Micro 1059: Micro & Normal Stuff | GAME OVER

[Coral]

yes, you may be right. i will feel so vindicated if either of my scum PT predictions end up being correct though

[Coral]

I would really like to hear if you do come up with reasons for datisi being scum because it's just really hard for me to see. I would say that my suspicion of you probably has more to do with the fact that i am having trouble seeing datisi as scum than it does with me seeing you as scum.

And if it helps at all, that's probably because I am using a different voice on this account, and sometimes I do have to force that a little bit. Similar, I think, to how your "fair enuf"s and "...."s and at the end of sentences and whatnot have read as fake at times, because I think there's some awkwardness in your attempts to imitate skitter that comes across as a bit forced

[Coral]

Hi, I'm lightly around!

[Coral]

coral, how well do you know my play / are familiar with my meta?

I would say pretty well.

[Coral]

you said earlier you would've been more present if you were scum, right? how does that coexist with you here claiming you had important things to do?

i mean, if you're scum, i don't think you ever *want* to actually play d1 the way you played it. but if you were busy and you didn't have time to invest in turning the game around, i do think it's possible you decided to quietly and passively bus galron, because (1) you're not exactly adding fuel to the flame, so he could potentially get out of it, (2) you get to argue you wouldn't have played it that way

like it's obviously not optimal, but i also don't think it's that difficult to see?

Sunday (North American time) I was busy all day and didn't post or even really check the thread at all. Saturday I had time to post, including the 3 hour window when I did post. I was referring to being more present on Friday or Saturday.

And I guess you can't know for sure, but that's just not really how I would play scum here. The time that I did spend posting on Saturday could have easily been spent doing anything useful to scum wincon if I were scum, and I don't think that any of it really was.

[Coral]

like specifically the "we both didn't push town on d1" is overlooking the difference that i was there and i had possible options that i could've pushed, and i was *there*

going mia for a bit in the game, then claiming "i didn't push on town" is weird because, technically yes, you didn't push on town, but you didn't do much to push on scum either

now i'm wondering if that line was a subtle pocket attempt

help

Yes, that's true. I just meant that I felt like I didn't do anything to advance scum wincon. I don't see anything that you did to advance scum wincon day 1 either. feel like scamper attempted to.

I also think I was a little less active in thread early on since I didn't really feel a need to get townread (didn't want to get nightkilled + I thought that my role would be clearing since I didn't really expect there to be much more town power). And early games bore me a little bit as town. There's so many more fun things to do as scum

[Coral]

based on the reads you have of me here, that is the feeling i got. i also got the feeling it could've been tmi, if you'd said you didn't know me *that* well.

I'll say... well enough to have ~expectations~ of how you would play as both alignments, even if those may not be entirely accurate.

[Coral]

Sunday (North American time) I was busy all day and didn't post or even really check the thread at all. Saturday I had time to post, including the 3 hour window when I did post. I was referring to being more present on Friday or Saturday.

ok i checked, i think this was around the time where... it really did not seem very likely galron was going to be dying? or rather, it was far from it being decided he's the yeet. so i don't think the argument that you would've spent that time pushing more town is very convincing, because at the time it's not like scum!you could've known that galron was gonna keep being a lurksack and end up getting votes and that he's gonna need saving

I'm pretty sure whoever is scum did know that was very likely to happen. scamper did also say in 1230 that Saturday night was when the thread is starting to turn against Galron, and the thing that I chose to comment on was that I was getting more suspicious of Galron. He found that scummy, but I think it's towny, because I didn't make any attempts to push elsewhere despite things starting to move towards my partner.

[Coral]

we can probably decide this in the pt if you wanna do it, that person won' have to place the vote tonight

i don't think i get the difference btwn deciding it in the pt, or deciding it here

idk, i just thought it'd be cool

lol

im in favor of the cool factor

retreat to our secret chambers for the decisions

[Coral]

haha @spec chat we're talking about so many cool things in the hood and you can't see them

[Coral]

[Coral]

Breaking news!

Datisi will be voting first.

Stay tuned for further updates on this developing story.

[Coral]

Okay, we can bring things back here, I think. I'm going to bed. Datisi, you'll have a while to yourself. Most of all, if you do think that it's more likely to be me, I'd ask for you to summarize your main reasons why, and hopefully we can talk about them later.

A couple questions, one small and one less small:
1) Did you mean anything by your intro post? It sounds a little sarcastic, but I'm not sure why.

2) At what point did your read on me start to change? I feel like a lot of that progression isn't visible, can you track through when it happened and why?

I'll try to wake up a bit earlier than usual to be here around when scamper gets here.

[Coral]

i wish i could summarize my reasons for thinking it's you, but i don't exactly *have* them - it's just that i have better reasons to think scamper is town than i do thinking you are

i think the best explicit reason why you're more likely scum, or like a moment that explicitly shows scum motivation, is when you decided you wanted me to vote first

i was not in the mood to argue that last night because i was barely keeping my eyes open, but

in my mind, it would make sense that a townie would want whoever they're scum to vote first. because if scum votes first, you know the game is not going to end yet. and like, if you're town who thinks i'm town and who sees i'm leaning you, then it seems very counterintuitive to me for you to want *me* to vote first. because if i'm town and i vote town!you, that's that, gg. whereas even if scamper!scum votes you first, you still have a chance of convincing me

and even if you do want me to vote first anyway, then i'd expect town!you to actually be presenting more reasons why i should reconsider voting you and instead vote scamper and etc etc. where your 393 in the hood is just *weird* from town-you because it's showing a resigning "well idk how to actually convince you if you're town" attitude which (1) is odd compared to your attitude earlier, (2) is odd because

you

were the fake-hammer vote on me

and also shortly after deciding you want me to hammer first, you start going into potential mechanical problems with my play, which is just... very peculiar timing

like, i absolutely hate that the perhaps best reasons i can point out as scum motivation of someone all happened within like 24 hours before the game's end, because i feel like i should have better reasons and longer-lasting reasons, but

idk i'm tired i didn't sleep much last night

I find it

relieving

when scum votes first in f3, especially when they vote for me, because it makes things simpler. I do not think that it necessarily increases town's chances of winning the game. Scum getting to choose who they 1v1 with is incredibly valuable. My thought process going in to that vote was that I didn't want to give scamper that choice at all, since I thought he was probably scum, but even if he wasn't, he votes me and probably loses.

So once scamper picked you, my options were:
1) choose you
2) choose scamper, in which case you probably choose me, and then we're stuck and maybe scamper ends up just deciding to vote anyway
3) choose myself. i did heavily consider after scamper chose datisi, just being like "okay, fuck it" and real-voting for scamper, because it felt like that was my last chance for agency in this situation. But I wasn't confident enough on scamper being scum anymore for me to feel like that was the best percentage play

It's hard for me to know how to argue my case for being town when I didn't know your case for me being scum. I always will want to try, but I do kind of think that if you still don't see me as town, then there's not much more I can do.

scamper, as either alignment, is good at arguing and at getting me to doubt myself. I've been wavering a bit, sometimes more than others, and the question asked in the hood prompted me to think more about the assumptions that I was making earlier and realize that they were incorrect.

I don't see why there's strategic benefit to me as scum starting to suspect you here, so I don't really get your point? On the surface it looks like I'm realigning myself in some way to get ready for a new direction. That will draw your attention and probably make you suspicious of me. But there's no reason for me to do that as scum, because if you vote for me, I can just find those reasons then. It doesn't benefit me at all to be preparing to angle towards you beforehand unless it's something that I think will make me look more town (which I don't think it really does).

[Coral]

A few reasons why I think you should find me as town:
1) I think my day 1 play matches far more to someone who has a PR, doesn't feel that strongly about any scumreads, and also believes that they will be either nightkilled or cleared by their role at some point, than it matches to scum. On day 1 I thought I was probably the main town power and that I would get setup-cleared once I needed to claim, and my main goal was creating a town hood that could bloc up and win the game. You can see that in the hood, where I'm often focused on you two, trying to decide if I'm confident enough to call either of you town, since if I was able to do so at any point then the game is pretty much won, even on day 2. As scum, I wouldn't feel that, since I would know that there is significant other town power that would throw my claim into question. I would need to be more townread on dayplay in order to survive.

2) As scum, I always have a plan. I am always looking for how to put my team in the best position to win the game. You can see this by looking at my scum PT from Eurybia's Curse. When my team was fairly inactive, I tried to take control of the thread, constantly fluffing up my posts to get more townread, and pursuing angles that would set us up to be able to win. I don't really think my play here matches that at all. I would have just let Galron die and also gotten nothing out of it. Yes, I was busy at times, but the times that I did post didn't really do anything to help me if I were scum. I was going to say that I probably try to bring somebody else to ELO here, but I guess the same argument could apply to either of you. Still, I feel like as the one with the hood, I had the most control over who the previous two eliminations were. I think that as scum I try to amplify Ausuka's paranoia of scamper, not soothe it, and then use it to get scamper out of the way yesterday instead of Meg.

3) I think that my approach to ELO here has been towny? All of us can argue for days as either alignment, so that's not really relevant. But I think that I have shown that I am genuinely

trying

to understand the opposing side's view, not trying to push mine. Maybe it doesn't come across that way, but that's how I feel at least. I think that as scum here I would be a lot more self-centered and focused on making sure nobody has any ammunition against me. Pushing out and overextending myself doesn't help me much, because it can easily backfire.

[Coral]

I would have just let Galron die and also gotten nothing out of it.

This is worded poorly, let me attempt to rephrase:
In order to argue that I am scum here, you are arguing that I just let Galron die and also got nothing out of it.

[Coral]

I will, yes.

[Coral]

im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town im town

[Coral]

he votes me and probably loses.

i feel like this should be obvious but just in case, the probably landed in the wrong spot here. it should be prior to votes

I was still half asleep writing that post

[Coral]

sure, but it also guarantees the game goes down to a 1v1.

...so? If it's an advantageous 1v1 for scum, then that's not really a good thing

[Coral]

how confident are you currently on him being scum vs on me being scum?

I think I've lost any confidence that I had going in to the day. If I were forced to vote at this very instant it would be for scamper but if I do have to be the one to make that decision then I would want to hear more from both of you before I choose. Right now I just care about the case where you're town, in which I want to show you that I'm town. If you're scum, then either I'll know when you vote me, or I'll deal with that decision once it's in front of me.

[Coral]

i don't think it's *strategic*, exactly. if you're scum here, you kind of have a choice of who you want to 1v1 - scamper seems to be 50/50, and i'm leaning you. so it seems logical that you'd rather have scamper be the deciding vote than me be the deciding vote.

and if you can sense that i'm going to be voting you, and that you'll be 1v1ing me, i think it's kind of instinctual to want to get a head start on that? because like, either you (1) have to show that you think i might be scum, or (2) you have to start trying really, REALLY hard to convince me you're actually town

because like, if you do neither of those things, THEN it looks like you're saying "yeah, i think datisi is town, but i also want datisi to vote first, yes i'm aware he's probably voting me, lols". and that is very obviously not something town ever does? (unless they give zero shits about the game, which obviously doesn't apply to you)

I still don't see why I would want to get a head start on that. There's no need for a clean progression there. And if I didn't ever think that you might be scum, I would have voted scamper a while ago, so clearly that possibility has still been on my mind all day.

Maybe I misunderstood how likely you were to vote me? At the time I decided I wanted you to vote first, I thought you were closer to undecided but the way you're talking now makes it sound like you are strongly leaning towards me.

[Coral]

I think that my stated reasoning when I talk about why I chose you makes it pretty clear that I think there is a strong possibility of you being scum.

[Coral]

I've also thought that you as scum would be coming into this ELO with the expectation that one of me or scamper would vote first, but that if you needed to, you would vote me. That was part of why I found 1553 kind of concerning. It could be my bias, but it felt like there was a lot of "okay this reason to townread scamper isn't as good as I thought" and then at the end you said you were leaning towards me and it just... kind of felt like you had already decided that's what you wanted to do and weren't looking at the game on a deeper level.

Especially because in the hood it felt like you were pretty on board with the "meg or scamper is scum" plan, and said that I was very likely to just be town. It feels like the progression to get from there to where you entered today is missing.

So anyway. Point is that if you're town, that's part of why I believed that you weren't that convinced on voting me, because it seemed like your reasons weren't very good and I'm not sure why they would be convincing for you.

[Coral]

The other thing about 1553 though is that I partly felt that you would be able to come up with better reasons if you really were scum who wanted to pivot towards me

So I guess I hoped that you were just town who didn't have very convincing reasons for who to choose yet.

[Coral]

i think scum!me would be capable of coming up with better reasons to call you scum if i wanted to

Yes, that was the next step in my thought process. So... I don't know where I land on that.

[Coral]

Do you have any thoughts on my 1677?

[Coral]

You don't have to feel shitty about it. I'm good at coming up with fake reasons for why I'm town when I'm scum!

I just wanted to know if they're not working for you, if I could try to think of something else

[Coral]

What about this one:

There's no real point to me doing most of my nuanced solving and thoughts on the game in the hood on d2 since at best it would for the sake of Ausuka, who is always going to die before endgame? I might as well put that effort into the thread so that I have more presence and get more townread. I just liked being able to talk to confirmed town, it felt safe in there.

I don't think that's very convincing but hey you never know what will work

[Coral]

I also mentioned in the hood on d2 the possibility of this f3 existing. I think that shows that I was aware that this would be the general trajectory of the game if I was wrong that scum was in Meg/Xayah.

I'm probably too self-conscious about looking like I'm planning things to share that thought as scum, because I would be planning things, but wouldn't necessarily expect myself to be thinking that far ahead as town.

And if I was scum looking ahead and planning for this, I think I would have planned better

Or if I didn't want this f3, I could have pushed for scamper instead yesterday. I think that my actions, if I'm scum here, gave town a much higher chance of winning this game than I would ever need to give them.

[Coral]

idk maybe it wasn't, I haven't really thought about this that heavily because it wasn't something I was ever planning because I'm not scum

I bet i could have pulled it off though

[Coral]

I also don't think you were saying he was town in the hood? you expressed some concerns there

[Coral]

I just kinda feel like I had some level of control over the last two elims due to the hood. And the last two elims left me in a f3 that is not very favorable to me compared to like any other possible option

[Coral]

I know it's not the best answer, I gave what I thought were better answers and he still wants to vote me, so now I'm just saying whatever is on my mind because it probably can't hurt at this point?

[Coral]

but last night after i read the neighborhood my mind swung back to it being coral

Can you briefly summarize why?

[Coral]

if I were scum i would have gone yolo mode and voted scamper for that and prayed tbh

[Coral]

I think that if I were scum i would hope that you would find it a scummy thing to say. As town, I'm not sure. It's certainly a dangerous thing to say, and I guess I'm not sure if he needs to be taking risks here?

[Coral]

like that kind of throws a wrench in your brain a bit at a point where things are going fairly well for him

[Coral]

scamper?

[Coral]

oh god dammit

i should be happy but i wanted to be right

[Coral]

VOTE: datisi

[Coral]

I don't even know if I have anything to say, I still barely believe it. but ill try

[Coral]

to briefly expand on this - when i was reading through the hood, coral's posts felt *manipulative*. it felt like she was pushing ausuka and you toward her desired goal, that she was putting out feelers to see see if either of you would bite on a push. in particular, when i scumcased her in the min thread, i had thought i might be wrong because she responded so calmly, and that felt towny to me. but now i see behind the scenes she was trying to work you and ausuka to see me as scum for it. and i think the fact she did that there and not in the main thread is +scum. it also felt like a lot of her posts were performative, that she said things that were maybe unnautral or odd for a townie to say to make it look lie she was thinking about things. what i didn't see a lot of was the "nuanced solving" she is talking up here.

I understand that it probably doesn't feel good to see that I was responding to things in there but not in here. I genuinely thought that it was the best way to help town win the game. I was probably wrong, seeing as we ended up here. But I don't think that me doing that in the hood actually benefited me in any way? If I know that I'm adding you anyway and going to f3 with you and Datisi. It just doesn't help me as scum.

I know you'll probably vote for me and I don't blame you, I just couldn't see scum Datisi and it's on me for not being findable as town.

I think that although I think he played day 1 in a very towny way, ever since then he's been more scummy. 1197 is an example of it. He's just been kind of sitting around waiting for town to push town, and then being ready to be in position afterwards, and trying not to get in their way. The way that he entered ELO was scummy, piggybacking on my point about your Meg progression and then nitpicking it to death. You were right to call that out. I think that this whole day phase he hasn't really done any serious solving, he's been focused on just matching tone and waiting for us to end up on each other.

[Coral]

I know we've gone over like everything in the game already but I can answer questions if you have them.

[Coral]

tbh Datisi's reasons for townreading you were incredibly weak and I should have seen through that they wouldn't have genuinely come from him as town

[Coral]

I just don't feel like he ever really engaged with the game on a deeper level. I did, and I did it badly and came to the wrong conclusions, but I tried.

[Coral]

I just don't feel like he ever really engaged with the game on a deeper level. I did, and I did it badly and came to the wrong conclusions, but I tried.

show me where you engaged with the game on a "deeper level". if it's in the hood point me to it there

I mean, that phrasing is probably bad, because you might see it differently. But I'm talking about his reasons he had about why you're town. And his reread of day 1 in 1553. It just feels really surface level to me. I don't get the feeling like he really tried to get in there with anyone and try to figure out their alignment. When I did my analysis of day 1, I felt like I went deeper. And when you responded, I engaged with you, tried to sort you, and I think at least that my posts show that I was thinking carefully about all of these different possibilities and the things that you said

[Coral]

I know that me talking more probably isn't going to help. But I feel like if we lose this game it's my fault, so I want to try. Sorry if I seem irrational.

[Coral]

i don't know. i kind of worried he was playing both sides for a while, for a lot of this phase and it was part of why i was doubting him. but ultimately he did reach a conclusion.

And I didn't reach a conclusion because a lot of what you said was convincing, and I was genuinely reading it and trying to sort you based on it. It felt like you were trying to solve the game as well, and it felt like Datisi was just waiting. He only reached a conclusion because we forced him to.

[Coral]

Very well played and very deserved win, Datisi!

Thank you for the game, Relly, and thanks for playing everyone, it was a lot of fun playing with all of you.

Sorry I couldn't pull it through. I probably would have voted for me, too

[Coral]

and coral fwiw i really do think your whole heuristic for how you attempted to solve the game in f3 is fundamentally flawed and will not lead you to a correct answer in the majority of cases. i realize i probably don't have much room to talk seeing as i am the one who voted incorrectly, but i would strongly urge you to not use that thought process in future games.

Probably, yes! Thanks for the thoughts. I'll try to adjust my thinking in the future. I think my problem was that if I stuck to just, who did I trust believed what they were saying and made sense coming from town... I would still pick Datisi as town

When it came to that situation I felt like I needed a different angle to look at things from because any time I simply read either of your posts I would start thinking that person was town. But you're right that I put too much weight on trying to find a plan or a narrative for the game.

Maybe it's because as mafia I am always hoping that people will read me based on if I believe what I say, because I trust I can fake that, and hoping that they won't look for if I have a plan, because that's what I think makes my scumgame most obvious.

[Coral]

at some point though when you made the post about how you keep wanting to explain your thought process when i asked why you were doubling down i went "god, shes just town isnt she". wish i had been able to hold on to that thought but datisi's pivot against you was so well timed and made so much sense that it threw me for a loop.

I also had a couple of these moments and nearly got there but never quite managed it. I'd like to believe that if I had one more day I could have, but that's probably false hope

I went back and forth so many times that my progressions were messy and my logic was all over the place, especially when trying to think of who should vote first, and Datisi exploited that very well. I sometimes find it easier to get townread as scum, because I don't need to be honest.

[Coral]

Reading the mod thread, part of me wonders if we would have won if I had added scamper instead of Datisi. At the time I didn't think the choice mattered that much, but I think things would have played out very differently, at least.

[Coral]

Aha, so Datisi did consider n1 killing scamper! After seeing your thoughts on your claim, I also wish I had thought more about the setup, I probably would have come to the realization about your claim sooner. That was a fun read!