Mini Normal 2002: The Thaw OVERRRRRRRRR

[Prism]

I'm pretty sure Gamma is hardtown unless his scumgame improved 10-fold in the past 5/6 months. I don't really have any other reads that I could recall from when I last read the game (up to page 4/5).

I'm heading out for the night but this is going to be great.

[Prism]

I was wrong gamma is town
):

This is a weird progression to me. It looks like it's spurred by Gamma's #215 and #218, which I didn't really feel were of note. Can you walk through this more?

It's impossible to understand flavor's play without some knowledge of his meta. He does things in a very intentionally arbitrary way and makes a point to be inconsistent in certain regards.

His scum motivation here, if he's scum, is simply to try to emulate his meta. He's screwing around with the claim-backtrack-differentclaim shenanigans to try to get people to think in the back of their heads that this isn't something he'd do as scum, even though his sig is very explicit that he'll do pretty much anything as scum.

In a sense, his existence in a game is -EV for town in the same way that creature's is +EV for town.

This seems off to me. You're thinking of this in terms of expected outcomes/values already. Do you feel as though the backtrack on the claim is more likely as scum?

Right now this post is more suggesting to me that he'd stop at the claim level; fakeclaiming an investigative Day 1 is already a very risky move that sets the pace for the rest of the game. If he's trying to be bold and be a thrillseeker as scum, he'd already found it in the claim. His posting very much reads impulsive and egostroking rather than calculating EVs. I'm not really comfortable calling him scum for it, as difficult to work with as it is. From your perspective though, I feel like this is a statement on possible motivation with little focus on the likelihood of each, and I don't like it.

I'm also not really a big fan of your CoA read-they've asked questions and given passable reads, but from what I see they haven't followed up on the questions and engaged with them further. This is the definition of surface-level activity for me; there's no clear cognition going on afterwards.

VOTE: Cult

I feel like this game reminds me a lot of GreyICE's play in Miss List; there's a lesser focus on townreads and more just burning the scum as he thinks he's found them. I'm not familiar with his scum MO so feel free to slap me.

Actually
now that I think about it.
I like this
VOTE: Prism
idunno I think they would have more stances then Gamma is town and I feel like this could easily be the coasting lurking deepwolf here.

This implies a familiarity with my play-I have two questions about this. 1) Why would you expect more stances than Gamma town, given what you have seen of me? 2) Does the feeling about my being a lurking scum also come from meta, or is it a broader statement of "someone is, I guess it's them"?

For the record, at the time I made that post, I had briefly skimmed the first 4 pages of the game more than 24 hours prior, before I even replaced in and got my role PM. I was hoping to tackle the game the next day but if your definition of "coasting" is "replaced in and then didn't catch up in a day" I'm also curious as to why.

idunno I've played with Prism!scum three times total and like I think that kinda resembles what I've seen of his scumplay

Will revisit at a later date; not really as concerned about this one right now.

[Prism]

I don't really think Gamma is capable of faking anger in that kind of way as scum.

I thought #213 was very genuine, I wouldn't be surprised if the posts on the prior page were as well.

It's the selection of 215 and 218 in particular that ping me. 215 was a run of the mill answer and nothing special. 218 was not very special either but in particular was very alignment-independent I think: regardless of whether Gamma is scum or town, he's going to be annoyed at this player he thinks has it in reverse. A lot of players feel it more powerfully when they know the other person is town, and think they're wrong. What in the process of reading either of these served as the switch for you?

[Prism]

Actually that last sentence of 215 was a lot better than my first pass over it

[Prism]

Prism is new to the game, but his vote seems pointless too.

My vote doesn't have to be likely to create a lynch. It was made primarily to get more out of CoA with a secondary goal of getting people to question their townread on their own time.

In the absence of any real scumreads right now, I'm voting for Cult. I'll switch when I feel like it. I'm in no rush to hammer anything considering I've just now gotten into the game and still have a lot to do (Ex. Have yet to dig into the MoI/Imp convo, or MoI really in general. ISOing you would be good. Skimming a scumgame of Flavor's would be ideal and that should probably take priority)

Do you feel like people should be convinced to vote for CoA with this?
At the very least you should be pulling examples and pointing to specific posts that you think are bad from them.

This is weirdly aggressive, it's obviously ideal but you knew it was a broad commentary on a player with a pretty short ISO. There's this expectation, more like a demand, that were

I town I would have done it right then

, when I clearly had just tackled the game in one sitting and was addressing multiple people and multiple angles, not just been ready to upon request. This doesn't really addup in your own play, which has only sparsely cited posts when not prompted to. We want to keep people accountable for their reads but the tone here seems less curious and more accusatory. The reason this bothers me is you've had no stated other issue with my play, and I feel like if you're town there has to be others. The only thing I can think of is if you assumed the CoA vote

was

meant to attract others to the vote, and that really wasn't my expectation.

After doing it I made two mistakes in my original glancethrough 1) Stefan never responded to her giving nothing to engage with 2) She did respond to Erika once when I thought she hadn't.

She had a brief engage with you on Gamma. She disagreed with your characterization of the meta and we hear no more on this front. Understandable. (#123 and #126)
Later she asks Gamma about his Saudade read. 0 followup. Gamma later just appears as a scumread with 0 explanation, implicitly there's something she doesn't like but this is remarkably unexplained. (#185)
The Erika response in the end wasn't anything, it was just "I can't understand, can you explain again?" (#247).

I still just see very little cognition happening here to justify these townreads on her without some kind of tonal meta. There's some hint that it's happening here with Gamma, but I want to see her trace through the process and actually engage on this front. The only real post to me has been #256 with the scumreads all being on the wagon.

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND AFTER READING 256 FOR THE FOURTH TIME IT'S "GL" NOT "GE" AND IT'S MORE LIKELY SHE MEANT FL THERE INSTEAD AND EVERYTHING I JUST SAID ABOUT GAMMA IS NULL AND VOID

I SPENT TOO MUCH TIME ON THIS/WHAT I FELT WAS WRONG WITH CHEET ALREADY I'M OUT

[Prism]

I'm just straight up wrong and biased and need to move to something else.

Getting food and then I'll dust myself off and try and tackle reading MoI/Imp. Might as well buy some french fries to go with all of my salt.

[Prism]

Comparing Saudade's other game to this one it's clear he's ratcheted up the antagonism a notch (ex. A few sarcastic responses in the Newbie vs. This no-u fest with Gamma). I don't like the reason to townread him here, there are scum players who make it a point to be difficult to work with in order to prey on insecurity and Saudade feels like one of them. There's only a little further on the spectrum than last game. I don't like Implosion's townreading it, it's pretty one-dimensional and generalized. Where he falls on the spectrum probably varies depending on alignment but this is in general reeks of what I thought was also wrong with his flavor read (Seems to be a focus on just picking a possible motivation then selling it rather than the reverse).

From your perspective though, I feel like this is a statement on possible motivation with little focus on the likelihood of each, and I don't like it.

Pretty sure I've explained elsewhere why exactly I think the scum motivation is more likely. I guess I haven't really in depth but basically just a lot of what he's done around it reads like plain bullshit. The claim about wanting to bait a hammer, the half-assed "oh i'm not sure if i remember what my role pm was maybe it was vt". And the admitting that he's really scummy and claiming he's willing to eat a lynch for it. All of that is just gross.

It's gross, but none of this is really likely to get him to dodge the lynch. It's begging to be lynched and validated. Your statement earlier emphasized that his scum motivation would be to emulate his townplay, which is something you already described as intentionally arbitrary. This seems really circular in a way that doesn't click with me: "He's scum because he's doing dumb bullshit" "His scum motivation for doing dumb bullshit is because as town he does dumb bullshit". Maybe there's something I'm missing here.

I also really don't like #416. It's giving reasons for MoI being plausibly town but there's a pervasive fear of explicitly saying so that I don't think is town behavior. It really reeks of not wanting to make an enemy out of MoI without having to face "but you townread him earlier" later down the line. I'd understand not wanting to commit early to a scumread but the hesitance to give a townread here is just strange considering the readiness he's given them out elsewhere (Saudade, Stefan). Like #417 is clearing nearly everyone.

VOTE: Implosion

MoI can fuck off with the "Oh you haven't given reads" bullshit, though. I'd given plenty-a townread on Gamma, I didn't like Implosion's read on Flavor, a scumread on CoA later retracted, and a scumlean on Cheet. The point of posting after I realized the GL vs. GE mistake was to give proof of work, and that's important as town (See: My desire to see the cogs turning for CoA). I put in like 3 hours to read the game as a whole the previous day and another hour and a half sitting there munching on CoA's ISO. You're lucky I replaced in at all, so calm the fuck down if you're town.

[Prism]

My problem with Cheet is the implicit assumption I was scum from the start with no real basis.

It was more meant to be a line of inquiry and a push/challenge. I don't expect every vote from someone to have amazing reasoning with cited posts, but if you're going to be voting for someone who has no votes on them when people are getting close to lynching I would expect either:
i) You asking for more time to catch up.
ii) You trying to convince people if you think you're onto something.

Reading my post in a vacuum I still don't think there's any real basis for this. My first real post of the game which gave a broad overview on multiple players and multiple conversations is no indicator that ii) isn't to come or that I didn't want to do this. The double standard here in regards to his own play here is again pretty striking.

Upon revealing that my intent was a mix of wanting to see the cogs turning underneath Cult's posts and getting others to doubt their townreads there, the conversation more shifted towards "Oh, well it's just a worthless placeholder then". I have a really hard time buying that I am the only player who utilizes votes as more than a tool for a lynch.

Shit like "I look forward to reading your stance on MoI/Imp" is more focused on keeping me in the rails and under control than it is earnestly trying to see what I come up with.

[Prism]

You are clearly very unfamiliar with my towngame. Which is odd given that I did this quite a lot in the one game you've played with me, where I was town. I don't "just pick a motivation"; it's never arbitrary.

I'm not asserting that you're town, and I am asserting that the pick of a motivation seems arbitrary. I don't see how these two are inconsistent.

I am extremely explicit about the fact that this is all null to me. I really don't want to make an enemy out of MoI, because the last time we played together he tunneled me and I tunneled him back and we were both town. And I would really like to avoid that if he is town because it's the only time I've been mislynched in a damn long time. This is one of the big reasons why I can't read his push on me easily. Like I said, he's done it before. And that's really frustrating.

I have no idea what in what I said you think I should be townreading Magna for. He's done a lot of shit that he's done before as town, and nothing that I don't think he can fake as scum (and nothing that I think he's especially unlikely to fake as scum). Saying that I should be townreading him is another horrible misrep of what I've been saying.

I'm aware that it was explicitly null; that's my entire problem with it. You're citing a lot of behaviors he's doing that aren't ideal but you've seen from a town Magna. You aren't sure that it's a tell but the care with which you're treating Magna vs. the willingness to pass out townreads elsewhere is incredibly odd. I don't see any reason for you to fear him so much you see a game that reminds you of town Magna and still just go "he's null"

How much do you remember of my meta from the game we played a while ago?

Few specifics, but I remember thinking that you were very competent. My entire strategy that game was built around toeing the competency line to avoid a scumread from you while building the foundation to implode when you were gone. Your choices there seemed more foundationally sound than they do here, but admittedly I haven't yet looked back at the game.

[Prism]

I've walked through my reasoning pretty clearly. This frankly looks like you're digging your heels in just to justify your read on me more than anything.

Honestly wouldn't be the first time.

Avoiding picking at the specific reasoning I've given to just continue abstractly attacking my stances just feels icky and like you're intentionally just trying to justify your stance and make it seem like you have reason to scumlean me when it's just hot air.

I definitely have looked at the specific reasoning, and you snipped a fair bit of it from the post. My issue is this, clearly stated: I felt like your read is coming from the

assumption

that I'm scum rather than a genuine discovery process. The pieces you're highlighting now that are wrong with my vote were a bit different in focus than what you're saying now.

Please, elaborate. Because if it's just "OH HIS OPENING WASN'T SUBSTANTIVE EITHER" then I'm going to probably grill you over an open fire.

Your post grilled me for having nothing

immediately on the attack

on CoA, with the justification that you'd expect me to do so. None of your posts until I joined in did this. In which case-sure, I like to be done medium well.

Urgency claim as the focus makes this less valid (in that there's a different context between your posts pre and post my joining).

I have a really hard time buying that I am the only player who utilizes votes as more than a tool for a lynch.

I feel like you have to really not read what I'm saying to imply that I'm knocking a placeholder/what I'm perceiving as a placeholder vote. It's that we were L-1 on Flavor and you were literally sitting on a vanity wagon with no posts saying something along the lines of "can we please not lynch while I'm getting caught up?"
I literally said this MULTIPLE times in the post.
So.
Feel free to keep pushing this "wow cheet hates placeholder votes" angle because it's really going to make it easy for me to piledrive a wagon on you.

Why the hell would I be worried about a lynch then? It was L-2, I wasn't voting Flavor and was openly questioning the wagon, and no one else had declared intent to vote Flavor.

Shit like "I look forward to reading your stance on MoI/Imp" is more focused on keeping me in the rails and under control than it is earnestly trying to see what I come up with.

You really look at me saying that and think "this guy is trying to force me into not parsing other things" instead of "this guy is forcing me to actually follow through with what I'm committing to"???????

I was already going to do that. The post there isn't keeping me accountable, it's saying

"Oh yes, I'll hold you to it

, I'm watching you closely" rather than just waiting to see what I come up with. I guess I can see intent here to needle scum and make them uncomfortable.

[Prism]

Not even I guess, that's pretty clearly the intent.

Big issue for me is that your level of scumreading me for the CoA vote wasn't justified, and seemed to shift to a broader vanity vote concern rather than the more narrow, "Where's your case to lynch?" Urgency concern/thinking I wanted Flavor to go through without much comment kind of ties those together.

Probably not going to let up on me but oh well, light the flames and let's have a cookout.

[Prism]

That wasn't a response to you, it was to Cheet.

[Prism]

Like, I don't get how you could ever think that was directed at you unless you weren't reading me/Cheet at all.

[Prism]

I was already going to do that. The post there isn't keeping me accountable, it's saying "Oh yes, I'll hold you to it, I'm watching you closely" rather than just waiting to see what I come up with. I guess I can see intent here to needle scum and make them uncomfortable.

OK but this makes ME feel more uncomfortable for several reasons, most of them stated before:

1) What does Cheetory have to do with how YOU post?

I read it as an attempt to get me to play how he wanted. That was the issue.

That's the direct answer, the pedantic answer is if other players' posts don't affect your post at all you're probably doing something wrong.

2) If Cheetory DOES do this (which tbh I don't want to argue), is that town or scum aligned? You can't make a big stink about it and say null now!

Expounded on in #544. Explicitly: Townlean.

[Prism]

Actually he directly stated the intent of "Keeping me accountable" rather than just to needle me and see what happened.

Thought about it a bit more given this and I'm pretty sure it's fine. The aggressiveness/"I think I'm Jaws, gonna rip what they say apart no matter what, we're 1 on 1ing play the music" feel of that in addition to the other statements just read as way too presumptive with what he had to come from town. I think his read on me is fine and more likely to come from town.

(Explicitly, him thinking that a Flavor lynch was an immediate danger means that yeah, my "Let's just put it somewhere and prod around" vote would be a poor use at best)

[Prism]

Will respond to you tomorrow Imp.

Prism any thoughts on my read on you

Generally feel like you would have just continued to scumread me here as mafia. Doubt you're scum, even if you are I'm pretty confident I can just skim a game later and gauge how much you've actually grown. The observation itself, I generally put a lot of stock in reading into my personal interactions, recent games (including this one) mean I'm putting less stock in it overall. Depending on the angle I want I do it as scum.

First read was what was more interesting to me. Yours I was less interested in on account of the townread/figuring it was more the tone or read itself. Erika's meta read interested me a lot more because it seemed to be a comment specifically on

the way I opened

rather than a general playstyle statement, but it was ambiguous.

This would be a break from my scum openings on site on two fronts: 1) Giving only a townread. I have a very standard opening structure that I usually follow as both alignments, which is really aggressive. As scum it's to establish an early pace and to set tone expectation, as town it's to push for early content by going with a first hunch if I have one 2) I generally don't post as scum before I know exactly what is going on and have read all of the posts. This is because of my very first game on site: 1838. I made a strategic mistake in giving an early strong townread Zoronos that I'd regret the rest of the game. I don't post as scum until I know the entire gamestate and know what direction I want to take the game. The one time I was forced to deviate due to the size of the game upon my replacein, it went terribly (GG1).

[Prism]

Oh wow I've literally played with scum Flavor before, I just have to read it again. Makes my life easier.

[Prism]

Sorry, but something came up yesterday and I can't make time today. I'll be back tomorrow.

If I wind up staying up into the late hours maybe I can sink some time in but it depends on how I feel.

[Prism]

Glancing at the last page it looks like Flavor is up for a lynch again. We've got time for the deadline. I realize we don't have to use it but I'll be in tomorrow and if I can't I'll replace and you'll get someone who can.

[Prism]

Yo. Give me 30 and I'll give it my first pass thoughts, and then after I munch some more I'll probably have better ones.

[Prism]

I really hate this push on Stefan. A lot.

I've been watching StephanB since this post. It's a lame entry, but worse than that is the apology. Like he read the medium-length post, realized it was a lame entry to the thread, didn't really want to post more, but felt guilty over that. That's not a behavior I associate with town. It's not a perfect scumtell (bad news, those don't exist) but it makes me notice a person. Now what really started to get to me was this:

Okay I believed the L-1 to freely he had 4 votes on him, when he selvoted and claimed. (You can call me an idiot for believing in stated L-1 without checking)
Aside from the reaction I have not yet a real read on Flavour.

I stated reads in my first post today.

The post he admitted was not good. Now, what the hell? Town can make a lame post, town can even reread it and go "wow that's a lame post, sorry", but does town then refer back to it as "my reads post" to answer other people's questions?

This seems pretty organic to me; the apology was for not having

strong

reads. When he's citing a reaction to flavor and stating that he doesn't have a solid read on the slot, it makes sense to cite it. It's an apology for not having strong reads, not an apology for an inaccurate post.

I'll go over some other things that have been bugging me for quite some time:

This epic fence sit.

It's like he realizes Flavor Leaf is playing poorly, but then says "Flavor is obvious messing with us" and "why does Flavor play like he does as scum?"

If Flavor is "obviously messing with us" then why does that make him town? Why does flavor play like that as scum? More to the point, why is he interrogating other people about why flavor does what he does, rather than just asking flavor? It doesn't smell of any scumhunting from Stefan.

This really bothers me. I had/still have a pretty similar reaction to Flavor, and because of it I've opted to read into players I feel are more likely to be predictable/consistent (namely Implosion).

Grey: You have pushing the waggon for Flavor all the way to L-1, why stopping now?

Sometimes all you have to do is hold out the noose and see if they stick their head in. For someone who just claimed to have trouble reading Flavor and just claimed to not find the scum motivation for his behavior, it should be GLARINGLY OBVIOUS why I stopped voting him instead of pushing for hammer.

...And this is still a valid question. You're answering what your intent was and why you have it, but his entire point was trying to find that out.

Part of me has just been thinking the scum team is Hoopla, Implosion, Cheetory. I’m not gonna preflip asso, though...so I’ll stick with hoopla.

If you are town, I want to congratulate you on naming three townies in your scumteam. It's quite the asscomplishment.

Real post in a bit.

This is really worth expounding on.

P-Edit: Probably not, I want Implosion or maybe you right now. Will probably followup more on Implosion in a bit, only up to page 25. CoA is just a lurker lynch.

[Prism]

Prism I still want to see more from outside of jousting with Cheet. I understand you are scum reading Cheet and Implosion and Town reading Gamma. Any other reads outside of those Prism would be very helpful.

Maybe read my posts because my most recent ones explicitly stated that I was leaning town on Cheet.

This persistence that I haven't given enough content to judge me on or that I'm not giving reads is false. I'm not actively monitoring the game as much as I'd like because of time constraints but when I am here I've given my thought processes almost in full and given plenty of reactions/reads. Ideally I'd have a read on every player but that's not the case-I'm slow as shit to get reads, often needing a spark leading from a specific line.

The fact that you made this post without even

trying

to read into the jousting with Cheet makes me think this is bullshit.

[Prism]

Yeah that stefan case is actually pretty good. I think 383 is the thing I was initially townreading him for, mostly off tone. But looking at it more closely it's the kind of thing that can be genuine from scum who has no idea how to react to the flavor wagon.

I feel like there might have been more. But yeah I'm rereading his stuff and his opening post feels bleh and his initial nullread on flavor is bleh and there's not a whole lot there.

VOTE: StefanB

It's not, at all, and this jumpon is terrible. Maybe his interpretation is different given our opposing viewpoints on Flavor (I'm neutral, but really hate his reasoning for Flavor and think it's circular).

But yeah I'm happy to go in the stefan direction now. I'd still be fine with hoopla. Flavor's reaction to the stefan case throws me for a little bit of a loop. I don't think he'd do that if stefan is scum with him, but I also don't think he'd go out of his way to defend stefan-town if he's scum. I especially don't think he makes that post if they're both scum, but that's sort of conjecture about his meta and I'm sure he'll say that he would.

This doesn't make sense to me. Your entire point about Flavor was that he does counterintuitive, whacky shit as scum too (although I'm still unclear as to your motivation for

why

he was this game, given that you said he did as town too). Defending Stefan town-and Flavor is calling a lot of people town-seems to fall under that umbrella and it's not at all clear how you're choosing which ones are and aren't more likely. Again, maybe this is coming from a place of a Stefan-scumread, but I feel like this Flavor read in general is unnatural.

On another note I say all of this in reaction to the case+Stefan's posts at the time but page 26 is a trainwreck.

[Prism]

After that response Prism,

I'm hyper fine getting lynched tomorrow if COA flips town.

That was 100% scum, and I'll bet anything on it.

I doubt it.

I feel like you know what a mislynch is worth and this bravado is forced. I don't know if I'd go as far to say inspired by my play from Miss List but you definitely realize the value of a bluff and I don't think this is genuine.

Are you okay getting lynched if he flips scum?

Nope. I'll probably try and collect credit if they flip scum actually given my first instinct/trying to snuff out more, even if it turned out to be incorrect. If I oppose a scumlynch though I oppose a scumlynch.

[Prism]

You know Flavor, you keep pushing that bandwagon. "Suboptimally". A way to buddy me, while discrediting me. My reads are excellent, and I have a long history of pushing wagons through to the end.

What you have done here, Flavor, is made it obvious to more people than me what your alignment is when Stefan flips scum. That's your actual mistake. See, I know you're scumbuddies, but you can just shoot me - I'm used to it, I get shot N1 or N2 as often as Magna does. But here, you've tied yourself to Stefan in an overwhelmingly obvious way, by trying to lead the counterwagon to save him (while insisting that the counterwagon doesn't exist!). That was "suboptimal".

I'm going back and forth on this one, this is a pretty blatant bluff. Motivation as town is to get a reaction, motivation as scum is to force through a mislynch/flex how town he is. Feel in the end it's probably null, I feel it was easier to see where he was coming from during Miss List but I was in a privileged position there. Not the biggest fan of this playstyle.

[Prism]

All of Page 29 is giving me The Mod is Mafia vibes where I just grilled Mulch alive for falsifying meta and hypershoved him with it into an easy mislynch. (Mental note that this reminds me that someone did something that reminded me of scumNacho in Buttersnap but I forgot about it, should revisit)

This is pretty spammy in general so sorry for that.

[Prism]

Yeah I feel really comfortable with Cheetory town right now after reading his interactions with Grey

[Prism]

Okay, fuck it. If I were to write a textbook on lurker scum it'd probably look like this. At least Stefan is trying, and I respect that.

Vote: CultofAthena

This is disgusting. Stefan was your "good read" and you literally said that in your post before.

You literally said "Oh this isn't that reliable, I mislynch with it often,

I should go with my actual, quality scumread

" ...And then you immediately flipped to a lurker. Please enlighten me.

i'm tempted to just hammer. I'm so bored with this day. I just want a flip. I don't think cult flips scum though.

This is bullshit. Pure posturing that works to avoid being on the mislynch if CoA is town and to give the view of indifference to her lynch if she's scum. Nothing about this makes me think you actually "just want a flip because you're tired"

I hate "Oh I'm tempted to just..." posts in general that describe an intent you have no intention of following through.

[Prism]

Fine, whatever Magna. I probably owe you this, and it's still a good lynch.

Vote: Flavor

Oh right, like 90%

Vote: Cult

Cult is already your compromise lynch. Your strong read is Stefan. The fact that the three posts took place in <1 minute gives me 0 confidence in there being real cognition here.

[Prism]

CoA you either need to fucking get in here or replaceout. I realize I'm not one to talk but if you don't get your ass moving and give actual reads right the fuck now you're going to get lynched, period, and as much as I want to save you and go on Implosion I probably can't.

If you're town play the game, don't count on other people dragging you to the finish line while you sit on V/LA.

[Prism]

Lynch preference right now is Grey>Implosion>MoI>No idea. Fact that 3 decent players are at the top is pretty awful for our prospects.

Townreads go to Cheet and provisionally Gamma. Still confident in meta but the wagon hopping means I should probably just bite the bullet, stop dodging it, and skim a more recent scumgame.

[Prism]

VOTE: Cult

You had to your chance. There is no "Maybe I'll get around to claiming Sunday" when two people have already expressed interest in hammering.

Insert DGB quote here.

Oh right, like 90%

Vote: Cult

Now this is the second time you've been called me scum and just left it there limply. Town Grey was never quiet about calling for my head Day 1 when he thought I was scum (and was wrong pretty much every time ... Survivors don't count). Yeah if we both are alive tomorrow we will settle this as I can't ignore the gut scum-read I've been keeping to myself on you.

Man, I've got this gut Grey scumread that I'm not shaking. He just doesn't feel right, this isn't the town Grey I'd expect.

hammers who Grey is hardshoving

I get that maybe this is a way to get a read on Grey but the "Sorry, no Sunday, bye" really obscures that intent if it's there. The "If we're both alive we can settle it" really doesn't seem overtly concerned with what CoA flips in relation to Grey at all.

[Prism]

Prism is town, to state the obvious.
This posts feel town, and she is making good points.
Also completly consistant with her townmeta from Mini Normal 1988, where she did the same think.
P-edit: Was that a hammer?

If not give me an hour re GreyIce I want to get something out.

You read my posts, thought I made good points (presumably against Grey/Imp), but kept your vote anyway. You had a P-Edit, you were here before Magna hammered.

I don't think you're scum, but like, you had a clear path to preventing this and didn't take it. I don't know what you expected.

[Prism]

I actually don't know if I'd like MoI's post more if it was overtly concerned with Grey in relation to CoA's flip so I take that last part of 837 back. I just don't think I like MoI in general.

Cheet is likely town, Gamma probably is too, Grey/MoI/Implosion probably aren't all scum but all need to go. Hoopla in general isn't great and I think has been hypocritical at times but my gut says they're town (tonal, but recognize is likely playstyle). If I had to place a hardbet I'd go on Flavor+Stefan town and probably Hiraki. Erika/Saudade probably hold last by default.

[Prism]

If this flips town stefan needs to die tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm sure you'll be crying plenty of tears.

I feel like these preflips after the lynch is set are generally always scum theater. I honestly don't think I've ever done them as town.

[Prism]

Grey I'm on mobile and don't feel like snipping quotes properly. The entire point was that I'm well aware of the quality of your reads during Miss List. I don't think they're quality here, that Stefan case is honestly trash (Granted again page 26 (?) was a train wreck after the fact) I'm pretty sure that you know the value of bluffing and chest pounding after Miss List. My point is that as town you know better than to say "Oh I'm fine being a second mislynch since I fucked up the first one." You know how valuable a mislynch is, and I doubt you would ever waste one on yourself.

[Prism]

Yes bc me calling for the same person that I don’t know why we didn’t lynch today is a preflight associative that makes sense

I’m going to let autocorrect have that one.

Should we lynch him if it flips scum still or no?

If no, why is this not a preflip read? If yes, why only if it's town? "Associative" has a scumteam connotation in general but you get my point. Your post is just hammering home that you totally don't know the flip, just a guess haha.

[Prism]

If GreyICE is town, and I think he is, we're about to have a fucking ball. I

hate

being wrong. I'm an entirely different animal now.

I'll be at my computer again tomorrow, and then we can dance.

[Prism]

Also Implosion, you sure you're the type to just consider hammering out of apathy? And voice that consideration when you decide not to?

P-Edit: If you're town I'm going to pat you on the back and link arms gladly, because I owe you one, but if you did it as scum: It doesn't matter, and I'm going to chew you up and spit you out alive.

[Prism]

Not the biggest fan of the MoI wagon, from what I can remember the interaction with the Hoopla read was pretty good. Curious as to why you hardtownread Implosion, only reason I can think of to like his end-of-day was that he knows better than to make that kind of post when your partner is L-1. Just lurk the shit out or hammer her.

Also CoA's interactions with Flavor were dogshit and I'm biting that meta bullet now instead of later.

[Prism]

Those reads are practically the same as the end of yesterday.

7 vote counts over 850 posts? That's extremely light.

I think CultofAthena is town and there is definite mafia in Flavor Leaf and/or StefanB.

Both of these people were on the wagon and Stefan was a pretty critical enabler.

How did your thinking go overnight, and especially after seeing the CoA flip?

[Prism]

Those reads are practically the same as the end of yesterday.

This is also an untruth. I never gave my overall reads during Day 1.

You threw people in a list without elaborating. Feel free to do so at any time, you don't need me to ask you.

The point was a continuity from end of day to today in who you scumread+focused on. Be pedantic if you want.

Curious perception of the lynch as inevitable-Stefan served as a crucial turning point, on at least two occasions.

[Prism]

Reading a recent Flavor towngame ([url=viewtopic.php?t=73806&f=53&st=0&sk=t&sd ... er_sort=Go[LUV mafia[/url]) his reads seemed a lot more nuanced than I remember them being here. Not a plus

I basically gave up on finding the most recent scumgame on mobile and settled for that, need to read 2-3 more town ones.

Flavor can you just link me your most recent scum ones because trying to find this is a pain on a phone

[Prism]

Okay this is dumb and I'm both multitasking and halfassing and should just eat like I've been meaning to do for an hour

@UV

can you fix my URL tag please?

[Prism]

Him voting at all midway through but bigger one was not unvoting when I came out for GreyICE's head

He had one dogshit page but that's really all I remember disliking about him

I'm now top 3 for ~misrepresenting~ your reads...despite the point I was making being pretty obvious. Literally 0 insight into my play otherwise or why I was on the list to begin with.

I'm fine lynching this depending on Imp/Flavor.

Anyway food.

[Prism]

I missed my bus, walked 8 miles back home at 2 in the morning, then had my day 2 hours after getting back.

Sorry but I'm done, see you tomorrow.

[Prism]

flavor can you actually explain why gamma is town rather than just "you ping me when you're scum" lol the one game I read suggested you are capable a lot more of depth than whatever you're giving here. i don't care if it was lategame you're a competent town, show it.

i don't get why the FUCK we aren't lynching the shit out of implosion still because he was like "lol idk man i might hammer coa i just don't know" and nothing he has said even justifies that or suggests he's that kind of player he was just like "oh yeah haha i get bored" and unless he changed drastically from the podoboq game i really doubt he is that kind of player, the entire reason i targeted him there for a scum push was because i knew he was surgically precise

[Prism]

i'm assuming there wasn't a more elaborate explanation but maybe there was

hoopla honetly is talking the most sense despite a gut feeling she's scum based off the passivity of day 1, like her grey/moi insight seems like garbage in that if one is scum neither is killing the other whereas if both are town still no scum is killing the other and therefore no matter who is scum neither is diyng? like my impression was hoopla was pretty scummy in that she just seemed to be taking the angle but not vehemently taking it up and maybe i should revisit it later

[Prism]

also i STILL HAVEN'T VOTED and honestly that was kind of pending the read of flavor's meta but honestly like fuck implosion here lmao

VOTE: implosion

like even if this is wrong i really doubt both these people are town, like i hate preflip associatives but my thought process is more like i scumread both of them but don't think it's both of them

i feel like some scum ass is playing that stupid "roll with the obvious towns, give good reads, and just hope town fucks up at some point" and i feel like that person is hoopla and to a lesser extent implsoion

[Prism]

maybe fuck implo is too strong of a word but like i really scumread this dude lmao

[Prism]

and like i'm sorry but if gamma is scum i will eat my entire fucking FOOT, i would be shocked if he figured out how to 1) not be afraid with every fucking post he makes 2) manage to portray something resembling a complex thought process a scum, i guess depending on how many games he played it's theoretically possible but i would be STUNNED if he figured it out in that time

[Prism]

I actually feel I have been more in depth than the majority of players this game.

The game you read I didn’t have many posts Day 1, so you mainly saw Day 2 onwards, and this game I just have a lot of tunnelers without merit on me, and it’s just a bit harder for me to analyze and sort because of that.

I’ll give you some more in depth on Gamma when I have time to go through and quote. I’m at work right now, so I get sidetracked every 10 minutes or so. (I have a lot of downtime here).

yeah that's my bad the game i picked was due to lack of time than recency and i need to do more there

i more just want implo lynched lol and maybe hoopla, like if implo flips town then i'll probably go on you but for now like his push on you all of day 1 was questionable at best and i really just don't get it lmao

[Prism]

piplup seems more like a VI "let's be pedantic about every little bitty false equivalency and investigative reach rather than tackle the larger point" than hoopla who seems like sircakez in camn revenge/me in miss list where they were basically giving reasonable reads and hoping that town just fucks it up at some point like i don't get how that kill anaylsis of grey/moi makes sense, no combo of them makes the kill makes sense (i really don't think moi scum kills grey, regardless of who is scum i don't see a kill other than me/cheet/maybe hoop and that was the entire reason i went into overdrive mode to make sure my reads got tiven yesterday before the flip)

[Prism]

i don't get why the FUCK we aren't lynching the shit out of implosion still because he was like "lol idk man i might hammer coa i just don't know" and nothing he has said even justifies that or suggests he's that kind of player he was just like "oh yeah haha i get bored" and unless he changed drastically from the podoboq game i really doubt he is that kind of player, the entire reason i targeted him there for a scum push was because i knew he was surgically precise

Lol, my game is not surgically precise. And I don't know if I'd ever describe it as having been that way. Idk what you want from me. Your sense of my meta is just way off.

If you want the most recent version of my town meta, look at team mafia. I was pretty much playing the game on my own.

I have zero desire to read a single thing boon has posted in the past two pages.

i mean it's more reaffirmed by the thread you made about EVs and voting first in LyLo, you don't really seem to be the type of person to let boredom get in the way of your optimal play

i'll check it out later when i'm not drunk but like my thoughts here i've had sober and i generally just call bullshit on this whole flavor read+CoA hammer sit

[Prism]

saudade,my dude do you have any goddamn reads besides flavor

it seems like you have a townread on gamma, correct me if i'm wrong+expound if i'm right

[Prism]

i mean it's more reaffirmed by the thread you made about EVs and voting first in LyLo, you don't really seem to be the type of person to let boredom get in the way of your optimal play

i literally made that thread because i was bored at work <_<

That thread has almost nothing to do with the way I play, it has to do with me being a math nerd who is amused by the math side of mafia.

these two literally go hand in hand lol, like how do you have this interest in optimal play then NOT TRY AND PLAY OPTIMALLY

[Prism]

saudade,my dude do you have any goddamn reads besides flavor

it seems like you have a townread on gamma, correct me if i'm wrong+expound if i'm right

Besides, having only 1 scumread is fine because we can only lynch one person a day

yeah but gamma's not getting lynched lol, borderline would rather selflynch. not actually but almost.

what do you think about others

and why do you townread gamma, if you already answered you can ignore this and i'll find it later but if not it'd be dope

[Prism]

Nvm you townread gamma my bad, Flavor might get lynched and might be scum

[Prism]

because "optimal" is in practice not a useful way to play the game. Optimality as a concept is useful for analyzing vanilla setups for EVs. It's almost never useful in a game.

"Optimal" play is literally to roll a die to pick the lynch every day, in a game theoretic sense. Minus the subtlety that most mods forbid provable randomness.

dude what in the thread you literally said "the takeway in practice is that if someone votes first you should probably give them townpoints" (not 100% clearing, but as evidence in favor of them being town)

that seems like practical application to me

i don't think being bored lines up with that

[Prism]

ok y'all i'm tired i hope y'all all had great days and all of that (including the scumfucks, this is a personal reachout, i'm touching your soul itself)

night friends

[Prism]

i'm touching your soul implosion i hope you feel it

[Prism]

brother sadaddy

how would you feel about an implosion lynch

[Prism]

where the FUCK is greyice

[Prism]

greyice i don't give two shits if i have been gone for two days except for the times i checked in on my phone and now however long i've been here if you don't show up right now i'm chucking you foff a cliff and we're not friends anymore

[Prism]

brother sadaddy

how would you feel about an implosion lynch

He's a townlean why would I want implosion over Flavor at this point

because you fucking need jesus his read on falvor makes no sense and that hammersit on coa was atrocious

[Prism]

that seems like practical application to me

i don't think being bored lines up with that

til that players who ever attempt to practically apply game theory to games are not allowed to be bored

This is a SCUMCLAIM u are donezo kid

You know exactly what is wrong with this, and I wouldn't need to explain it if you were town

Taste my fucking nerfgun this vote aint' comin off

p-edit: boy i barely have the motor skills to put peanut butter on a slice of bread hit the fucking iso and ctrl+f buttons yourself

[Prism]

i actually just called someone a kid okay i'm out that's too condescending i'm out

[Prism]

It feels like every person in this game has their pet 100% scumread and almost all of them are on different people.

if you were my pet what type of pet would you be

[Prism]

i'm in bed and having dreams and in my dreams me and greyice aren't friends anymore and i told my grade school friends to beat him up and they did

[Prism]

this one moves so that one

[Prism]

Prism go to bed we're not here for casual talk

brother saudaddy you either need to start having fun or get off the saddle

no matter howhard the horse bucks you gotta stay on that fucker

and i'm riding this implosion scumread to the bank, dismounting, and cashing it in with the bank teller

it's a funread but it's a good one and i will throw hands until someone proves to me that i shouldn't throw hands

[Prism]

i guess you are staying on the saddle but fuck we're on two different paths

you're on either the scumpath or the wrong path

and i'm on my way to oklahoma

and if you're on the scumpath i'm gonna strangle oyu and put you to sleep but man i'll be crying all the way and i hope you don't let me down like that

i hope you find jesus

[Prism]

okay i guess implosion might be town but like i've bet my life on this and I'm not willing to let my life's work go to waste I would rather flush my first through seventhborn children down the toilet

he's scum and if he's not we can commit sudoku together, i'd say just me because that'd be my fault and i can't objectively blame anyone when i shoot my shot and i fucking airball but like i don't want to die alon eman

where the fuck is greyice

[Prism]

prism pls sleep

i'm betting seven children on this so fuck you you got to sleep

[Prism]

I'll be in on Thursday, workload picked up significantly this week. My opportunity window was the weekend and I blew it.

[Prism]

Hoopla kill was strange. I think it makes it unlikely MoI/Grey are both town. It doesn't really make sense as a WIFOM kill. That was a good mislynch target regardless of who the scumteam is. If they're both town and successfully figure that out the game is likely over. It looks like they've basically been through this before when both were town. This seems like a weird pride thing, and I think Grey's likely to do that but I need to dig more into this from MoI's side. (Remember MoI, think Grey too but might be wrong) The theory that she would successfully stop the 1v1 doesn't really make sense either-if you're afraid of that just shoot one of the real ones and aim to get her mislynched.

I thought about a scumteam going unconventional for a bit (particularly Hiraki) but Hiraki seems oddly utilitarian; I don't think he makes that and would just straightforwardly go for Grey/MoI if both were town.

My computer died so I'm limited to a phone right now. This is basically what I've just been chewing on the past two days. Let's put in work.

My drunkposting was hilarious and I regret very little. Since then, skimming the normal 1838 I had with Implosion a year ago he's reasonable but definitely more lazy than I remembered. Removing that I think the Flavor read was still circular and the CoA waffle was weird but that's objectively all I really have. I strongly feel that the replaceout is null.

I know this isn't in your list but I hope my drunken pet joke (I thought it was funny then, honestly still do, but not an excuse) didn't make you uncomfortable Implosion, and assuming you're town I'm sorry I've been wrong and hard to deal with. One of my big issues is that I can push people (and myself) hard but can't adequately serve as a town motivator and get others involved. I'm worried I kind of served as a demotivator here since I definitely have felt this way in the reverse seat.

[Prism]

It's become apparent that as much as I want to fight this out, I can't win. This is going to be another blown day, despite promising to myself that last one, now this one, is when I will make it happen. This is going to be another blown game because I never will make it happen.

I've got the passion, stronger than I ever have in 8 years of playing. I wanted this one to be it, that final one before I could move on. But just like always, I can't make the time. I think my time's been up, and it's been up for a long while. I just couldn't really ever accept that.

I'm sorry everyone. I wish I had joined earlier, instead of wasting 6 years with a poor level of competition. Still, even washed up and past my prime, it was a lot of fun while it lasted. And I love you and I love the game all the same.

Requesting Replacement

Do me a favor and eat them alive.

[Prism]

I hope you keep knocking them down, champ.

[Prism]

Broke my heart that I couldn't finish this game. Kind of happy played out basically as I expected even without me, but honestly still more heartbroken than anything else. I actively get worse every time I play, and in this one I saw so much I could have done better but didn't have time to do. At some point I have to give up the ghost.

Thanks to riku for taking the spot and carrying it through, and my apologies to Cheeky+Nexus.

[Prism]

Any chance PTs can be released?

[Prism]

Finally have time to give some thoughts:

Spoiler: Commentary on my own play and general scum strategy, spoilered because who cares

From the scum point of view, I think this game was pretty straightforward. There were really only two people me/Implosion wound up being concerned about in Cheetory and Hoopla. Cheet was unlikely to ever be lynched, and his townreads mostly right. I felt I could get a townread from him if I tried Day 2 but in the end I wasn't that confident, felt he was more unpredictable than Hoopla, and in particular had the chance of spurring town to action. I was a lot less concerned that he might scumread me/Implosion but rather that he'd get a solid townblock. Hoopla's disconnection I felt was indicative of being a PR; it had a feel of "I can handle this later" that I think comes more readily from power roles. With her VT flip, I don't think it was the best kill but still think it was solid. I think me/Implosion could have skirted by her another day or two but she wasn't ever getting lynched, just like Cheet, and at the end of the day that's what I most look for in my kills.

On a more immediate tactical view of the game, this was a fun one. Someone-I believe either Hiraki or Piplup-picked up my appeal to CoA to replaceout as a scum to scum appeal. I said it in the scum PT, but this was a hard bet on her worming out of the lynch and for my slot to flip before hers. (I generally heavily prefer being the first scum lynch). It made me happy to have been noticed-I think had I flipped Encryptor, it would have been read how I expected. In the end, I don't regret making that bet on CoA even though I knew the entire time that it wasn't the best move as far as chances of winning went. I really wanted a fun, engaged team win rather than the surgical snoozefests I normally put up. People put a lot of stock in my hard defense of her even after the lynch, and (obviously) I think that was a big mistake. It's not a common tactic, but the entire point is to mix it up, and this was a pretty standard one. Most of the actual nuance in my play was as previously mentioned focused on

expecting me to flip first

, so the fact that it still worked so smoothly was a bit of a surprise.

Personality management and the balancing act was probably the most fun part of this game. My battleplan for survival was basically to get hard townread by Grey and Gamma, who are both relatively familiar with my style. This basically required a flipping of my usual play, and a lot of that meant doing away with my traits that are more generally effective at getting townread. I pretty carefully built a up a huge town meta over the course of the last year or so (intensity of play, hard defense of last-minute lynches, some tonal difference with how I pushed lynches, choices of who I would push with openings posts, in this case a reversion to the same opening tactic I previously played against Imp/Gamma in my first game here, list really just goes on) so that part was cut-out for me and didn't require that much backtracking. This actually was a lot riskier than I initially expected-I anticipated getting scumread by most of the players unfamiliar with me, but I was counting on

some

townreading me anyway. This didn't happen; all of Magna/Cheet/Hoopla/Hiraki scumread me. Fortunately, the other side went a lot

better

than expected to kind of counteract-ex. Math replacing in and immediately picking up on the difference I think was a huge boon, and Stefan had actually read more of my last towngame than I expected him to too. I originally put a 50/50 at me winning the 3 way if it went that far but was a lot more confident in the slot winning out after the OnTheMark lynch. I think a big part of it was luck with the night results/what+who the last PRs were (ie. Didn't confirm a scum or close off many options)

I think the bulk of my mistakes came from lack of time: I didn't follow up on either of the Gamma or Flavor reads until it was far too late. That was suspect, because even if I didn't have time to dig through their meta as town I would have certainly tried to find a way

around

that using just the content in game.

Rest is probably in the scum PT. It wasn't the final game I wanted, but it's OK. I'm going to learn to be happy with it in any case.

That's about it for my play. I guess I'll comment a bit on Implosion-I dunno, I had a lot of fun with Implosion and he didn't play

badly

, and in many ways was an ideal partner. In the end though I was a bit disappointed, and I think it was mainly for attitude. It felt like he was playing not to lose rather than to win. You can be good and win games like that, but I really think you have to have a passion and drive in order to be great, and more importantly to have fun. As far as the town play goes:

I feel like a lot of people generally just blamed the town loss on "Eh just dead game Day 1/2"

shrug shoulders no big deal

. This is true to some extent but it's worth noting the timing; Day 2 everyone took to it with the approach of "Oh I'll kick into gear later." This basically let us select out those who had a chance of being on the right track early without even letting them start. I'm a big fan of the 1 day mentality-when you're town you should be playing like you have

one fucking day

to make your impact and get the game on lock. That doesn't mean to really expect to magically go 3/3 and gather the votes to do it. You have to have that fire and that goal though, or else you're basically just handing scum the reigns. I feel like Grey/Magna and maybe Cheet were the only ones playing with any real fire early on; two of those we had under control enough that we shot a VT over them despite being claimed PRs and the other was gone by N1. By the time everyone else kicked into gear, it was already too late and we were exactly where we wanted to be.

The only town player I'll comment on specifically is Flavor, who needs to learn to adapt his townplay to other people instead of trying to force them to adapt to him. I don't really know what else needs to be said here. You have to head into games with the mindset that every loss and every mislynch is entirely your fault. I do think it's more his fault than towns, but the point is that

it really doesn't matter who is more to blame

. If you think you're leading the horse to water, great, but lead the horse to water and get it to drink, then you'll really be the shit.

The No Result track is pretty unfortunate; one of those things you'll never know what the result would have been had it gone through. I don't really blame Nexus, he went above and beyond this game and like others have said, it happened.