Open 812 Guardians of the Fortress - Game Over

[Something_Smart]

But it doesn't mean it was Infinity's fault either. Briar was consensus town.

[Something_Smart]

Folding meaning that S_S switched to me and Ydra both switched to me for distancing purposes. The funny thing is that S_S has been pretty consistent in disliking me so I give him that lol

Consistency is not really a towntell

[Something_Smart]

I feel like you've spent more time trying to prove that you're town than making a case on catboi. It's not a binary, but more effort has gone to the former on day 2 than the latter. Can you refocus a little?

I'm so so so bad at cases.

I can make a case on catboi if you want. But it's going to suck. So if you say that I'm scum because my case on catboi sucks, after I gave you this warning, I will scream irl.

Requoting this on the new page to make sure it doesn't get buried.

Absinthe, would you like to see a case on catboi?

[Something_Smart]

Do you uh

Want me to still think you're scum over Catboi?

I mean I ultimately don't care what you think. I'm hoping that absinthe will appreciate my commitment to honesty even when it makes me look bad.

[Something_Smart]

I don't follow that. Only absinthe has the power to decide my fate. If what you think influences her, then I would care, but that doesn't seem incredibly likely.

[Something_Smart]

I'm pretty sure absin is gonna ask you where your solve is in the wall I'm just trying to help you out bud

Well Lukewarm has become more town, at least

[Something_Smart]

Great so you don't care the whole game just decided I'm scum as if it were a fucking epiphany

I mean I don't care for the same reason I don't care about your read on me.

I think Dunn-scum is probably more likely, at least?

Though I guess I have to wonder about Dunn's whole song and dance about scumclaiming

[Something_Smart]

To be fair I am still scumreading unwnd; I realize now that my comment was ambiguous. Dunn-scum is more likely than it was before, not more likely than unwnd-scum.

[Something_Smart]

Just FYI I don't think my first response to the Briar flip as scum is to rub it in Ana's face.

Not sure how much that's worth, but maybe it's worth something.

[Something_Smart]

I want to trust this sentiment but I just...can't.

Well it's obviously not accurate anymore, because if I have to choose between you and Ana deciding my fate then yeah I'm picking you. But it's replaced with the much simpler argument that I don't 1v1 catboi when Infinity is right there.

[Something_Smart]

Infinity was already calling me scum, too. It would be so easy to paint that as a setup.

[Something_Smart]

Speaking of setups, this setup is dope, if I may toot my own horn a little bit. Good call from Isis on pulling this out of the depths of obscurity.

[Something_Smart]

how would scum-you have set up the swap?

Catboi and you, probably? I mean like I said I wouldn't want Ana picking, but I imagine I probably would have rather gone against Infinity than against catboi.

[Something_Smart]

I think a town-Catboi at the Keep would have made that mini harder for scum to win.

Maybe? I mean people would probably have still taken it as a scumclaim swap, no? So it just comes down to whether catboi guesses right between the two UTR's.

[Something_Smart]

But, that whole interaction from both sides doesn't feel scum-scum to me.

is it going to be productive for me to engage you on this? because that exchange feels like bog-standard distancing to me, especially 169.

[Something_Smart]

he might have correctly voted not-Briar.

I mean the same is also true for Infinity. I don't recall her having a strong leaning one way or the other?

[Something_Smart]

Any thoughts about the Dunn post I pointed up as possible TMI?

Doesn't seem like a TMI to me. From the perspective of Keep being initially 0 scum, the choice was between all three of you.

[Something_Smart]

There was a whole drawn out follow-on exchange which would veer into masterclass level distancing IMO.

Is this the interaction that ends at 205 or does it go longer?

I don't see the masterclass, sorry. All I see is catboi awkwardly breaking it off after not knowing where to go with it.

[Something_Smart]

catboi wasn't in Ana's day 1/day 2 solve. I think the starting place on seeing that swap might have been less certain in Ana's mind and I don't think Briar wanted Ana's mind jostled much.

I suppose, although Ana's not really the one whom Briar needs to pander to.

[Something_Smart]

here you go absinthe

it is a mess as promised

Spoiler: catboi case

I've half a mind to just jump to the gate right now - I actually didn't mind lukewarm's suggestion earlier that I be the third at the keep, because I don't see scum motivation in Anastasia's play and although briar's play didn't make a ton of sense to me I feel as though she's threadspewed from the townreads on her, but, selfishly, I want to stay in the game longer and I think the keep should be resolved first. I feel like I'm able to play better after flips are on the table.

So this logic is... bad. It's just flat-out not playing to wincon if true. "It might make sense to put me at the Keep... but I think Gate is more fun, so I'm just gonna pick it." And they did pick it. Because they want to be in the game longer.

I can't help but notice that at this point, Briar (flipped scum) and unwnd (top pick for third scum) had already locked into the other two locations. Surely that's just a wacky coincidence though, and not catboi inventing a flimsy excuse to guarantee a very early 1-1-1 split?

(And even if I'm wrong about unwnd, we will notice that Dunn jumped to the wall as soon as it was looking like he might not make it there. So Dunn being scum over unwnd doesn't sink this theory.)

Well, let's see if there's any way we can figure out whether this is catboi's real opinion or just an excuse. How about 1101, where they indicate the resolution order should be Keep > Gate > Wall. Why not Keep > Wall > Gate? What happened to selfishly wanting to stay alive as long as possible?

You know, this might be just me, but I'm not seeing any other references to that.

Oh hey, they talked about their motivation for going to the Gate:

My feeling was that, assuming the two townreads already at the keep were correct, me going there would ensure it was all town and force the mafia to swap with one of us. Being that I was not as townread as the other two, I'd likely be left there and I could just vote my townread and win a point. However it seemed almost superfluous to me - they were likely to get voted without my help regardless, and I'd end up removing myself from the game before being able to do much. Like I said in the post you quoted, I feel like I'm able to contribute a lot more effectively once there's been some flips and I can analyze based on interactions. Granted this way I have to convince people I'm town myself, which is not always easy for me, but I still feel as though I'm more valuable this way.

And this just seems like a lie. Like, this isn't the justification they gave when they locked it in! They said that the Keep would be fine, but they wanted to stay alive longer.

And there's also 1710, which I touched on before. It's clearly wrong (omg catboi made 2 posts supporting ana and only 1 supporting briar, obviously they would automatically trust ana over briar and surely the scum were able to deduce that !) and while the motivation for it doesn't

have

to be malicious, it seems to just be the judicious townie thing to do to actually, like check this before posting it? especially since catboi is clearly trying to project this deliberative vibe (even though as I think I've previously said, it really isn't even pro-town to be that way).

And 1719 is like... arguably a perspective slip. They're trying to frame my flailing and freaking out as a scum response to an unusual thing happening, even though if I were scum I would have known the Briar scumflip was coming a mile away and indeed my reaction was only so disorganized because I am town and WAS caught off balance. (Absinthe was I believe the one to first point this out. It was a good point.)

[Something_Smart]

1791

ok... what's non-partnery about that? why is it harder for Briar to write that post to a partner than to a townie?

like it's impressive analysis to fake, no doubt, but I don't see why her knowing the read is right makes it any harder to write that than knowing it's wrong. (I would think it would actually make it easier?)

[Something_Smart]

I mean if it's WIFOM either way then what makes it masterclass distancing but just regular scum play if it's S -> T

I really don't understand that. Like yes it was good scum play by her and yes it was probably excessive, but why was it more excessive/more risky if catboi is scum? If anything it seems like it makes MORE sense S/S because they're trying to make interactions that look genuine... but ultimately yes it is WIFOM.

[Something_Smart]

Looking at it from the now-perspective, I know it's false from her side, but it still doesn't spew catboi as either alignment to me.

Yeah I mean that's perfectly fine. I'm not expecting you to see everything from my POV, but you said before that it was masterclass level distancing which I thought implied that you thought it was not likely to be distancing.

[Something_Smart]

Keep wasn't locked in before you voted right? Isn't that why Infinity got dumped there?

O.o

[Something_Smart]

But I DID accept your townslip...

[Something_Smart]

Though I do think unwnd is more likely to slip that way as scum than Dunn?

unwnd how hands-on are you usually in decisions as scum

[Something_Smart]

How much would you have tried to help your scumteam decide what actions to take? (in this case, it would be who to swap and who to confirm as town)

[Something_Smart]

You made an argument about how you would have swapped someone who is going to flip scum because of course you would - you're not going to betray knowledge she's flipping mafia so you act uninformed and point back to it when she flips - it's a very basic play. Are you seriously trying to argue that kind of move is beneath your capability?

Yeah probably? I mean I would have been really leery to play into the "Briar is obvtown" narrative as scum, since I don't think I would necessarily be confident in navigating that in a way that looks genuine. So I think I probably would have avoided talking about her, or at least it would have been more hesitant.

[Something_Smart]

If you would like "textbook distancing", how about this: pretending to be mistaken about the identity of an alt.

How do you know that Briar shared her identity with her partners?

[Something_Smart]

Also, very, very subtle, but I feel like here he's trying to push Anastasia toward committing to voting Briar at first, only to tie himself in a knot by saying scum would hesitate, but town shouldn't commit to their reads either - I think given how he saw ana was doubting him, he just shifted his argument knowing she'd do the opposite of what he said. There's a bit of a halt where he says "you're playing badly if town by committing to your reads" but there was never the followthrough to the next logical step - that scum would leave her with whichever of her reads was wrong.

I mean you also left off the part where I explicitly criticized Ana for locking into her Briar/absinthe townreads and refusing to ever go back on them.

[Something_Smart]

Would the other townies please post?

No.

(Sorry I have a very busy weekend. More later.)

[Something_Smart]

Catboi is moving into the "if scum I'm gonna cry" zone.

what exactly is difficult for scum to fake in that post

70% of it is literally just recapping what happened
20% of it is saying stuff does or doesn't look like a partner interaction with zero explanation
10% of it is based on Ydrasse meta which is the only actual analysis there but that's so easy to fake

or is it just, you would feel bad voting against someone who's put in so much effort?

[Something_Smart]

scum are not holding back this game

there are two very different ways to read this lol

[Something_Smart]

I assume you meant it as "this game, scum are not holding back"?

[Something_Smart]

Who do you have as the scum at the Wall now?

still unwnd, I think? but growing less confident in my opinion, and caring less since it's becoming clearer that the Wall is getting resolved before the Keep.

[Something_Smart]

Uh, I meant Gate, not Keep, lol.

[Something_Smart]

Because if the Wall is flipping before the Gate, then my opinion shouldn't be taken into consideration there, and as a result I could say whatever I wanted as scum so it won't help read me.

[Something_Smart]

Sure, but there's nothing I can do about that.

[Something_Smart]

Maybe. Fat lot of good they've done so far.

[Something_Smart]

I find it fascinating that people are dwelling so heavily on my suggestion that Infinity go to the Wall. Perhaps not wrongly, but I do feel like people are blowing it out of proportion when it was just a mild scumlean.

And, Infinity scumread me too, so it's not as if she was jumping to listen to me.

Still, it's something concrete that I did commit to, and I guess it's noteworthy that I'm the only one of the slots in contention that made a suggestion like that? Or at least I'm the only one that made a suggestion that's getting talked about.

[Something_Smart]

Are you convinced that Lukewarm is town?

[Something_Smart]

Why not vote Dunn then?

[Something_Smart]

From your point of view? Probably, not that my opinion matters for much.

I guess if catboi and I agree that Lukewarm is town that counts for something.

[Something_Smart]

Let's just say someone's about to cry, I guess?

[Something_Smart]

Did people like the setup overall? Do you have any suggestions for changes/improvements?

[Something_Smart]

-

Regarding these unclear points, I'm not sure that I had a specific answer in mind for some of them. But I like your decisions-- everything is in one thread, but you can only vote for your own game, and resolved games flip immediately and no one from them can post.

I was trying to think about a way to address unwnd's complaint-- that sometimes people in one game have no incentive to care about the other games. I feel like this mostly applies to the Gate, because its unconfirmed members are 50% scum rather than 33%, and people are motivated to leave the Gate till last because of the IC. Even despite these, I think I was wrong in not caring, because if catboi and I both scumread unwnd then everyone can be sure that one townie supports it.

But, maybe that could be mitigated by not removing the IC's thread access after their game ends? Because the main reason to remove thread access is to prevent extra IC's, so if someone is already an IC, I can see this fix making sense.

The game's EV is just a tad over 50%, and I was afraid that it would be townsided in practice because there's an IC and there are no NK's. In some sense I'm glad scum won because it makes me less afraid of that (though, the scumteam did play very strongly). I think maybe making the IC permanent wouldn't swing the needle too far? It's probably worth it, because I don't want "Gate last" to become obviously best.

If anyone ran this setup again, I'd join it in a heartbeat. If nobody does, I might run it myself. I enjoyed it a lot and definitely want to see it tested more. (And thanks for modding Marashu! You're a really good mod!)

[Something_Smart]

I've updated the wiki page to clarify the things that weren't specified and also add the rule about the IC always being able to post. Not sure if I'll keep that, but I'd like to see how it plays out.