Micro 745: Beyond Death [Endgame]

[Hopkirk]

On what I think I’d have done (differently) as scum:
General play (obviously less significant)
As scum, Idk if I’d have switched to BTD instead of a.) switching back to North and pushed them more (rather than starting to reconsider my read), or b.) taking advantage of Cheeky subbing out to not do anything for a while.
Don’t recall getting as (vocally) annoyed at something as Cheeky’s not responding as scum either, but I could still see myself getting somewhat annoyed there.
My read on North changing after tunnelling is fairly consistent with my town play. I recognise I frequently confuse new players/play I don’t like as scummy (initially). I think I tunnel harder/longer on it as scum (slightly), and would have been less likely to change my read on Cheeky in general.

Specific game points
Would have 100% targeted PZ as scum d1 since (at the time) I was sure that he was town.
On a similar note, it would be stupid of me to put UC as my top scumread and work at lynching him if I’d targeted him N1. Scum would want to avoid lynching people they’d targeted. Probably would have gone after BTD/North instead there.

I think my read progression makes sense, except maybe that i didn't state all that explicitly specifically when my scumread on Cheeky lessened, so if you've got any other questions there.

[Regfan]

Specific game points
Would have 100% targeted PZ as scum d1 since (at the time) I was sure that he was town.
On a similar note, it would be stupid of me to put UC as my top scumread and work at lynching him if I’d targeted him N1. Scum would want to avoid lynching people they’d targeted. Probably would have gone after BTD/North instead there.

Ha, was wondering if you'd bring this up and I think it being one of your go to things here is actually uh, not great.

I don't buy for a second that you'd target PZ as scum at all, I think PZ if town was Cabds most likely protect if he wasn't on himself. I was thinking a bit about this earlier and I think mafia N1 are wanting to target players that are a) Unlikely to be protected from Cabd and b) Players unlikely to be lynched any time soon.

I think players that fit that mould were almost only just UDC and yourself there since I think Micc/PZ were too risky to target there as saves and NSG/BTD/Cheeky were more likely mslynches. I don't necessary think UDC being the person that we know was targeted over yourself means you have to be mafia here at all but I think the action of a) Us knowing that UDC was targeted N1, b) You then pushing him D2 and c) Mafia making an obscure move and whispering N2 to d) You bringing this up as a reason why you're town here feels like something that makes a

lot

of sense if you're scum.

[Hopkirk]

It seems like you’re under the impression that I scumread BTD before his catch-up posts. This is completely wrong.

‘why did you vote BTD over Chip there. Like if I'm going through your ISO and looking at your stated thoughts and reads the only mention of BTD from you before your vote on him’
As I’ve said, I thought I was voting someone who subbed in, and he was functionally equivalent to someone who’d subbed in anyway. I voted purely based on his previous few posts because they struck me as odd, and because I was intending to switch back to Cheeky later (though that changed based on BTD/Cheeky’s later posts). Chip was at a similar scumread level to North at this point for me. If I’d have voted one of them, it would have been North at that point. I didn’t vote North for the same reasons I didn’t vote Chip.
Also, as I said, my vote on BTD was largely to interact with someone I hadn’t interacted with. Voting North/Chip doesn’t provide that same value.

I wasn’t questioning my Chip scumread at that point, I just had him as light scum when I had Cheeky as hard scum.

[Hopkirk]

In this setup I’d probably protect myself around 90% of the time. I don’t see why scum would be concerned about Cabd protecting people other than himself (or if I did expect it, then I’d target Cabd).
Plus your logic applies equally to Micc/PZ. You’re only assuming Cabd would protect them more than me since you’re working from the position that I’m more likely scum than them.

[Regfan]

Eh, see I can understand the "I use my votes to interact with players that I don't feel great about", it's not something I'd do with my vote as town but it's something I completely believe is something you would do. I'm just not reading the vote on BTD there at all as one of those type of votes? I can see it with lots of the others but that one feels more like a "Here's reasons why I think X is scum so I'll move to him since my scum read left" and that's where I think the disconnect is for me since I think the reasoning, your prior posts and a bunch of things should lead towards you voting Chip there.

The BTD vote for me personally looks like a "I can't keep my vote on the person that replaced out since that won't look great and I know Micc pointed this out from someone else earlier, I should move my vote, BTD looks like an easy spot" which feels scum motivated particularly if you factor in the flips.

[Regfan]

In this setup I’d probably protect myself around 90% of the time. I don’t see why scum would be concerned about Cabd protecting people other than himself (or if I did expect it, then I’d target Cabd).
Plus your logic applies equally to Micc/PZ. You’re only assuming Cabd would protect them more than me since you’re working from the position that I’m more likely scum than them.

But then you go into the "Scum think Cabd is protecting himself 90% of the time and therefore won't target him, that means Cabd can target elsewhere and be safe majority of the time" type mind games which just inevitably lead towards mafia wanting to select someone that won't be Cabds first choice if it's not himself.

And uh, I said mafia not targeting you N1 was meaningless, I don't think that makes you mafia ore more likely to be mafia at all, you're misconstruing what I've stated there. What I'm saying is that you were one of the few (maybe the only?) person that put forward UC's name as a lynch target D2, now that we know that he was primed N1 and that mafia

also

made the weird and suboptimal choice of selecting to whisper him N2 to outright reveal he was primed N1 I can see you doing that as scum to bring up this "I wouldn't push someone I selected" argument which you did bring up and was your go to when questioned.

[Regfan]

And with that, I'm likely heading to bed.

I'll let you answer those and get around to posting your thoughts on who in Micc/PZ you think is scum right now and why.

Should also give others (including my treestump buddies and noobcabd) to actually chime in on a bit of this since I also still have to get through reading PZ later.

[Hopkirk]

PZ’s early interactions with Chip could be viewed as him trying to push a partner into doing more, and deciding to bus when he realizes Chip isn’t (in 527). It’s kind of odd I suppose that he waits until the fifth time he pushes it to vote Chip. I’d say this is definitely odder than me voting BTD>Chip when PZ doesn’t lay any of the reasons he’s voting BTD (instead of say switching the third time) out. 527 not containing a vote is actually really weird, and it does sound like he could be saying ‘do this Chip, or I’ll be forced to bus’. Not sure why he switched later instead of here.
The vote in 532 comes when he doesn’t have the option not to vote (Cabd/Micc/Me have all switched, and nobody else is on BTD, so that’s not a counterwagon PZ could stay on).
He kind of coasts on the townread after that. Apart from 910, there’s nothing I really like.
In retrospect, the stuff that made me switch could have easily been something PZ was frustrated a partner was doing.

[Hopkirk]

Eh, see I can understand the "I use my votes to interact with players that I don't feel great about", it's not something I'd do with my vote as town but it's something I completely believe is something you would do. I'm just not reading the vote on BTD there at all as one of those type of votes? I can see it with lots of the others but that one feels more like a "Here's reasons why I think X is scum so I'll move to him since my scum read left" and that's where I think the disconnect is for me since I think the reasoning, your prior posts and a bunch of things should lead towards you voting Chip there.

The BTD vote for me personally looks like a "I can't keep my vote on the person that replaced out since that won't look great and I know Micc pointed this out from someone else earlier, I should move my vote, BTD looks like an easy spot" which feels scum motivated particularly if you factor in the flips.

'You're acting far too much like my suspicion was major, as opposed to a lean based on an off opening- which i find more suspicious than the opening itself since that's an odd/self-focused reaction.'

That was in my post after voting BTD. I think it's pretty clear it was a minor lean on a bad entrance.

In this setup I’d probably protect myself around 90% of the time. I don’t see why scum would be concerned about Cabd protecting people other than himself (or if I did expect it, then I’d target Cabd).
Plus your logic applies equally to Micc/PZ. You’re only assuming Cabd would protect them more than me since you’re working from the position that I’m more likely scum than them.

But then you go into the "Scum think Cabd is protecting himself 90% of the time and therefore won't target him, that means Cabd can target elsewhere and be safe majority of the time" type mind games which just inevitably lead towards mafia wanting to select someone that won't be Cabds first choice if it's not himself.

And uh, I said mafia not targeting you N1 was meaningless, I don't think that makes you mafia ore more likely to be mafia at all, you're misconstruing what I've stated there. What I'm saying is that you were one of the few (maybe the only?) person that put forward UC's name as a lynch target D2, now that we know that he was primed N1 and that mafia

also

made the weird and suboptimal choice of selecting to whisper him N2 to outright reveal he was primed N1 I can see you doing that as scum to bring up this "I wouldn't push someone I selected" argument which you did bring up and was your go to when questioned.

Obviously I can only give my thoughts on what I'd do in the scenario since I haven't thought about it. However, when I play irl we usually use a Cop/Doc (who can self protect but not target the same person twice in a row) (though there's no flips), in about 200 games there's no case that comes to mind where a doctor didn't protect either themself or one of the cop/other pr claims after there were claims. Given that, I'd say I'd have been much more likely to self protect as Cabd, or to assume he'd self protect.

You implied it made me look worse than Micc/PZ when it's equivilent, except that I pushed UC the next day. I also would have most likely kept voting UC if they hadn't died. I also hadn't brought up that argument until you asked me just now. If that was the sole reason i made a suboptimal play, then why would i wait until now? The benefit i'd get even if it went perfectly is less than I'd get from an extra mislynch on UC. Most likely scenario to me seems that either scum wanted confusion, or made a mistake of some kind (could have been a mod error possibly i guess too).

[Hopkirk]

Will come back to Micc later (some time this evening probably) since I'm having a computer issue i need to resolve (that could take a while). Leaning more PZ right now though.

[Regfan]

One more before I doze off.

Obviously I can only give my thoughts on what I'd do in the scenario since I haven't thought about it. However, when I play irl we usually use a Cop/Doc (who can self protect but not target the same person twice in a row) (though there's no flips), in about 200 games there's no case that comes to mind where a doctor didn't protect either themself or one of the cop/other pr claims after there were claims. Given that, I'd say I'd have been much more likely to self protect as Cabd, or to assume he'd self protect.

You implied it made me look worse than Micc/PZ when it's equivilent, except that I pushed UC the next day. I also would have most likely kept voting UC if they hadn't died. I also hadn't brought up that argument until you asked me just now. If that was the sole reason i made a suboptimal play, then why would i wait until now? The benefit i'd get even if it went perfectly is less than I'd get from an extra mislynch on UC. Most likely scenario to me seems that either scum wanted confusion, or made a mistake of some kind (could have been a mod error possibly i guess too).

I'm not quite sure where you're going with the first paragraph here, Cop/Doc is fairly dissimilar to this situation, in Cop/Doc mafia have to sort of deal with one of them otherwise lolgl, here they don't. PZ might be a good player and all but he's no cop which makes your "I'd target PZ N1 as mafia" kind of ???. Sure, it's plausible and likely Cabd selfprotects, that's not my argument, my argument is that scum are also likely to factor in "If he's not self-protecting who is he likely to be on" and pick someone that's not that person too which here people like UC fits, the UC selection is actually one that makes sense regardless of who scum is tbqf, I mean always the chance Micc!Scum selects you or You!Scum selects Micc or something like that but it's far less "safe".

Where I'm going is purely the "Mafia selecting UC, then priming him N2 which reveals he was selected N1" probably has some meaning towards it, I don't think it was a lolrandommistake, I'd like to think Micc as the setup creator would 100% not make that mistake and if he's making that move it's for an intentional reason, I'd also like to put both PZ and yourself in that category. Then we look at what that reason is, if it's PZ or Micc making the move is it just "Create confusion and see what they can get from it" but if it's you I can see "Push player, whisper him and then hope someone town reads me based on it" and this wasn't the first mention you had, you also had things like Post 886 before the most recent Post 975.

It's very plausible you're town here, I also don't think your argument on PZ is dreadful though I'd like to hear a bit more progression on that one since you said you thought it was Micc > PZ earlier but I'm cool to wait until you get more time and your computer resolves itself (GL!) to go into that but surely you can understand where I'm coming from here in that looking at your Chip treatment and play D1 knowing the flips and looking at your UC treatment knowing what mafia have done this game isn't a great look. So really anything you can do to convince me that either a) You're town or b) PZ or Micc is scum would be hugely appreciated.

[Papa Zito]

Oh my god this game is so weird with all the treestumps I love it. Hello Regfan thank you for subbing in to this bonkers game.

I need to reread this thing

again

I guess.

[Cabd]

For the record, I'll reveal who i targeted each night later. Probably after regfan snuggles. It wasn't 100% self.

[Micc]

1) I'd like your updated thoughts on Chip SS/Zito and Chip Hopkirk interactions throughout D1 now knowing that from your point of view one of them has to be mafia, I know you've gone into them previously in Post 896 and pointed out for the most part you didn't think they were mafia but obviously a reassessment and looking at it in light of the flips necessary. Also would like your thoughts on both SS/Zito & Hopkirks read progression on Chip as well as what they'd actually did in terms of getting him lynched revisited.

I haven't gone back to look at anything since the BTD flip, so right now I'm sticking with my conclusion in 896 that Hopkirk is more likely to have been busing than Zito. I'll give updated thought after I go back and reanalyze which should happen tonight because I'm expecting a slow night at work.

I'd also like your stance of "scum aren't incentivised to buss" elaborated on since I very very strongly disagree and would almost 100% be bussing in this iteration of the setup, there's no investigatives to catch you and you don't have to worry about the "why haven't you been night killed" argument so a good buss leads to a win....a lot of the time. So convince me that your stance is something you genuinely believe(d) in and why here since you not having rethought through this is fairly out of line with the caliber of player I think you are and one of the few things stopping me from locking you as town.

I don't think scum have incentive to do the Day 1 hard bus because of how hard the setup swings in favor of town with a Day 1 scum lynch with this game being a great example. We've mislynched three times now and are still playing - in a micro. Heck if Cabd's a miracle worker we can mislynch again today and have a shot tomorrow.

I agree that lack of investigatives, lack of a nightkill, and having treestumped players around in the endgame are all reasons that scum have some incentive to buss. So altogether I don't think its unreasonable for scum to bus in this setup, I just think that the Day 1 hardbus is unlikely. I pretty much took it for granted that both ZIto and Hopkirk fell into that category until I reread and made post 896. That reread made it clear that Hopkirk was much less invested into the Chip lynch than I thought and it makes up a lot of the difference between him and Zito at this point.

I'd also like your thoughts on Zito & Hopkirk re; the fact that we know that mafia called followers (Which I agree is the sub optimal move) as well as their reactions to it happening and their involvement and posting during the Cheeky lynch; again you know that one of them submitted that action so which of their play around that area do you think makes more/less sense as scum due to it and why? I'm aware you've gone into this a bit in Post 914 but now that the BTD scenarios are out of the question I'd like you to delve a little more into this than just "WIFOM" as an explanation.

We agree that it doesn't make strategic sense to ignite at that point in the game and I have a enough respect for Zito and Hopkirk as players that I'm going to rule out them not understanding the mechanics or strategy. All that leaves is someone trying to create WIFOM. If you really want me to go back and analyze their reaction/involvement/opinions over that day I guess I can but my preference is to not try and base my reads around things that are directly caused by scum injecting WIFOM into the game.

3) I'd also like a little more thoughts of yours on how the Northside/BTD/Cheekey lynches played out since I'm looking over that section of the game and just...wanting to bang my head against the table over and over again out of complete disbelief at how little actual conversation and re-consideration happened during those with the exception of yourself on Northside for a small period. I think there were a lot of points that could have been brought up to point out all three being town but very little were actually done so from yourself or others, so was there any thoughts you'd had on those three that you'd not put into the thread that might help me understand your play re; them a little more? And what do you make of Zito & Hopkirks play throughout that period?

I went through the thread Night 1 looking for interactions and came away thinking NSG was a slam dunk lynch and came out into Day 2 firing hard to lead what I thought was going to be a perfect town win (which would have felt great coming back from a year plus haitus tbh). I got cold feet for a bit but the combination of re-seeing everything I saw over the Night 1 reread, getting support from Zito, and the game stalling out all put me back on the lynch. I wasn't 100% convinced it was what I wanted for the day but seeing her lay down in the face of a wagon cemented it for me.

Cheeky lynch was pretty shitty. When the night ends with UC dead my mind goes straight to thinking the mod pretty much wrecked the game with their handling of replacements over the Night phase. I obviously understood that someone else igniting clears Cheeky. Thats just not something that you can allow to happen as a moderator which is why my mind went to asking how the mod would handle absent players over the night phase. Given the information we got from the moderator and that igniting was not optimal play there I thought it was a pretty clear case of the mod randomizing night action for absent scum slot.

BTD lynch came from still thinking Zito and Hopkirk were both town and for sure never wanting BTD to be voting in lylo. Not reconsidering this lynch more was probably me being lazy as much as anything. I just don't think I would have came to a different conclusion and without anyone opposing it letting the day drag on seems like it would have been a waste of time.

I've pushed most of these lynches through and Zito's backed me pretty strongly on all of it. Hopkirk feels like he's more or less just been here. I'm aware that if Zito's scum his long game strategy has been to have me in his pocket all game by echoing my thoughts the whole way. That makes me nervous about him in this lylo because I'm not sure if I'm supposed to trust my ability to read him. I'm going to re-read and probably have a better answer to this question after that.

[Papa Zito]

I went back to do VCA but the votecounts are too sparse. I'll have to manually recreate the various Day 1 wagons by hand which'll be fun. I'll work on that tonight.

[Regfan]

For the record, I'll reveal who i targeted each night later. Probably after regfan snuggles. It wasn't 100% self.

Eh, it's probably better if you don't? I mean from a curiosity point of view I'd love to hear but I don't see how it'll actually assist us at all and if anything just lets mafia know if they can 'Call whisperes' and win tonight if we mslynch today. So yeah, unless you think it helps us decide who's mafia hold that info.

[Regfan]

@Micc - Yeah I'm happy to wait for your analysis re; Zito/SS & Hopkirks D1 play/interactions.

I don't think scum have incentive to do the Day 1 hard bus because of how hard the setup swings in favor of town with a Day 1 scum lynch with this game being a great example. We've mislynched three times now and are still playing - in a micro. Heck if Cabd's a miracle worker we can mislynch again today and have a shot tomorrow.

I agree that lack of investigatives, lack of a nightkill, and having treestumped players around in the endgame are all reasons that scum have some incentive to buss. So altogether I don't think its unreasonable for scum to bus in this setup, I just think that the Day 1 hardbus is unlikely. I pretty much took it for granted that both ZIto and Hopkirk fell into that category until I reread and made post 896. That reread made it clear that Hopkirk was much less invested into the Chip lynch than I thought and it makes up a lot of the difference between him and Zito at this point.

If you think about it a little more a mafia lynch doesn't actually drastically increase the amount of mslynches that town receive throughout the game, if you play based on the logic that mafia only ever ignite to win the game you end up having a scenario where D1 is 7:2 (1), D2 6:2 (2), D3: 5:2 (3) meaning that town have at minimum 3 mslynches in hand before mafia could even just potentially win and that's only if their N1/N2/N3 primes all hit without being blocked or being on a player that'll be lynched. So without bussing mafia need 4 flat out mslynches to win this game in all likelihood, given there's been 3 mslynches so far and uh, this'll be lynch number 4 that means the difference between mafia having 2 members or 1 member left here is actually very minimal and then plays into the "Mafia should be playing to be read as not W/W" ergo "Mafia have a lot of reason to buss" area so while people helping lynch mafia D1 is nice and all it's very far from being a point to ruling them out.

So like you've mentioned this a few times now with "The swing of the setup makes a mafia lynch D1 hurt a lot", can you actually show me what you mean because the numbers I've run above point heavily against the statement you've made being true.

[Regfan]

We agree that it doesn't make strategic sense to ignite at that point in the game and I have a enough respect for Zito and Hopkirk as players that I'm going to rule out them not understanding the mechanics or strategy. All that leaves is someone trying to create WIFOM. If you really want me to go back and analyze their reaction/involvement/opinions over that day I guess I can but my preference is to not try and base my reads around things that are directly caused by scum injecting WIFOM into the game.

I can dig this with the caveat that I'd like you to comment a bit about my point on Hopkirks push on UC that I went into last night.

Thanks for the rundown of the NSG/Cheeky/BTD lynches, find most of what you've said pretty understandable and to match up with your play in thread.

[Regfan]

I went back to do VCA but the votecounts are too sparse. I'll have to manually recreate the various Day 1 wagons by hand which'll be fun. I'll work on that tonight.

I'm not a huge fan of VCA in most games but in this one with only 2 scum members and a D1 scum lynch I'm even more leery of it so what particularly do you think you

might

find from it that'll be helpful in solving this? Only asking because I fear you'll come out of this learning nothing and having spent quite some time on it whereas I'd rather you spend a little of that just laying down your unfiltered thoughts of the situation at hand.

[Papa Zito]

I went back to do VCA but the votecounts are too sparse. I'll have to manually recreate the various Day 1 wagons by hand which'll be fun. I'll work on that tonight.

I'm not a huge fan of VCA in most games but in this one with only 2 scum members and a D1 scum lynch I'm even more leery of it so what particularly do you think you

might

find from it that'll be helpful in solving this? Only asking because I fear you'll come out of this learning nothing and having spent quite some time on it whereas I'd rather you spend a little of that just laying down your unfiltered thoughts of the situation at hand.

I'd only be looking at D1 given how subsequent days went. I'm not expecting a major aha moment and I'm also not viewing time as a super precious commodity rn so I dunno why even if you consider it a waste I can't spend some time doing something wasteful. Suffice to say I've found it helpful in the past so if it provides even a modicum of clarify to a game I've thought was solved several times now I'm all for it.

I don't know what "unfiltered thoughts" (what does that even mean) you want here. "Why the fuck isn't this game over" is basically where I'm at.

[Regfan]

Sure, if you've got the time to burn go for it.

By unfiltered thoughts I mean more a case of if Cabd (He violent) put a gun to your head right and told you to the name the mafia or be shot in the head who would you tell him and why? And what's your confidence level in that person actually being mafia here 60%? 70%?

[Papa Zito]

Hopkirk, PoE, 0%. My confidence in reads this game is shot to hell.

[Regfan]

0% sounds pretty confident to me!

I wouldn't mind you running through why you thought Cheeky was a likely candidate for scum with Chip since you mentioned it in Post 636 and again in Post 717 and Post 826 but never really explained it at all so while we now know it's not the case I'd still like to hear what made you believe this.

I'll also take some ;words; about your Post 910 particularly about your read on Hopkirk and his BTD push since I'm finding it difficult to believe you'd went through his ISO at that stage and come out with the stance you have here at the time.

[Papa Zito]

Arrite I will deliver the Words unto you when I start delving into this mess tonight.

[BTD6_maker]

Regfan, do you also think that the N2 kill is evidence against Micc?

I know you Townread Micc but I want to know whether this is partly because of that kill or despite it.