Micro 739 - Nano-Multiball (Game Over)

[Umlaut]

Suppose hypothetically that we mislynch, and the scum just choose their kills randomly.

• 4/9 chance they both hit town, in which case we lose.
  
• 1/9 chance they each hit the other, in which case we win.
  
• 4/9 chance only one hits the other, in which case we go to 2:1 lylo. If we lynch randomly that's a 1/3 chance of winning.

This puts our EV in that case at 1/9 + 4/9*1/3 = 7/27.

Conversely, if we lynch scum today, tomorrow will be 3:1 lylo, putting our EV at 1/4.

Our odds of winning are actually slightly better if we mislynch today. Furthermore, even if the scum are killing non-randomly, it's in their interest to kill one another rather than us, which improves our odds even more assuming they're more likely than random to guess the other scum correctly.

VOTE: Umlaut
I'm town, please lynch me.

[Umlaut]

UNVOTE: Umlaut

I made a mistake, 3:1 isn't lylo because scum doesn't get a kill if we miss. So lynching scum is still better.

[Umlaut]

Maybe, but what's the use of vying for towncred when scum looking for scum all the same? Plus, he'd have had since signups to work out the best strategy. Why make that post after days of waiting, only to take it back 90 minutes later?

You'd think I'd have had that much time, but nope, I actually didn't look carefully at the rules until the game started. I was really just trying to figure out if it was safe to random-vote (answer: yes), and then decided to stick probabilities and noticed (what I thought was) the anomaly. I looked it over a few times before posting but still somehow failed to notice that 3:1 isn't the end of the game if scum can't kill at night.

Umlaut is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, coated in something sticky.

This might be the best thing anyone has ever said about me.

[Umlaut]

Why wouldn't you go along with the plan if there were no mistake?

Scum don't get a nightkill except possibly one after the first day, so they couldn't kill. Also, we can't no-lynch. Don't criticize my interpretation of rules you haven't even read.

[Umlaut]

Lizardqueen could be scum trying to dumbtell.

[Umlaut]

LQ, how many Mafia games have you played?

[Umlaut]

I don't like Assembler's post either but I don't see it specifically as scummy.

VOTE: lizardqueen
It's possible that she is unfamiliar enough with the term 'dumbtell' to take it personally, but not when I'm explicitly saying it looks fake (therefore there's no way I could possibly be calling her dumb). That emotional reaction is phony.

[Umlaut]

No real feelings on anyone else. It's hard to get tells from scumhunting effort when everyone in the game has scum to hunt and no buddies to protect.

[Umlaut]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BORING!

Let's try and give some reads, or at least thoughts.

boring -

RVS vote and unvote feels like a genuine reaction to being called out. Being unsure of me feels like a genuine reaction to my admittedly rather strange intro. She's making an effort to push things forward in a rather slow game -- not a Herculean effort, but hey, it's only page two. That she's reading the game more or less the way I am is a good sign. This is my top town read.

Vedith -

Took me for scum right out of the gate for my dumb mistake, so obviously I'm not a fan of his reads. But here's the thing, scum!Vedith has no actual motive to falsify reads since he wants to lynch scum today regardless. So I have to assume he really thinks I'm scum. Aside from that, there's not much to say, either good or bad, except that he needs to explain why lizardqueen is bad town and not scum.

lizardqueen -

As I already said, I'm not a fan of the setup confusion that shows signs of not being genuine, or the AtE when I called her out on it. I also dislike the sort of empty "This is going slow..." filler in some of her posts, it reads more like this-seems-like-something-town-would-say-here than an actual town reaction. Her push on Assembler, while not

bad

per se, is (1) a no-effort vote and (2) 'pressuring' the slot least likely to give any sort of reaction. I can't say I'm

sure

she's scum, but I'm ready to find out by flipping her.

Assemblerotws -

Just... do something, please.

[Umlaut]

@boring:

I am

absolutely

buddying. Hurry up and townread me so we can break the game.

@lizardqueen:

Not sure how to further clarify what I don't like about your posts.

As for not liking my vote on assemble for being a no effort vote... if I was just trying to make a safe vote, I could just be not voting like everyone else. I can see your point if there was an actual wagon going on I was avoiding, but as it is if I wanted a no-effort vote I could just have not voted at all.

I mean, you're avoiding your own wagon obviously. You have no reason to avoid any other one. But you need to start pushing

someone

when boring and I are both saying we suspect you. Assembler is the choice that doesn't require any analysis, just the straightforward observation that he isn't contributing.

Kinda uneasy about your statement that you're not sure I'm scum, but you're ready to flip me - imo it's most important that we don't mislynch today, so that we can go into tomorrow at 3:1 and have a mislynch available, whereas if we mislynch today there's a significant chance we could lose overnight. I'm sure you're aware of this as well, which is why I'm surprised you say you're ready to lynch me rather than taking advantage of the time we have left.

Obviously I don't mean you have to be lynched

right this second,

just that I don't expect to change my mind about wanting you lynched. Nice word-twisting, though.

[Umlaut]

But I really don't like any of you. (In an in-game way. I'm sure you're all lovely people).

I'd rather you like me in-game and think I'm a buttface IRL.

[Umlaut]

I'd consider policying Assembler if he doesn't either shape up or get replaced by end of day. Unfortunately the latter is kind of unlikely with BTD away, even if he does flake.

[Umlaut]

Actually it looks like he's posting on the site but not here. That's even worse.

I'll leave my vote where it is as Assembler is already the deadline lynch which is pretty much what he should be. I don't want him dying any time before deadline. But he should be the default choice if we can't pick someone else.

[Umlaut]

VOTE: Boring

Lunch here today.

Hm, I don't think I can make it to Surrey and back during my lunch break.

Also I'm not voting Boring.

[Umlaut]

Hunh, I thought you were wrong about that but I ran the numbers and you're right. Theoretical EV for a scum player after lynching town today is at least 16/27 (with a draw counted as half a win), whereas their EV if the other scum is lynched is 1/2.

[Umlaut]

I have to reëvaluate Vedith in light of this.

[Umlaut]

Well, actually not much, she's still in the middle for me. It's just that previously he got kind of a pass for having (what I consider) bad reads, since I assumed even scum would be trying to lynch scum. If scum would rather lynch town, that changes things. On reflection though, I've disagreed pretty dramatically with Vedith in past games where we were both town.

[Umlaut]

VOTE: Assemblerotws (L-1)

Locking this in. Assembler's latest post indicates to me that he's not going to get significantly more active and he's not going to flake out, so I have no qualms about lynching him. I'd somewhat prefer to wait out the deadline instead of hammering but I'm not too picky about that.

[Umlaut]

@Assemblerotws

You're probably going to die. Anything you want to say? How about a read list?

[Umlaut]

Well that's something.

We can conclude Vedith didn't target the wolf. Who would Vedith have targeted? From what he said aloud we would assume boring, but then Vedith should have wanted to lynch town, so...

[Umlaut]

"Lynching scum" doesn't mean the same thing for town and scum. For us it means lynching mafia

or

werewolf; for e.g. mafia it means lynching the werewolf. It's entirely possible in an EV sense for a setup to make it in town's and mafia's joint interest to lynch a werewolf, even though that turns out not to be the case in this particular setup. So "failed to realize this" doesn't follow since there is nothing incompatible about "it's in town's interest to lynch mafia or werewolf" and "it's in mafia's interest to lynch a werewolf."

I moved my vote because given you weren't being lynched anyway I wanted to be sure it was Assembler.

[Umlaut]

Umlaut, we discussed this briefly yesterday, but I'm not really accustomed to players (even scum) "buddying" me. Now, I get that town sometimes identify one another and work together, but it's never happened to me while I was town. I've had a primarily townie read on you this game, despite this oddity, but I'd like to understand your motivation a bit better.

I mean... I sort of instinctively townread people if their reads match mine across the board (assuming I'm town, which I am) so I've instinctively townread you for that reason. I was more sure of this when you responded by being

suspicious

instead of welcoming it. I was maybe exaggerating a little when I said "I am absolutely buddying you," but I did think at that point "okay, boring is town, if we're both town and we both realize that we have a good chance of winning here just by lynching everyone else"

Most games where I've added any value as town, it was by being part of the townbloc, so I was hoping to form one. Though I admit I do have some healthy lylo paranoia now.

I don't know the nuances of site rules to confirm, but I think players are required to try to achieve their win-condition, as opposed to a draw? We'd have to ask the mod after the game to confirm that, I guess. But still, why aim to tie when you can win? So I think it goes back to: he really did scumread me, and was just setting things up to snag the win today.

I think we can ask the mod now, actually. But, if I had to guess his thought process, he did explicitly say a draw is worth half a win. So I'd think it's legitimate play to optimize one's EV, even if that means playing for a more likely draw over a less likely win.

[Umlaut]

To further clarify, the initial basis of my townread on boring was "If someone shares my thought process then it's more likely they also share my role PM."

[Umlaut]

Like I want to be cautious and talk and think but I also kind of want to just vote lizardqueen because I'm pretty sure that's what I'm going to do in the end anyway.

[Umlaut]

I'd much rather lose to boring than lizardqueen.

[Umlaut]

I still think Vedith would have shot boring and would be very unlikely to shoot you, lizardqueen. I don't see any way to confirm this based on what little data we have, so I can only appeal to the fact that I wouldn't expect scum to seriously push a townread on enemy scum regardless of circumstances.

The timing of this change of heart toward me makes it seem like you've accepted you won't get me to lynch boring, and so are trying instead to get boring to lynch me.

[Umlaut]

You're right I'm not efforting too hard, though. Actually, I just now realized there's one more thing I should look at, so I'll look at that and post about it in the morning.

[Umlaut]

Or afternoon depending on how the day goes. But definitely tomorrow.

[Umlaut]

Who would have killed Vedith?

Umlaut?

I know I didn't do it. Nonetheless, here are my reads yesterday.

boring -

RVS vote and unvote feels like a genuine reaction to being called out. Being unsure of me feels like a genuine reaction to my admittedly rather strange intro. She's making an effort to push things forward in a rather slow game -- not a Herculean effort, but hey, it's only page two. That she's reading the game more or less the way I am is a good sign. This is my top town read.

Vedith -

Took me for scum right out of the gate for my dumb mistake, so obviously I'm not a fan of his reads. But here's the thing, scum!Vedith has no actual motive to falsify reads since he wants to lynch scum today regardless. So I have to assume he really thinks I'm scum. Aside from that, there's not much to say, either good or bad, except that he needs to explain why lizardqueen is bad town and not scum.

lizardqueen -

As I already said, I'm not a fan of the setup confusion that shows signs of not being genuine, or the AtE when I called her out on it. I also dislike the sort of empty "This is going slow..." filler in some of her posts, it reads more like this-seems-like-something-town-would-say-here than an actual town reaction. Her push on Assembler, while not

bad

per se, is (1) a no-effort vote and (2) 'pressuring' the slot least likely to give any sort of reaction. I can't say I'm

sure

she's scum, but I'm ready to find out by flipping her.

If you believe my reads were genuine (and you should, if only because you believe I genuinely thought it was in everyone's interest to lynch scum), then you should believe that wolf!me would have killed lizardqueen. I guess if you think they were fake you might think I'd target Vedith, but for that matter I might target boring in that case. I think this works in my favor but don't take my word for it, ISO me.

boring?

I don't have an opinion on your [Vedith's] posts. Well, I do, but I don't like my opinion. They strike me as breezy and therefore genuine. I just don't think I can trust that as an assessment of your alignment.

I'm worried that Umlaut could be buddying, and his intro was awfully WIFOMY. Vedith's view seems so foreign that it can't help but be suspicious. Assemblerotws has been utterly devoid of content. At least you're putting in effort, but your content seems so reactionary, which pings me a lot.

Lizardqueen is posting stuff.
As for Vedith, provocative behavior toward an active player, when he could be acting friendly, tells me he's probably town.

If I'm left only lynching between Umlaut and Assemblerotws, I guess I'd rather lynch Assemblerotws, as things currently stand. His reaction to LQ's vote looked like he was trying to instigate Vedith to OMGUS. Also, the strategic-not-strategic lurking in such a short game is scummy. I'm willing to put him at L-1 when we get a little closer to deadline, if nothing changes.

I can't really decide. boring had no really strong scumreads aside from Assemblerotws; everyone else was sort of I'unno. There's no telling what wolf!boring might have really believed.

lizardqueen?

To get some discussion going, I'll VOTE: Vedith. Obviously not a concrete scum read, due to so little content, but he's my biggest suspect right now - his posts ping my gut as trying to seem town, while his not posting after he said he'd get back later could be scum deliberately wanting to keep the thread slow.

I think Umlaut is town, so scum for me is between [Vedith]/boring/assemble. [Vedith] and boring are at least providing content for me to evaluate you by, so atm I'd rather vote the guy who half the Day has gone by and he's produced nothing in the hopes it'll get him to say something for me to get a read on him. If he comes back and produces something that seems reasonable I'll obviously unvote.

lizardqueen pretty firmly established herself as suspicious of Vedith, to the point where one assumes she would have kept her vote there if not for Assembler being the obviously correct lynch. She also voiced these suspicions before boring pointed out that scum should want to lynch town, so this has a higher chance of being genuine. I can definitely believe wolf!lizardqueen would have shot Vedith before anyone else.

[Umlaut]

VOTE: Assemble

Scum flip we still lynch Boring.
Town flip - other scum kill Boring and hope Boring hits scum.

What was Vedith trying to accomplish by directing scum to kill boring? Was it just empty posturing? Was he actually trying to get the wolf to kill town!boring rather than him, so he could win the game that way? Or was he planning to shoot wolf!boring, and wanted to take credit for 'helping' by suggesting it?

The last would be a pretty ballsy move: explicitly signing his name to "kill boring" and then trying to kill boring. Even if it had worked, today would be 2:1 and he'd have to explain that away. I don't have a good sense of whether Vedith's scumplay tends to this sort of audacity.

[Umlaut]

@Umlaut - I found that you made a surprising omission in your "who would have shot Vedith" analysis. Vedith was outspoken against me the second half of yesterday. So in theory, I would have had the most obvious motive to shoot him, right?

If you're a wolf then the only thing you care about in your nightkill choice is who is mafia. Whether Vedith suspects you is irrelevant unless you think it makes him scum.

[Umlaut]

Hunh, I did read the rules but I somehow failed to catch that point (that 2:1:1 is a scum draw, town loss).

If so, let's assume [Vedith was aiming for a tie]. What could we extrapolate from that point? I'll give all the scenarios I can come up with:
- if I was other scum, and Vedith aimed at me: I'd be dead, or we'd both be dead (depending on where I aimed)
- if the other scum took the hint to kill me, but Vedith was bluffing: two players would have died last night.
- if the other scum took the hint, and chose to shoot Vedith instead: Vedith would be the only NK.
- if they both shot at whoever for other reasons: impossible to tell

are there any others you can think of?

Firstly, wolves don't shoot people, they maul them

Secondly, I don't think it's Vedith's style to negotiate for a tie when there's a win available. Vedith shot whoever he thought was a wolf, and he was mistaken. But I suppose it's possible he wanted the wolf to fall for it and shoot boring (who he thought to be scum) while he shot whoever he thought was scum. In that case he probably shot me and we can conclude I'm town. It's worth noting that, as far as I can recall, Vedith has called me scum in every game we've ever played together where he was town.

If I

do

suppose that Vedith really did want a tie, and thought boring was town, he would have just shot boring and hoped the other scum did the same (assuming he understood the rules). In that case we can conclude boring is town.

Though, now that I think of it, the following thought process has merit: "I think boring is town. I'm going to shoot him tonight. In case I'm wrong, though, I'll hint for the wolf to maul her as well. If they go along with that I'll at least draw."

[Umlaut]

I actually think there's a good chance Vedith shot at me, if he understood that lynching town was to his advantage yesterday. He didn't make me his go-to lynch but he sort of maintained suspicion on me, and in fact does often scumread me.

Which makes this harder from my perspective -- if I could convince myself fully that he'd shot boring, I could just put my vote on lizardqueen and never move it.

[Umlaut]

I can't make promises about my weekend availability, so I'm probably going to vote soon.

[Umlaut]

I do still want to wait for boring's elaboration.

[Umlaut]

Under 24 hours left.

VOTE: lizardqueen

I hope this is right.

[Umlaut]

UNVOTE:

[Umlaut]

I'm getting a bad feeling about this.

[Umlaut]

A feeling like I was about to lose that I got right after voting. Which is why I unvoted.

[Umlaut]

*conftown!*

[Umlaut]

@Umlaut - I found that you made a surprising omission in your "who would have shot Vedith" analysis. Vedith was outspoken against me the second half of yesterday. So in theory, I would have had the most obvious motive to shoot him, right?

Something is off about this question. What were you trying to achieve with it? That is, how could my answer have been alignment-indicative?

[Umlaut]

The fact that LQ has no plan B for my being conftown is actually a point in her favor.

[Umlaut]

Sigh. I'm losing confidence but I don't see any way to get it back, so here goes nothing.

VOTE: lizardqueen

If this is wrong, kudos to boring for pocketing me.

[Umlaut]

Blergh

Well done, boring.

[Umlaut]

Immediately after I voted lizardqueen I

again

had the strong feeling of having made a mistake.

I need to vote more on instinct and worry less about whether I have an articulable reason.

[Umlaut]

I liked the setup. I'd play it again. Hard to say if it's balanced from one datum, but that's all the more reason to run it again.