsidegal]

I can't read Northside's #25. I'm finding this bit about psychic whatevers a bit odd.

open your third eye and all will become clear

[northsidegal]

UNVOTE: Dunnstral
VOTE: Northsidegal

It's all a bit deliberately unhelpful, and in #39 it's not clear which way round the reads go.
I'd encourage people to remove Northside from their coalition vote, even if they disagree with the limvote.

do you think that i'm scumreading myself most out of anyone

[northsidegal]

i can understand the confusion if you've never seen the format before, but did you actually even look at who was in the list? or did you just not notice that i put my name at the top

also, curious – what about putting myself at the top "goes along with the bit [i've] been doing"?

[northsidegal]

Also I googled 'Crystal ball' and that image didn't come up. That itself is NAI but I get the sense it was a prepared post and that kinda does give me bad vibes.

also, once again – it seems odd to think that i prepared a post, proceeded to lie about a coincidence and then proceeded to lie about not preparing that post and conclude that all of that is "NAI". does that sound like a behavior which is equally as likely to come from town as it is scum to you?

[northsidegal]

It was super abbreviated and shortened, and also didn't include everyone in the game.

I also don't follow why you have Keychain and Bingle at the bottom (Scummy end) of your list, when you've not really passed any comment on them.

The fact that Crystal Ball didn't come up is NAI. The fact that I think it was a prepared post gives me bad vibes and feeds into why my vote is on you.

all fair points. it's true that i'm not being as explanatory as i could be. i tend to like to just observe things for a while, because i think that it lets me form better reads.

{nsg}
{umlaut, dunnstral, delta}
{patchwork}
{bingle}
{keychain}

[northsidegal]

it was a prepared post

Why would it being a prepared post suggest a specific alignment? If anything, the point of a prepared post would be to make the post AI neutral regardless and it would defeat the point to change it based on the role you actually drew.

this is a really bad post

[northsidegal]

no offense

i feel as though i'm unintentionally bringing a lot of negative energy here despite being excited for my first game in a while with a lot of people i'm familiar with. so, just to say it explicitly, i'm excited to be here with all you guys

(also, for the record – there is no "bit" that i'm doing)

[northsidegal]

it was a prepared post

Why would it being a prepared post suggest a specific alignment? If anything, the point of a prepared post would be to make the post AI neutral regardless and it would defeat the point to change it based on the role you actually drew.

this is a really bad post

It is, actually. What do you think of Delta's reply to it?

structurally it feels similar to something that i would say. explains what he was trying to say, and recognizes that one individual point he's making isn't necessarily very strong but is part of a larger pattern of behavior. overall i think it's slightly town indicative

[northsidegal]

delta.... that's not what i'm saying?? im not sure how you're taking it that way. i feel like your vote on nsg feels like a stretch, and it's based on "not contributing" when they have in fact been taking part in discussion and

the stupid psychic thing

, when it's pretty normal to make jokes earlygame.

rude

my psychic abilities are decidedly not stupid

[northsidegal]

not including yourself?

[northsidegal]

{nsg}
{dunnstral, delta}
{patchwork, umlaut, N_M}
{kame, bingle}
{keychain}

[northsidegal]

Roughly where I'm at:

Town
Bingle
Deltabreedy
Dunnstral
KawaiiKame
northsidegal
Umlaut
patchwork
Keychain
Scum


Clodpoles:
Not_Mafia

elaborate on the kame read? or maybe i'm just misreading the placement as meaningful relative to where i am

also, at this stage, i'm pretty sure that i will never be okay with a coalition passing that includes keychain.

[northsidegal]

on reflection, i actually have significantly less actually good townreads than i thought i did, which is concerning. delta is about the only confident one – dunn was an early one, but i think that there's good cause to re-evaluate that one given that i feel he hasn't actually really come into the game fully so far. his suspicion on keychain aligns with my own thoughts, but i'm not a huge fan of the comments regarding kame. entering the game and immediately forming a full coalition which does not include yourself is an objectively strange thing to do. now, i would be the first person in the world to repeat over and over that seemingly outrageous things like that aren't the best metric for determining who scum is, but at the very least it warrants questioning, and i feel as though dunn takes more of a flippant attitude towards it than is reasonable.

[northsidegal]

for me personally it always puts me in an uncomfortable position when i'm playing with players for whom i have no expectations of their ability to play scum (i.e. alts or newer players).

i also find it helpful to think about this game in terms of whom to exclude, rather than to include. to repeat myself, outrageous things don't immediately make someone scum, but i do genuinely think that kame's behavior so far gives a decent argument for exclusion. in 108, kame claims to have read the entire game up to that point, come to townread the people they healed, and already have decided that they're not going to get in the coalition that eventually passes. bluntly, even if this is true, i find it strange that kame would have done all that and not actually commented on anything while reading through

[northsidegal]

i think right now my exclusion pool looks like {kame, dunn, keychain, umlaut}

bingle, i need you to elaborate on your dunn read. he occupies a conspicuously high slot on your readslist there given the things you've said about him, i feel

[northsidegal]

i think right now my exclusion pool looks like {kame, dunn, keychain, umlaut}

interestingly, this exclusion pool exactly follows the heuristic that scum tend to be found in the lower half of posting frequency.

the direction of causality that you think that follows depends on your faith in my abilities as a scumhunter.

[northsidegal]

(it perfectly follows the heuristic except for NM, who as always remains an exception to every rule)

[northsidegal]

Dunn has posted things that are vaguely town, but not so much so that I want him on the coalition.

sorry, i guess i missed / forgot you already said this. i think given the relative ordering of your list i assumed the read was stronger than it actually is. even still, if you feel like elaborating on what exactly you think was "vaguely town" that would be appreciated

[northsidegal]

I think you have absolutely no ability to read me, as evidenced by you coming to scumread me in literally every game I can ever remember playing with you,

this made me laugh a lot

anyways i acknowledge all of that, you're right in that i do (and already have) listen to what you have to say, and i'm certain that in time you will realize that i'm town.

[northsidegal]

(for the record though, i'm leaning town on you)

[northsidegal]

i've given it some thought, although i wouldn't say that i have anything non-trivial yet

[northsidegal]

@umlaut, what is your read on kame?

[northsidegal]

delta, i know that you don't appreciate being called "newbtown", but if you'll allow me to explain something that i think i've noticed you're doing that i think is a mistake newer players tend to make (and apologies if i come across as condescending in doing so), i feel as though you've been assuming in this game that anyone who is being unhelpful or otherwise unexplanatory is scum. on the whole, i'm of the opinion that this is a fairly bad heuristic for determining scum. even if we look back at the start of this game, your scumread on me seems to stem from me basically just making a joke to you instead of re-explaining what one of my posts meant.

if i were scum this game, having already recognized all of this, instead of explaining it to you right now i would just try to be as maximally helpful and explanatory as possible to you to try to pocket you. i think the same could be said for most experienced players. scum

want

people to like them and townread them, so actually i would consider it more common for them to try to make maximally helpful posts (like keychain), as well as specifically always making a point to try to make sure that their fake reads (and especially fake read changes) come across as having a consistent reason. you'll find that "anti-town" play probably comes far far more often from town than it does scum.

this isn't to imply that anyone who is unhelpful or doesn't explain their reads is inherently town (especially NM, who as i said earlier defies a lot of rules), just wanted to point out something i noticed.

[northsidegal]

i didn't really make that post with the intention of getting you to stop scumreading me, i made it with the intention of pointing out what—in my estimation—seems to be a false belief that you hold and use to make reads off of.

[northsidegal]

Though I understand you didn't actually use the heuristic, being put in the "more inactive" half of the game because I try to condense my thoughts instead of bloating pages with one thought per post rankles a bit

ha, i've felt the exact same way before

why do you specifically want bingle excluded?

did you just spontaneously remember or were you prodded?

Also I passed my first aid course!

I remembered

to angleshoot this a little bit, assuming that NM is telling the truth about just randomly remembering, i imagine that if he had posted in the mafia PT before the game started he probably would have realized the game had started earlier. something to think about. (hopefully site rules haven't been updated to the point where i can't say this)

also, congrats on passing keychain!

[northsidegal]

Is that the main source of your scumread on me north?

the main source of my scumread on you at this point is that this is the first time that you've even acknowledged that i have been scumreading you, even though i've brought it up in some way about every third post of mine.

[northsidegal]

{nsg}
{delta}
{bingle}
{patchwork, NM}
{dunnstral}
{kame, keychain, umlaut}

[northsidegal]

why would I address it? I think you generally have good reads. If you're town I think you'll probably correct yourself over time without me needing to try and convince you. If you're scum you're scum. what else is there to say except it would be hilarious if you were town and eliminated me D1? That's what I've mostly been thinking about your read which isn't game productive

i have serious doubts that this would be your true opinion / behavior if you were town.

maybe

in another setup where there was just a d1 elimination and you assumed that i wouldn't push super hard for you to be it, sure. but in this setup particularly, if you are town, it is actually fairly important for other townies to recognize as such. i do not think that this is a fact which escapes you. i even went so far as to say that "i will never be okay with a coalition passing which includes keychain".

maybe i just have some complex, but if someone said that about me, i would at least

ask them

about it. it seems like the kind of thing that at least needs to be addressed, because i

know for a fact

that i'm town, and someone that i know being town being included in the coalition makes the game a lot easier for me. what i wouldn't do is just do nothing, expecting them to eventually change their mind. i

especially

wouldn't do that if i had a large amount of faith in their reads. if that were the case, i think that i would be even more likely to say something, because someone who should be getting something right is making a mistake.

[northsidegal]

HEAL: delta

[northsidegal]

This might be a you thing, because for me it's backwards. I find getting tangled in arguments whether I'm town with someone is a waste of my time since addressing it directly often entrenches them further in their read without improving my own - it doesn't personally help me read them. As scum I'm a lot more antsy about being scumread because I know they're right so I squirm more.

Also, you're not pushing except to not have me in the coalition.

Sure I'd like to be in it because maths, but chances of the coalition passing aren't high so I doubt the game is going to end there anyway.

But if you'd like me to explicitly defend myself so you can correct your read - the most obvious point to me that I'm posting off the cuff far more than I'd normally be comfortable with in a game with players I'm familiar with. Bingle commented on frantic energy early on, which is true, but it would be less visible as scum because I'd channel it into the scum pt. I'd post much more slowly and carefully because I'm an anxious mess as scum who hides it with carefully constructed cases.

this is, in my opinion, the complete wrong mindset to have (as town) when playing this setup. we need to be striving for absolute perfection in the coalition, and if we fail in that it gives us valuable information in that we've gone wrong somewhere before we've even had an elimination. empirically, this also ignores the actual history of the setup –

most times that town has won the coalition, they win it through passing a correct coalition

.

it's not so much that i

want

you to defend yourself as it is my expectation that you already would have at least acknowledged the matter if you were town.

[northsidegal]

[northsidegal]

Excellent vibes.

(p_edit: deem ng town mentality)

explain what this means?

[northsidegal]

to angleshoot this a little bit, assuming that NM is telling the truth about just randomly remembering, i imagine that if he had posted in the mafia PT before the game started he probably would have realized the game had started earlier. something to think about. (hopefully site rules haven't been updated to the point where i can't say this)

also, congrats on passing keychain!

Why is this? Either way he got the PM and dismissed it.

most players use their egosearch when navigating the site. NM says that he was busy when he got the

day start

PM, and then from there forgot about the game. assuming he were scum, i would imagine that he would have already have posted in the mafia PT, and thus he wouldn't have gone on to forget about the game, because i imagine that there would be some activity in the mafia PT that would catch his attention and remind him of the game. on the other hand, if he were town and didn't have any PT ego'd, there would be nothing like that to remind him of the game.

[northsidegal]

If we choose an accurate coalition, game is over. If not, limming on coalition is a 30% to hit scum (naive calculation with the assumption that P(1 on and 1 off) and P(Both on) are the same) and off coalition is a 12.5% to hit scum. If we can increase the odds that both scum are either on or off (by seperating S/T reads and collecting S/S reads) we approach a 40% lim rate on D1, which is a pretty good consolation prize.

it's not super relevant, but explain where you're getting 30% from? my naive analysis gave that eliminating from within the coalition (while being reads agnostic, i.e. assuming that everyone in the coalition is a genuine scum candidate) is optimal unless you're about 62% sure that there's only one scum in, and if you're 50/50 on it then you have a 20% chance to hit scum. saying that, i think that maybe i'll rethink about it given the fact that i know that i'm town and also taking into consideration people overwhelmingly considered consensus townreads (although just saying that it seems to also favor eliminating within the coalition).

[northsidegal]

This sort of seems like you're assuming Keychain sees the game the same way you do. I tend to agree with her that directly arguing I'm town is typically a waste of time.

it's not about "directly arguing I'm town", which i don't expect. it's mainly about the persistent avoidance, which i have seen scum do before

[northsidegal]

This sort of seems like you're assuming Keychain sees the game the same way you do. I tend to agree with her that directly arguing I'm town is typically a waste of time.

it's not about "directly arguing I'm town", which i don't expect. it's mainly about the persistent avoidance, which i have seen scum do before

Ok I'll keep biting because I'm legitimately curious about this now

even though

I still don't believe it's game productive because I doubt this conversation will change your mind. "persistent avoidance" is such a strong term for continuing to do my own scumhunting because

I was sure you'd realise your mistake without my help once you got a bigger sample size of my behaviour in this game

. I seriously can't think of why I'd want to engage with you over it and what it would have brought me. asking about your read of me is meaningless because I know it's wrong! It's not like I'm going to change my behaviour because of your read because I'm doing my best already and I don't expect to be able to convince you, so why would I care?

like don't we just end up in this same sort of conversation where you're insistent I'm scum (for whatever the original reason was) and there's nothing I can do about it? what

was

the original reason for putting me at the bottom then? was it just to get my attention?? how would this have played out in a more productive manner earlier in the game north please help me understand, your conception of my town behaviour is so alien to me

i find the idea that you expected me to at some point just go from "i will never be okay with a coalition that includes keychain" to townreading you to be, if not somewhat unbelievable, at least a very surprising mindset. it makes me wonder – if that

didn't

end up happening at some point, would

that

be the point at which you finally brought anything up yourself? would you just hope that a coalition passes that manages to include you anyways, and people ignore my read on you? or would you just not expect to be in the coalition? you've said already that you don't expect the coalition to pass anyways. i don't think that i could really say that this is a scummy mindset, but i find it again very surprising to come from town.

i don't think that my conception of your behavior is actually as strange as you're implying. if, as you've said, you believe that you're playing your towngame here (or otherwise in a towny manner), i don't think that it's entirely unreasonable to be at least somewhat concerned or interested in someone whose reads you've indicated you trust completely misreading you. town wins this setup by forming strong, mutual townreads.

asking about your read of me is meaningless because I know it's wrong!

i'm having a hard time finding the words to explain exactly how i disagree with this. like, if i had a cop innocent on someone who you were strongly scumreading, probably the first immediate thing i would do would be to ask you why you were scumreading that person. earlier this game, i saw that delta was making some reads seemingly based on people being unhelpful, so i said something to the effect of "hey, i think that you're making a mistake here". i don't think that what i'm saying here is fundamentally different from any of that.

[northsidegal]

Keychain

(4): Keychain, KawaiiKame, Not_Mafia, Umlaut

Umlaut

(4): Umlaut, KawaiiKame, Eiralox, Dunnstral

Dunnstral

(4): Dunnstral, Keychain, KawaiiKame, Bingle

i strongly oppose these 3 people being in the coalition and would like anyone who currently has them in their coalition to explain their reasoning

[northsidegal]

northsidegal, what shifted your read on me?

what do we think of this pop-in, my friends

surely someone else besides me has something to say about this (besides key's removal of him)

[northsidegal]

i strongly oppose these 3 people being in the coalition and would like anyone who currently has them in their coalition to explain their reasoning

Already mentioned the read on Dunn. I have also been feeling better about Umlaut recently, and wouldn't strenuously object to his inclusion. I think if he's scum it's likely to be with Dunn or you and I don't think either Dunn or you is likely scum at the moment.

Honestly kind of surprised that I'm not in the top 5, given that I feel I'm being fairly townread atm.

Is your exclusion of Kame from this list because you're feeling better about them or because they don't have the votes that you feel the need to voice your concern?

not to try to influence your partner reading too much, but i think that umlaut / kame is a real possibility. the exclusion of kame was because of the latter.

[northsidegal]

I give you permission to address me directly, northsidegal.

well, to do the same thing that i did to keychain and give a contemporary reason in response to a question about my progression, among the reasons that i would not like you in the coalition is the fact that you've been gone for (by content) half of the game now and the first and only thing that you did when popping into the thread was to ask me about why i'm no longer townreading you.

in actuality, my townread on you was only ever a "first four pages, looks good" townread. i already explained why my read on you shifted, back when it did:

on reflection, i actually have significantly less actually good townreads than i thought i did, which is concerning. delta is about the only confident one – dunn was an early one, but i think that there's good cause to re-evaluate that one given that i feel he hasn't actually really come into the game fully so far. his suspicion on keychain aligns with my own thoughts, but i'm not a huge fan of the comments regarding kame. entering the game and immediately forming a full coalition which does not include yourself is an objectively strange thing to do. now, i would be the first person in the world to repeat over and over that seemingly outrageous things like that aren't the best metric for determining who scum is, but at the very least it warrants questioning, and i feel as though dunn takes more of a flippant attitude towards it than is reasonable.

[northsidegal]

i could maybe be convinced on umlaut town

can't decide if my opinion differing on bingle is me being pocketed or me just being more aligned with his "setup spec" (rather than seeing it as scummy)

maybe this game is like 10 times simpler than anyone expects and its literally just dunn / kame

[northsidegal]

How exactly do the coalition voting mechanics work? Do we need a majority to vote a specific set of 5 players, or will the 5 players with the most coalition noms be chosen at deadline?

once a majority all has the exact same group for their coalition that one is passed.

[northsidegal]

i think im willing to compromise on keychain, maybe umlaut. might have been overthinking things.

someone bother me if i don't do a full reread of the game today, please.

[northsidegal]

HEAL: keychain
HEAL: umlaut

off the cuff think my last should be one of nm or patchwork. have not caught up on the game yet, read a tiny bit of last two pages

[northsidegal]

actually i am just fully gonna sheep keychain

HEAL: NM

i realize that like i have dedicated a considerable amoount words to saying that keychain is scum and must never be included in a coalition. to keep it kind of short because i dont have long but i still would like to explain myself, i think that i may have been overcomplicating things. enough people seemed to not only disagree but take it as almost obvious that key was town to warrant re-evaluating my read, and while i haven't had the time to actually give the game the full second read-through that i wanted to have full confidence in this, given the nature of this setup, the need to coalesce, and my own lack of analysis, i think this is the highest EV play

[northsidegal]

if my quick count is correct that puts that coalition at 4 people voting for it, myself, bingle, key, and umlaut

[northsidegal]

No worries. I came into this game knowing that me actually being in the coalition was a snowball's chance in hell. Keychain literally invited me over nostalgia about my scumgame and as I mentioned earlier nsg has literally never had a game where she townread me.

for the record so far i am townreading you by play. your exclusion is mostly just me going with consensus, with a dash of my own paranoia at your pocketing of me (self-admittedly so by you).

not sure if that's super meaningful to you or not, just figured i'd be honest

[northsidegal]

don't have a ton of time but eiralox earlier you said I didn't explain anything about my reads shifts and while it's true I haven't dedicated as many words as I'd like I still gave a someone brief explanation and I feel as though my progression isn't /super/ opaque, especially in regards to my read on Dunn falling and subsequently influencing the rest of my reads