In post 74, 2birds1stone wrote:I just finished a game where everyone I wagoned was bad as opposed to scum, and I'm a little worried because I'm getting those vibes again.
Believe it or not, I got those exact same vibes, and am attempting to work through them. This is one of the reasons there's as much doubt in my scumreads as there is, and why my reads are not as locked down as they should be.
I mean, I'm reasonably certain about a fair deal of my townreads: Astinus, Mathdino now, and now you are all fairly strong townreads. Fink's decently strong as well, but not quite as much. Yet all of my other reads aren't nearly as solidified--my guille townread is basically just gut off of where he (didn't) place(d) his vote, dragonspawn I massively waver on, Teen Girl I am not sure about, Riabi I simply can't tell thanks to STRONG ambivalence, Nova I flat-out said already that I go back and forth on (even if leaning town), and even Oilura I'm not sure on. And I can tell you, it's for exactly that reason, combined with a side of multiball; it's difficult to tell "stupidity" from stupidity, and scumhunting from half-scumhunting.
In post 61, 2birds1stone wrote:In my experience, the most anti-town play comes from town; scum are just too cautious to do certain things. Scum do not want to come into the game with a self-vote and keep that self-vote on even at L-1, and scum do not really want the attention of holding a self-vote. If I had to guess, I'd say this is some extremely misguided attempt at sparking discussion (and sure, it worked, but it's fucking WIFOM and liable to turn into a theory discussion).
The unvote struck me as a way of looking town without actually contributing to town. Outside of newbie games, it seems safe to say that nobody's going to derphammer a declared L-1; on top of that, the unvote only served to remove pressure from a player who really needed more of it.
So up to this point, this is almost what makes me pretty dang sure that Astinus is town. I've had over 150 games on-site (so many that I've entirely lost count of the number), not to mention, numerous ones off-site. (That's excluding EpicMafia in which the number would jump to thousands upon thousands.) In all of my games, across all sites, without the setup dictating it as a valid play...I've seen maybe one or two scum try this? Somewhere in that small range. In all of my games, across all sites, without the setup dictating it as valid play...I've seen, oh, probably a dozen or so town try it. (Myself included. Admittedly, mostly in my arrogant ignorant youth as a player, butstill, I did it as town plenty.) So it's not like scum never try it. It's that the sheer audacity to the point of stupidity means that only the stupidest or most insane of all scum will attempt it. It could come from scum, sure. It's 95% likely to come from town. Thus, why I'm pretty sure of Astinus being town.
I also agree with the point about blind unvotes being a way of looking town without actually being town. However, it is not Mathdino nor is it Fink that I'd apply that to; it's Teen Girl. Fink had good, solid posting indicating a town mindset. Mathdino clearly wanted to accomplish something. When I read Teen Girl's unvote, though, what I saw was someone that looked to be going through the motions: doing it because they thought they should do it as town, not because they actually wanted to do anything with it.
These are part, but not the entirety, of the way I got my reads. Every read has an explanation from basically each post they made, and I can clarify the bad I see and the good I see, and why I reached the conclusions I did. I'll be revealing them all eventually, probably gradually as I progress through the thread.
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