Spoiler: Whole Thing
I'm revisiting my read on Saru first, since this is essentially a "gut read" from an argument with Persivul many pages ago.
The first thing I see is that Saru enters with lists of reads in tiers (111, 124), but these never return. This raises my suspicion, because I think that it suggests emulation of a thought process not organic to Saru. I looked for previous games and found nothing useful, sadly (I wandered through the ScoreHero forum from his Wiki page and found nothing, I found a game by Saru786 on MafiaHero in which said player died without posting, and then I gave up because I felt that the time delay would make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions).
At the time of the extended argument with Persivul over "contradictions" (between 256 and 337 or so) I was reading Saru as Town for nebulous reasons. On further review I attribute this to tone; Saru maintained a focus on certain things (whether Persivul answers his questions, mostly) that I interpreted as aggressive and therefore more likely to come from a Town player. I no longer endorse that position; Persivul was one of the leading wagons at the time, so I could easily see the narrow focus (at times divorced from identifying motivations behind actions) as representing a desire to maintain position on a wagon. However, Saru leaves the wagon in 337 to join the wagon on Kappy, which reached L-2 with that vote. This was not a vote from nowhere (Saru expressed suspicion of Kappy in 237), and was not closely preceded by any other changes in votes, so I don't attribute that move to any nefarious motivation.
He agreed with cases presented against karnos (430 and on), which I also thought were reasonable.
At some point he decides that Persivul was providing good content (468), which is suspicious to me because the most recent read on Persivul prior to this (351) was Null, and I don't see anything from Persivul between the two that seemed so important to reading him (or any indication from Saru that he is reconsidering something from earlier). He later (753) states that he removed his vote after MechaGoomba cleared up a misunderstanding (300) but does not indicate why is reading Persivul as Town.
I've no issue with Saru taking time to decide whether to vote for karnos when karnos is at L-1 (587), though I don't understand what thought process might lead to lynching karnos if replacement players read him as Town (589).
Advocating a policy lynch on JohnnyFarrar (868, 877) looks fine to me; I can't think of a reason why a Mafia player needs to cast a vote there with such weak reasoning (JohnnyFarrar was the only wagon and was likely to be lynched without assistance). There's a possible exception if the wagon was entirely composed of Town players, in which case the Mafia may have collectively decided that votes would eventually be needed there.
I am suspicious of the bouncing read on qubixes (suspicious of the vote on JohnnyFarrar in 895 and 917, Town in 923, casting a vote for him in 936 with renewed suspicion of the vote on JohnnyFarrar in 938, qubixes is "a good lynch candidate" in 943 and obviously Mafia in 947, 1012, and 1042 but misguided Town in 1086). I'm not really inclined to accept the wave of the hand offered in 1086; acknowledging the changing read does not explain it. What was qubixes doing in those posts that was swinging the read so wildly?
In general I don't find that Saru appears to be attempting to discern alignments. I see few questions or directed interactions with other players that would indicate a proactive attempt to solve the game; rather, Saru seems to be reactive in all reads. This is potentially an explanation for some of those things that didn't display obvious nefarious motivation; these moves would support a reactive, coasting style.
I partially reviewed qubixes and Persivul in order to solidify my read here. I am reassured in some things that I found and am moving them to lower priority for reading.
The first thing I see is that Saru enters with lists of reads in tiers (111, 124), but these never return. This raises my suspicion, because I think that it suggests emulation of a thought process not organic to Saru. I looked for previous games and found nothing useful, sadly (I wandered through the ScoreHero forum from his Wiki page and found nothing, I found a game by Saru786 on MafiaHero in which said player died without posting, and then I gave up because I felt that the time delay would make it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions).
At the time of the extended argument with Persivul over "contradictions" (between 256 and 337 or so) I was reading Saru as Town for nebulous reasons. On further review I attribute this to tone; Saru maintained a focus on certain things (whether Persivul answers his questions, mostly) that I interpreted as aggressive and therefore more likely to come from a Town player. I no longer endorse that position; Persivul was one of the leading wagons at the time, so I could easily see the narrow focus (at times divorced from identifying motivations behind actions) as representing a desire to maintain position on a wagon. However, Saru leaves the wagon in 337 to join the wagon on Kappy, which reached L-2 with that vote. This was not a vote from nowhere (Saru expressed suspicion of Kappy in 237), and was not closely preceded by any other changes in votes, so I don't attribute that move to any nefarious motivation.
He agreed with cases presented against karnos (430 and on), which I also thought were reasonable.
At some point he decides that Persivul was providing good content (468), which is suspicious to me because the most recent read on Persivul prior to this (351) was Null, and I don't see anything from Persivul between the two that seemed so important to reading him (or any indication from Saru that he is reconsidering something from earlier). He later (753) states that he removed his vote after MechaGoomba cleared up a misunderstanding (300) but does not indicate why is reading Persivul as Town.
I've no issue with Saru taking time to decide whether to vote for karnos when karnos is at L-1 (587), though I don't understand what thought process might lead to lynching karnos if replacement players read him as Town (589).
Advocating a policy lynch on JohnnyFarrar (868, 877) looks fine to me; I can't think of a reason why a Mafia player needs to cast a vote there with such weak reasoning (JohnnyFarrar was the only wagon and was likely to be lynched without assistance). There's a possible exception if the wagon was entirely composed of Town players, in which case the Mafia may have collectively decided that votes would eventually be needed there.
I am suspicious of the bouncing read on qubixes (suspicious of the vote on JohnnyFarrar in 895 and 917, Town in 923, casting a vote for him in 936 with renewed suspicion of the vote on JohnnyFarrar in 938, qubixes is "a good lynch candidate" in 943 and obviously Mafia in 947, 1012, and 1042 but misguided Town in 1086). I'm not really inclined to accept the wave of the hand offered in 1086; acknowledging the changing read does not explain it. What was qubixes doing in those posts that was swinging the read so wildly?
In general I don't find that Saru appears to be attempting to discern alignments. I see few questions or directed interactions with other players that would indicate a proactive attempt to solve the game; rather, Saru seems to be reactive in all reads. This is potentially an explanation for some of those things that didn't display obvious nefarious motivation; these moves would support a reactive, coasting style.
I partially reviewed qubixes and Persivul in order to solidify my read here. I am reassured in some things that I found and am moving them to lower priority for reading.
