Open 812 Guardians of the Fortress - Game Over

[absinthe]

I think right now I should stop trying to force an outcome. My direction is basically just respond naturally to things instead of proving points and getting into 10 page arguments over expectation

I'm turning a new leaf, my reads haven't changed regardless

This post emphasizes to me how much trouble I have (in general, not specific to this game) in understanding how you approach mafia. Like, I doubt that our approaches are so different as to be mutually incomprehensible, but I'm never sure if we wind up on the same page.

I think it's a me problem, because I don't get the impression that other players have trouble figuring out what you're doing.

"forcing an outcome" in this setup suggests to me "forcing how the three mini-games get filled", but I don't think that's what you mean. Maybe it's more about not wanting people to just ~decide~ which mini game they're joining and for there to be some kind or rigor, or process, or consensus involved.

I'm still mostly focused on figuring out which minigame I'll be able to do the most good in, and I'm anxious to make that choice and I'm frustrated about waiting to see if I'm welcome in the keep group.

I think my approach almost always is something like "responding naturally to things", though I'd probably not describe it that way.

[unwnd]

When I speak about outcomes it's definitely more on the side of the argumentative process? I put a lot of thought into what I want to say and even so far as Briar described it earlier as 'Diplomatic.' I don't think you're the only one who isn't understanding me so my own admitting of defeat is just

Resetting and see what comes of it. When it comes to the other aspect of 'responding to things naturally' that's just me saying I exaggerate sometimes. I wasn't being entirely genuine when it came to Ana for example because I thought maybe I could illcit a response out of her that would give me a better read. My initial dislike was absolutely true, but I should've just backed away and let the thread progress

I wanted to clarify this because I think the basis of catboi's read on me (from what I can determine) is this action and previous ones, so we're just not understanding each other, I'd like to fix that. The same goes with you

[unwnd]

I'm actually a bit surprised you have some trouble with me, given you've seen me from a mod perspective I think twice now? Maybe once

[Something_Smart]

I'm still mostly focused on figuring out which minigame I'll be able to do the most good in, and I'm anxious to make that choice and I'm frustrated about waiting to see if I'm welcome in the keep group.

I think you should go to the Wall, for several reasons.

[absinthe]

explain the reasons?

[Something_Smart]

One of them was already explained, which is that it's good to have no more than two townread players at the Keep, seeing as we only need one to end up there post-swap.
The other is that the Wall is the hardest minigame and you're the kind of person who would give us a good shot at winning it

[absinthe]

I'm actually a bit surprised you have some trouble with me, given you've seen me from a mod perspective I think twice now? Maybe once

One newbie game, I think? It probably did help, but there's a huge difference for me in being above the fray and informed versus sifting through a game uninformed.

And your not knowing that I struggle to figure you out isn't too surprising given that this is the first game where I've felt like figuring you out asap is needed. I don't have the luxury of waiting for data to come to me, and I can't rely on a stake in the ground's reads to jump-start my own reads process.

Like, say, Anastasia's issues with your approach to me come down to their feelings about my scum game. Those are feelings I wouldn't expect you to share. I'd expect you to approach me as just another player with a 33% likelihood of being scum, whom you probably have some decent level of confidence that you can read (mostly because I consider myself to be a fairly easy townread as town unless I'm having a really, really off game for some reason).

Anastasia's a town read, but I'm skeptical of any read of theirs that is based on someone showing or not showing outsized paranoia of me.

So, there goes my easiest stake in the ground.

And writing all this helps me articulate my overall difficulty in seeing into your play. I have all these expectations, but I don't get a lot of confirmation that the expectations are met, or are even correct when I look at your posts. I sometimes feel like your reply doesn't map obviously back to my post (or another's post sometimes if you're replying to them).

I get that sometimes a reply just uses a post as a jumping off place into what you actually want to say. It feels like a high proportion of your posts are of that nature, though, and I wonder if that's the disconnect -- that you are actually making a straightforward reply and I'm just failing at seeing it that way.

I'm not sure what this conversation nets for me. I want to get better at following what you're saying about the game. It's critical info and if you're town and you're on a roll, then I'm missing out on really valuable stuff (thinking about the Tenet game here). I've been just struggling along with it, because I don't get the sense in others' conversations with you that they are having similar issues.

Anyway. Like I said. Probably a me-thing.

[unwnd]

I get that sometimes a reply just uses a post as a jumping off place into what you actually want to say. It feels like a high proportion of your posts are of that nature, though, and I wonder if that's the disconnect -- that you are actually making a straightforward reply and I'm just failing at seeing it that way.

You're very correct here, at least for this game

As another topic, this is why I'm against the idea of how Ana was treating me. I don't really know how I'm going to act? I don't go into my towngames thinking 'yes, this is how I will play and it should match up to my last town game' because it never fucking does. At least not 1:1. That's where my frustration was

[absinthe]

One of them was already explained, which is that it's good to have no more than two townread players at the Keep, seeing as we only need one to end up there post-swap.
The other is that the Wall is the hardest minigame and you're the kind of person who would give us a good shot at winning it

I don't think you have any idea just how little ELO practice I get, statistically speaking, especially as town. I'm good enough at obvtowning that I wind up nk'ed early A LOT.

[Anastasia]

As another topic, this is why I'm against the idea of how Ana was treating me. I don't really know how I'm going to act? I don't go into my towngames thinking 'yes, this is how I will play and it should match up to my last town game' because it never fucking does. At least not 1:1. That's where my frustration was

I'm sorry for having such high expectations for you <3

[unwnd]

It's fine

I hope to still meet them in different ways

[Anastasia]

My response to Ana was very literal. I've felt for a good while she's only insistent upon this to see if she's right and nothing else

Well on the flip side if I'm absolutely wrong about you and SS and you're T/T we would also win in case Infinity is also town.

Do you scumread infinity?

[Anastasia]

I guess the reason I'm so insistent on trying to see if my team-solve is right is that I feel like it's a free shot we can take. It doesn't really cost us anything?

[unwnd]

I don't townread her right now but I'm weighing how I feel about Infinity/catboi's early interaction especially

[Anastasia]

I do understand that I'm most probably just wrong here tho

[unwnd]

Other points of interest is what Lukewarm does about Dunn because it seemed like he was keen on something Dunn did? But he never got around to it

[Anastasia]

One of them was already explained, which is that it's good to have no more than two townread players at the Keep, seeing as we only need one to end up there post-swap.
The other is that the Wall is the hardest minigame and you're the kind of person who would give us a good shot at winning it

I think Briar's townread of me is conditional on my willingness to vote Briar/Absinthe through- so if Briar/Absinthe are not at the keep with me I'm not sure she would still trust me 100% to carry the torch foward in the situation that she gets bounced out of the Keep.

[Something_Smart]

I think Briar's townread of me is conditional on my willingness to vote Briar/Absinthe through

That's not a townread at all then

[absinthe]

Briar has expressed some reservations about Anastasia, yeah.

I think I'm more strongly townreading Anastasia than Briar is.

If I didn't have a healthy respect for the scum game of the player I think Anastasia is, I'd go so far as to say I'm more strongly townreading them than Briar, herself. Part of the issue is having no freakin idea who Briar's main is.

[Briar]

I've been burned too much by Ana's fiery play to trust her unconditionally.

However -- my read is a townread on her, regardless. There's just a conditional attached to the entire situation that we find ourselves in where that she specifically, as a player, would totally do this as scum. It fits her so well that in addition to townreading her I find it useful for town to leash her a specific way, if we can execute it as such. For as much as I think she /would/ do it, I don't think that... it fits into her play this game at all, and the nature of the gambit does nothing for her team at all if she's scum.

Basically I'm just covering all the bases to make sure that town gets picked in the keep. I also happen to trust her judgement when she is town, because it generally errs towards being pretty damn accurate, so having her hammer on the offchance that I'm removed from the Keep and someone else gets in there is fine with me since she trusts absinthe so much.

Regarding the Keep itself; the issue then becomes if Ana gets moved and there's a wildcard, but realistically I think that absinthe (who I don't think I've actually spoken much about, playwise, this game -- it's in broad strokes for the most part that I find them... agreeable? I know that they're a very good scum player from reputation and I'm wary of being burned by them somehow but nothing's stuck out to me as bad? It's the sort of thing where they're saying their self-meta is that they obvious-town, and while it's not the sort of Loud and Brash obvious towning that like I do, lmao, it's a very good presence and I could probably go reinforce this if I wanted to for everyone but I also think that's a big waste of time. Also this is a lot of words but to tack on too I'll sheep Ana until I'm given reason to doubt her read there) should... probably? Be in the Keep? I do actually think that there's a chance we can get a 3 scum group with catboi being at the Gate because I don't like... scumread unwnd. I've explained this one before but I do think we could in theory shove two of like, I guess Dunnstral/Infinity/S_S?? There into that group. I'm very much in a mindset where I'm fairly confident on who I think is town and sort of 'meh' at the remaining, but with a pool of 3 it's probably better anyways to try and townhunt and I prefer that.

I sidetracked myself since I'm typing into one big reply for the sake of this alt's playstyle or whatever, but. I toyed around with the idea of having Luke come into the Keep because he's the weakest of my townreads and I feel like if I am wrong, it's probably there? And I'm willing to hedge a bit towards Ana's scumread on Unwnd and try for like... a 1-1-1 divide between groups, though I'm unsure if that's actually useful mechanic to do or not when we can just try for 3. It was the logic while I was at work that while a lot of movement is useful to discern, a /lack/ of movement and keeping the most important people in a group could be beneficial for us all. I dunno. Also I think that if we do try for a 1-1-1 divide somehow, Absinthe would be better off in the Wall group because I'm comfortable right now calling them town and I wouldn't want to waste IC info on them when we could narrow our pool down.

So basically I've been angsting about this all day at work trying to figure out what's best because I forgot that being town means I get ""responsibility"" and I hate it. Uh, thoughts on my ideas would be appreciated before I knight someone as the guardian of the Keep would be cool because I'm honestly fine with going with a 3scumpool insta-win or a 1-1-1 if anyone thinks that it's valuable. I'm not very good at the logistics/statistical sides of things and I might have thought myself into a plan that actually hurts us and I'd rather know upfront LMAO. So yeah.

[Briar]

I could tell you my main if you wanted, I guess, I was going to out it anyways postgame as I often do because playing on alts is just a way for me to like... force my brain to play mafia a particular way which is more in-line with how I want to play, versus my main. Which I chalk up to typing with proper capitalization and grammar and the like.

And I realized we actually have played together but the game was not a very exciting one and I did nothing in it whatsoever.

[Briar]

But frankly I think that the way I'm playing here is probably too alien to draw many meaningful connections except for my earliest days of play on Mafiascum, so /shrug!

[unwnd]

You didn't have to make that post Briar but I'm still pocketed by it nonetheless

[Briar]

I would die for you Unwnd.

[Anastasia]

I can't compete with that