This post right here is where Empire changed my mind about his slot.
Not because of the effort. I've seen him produce beautiful and detailed reads lists as scum. And I learned something about his scum-behavior in those games, which I imagine he's worked on, because he thought I had a very accurate description of his scum mindset in the game where I explained it.
So, the lack of that thing (a sort of a consultant mindset - doing work *for* town rather than appearing personally invested in his effort) is not what makes this post feel town to me.
My first comment about tMy first comment about this post was that I wanted to reread, but that he'd nailed several trajectory changes I was undergoing that hadn't seen any daylight in the game thread.
In post 672, Empire wrote:The reads list you are about to see is a reflection of my reads
only
, with maybe some stuff from my teammates thrown in here and there. Our skype logs are huge enough as they are (where we also talk about things like how to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew and about how Varys is a merman), I'm not going to trudge through them this late at night to see what they thought but once I get everyone's opinions nice and neat, I'll bring them in. I'm going to try as best I can to put forth both myself and my team's thoughts in a coherent fashion in the future but might come up haphazardly so apologies for the mess.
UPDATE: While I was in the middle of writing this post, Regfan got back from work so we had a bit more time to discuss stuff (although he's phonemessaging) so expect to see more thoughts from him.
cheetory6:
Every time I join a game of mafia and roll town, I look forward to seeing people be as obvtown as this guy has been. His vote on CDB in
#13 and the manner in which his stated his reasoning in
#84 read genuine. I like that he's not afraid to criticize the more well known players in the room like he did Tammy in
#23, especially for something that, as scum, would have been way easier to write off as town. There's also a bunch of great game-solving posts like
#304 that shows he is grappling with the game at a level of depth I don't really see coming from someone with his join date. His reaction to Bulbazak in
#347 shows an attitude I love, like he's got nothing to hide, and his thoughts on the Tammy/Zar conflict in
#367 reads like he really is worried about not being able to read both slots. My only criticism of him is that at times I feel his focus is too narrow but everything else I see strongly outweighs it.
^^ If I weren't lazy, I could have written this and would have included most of the same observations. But, Empire knew I was townreading Cheetory. The stuff I would have looked for from scum-Empire here was a sort of flattery of the emerging consensus townread tThe stuff I would have looked for from scum-Empire here was a sort of flattery of the emerging consensus townread that he was going to call his strongest townread. See his read of me in this game for what I mean:
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 2#p5355952
DV:
As I believe Zar already mentioned, I think this fits my (admittedly old) DV-town meta strongly. When he's scum, DV's a lot more stiff, awkward, and generally betrays a level of self consciousness in his posts that shows he is overly concerned about being suspected. His posts here show that he's relaxed, that he doesn't care about his image, and that he's not forcing his reads. Regfan didn't have much to add here other than "he's obvtown, bet the game on it". Sidenote - When I mentioned I thought DV was likely to take a scum token for this game, Regfan told me that when he met DV IRL, he said something about how he's tired of rolling scum.
The inclusion and nature of Regfan's thoughts feels like a real conversation they had about a player whose alignment they didn't know. Compare that to the Cheetory read above. It's a really authentic looking inclusion and it's the sort of thing I doubt either of them would think to add into a long-ass reads list as scum.
Marquis:
At first, I thought he fit the bill for cheeky scum with posts like
#98. However, his explanation for the self-doubt he has re: his townread on DV in
#484 and how he wishes his teammates would help him read the older players in the list in
#484 both read sincere (don't know if my assumption is off but I'd think Marquis would have more confidence in his scum game than to rely on his teammates in order to play well). I mean, hell, his whole paranoia-laced approach to this game seems pretty damn sincere to me (ex:
#591) and I really like the fact that he went out of his way to go check out the old TM games to follow up on the Tammy meta subversion issue.
^^ This was a read that reflected a change in my thoughts about Marquis that hadn't hit the thread yet. This gets town points for two reasons. weak town points for thinking what I'm thinking when I'm thinking it. Strong town points for coming out with a town read on a player who would be relatively easy to lynch if town. he was closing down lynch options for himself later.
vezok:
Normally, I'm inclined to dislike posts like
#427 and
#468 as I tend to read that as a weaker player trying to buddy/suck up to a stronger player, but I think vezok's tone is very genuine here - I recall him being very self deprecating about his playstyle when he came back onto the site and how he wanted to improve so him looking up to ffery's town play and trying to get the most of her and her teammates' reads makes a lot of sense. One thing I will say, though, is that his general confidence is a bit weird, want to look into his more recent games in order to confirm this read. But at this point, I'm not sure where the scumreads on him are coming from.
^^ This was a read where the opposite reaction would have sounded alarm bells for me. And Empire might know that, though I've never been particularly vocal about what I think indicates town-Vezok in any game before this one.
Bulbazak:
Only town things I see from him are his inter-team discussion with EddieFenix being genuine (e.g., the portions of his posts where he says Eddie's been yelling at him to bane my slot) and the way he's gone about stating his mastin read. Regfan finds the "our team's strategy is to support" bit in
#350 townish as well but I don't really see it personally.
This read went against the flow of the game, given bulba was baned. It was also counter to my stated read of bulba at the time. I was softening that stance internally but hadn't given indication in thread. I could see him taking a stance like this about a scumbuddy - a lukewarm townread, but it was another case where he articulated an opinion that was still in transition for me, and was in the direction of my transition.
T S O:
I liked his paranoia in
#402. Also thought his
#403 was a bit too cocksure to come from him as scum (Regfan left a message in the PT where he also agreed with this point). Rest of his posting seems unremarkable to me.
I'm still null on T S O, but I could see his point here. And this is very much in the vein of town-Empire taking townpoints in a sea of null and making a read of them, and another read that could shut down later options.
GIF:
Similarly to Bulbazak, I like the way he's going about the whole mastin situation with Titus. Aside from that, I've got nothing alignment-indicative from his slot, though I will say that Regfan mentioned in our PT that he thought
#353 and its implication that he ISO'd Shadoweh with the intention of forming a read on her was weakly town.
Another read where my internal transition had begun, but Empire got there first.
Shadoweh:
I liked her suspicion on Tammy based on Fantasy Camp in
#200 as that's a line of logic and I can easily see her going for and her evolution of that read in
#212 based on Tammy's reaction to her post is something that checks out. I also find her inter-team discussion where she brought in LLD's suspicion and Grey's reads townish (especially the call-out to CES). Found the "I'm actually a little nervous about making a spot shared with three scary town players vulnerable this early" in
#486 genuine, too. I'm horrible at reading Shadoweh though (think I've misread her in every game we've played together) so take this one with a grain of salt. Regfan actually finds her #486 scummy her bane vote on Zar and the way she talks to Zar reads like she's coaching a scumread on what to do to not be a scumread which, makes no sense from town and that the whole post reads like she's wanting to damage our slot but dodge blame - he also added that her Bulbazak vote seemed like her scrambling to vote someone since she knows I'll obvtown. This one's going to need some more discussion from us.
^^ This is a lot of commentary on a player who will be hard to lynch if scum. The easy road (which I have seen him take as scum) would have been to make it a meh-town read.
Tammy:
Only here because I am internally conflicted. She'll go to one of the two other piles after I've had some time to think more and probably after I've had a chance to try and work with her here. I'll break down my and my team's process on her in another post.
ActionDan:
Had a weak early townread on him due to his activity level and his interactions with UT but it's died out with his lack of activity later on and the overall lack of scumhunting.
ActionDan is another player who if town, I think Empire might have townbinned. This isn't as strong a point as on Shadoweh. he also articulated a growing unease I had over AD that I hadn't articulated.
mastin:
Don't bother asking me to ever have a read on her because I don't ever read her posts (sorry) and I'm just going to defer to my teammates on this unless I'm forced to read her myself. For what it's worth, Regfan told me he believes he rarely, if ever, reads mastin wrong and that she's town here through her token mentions, feeling like she's dead walking (whatever this means), and the lack of "4 of these are scum" (he says that mastin spams the thread with BS reads when she's scum
totally unnecessary antagonism, and baseline irritability that feels very very town to me.
Titus:
See mastin (although I'll probably end up reading some of her posts from time to time). Regfan has a scumread on her, he says her posts and her stance on our scream slimy because she pushing for a bane/lynch on our slot while claiming not to know the meta or the context.
another of the same, but he'd expect me to agree/approve here, so not as much of a townfeel.
Espeonage:
This is almost exclusively Regfan but he thinks the insistence on claiming reads pretty town and that his posts look like he's being transparent with his reads. However, he does want Espeonage to clarify exactly what arguments he thinks Tammy is wrong for suspecting Zar for and what reasons he thinks my slot is scum for.
This was surprisingly low-key, though the espe/tammy stuff continued to escalate. It makes sense as either alignment to try and stay out of that argument, even though his slot was an argument-point.
Antihero:
N/A
Aronis:
N/A
Gamma:
To sum it up as best I can, Gamma's posts (when they actually come) are too focused on mechanics talk and very little in the way of genuine scumhunting. Even the reads in posts like
#614 have surface level reasons and padded with more mechanics talk. Tonally, he comes off as distant and dispassionate, and the overall activity level is poor (something that Regfan told me is in line with his scum meta although I will confirm it for myself later). Overall, dude reads like scum mailing it in.
Totally agreed with this at the time it was written.
UT:
Found his over-the-top rage in the early game pretty forced, but what really got me is the almost total lack of anything resembling scumhunting and I find his reaction to ffery basically becoming confirmed town in
#113 scummy, for lack of a better phrase, it just reads like butthurt scum. Regfan agrees on this read but we both are approaching it with caution because we have this weird paranoia that we might be wrong about this one.
This was a go-with-the flow feeling read, but the caveats really resonated for me after the fact.
CDB:
Don't like CDB's opener (
#7), CDB's the kind of guy who, from memory, takes the early game very seriously to push for reactions and get reads. The opening reads very passively, especially the deference to the others on how to proceed. I dislike the mention of his team discussion here, feels like he's forcing it through to be like "hey dudes by the way my team and I are totally talking about this game." I also agree with GreyICE calling out CDB saying CES thinks vezok's a hard read (
#406), my impression from the few conversations Regfan and I have had about vezok is that he's nowhere near that tough to read. Aside from that, got nothing, his other posts work either way for me. Weakest scumread here.
This read comes back to haunt me, especially given llamarble's recent concerns.
