Micro 825: Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires VIII GAME OVER

[Aristophanes]

Could you please quote or link the place where it says preventing the Forest kills them?

I can quote you the place where it says preventing the Forest gets the smartass YOU blacklisted.

That doesn't explicitly denote that preventing the Forest gets them killed.

Anyway, can you add another mechanic that prevents scum from figuring out who the Forest is so easily? Otherwise, scum will win this kind of game every single time, and that's not fun either.....

Town has one once!

It's mostly good chance for them to win. In both this and the last game we may have had a chance had the scum not made a good early target.

What kind of mechanic are you thinking of?

[NicoRobin]

Something that allows town to mislead scum mechanically?

[Aristophanes]

Something that allows town to mislead scum mechanically?

Being a fully informed town though, doesn't that negate the need for a mechanical deception? It becomes a game of bluffs and outguessing what we say and who we scumread/townread/shoot. If you make mechanical deception it takes away from the play options I think. I don't even know what one would do to make such a mechanic anyway. Like it's essentially nightless so what day mechanic would help here?

[NicoRobin]

So you prefer losing to scum 9/10 times, is that it? Well, nice to know, but I don't.

[singletonking]

I think the preventing mechanic is supposed to be a killing mechanic, so it's supposed to kill the forest, i.e. YOU shouldn't prevent the forest.

Nico what do you expect to happen when a YOU prevents the forest? If it's something other than dying or Smokey effect it gives the forest away to scum anyway.

[Dunnstral]

Whoops I got caught

[NicoRobin]

I think the preventing mechanic is supposed to be a killing mechanic, so it's supposed to kill the forest, i.e. YOU shouldn't prevent the forest.

Nico what do you expect to happen when a YOU prevents the forest? If it's something other than dying or Smokey effect it gives the forest away to scum anyway.

Okay, if you have any other idea how to prevent scum from winning 9/10 times, please do share. Cos this setup has a ridiculously high winrate for scum as it is. I am trying to do something to reduce the likelihood of scum wins......

[singletonking]

Best strategy is probably some YOU just yolos it and randomly shoots people. Any discussion helps scum more then town imo.

[singletonking]

Decent possibility that scum just RNG shot Dunn this game for being at the top of the playerlist after Sonia.

[Aristophanes]

Decent possibility that scum just RNG shot Dunn this game for being at the top of the playerlist after Sonia.

Seems to be a typical strategy indeed

[implosion]

I think the preventing mechanic is supposed to be a killing mechanic, so it's supposed to kill the forest, i.e. YOU shouldn't prevent the forest.

Nico what do you expect to happen when a YOU prevents the forest? If it's something other than dying or Smokey effect it gives the forest away to scum anyway.

Okay, if you have any other idea how to prevent scum from winning 9/10 times, please do share. Cos this setup has a ridiculously high winrate for scum as it is. I am trying to do something to reduce the likelihood of scum wins......

Yeah I don't understand why YOU preventing the forest makes sense; either it kills the forest, it kills the YOU, or it has some other effect in which case the forest is now confirmed publicly.

The setup being really scumsided isn't a horrible thing; the setup itself a neat novelty, kind of like the fortnight.

[Pine]

Decent possibility that scum just RNG shot Dunn this game for being at the top of the playerlist after Sonia.

I personally felt most threatened by Dunn.

[Pine]

That said, having Dunn on the top of the list was 100% meta, and had nothing to do with his play. I feel cheated out of an earned win.

[Aristophanes]

That said, having Dunn on the top of the list was 100% meta, and had nothing to do with his play. I feel cheated out of an earned win.

You earned the win in my heart bby <3

[Dunnstral]

Wait, so you guys killed me because I was at the top of the list?

[singletonking]

That said, having Dunn on the top of the list was 100% meta, and had nothing to do with his play. I feel cheated out of an earned win.

You earned the win in my heart bby <3

Thinking about it this setup is really scumsided because town need to find and kill the two scum while scum need to find only the forest to win, and still get a vengekill to boot.

Easy way to fix the setup is to replace Smokey with a second forest, and require the Pyros to burn both forests to win.

[Dunnstral]

Maybe smokey should claim day 1 and lead things? Like tell person a to prevent person b

[Pine]

Wait, so you guys killed me because I was at the top of the list?

No. You were at the top of the *kill* list because I felt you were a threat. Also being atop the player list was a coincidence.

Take it as a compliment I guess?

[Pine]

Smokey should claim immediately to prevent exactly what happened from happening. They’re kind of a pseudo-IC at that point because fakeclaiming Smokey would be hilariously dangerous.

[implosion]

No, Smokey most likely shouldn't claim. If the setup is scumsided, then the town should be risk-loving; Smokey introduces additional randomness. This could be panned out really easily with some mathematical analysis that I'm too lazy to do. Easier would probably be a monte carlo simulation.

[implosion]

Spoiler: Math that I actually did ugh why did i do this

D1:
1/8 prevent Smokey
2/8 prevent Pyro
5/8 prevent You


D1 prevent Smokey, N1 Smokey is known and 4 You are alive:
1/5 scum win
4/5 D2
D2, 3 You + 1 outed Smokey + 2 Pyro + 1 Forest alive:
2/4 prevent Pyro, N2
2/4 prevent You (Pyro win, as they guaranteedly have enough ignitions to find Forest)
N2, 1 outed You + 1 outed Smokey + 2 You + 1 Pyro + 1 Forest:
1/3 scum win
2/3 D3
D3, 1 outed You + 1 outed Smokey + 1 You + 1 Pyro + 1 Forest
1/2 for You to prevent Pyro, 1/2 for Pyro to ignite You, so 1/4 town win.

Multiplying all that together, if Smokey is prevented on day one, it's a 1/15 town win and a 14/15 scum win with random play.


Let's compare the case where Smokey claims d1, and assume that a you prevents another you, which is the new worst case.

Then we go into N1 with 1 outed Smokey + 1 outed You + 3 You + 2 Pyro + 1 Forest
3/4 for town to make it through N1
D2 has 1 outed You, 2 other You, and 2 Pyro. If outed You prevents a You then it's over, so 1/2 for town to make it through, in which case:
N2 has 1 outed You, 2 other You, 1 Pyro, 1 Forest. Smokey is basically a nonfactor the entire game. 2/3 for town to make it through the night.
Then the same 1/4 chance for town to win on the last day (prevent Pyro, pyro must ignite the unclaimed You).

Total town win rate in this case is now 1/16 if my quick multiplication is right.

Tl;dr: I very probably fucked something up in all this but the town winrate if a You prevents a You after Smokey claims is *lower* than the town winrate if a You prevents Smokey. Very nominally lower (1/16 vs 1/15) but lower. This is because the pool for Pyro to find Forest becomes very significantly smaller.

[Pine]

Sure, but the trade off is having an organized and hopefully effective Town

This is why I don’t trust math in games like this; it assumes random choices when they aren’t necessarily random

[implosion]

They aren't random, but organization has strong potential to be detrimental in a game where town is actually the informed majority and scum is the uninformed minority. Say, if a You gives reasoning for why they've chosen to prevent a specific person between three potential targets (one of which is a Pyro, one of which is an unclaimed You, and one of which is the Forest) then if they're right, the pyro can scumhunt within that reasoning to find the Forest.

And the town doesn't need Smokey as a leader; it gets a leader for free in the form of whatever You or Yous (ideally singular) choose to prevent.

[singletonking]

I think the best strategy is for a YOU to just yolo it and shoot randomly.

Which is what I would've done if I rolled YOU this game. But I got Smokey, and instead planned to lurk.

[DrDolittle]

I really like the 2 forest idea. Even if scum is absolutely awful they get 3 hits out of 7 people, ignoring that they know the YOU that was shot is not forest. This is extremely likely. But 2 forests requires scum to get a mis-shoot before going into positive EV category. If small balances are needed, mod can implement that the Pyro list skips over confirmed non-forests if Pyro desires (so the night is still instantaneous).