open 910 - a series of extremely codependent relationships i {game overrr)

[mirrored]

First, about myself. I'm new to this site, but not new to Mafia. I don't want to reveal anything more about my experience though.

VOTE: Bloodb0t

hi

[mirrored]

First, about myself. I'm new to this site, but not new to Mafia. I don't want to reveal anything more about my experience though.

VOTE: Bloodb0t

hi

ok y U no counterwagon? I'm a good boy, vote the duplicitous doctor.

blood is on your hands

[mirrored]

I don't have hands!

now you do

[mirrored]

nope

[mirrored]

i have big brain

[mirrored]

btw can you pls upload an avatar?

mirrored

[mirrored]

I'm back online and have read through everything. I have a schedule, but I should be able to post every day. Before I talk about anything else, I want to clarify a term - what is an MO?

[mirrored]

First, about myself. I'm new to this site, but not new to Mafia. I don't want to reveal anything more about my experience though.

VOTE: Bloodb0t

hi

Is there any reason in particular you don't want to reveal more about your mafia experience?

Since this is the first question directed to me, I'm just interested in what people think about me when they don't know anything about me.

As to what I think of the counterwagons, I thought the proposal was a joke meant to get us to near-hammer with two opposing wagons. Strategically, I didn't think it was a good idea (it's risky to get to this situation too early), but there's an interesting perspective that says otherwise.

I like how Black is questioning players though (at this point everyone except White Lotus), this is a good way to move forward.

[mirrored]

So explain why Sunflower was dumbtelling

Pretending mafia does have kill and generally acting like you don't know information mafia 100% has (basically inability to read setup if you are town).

And yes Sunflower is not only player who did that.

~ Wizard Enchanticus

Who else did this, and how suspicious do you think this is (you can take this generally, or go down to each player's individual case)?

[mirrored]

This game designed that all town must vote mafia member, or we never win.


Watch out for "early game" busses or taunts.

I am not liking Sunflower at all. Too much dumbtells for my taste.

~ Wizard Enchanticus

Just throwing this quote in, because the first two lines are the opposite of Sunflower's "dumbtell." There are arguments that both stating things that scum would be aware of (e.g. all town has to be against them) and seeming like you're not aware (e.g. assuming scum has nightkill) can be scummy. I personally can't read too much into either of these two opposites.

Doctor Drew kind of took the words out of my mouth, still wanted to point this out myself anyway. Good for him I guess?

[mirrored]

Sorry if I wasn't clear.

This game designed that all town must vote mafia member, or we never win.

...

~ Wizard Enchanticus

This is a line that is knowledgeable about scum and their strategy.

does scum not have a nightkill

This is ignorant about scum and their strategy.

In this sense, these two posts are opposites.

[mirrored]

Was the site down for a few minutes for anyone else? Anyway, back to what I was writing before the technical troubles.

Anyways, I don't think sunflower would follow mirrored's vote on me like that if they were both scum, so if there's a scum in there I think mirrored. Mostly because of the comment about hiding previous mafia experience.

Why does this seem like you're jumping from "if there is scum on me, mirrored is scum" to "mirrored is scum" (i.e. assuming the "if" condition, in other words assuming there is a scum voting you)? Admittedly, your read on me, which is under hypothetical conditions at this time, only becomes clearer later in the quoted post and your posts after that. But this is what makes your reasoning strange to me.

[mirrored]

I haven't read the past few pages but I just wanted to stay I'm here, the downtime for two days was unfortunate.

[mirrored]

I'm done reading up to now. I haven't come online to be able to change my vote (or produce any kind of substance or post, for that matter). I'm having a hard time townreading players because much of the discourse centers on insubstantial material like dumbtells, hyperanalyzing and debating about specific posts at length, vibes/style, and speculating about scum strategy. Especially the last is stupid - we shouldn't trap ourselves in endless WIFOM loops about what scum would do or wouldn't risk doing (the latter amounts to a "too scummy to be scum" argument), especially when there have been no flips or end-of-day wagon counts to inform us. To some extent I have been involved in these discussions, yes, but I haven't jumped to reads as fast as others have, or latched onto any post as a definite or strong tell of alignment. In conclusion, I want to create a set of reads based on repeated behaviors, especially two: how people have created, justified, acted on and changed their reads; and how players have substantially contributed to scumhunting (and less importantly, overall discussion). From this, I intuitively believe I can place 1-2 players as town and find 2-3 suspects for scum. My gut already tells me what I might end up thinking about each player. No guarantees about either of the last two sentences, though. Since people are already asking for me and Sunflower to hammer, I plan to also decide on either hammering, voting someone else or staying where I am based on where my thoughts lead me.

My last note, I use the Sepia theme and will never change.

[mirrored]

First, I'll talk about White Lotus, since they're the focal point of the current votes. I won't split this into two sections for each of the two heads, especially when one is more active than the other. I'll admit that I have no experience playing with hydras, but I'll go on anyway. (Yeah, I'm breaking what I said about my experience in an early post of mine, maybe the first? though I was referring mainly to hiding personal matters and playermeta then.)

62 is WL's first substantial post. I don't like the contradiction between disliking dumbtells while making "smarttells" yourself (if I may coin that word). As you might guess from the previous post, though, I can't make much from this beyond that this is a single scum-tilting post. However, they haven't responded to my further questioning in 154 either (correct me if I'm wrong) - the lack of acknowledgment is what really worries me and why my questioning can be taken as successful.

136 (bianco) is a questioning post I like. I wish WL posted more of this and less of engaging in debates I don't really care about. Both B and E have done this, and they've teamed together in debating with Doctor Drew and perhaps other players. Not a good sign. Then 164 expresses suspicion of Black, but WL goes on "1v1ing" Drew in posts such as 175, which revotes him for emphatic effect. The ISO focuses on arguing with Drew rather than defending themselves or pushing another player - even with Drew it's continuing to argue about the dumbtells rather than an authentic, forceful push on him. The one defense post outside the debate with Drew, 185, is too defensive, its rhetoric too aggressive.

WL has made no other posts for me to go off of. According to the post counting feature, they're the second least active player besides me. I'm going to seem like a hypocrite, but the lack of posts is suspicious in connection with the prior paragraph. I think WL is a good candidate to vote then, but I'll see what happens in my next posts.

WL since you're recently online you might reply to this post. The previous paragraphs were written entirely without considering WL's last post - I don't want to edit them to preserve a snapshot of my thoughts, but I'll consider them later. (I'm a bit tired of talking about WL too.)

[mirrored]

Sunflower has been interesting (here, mainly meaning contradictory), so I'll go next with them.

31 starts a pattern of reckless, risky play, so such future plays aren't as notable as people make them out to be. The assumption that we can't be partners based on the voting behavior is one such example. (More generally, eliminating potential scumteams based on single tells is unwise for the chance of error in attempting to apply this strategy to multiple candidate scumteams. This is also why my reads are focusing on single players rather than scumteams.)

67 starts Sunflower's most interesting thought pattern though.

optimal play imo is to day 1 lim the person who is town but feels like they have the worst reads or are least agreeable to townblocking bc then it's easier to consolidate day 2

this is mostly a joke

A bizarre post in a similar vein. (I got kind of angry at this, so I wrote an unnecessary refutation. It's here if you want to read it, though it isn't worth much):

If you're so confident in your own reads that you'd eliminate a player because you think they have bad reads, why not just eliminate your scumreads? Why not eliminate a scummy player with bad reads? Why would you assume that such a player you want to "optimally" elim exists in the first place? This might be a joke, but I'm less inclined to think so after similar posts from them.

193, 194 and 195 are also bizarre in themselves, and then they snugly fit 198's conceptualization of how scum will play.

Dumbtells are also a pattern, 66 seems like an almost forced attempt at towniness and innocent, never mind any of this though, as I said before.

My central reason is how Sunflower engages with other players. 70 and 78 deflects from questions by asking the questioner about them, eventually resulting in a weak final response from Sun. 94 parrots Black without advancing the discussion by making their own observations, analysis or content. This is an easy place to pocket her. The unexplained read that is 95 is in a similar vein. They (both heads!) soon pivot to scumreading Black in 102 and 109, while keeping their vote on another player instead of their mutual SR. (The "other player" is me, but I want to dissociate myself from this in my mind while I analyze.) When pressed by 113 to explain the read on Black, we end up again with the near-non-responses 114 and 115. I don't agree with 131, the further explanation, at all. It seems forced and illogical, and refusing to elaborate until asked to is also anti-town. I'm not convinced by his reasons to townread in 132, 191 and 192 either. Reads based on a few posts aren't good and are frankly lazy. It's easy to make a town-seeming post, especially knowing what your intuition will feel is town, but harder to create a pattern that seems town, especially one that keeps changing to keep seeming towny throughout the game. Further, 199 (no one asked) seems forced, though it's not a read. 235 is another reading post I don't agree with, relating to the "too scummy to be scum" point I touched on in the post two of my posts before this one.

i probably shouldn't clear enchant off things like having opinions they care about and pushing for reads but i also am going to do that anyway until i find a reason not to

(Also see 231) Shouldn't this be your best reason to TR someone? Too bad you want WL dead anyway, but can this be connected to the elim strategy posited in

67

in any way? Relating 239 to 67, what would you characterize WL's reads as, and would you be opposed to them? I'm not opposed to voting WL, but Sun's justification for voting them (see also [post]252[/post)] isn't good. Let's just focus on who we SR for now.

In conclusion, I want to vote for Sunflower more than I want to vote WL. This late in the gameday, it's unlikely that Sunflower realistically is voted out, but I'll see what people think of Sun after this post. I'm exhausted and tired so I'll finish my posts tomorrow. I don't intuitively feel the other 3 players are worse than the 2, but I'll also look into them later.

[mirrored]

The spoiler on 67 in the end is a mistake, my bad. Should be the post tags thing

[mirrored]

Completing my list of reads, I still feel kind of exhausted after yesterday's walls. People aren't reading them and appreciating every point I make in them anyway. A shorter format would be more effective for getting my points across, and I myself have realized I don't need to quote or mention half of a player's posts. So I'm just going in alphabetical order this time:


Black: She's been the best player at questioning players, analyzing and thinking things through. At the same time, I sense unconfidence and doubt in how she's handling reads and voting. I sympathize with her doubt here, considering the mindgames that this setup invites and how confusingly this game has progressed. Even so, she's consistently pushed WL while advancing the game in other areas like in 242 and 279. I also think keeping her suspicion of the Drew/WL scumteam starting in 84 (maybe even jokingly in 14) to 285 and 289 feels like authentic town rather than scum forcing a read on a two-man team. Reading her posts, I can follow along with and understand her thought process and progression, although at times I might disagree with it. There are a few moments where it seems kind of awkward and forced. I feel I can't hold this against her, though - it's only natural at times, especially when you have to decide a vote and produce some reads on day one.


BloodB0t: Nothing much to say. Almost the entire ISO is composed of one-liners. Blood hasn't done much, and I feel I don't have to elaborate on that fact here, but posts like 183, 186 and 225 represent more contribution than Sunflower has put forth. 287 feels especially authentic to me, it's actually the same vibe that Black's posts are giving off. The sudden joining of the WL wagon in 177 concerns me, though - it seems opportunistic and it's important in my mind. I can't suspect Blood as much as Sunflower or even WL, or proclaim that Blood is town. I guess my read is neutral then, but if WL/Sunflower flips town Blood will seem scummier.


Doctor Drew: 83 is actually an early attempt at a read. Together with 72, it seems natural to feel town vibes from one head while being aware of a different feeling about the other, rather than forcing through a single, uniform read. I also like the pressing of Sunflower on Blood through 113, 117, 126, 127 and 134 forcing them to clarify an evasive opinion. I was suspicious that 173 was subtly pocketing me somehow by (half-)accusing me of pocketing them, it's just a passing thought though. While he is guilty of fillery or (sometimes only partially) insubstantial posts into the latter half of the day like Sunflower and Blood, I see more of an effort to solve the game and engage deeply in conversations (I'm thinking in part of the dumbtell debate, though I admit it got too out of control for it to sit too well with me) than Sun has. Therefore, I'm conflicted, but I feel he is townier than Blood and overall likelier town than scum. I wish there were more posts so I could see which of the two tendencies would dominate though. He and Blood would be my primary candidates for a second town if we get to VoLo, I'm leaning (maybe only slightly?) toward Drew right now but let's see how they compare.

There has been no new interest that has been expressed (not just stated, actually expressed with a vote) in any wagon. In other words, any serious interest. Based on this fact and my already described reads,

I will hammer

(bold in case someone TLDRs, this is not an actual vote) in 20 minutes and then end for the day unless anyone is online and wants to talk.

[mirrored]

It's like 15 minutes now, but I want to sleep.

VOTE: White Lotus

Let's see this flip.

[mirrored]

@mirrored do you still want to vote for sunflower after this flip?

I'm still open to it, in fact they're still the likeliest scum to me, but I'll see what happens next.

@Sunflower Am I still #1 on your SR list?

A more general, abstract question to everyone: Would you rather vote based on an individual read or a proposed scumteam? If the latter, how would you determine which of the two supposed partners to vote?

[mirrored]

hm
blood/mirrored hot take for now, will return later

dog hater

[mirrored]

@mirrored do you still want to vote for sunflower after this flip?

I'm still open to it, in fact they're still the likeliest scum to me, but I'll see what happens next.

@Sunflower Am I still #1 on your SR list?

A more general, abstract question to everyone: Would you rather vote based on an individual read or a proposed scumteam? If the latter, how would you determine which of the two supposed partners to vote?

both work to me, why does it matter to you

Just wanted to discuss voting philosophy and understand how people would vote here. I'm worried that people will SR two people based on a single interaction or a supposed scumteam strategy. I'd try to dissuade them because my own philosophy would be to vote the scummiest player. The prospect of how relatively strong each person's SRs are and compromise votes also has to be considered, especially before compromise becomes seriously proposed (often forced) in VoLo.

i think one of blood/black is scum but very likely not both

Is this based on interaction, voting or something else?

but i think you've positioned in a way that scum would

You yourself have been preparing for a wagon on me all game, and you've left your votes and reads completely open (and ready for arbitrary change as you might need) as shown in the same post (not quoted here).

i still think bloodb0t on page 12 is positioning in a very scummy/appeasing way and i am curious on black's thoughts on this

What do you think Blood's interactions with Drew and Black (mainly the former) on that page say?

[mirrored]

There has been no new interest that has been expressed (not just stated, actually expressed with a vote) in any wagon. In other words, any serious interest. Based on this fact and my already described reads,

I will hammer

(bold in case someone TLDRs, this is not an actual vote) in 20 minutes and then end for the day unless anyone is online and wants to talk.

you recognized that there was no serious interest in any other wagon and hadn't been for a long time. did you consider the implications that this might have for WL's alignment?

There were multiple people who would prefer voting someone else. I recall Black and myself. WL was a compromise for these people, and I felt I may have gotten them to consider changing if I shared my own opinion.

I honestly wasn't thinking much about the development of the wagons (which involved every player). But I wouldn't use that (not something that can be reliably analyzed) as a reason not to vote a scummy player especially when, as you yourself mentioned, no one else was interested in any other candidate. We could see a desperate push to 1v1 Drew. We couldn't know when the theoretical scum WL's partner was planning to switch wagons. In retrospect, I could see you as the theoretical scumpartner making a desperate push on another player; between the two partners, they would be trying to see if there could be any interest directed toward anyone else away from the doomed WL.

The question in your second question is good, though; you could ask it to everyone who voted WL.

[mirrored]

in your second line*

[mirrored]

we're in a LOVERS game, for scum it is SUBOPTIMAL to bus and therefore looking at interactions between players is a very good method of solving because there is no need for distancing where elimination requires all town members and there is no need to bus and put yourself at the risk of losing the game. on the other hand making cases on single people is EASY especially for scum to do

Two scumpartners can SR each other all they want as long as they don't actually vote each other. Looking for partners by POE based on reads on each other is a flimsy strategy. My philosophy is to find a few scummy players first and then investigate their possible partnerships-using multiple veins of evidence rather than just the current reads on each other-rather than trying to pick out partnerships from all possible players.

[mirrored]

I want to sleep, but some quick opinions on potential scumteams. A Sun/Blood team doesn't seem likely considering the progression of Sun's reads on Blood - I'm not sure, though, considering that Sun's gradual flip might be coordinated for all how arbitrary it seems. It definitely feels forced, but Sun could have done the same to a town Blood too to have a potential push besides me in VoLo.

Blood/Drew is similar in that there is suspicion between them, but this isn't enough to clear them (especially in light of what I said last post).

Sun/Drew fits the bill of two players who TR each other. Drew is the towniest player to Sun (without Sun hard TRing him), while IIRC (and after a quick look through the ISO) Drew hasn't read Sun beyond any potential passing comments. Based on this, I'd want to say this is the likeliest scumteam under a simple analysis, but I do remember a series of interactions, most infamously about the dumbtells, that makes me hesitant to decide here that this is the scumteam, however strong my read feels now after a bit of thought.

[mirrored]

Just read the last paragraph and wanted to clarify. Honestly, saying nothing about your partner or not having them in your SRs (everyone has at least 2 suspects) is of similar effect to TRing in the context of SvS.

[mirrored]

GG

[mirrored]

Of course I was scum

Mirror was supposed to be online now so we could manipulate the quick hammer......but I was left by my own devices haha

lol I forgot this game existed for a few hours sorry

[mirrored]

@Skygazer asking to sub out for next 2 games, I don't want the time commitment for forum mafia. I think next game will be very interesting, but honestly, I've been feeling like subbing out for that reason since the third real-life day at latest. Hope you can find a replacement soon.

[mirrored]

Thanks to my partner Drew, and thanks to everyone for playing.