Should a vig who shoots N1 be Modkilled?

[Yosarian2]

Highly suspect Vig is not only stronger than cop, but enough stronger that your question isn't actually all that good either.

It's a decent question. Vigs significantly outperform Cops in 3:9 setups, but in 3:10's Cops are slightly outperforming Vigs. I think the larger the game, the more beneficial Cops are, perhaps up until a certain point (20+?) where having a Vig is probably better to cull numbers before people get bored of the game and can't use all the extra information anyway.

Odds vs evens. The vig in the 12p game gets what is effectively a free shot, and so at worst can confirm himself without costing the town a lynch. Since town only gets three mislynches, the one extra town kill is worth a lot more. The vig in the 13p game costs a lynch with the very first shot.

Also, since vigs are so incredibly swingy and random, they help the town a lot more in setups where town has a very low chance of winning. 3 v 9 setups are notoriously badly balanced in favor of scum and against the town; anything that adds a random factor can only help. I mean, even adding a SK to that setup seems to help the town, statistically, crazy as that is, because anything that makes those setups more random creates more ways for an otherwise mostly doomed town to luck out.

The more balanced a setup is, the more cop>vig.

[LlamaFluff]

If all the randomly dying players in setup B were bad players/ players agreed to be scummy then setup B.

That doesnt happen though, and for me its usually more frustrating since I tend to be really good with townreads and can get wagons off players. If they just get killed it really damages what players who play heavily on townreads and defense can do. Really though, vigs tend to love to shoot the middling reads group who they think is scummy. Its normally possible to tell the vig from scum kill, but at times its not that easy or at least you are not completely sure.

What are the stats for lynching scum the day after a vig shot instead of after a night without one?

End results are whats important really... if a town kill doubles the chance for a scum lynch, then town should still have a higher EV when vigs are around. The fact that the EV doesnt move really makes it not something of consequence because there is no long run difference.

[RichardGHP]

That is completely ridiculous.

[Llamarble]

Highly suspect Vig is not only stronger than cop, but enough stronger that your question isn't actually all that good either.

It's a decent question. Vigs significantly outperform Cops in 3:9 setups, but in 3:10's Cops are slightly outperforming Vigs. I think the larger the game, the more beneficial Cops are, perhaps up until a certain point (20+?) where having a Vig is probably better to cull numbers before people get bored of the game and can't use all the extra information anyway.

Odds vs evens. The vig in the 12p game gets what is effectively a free shot, and so at worst can confirm himself without costing the town a lynch. Since town only gets three mislynches, the one extra town kill is worth a lot more. The vig in the 13p game costs a lynch with the very first shot.

Also, since vigs are so incredibly swingy and random, they help the town a lot more in setups where town has a very low chance of winning. 3 v 9 setups are notoriously badly balanced in favor of scum and against the town; anything that adds a random factor can only help. I mean, even adding a SK to that setup seems to help the town, statistically, crazy as that is, because anything that makes those setups more random creates more ways for an otherwise mostly doomed town to luck out.

The more balanced a setup is, the more cop>vig.

Vigs are swingy and random in the same way that extra lynches are swingy and random.
I think we just have a different notion of the relative value of a vigshot compared to a lynch.

[Demon Core]

That doesnt happen though, and for me its usually more frustrating since I tend to be really good with townreads and can get wagons off players.

You and I would not get along...

[Yosarian2]

Highly suspect Vig is not only stronger than cop, but enough stronger that your question isn't actually all that good either.

It's a decent question. Vigs significantly outperform Cops in 3:9 setups, but in 3:10's Cops are slightly outperforming Vigs. I think the larger the game, the more beneficial Cops are, perhaps up until a certain point (20+?) where having a Vig is probably better to cull numbers before people get bored of the game and can't use all the extra information anyway.

Odds vs evens. The vig in the 12p game gets what is effectively a free shot, and so at worst can confirm himself without costing the town a lynch. Since town only gets three mislynches, the one extra town kill is worth a lot more. The vig in the 13p game costs a lynch with the very first shot.

Also, since vigs are so incredibly swingy and random, they help the town a lot more in setups where town has a very low chance of winning. 3 v 9 setups are notoriously badly balanced in favor of scum and against the town; anything that adds a random factor can only help. I mean, even adding a SK to that setup seems to help the town, statistically, crazy as that is, because anything that makes those setups more random creates more ways for an otherwise mostly doomed town to luck out.

The more balanced a setup is, the more cop>vig.

Vigs are swingy and random in the same way that extra lynches are swingy and random.
I think we just have a different notion of the relative value of a vigshot compared to a lynch.

Vigs more swingy and random then extra lynches. Extra lynches give information, slow down the game, and they don't kill town power roles or people who are confirmable. Plus, vigs are much less predictable, and are much more likely to shoot "that guy that everyone but the vig understands is obvtown". Vigs remove information and shorten the game. On the other hand, vigs are less prone to scum manipulation then the lynch, although that also means they're less likely to listen to pro-town advice. They tend to be a wild card in any game.

In any case, 1 cop investigaton > 1 extra lynch. 1 extra lynch > 1 vig kill.

[Magister Ludi]

On the ol' vig vs cop debate, I've found that when vig shoot chronic lurkers or low posting players, it turns out better all around.

Also I wonder who voted yes on this

[Mehdi2277]

Tend to follow an always shoot philosophy (except n0 although I did still once shoot n0 when town could talk at night) and I'm curious who shoots null reads? Reasoning being simply if I think someone is scummy at night I'll probably want to lynch them. If right then shooting is preferable. If wrong you can look at the player more and not have ended up pushing that mislynch the next day a lot.

Policy vigging I dislike more (only exception being lurkers but annoying players I'd rather see lynched on reasons then annoyance).

[Regfan]

Vigging is only acceptable if the person you're shooting is Equinox.

[Timeater]

or regfan

[Axxle]

Or scum

[Yosarian2]

While in theory vig is a good role, I do have to say that in practice, it is the town role I am least afraid of as scum, but I am absolutely terrified of vigs when I'm town. Too many bad experences.

[Mr. Flay]

While in theory vig is a good role, I do have to say that in practice, it is the town role I am least afraid of as scum, but I am absolutely terrified of vigs when I'm town. Too many bad experences.

I wonder if that has to do with "hero vigs" (I think I'm getting the gist of this term) who think "Yosscum can't hardly get lynched, better kill 'em!"...

[Yosarian2]

While in theory vig is a good role, I do have to say that in practice, it is the town role I am least afraid of as scum, but I am absolutely terrified of vigs when I'm town. Too many bad experences.

I wonder if that has to do with "hero vigs" (I think I'm getting the gist of this term) who think "Yosscum can't hardly get lynched, better kill 'em!"...

It is worth mentioning that I designed the MAD mafia games partly to test my theory that vig powers, even really bad ones, just naturally tend to make normally perfectly rational pro-town people go completely crazy and be unable to resist acting in a really anti-town way. I think we can call that theory "confirmed".

[Mr. Flay]

Hahaha, oh man I remember somebody (ABR?) going complely nuclear on me for NO reason...

[Yosarian2]

Hahaha, oh man I remember somebody (ABR?) going complely nuclear on me for NO reason...

Yeah, ABR nuked the cop about 48 hours into the game. And yet it still went better then the first MAD mafia, at least you guys survived day 1 and killed a scum, lol.

[callforjudgement]

I'd like to make something of a counterargument: if you can correctly predict the next day's lynch, you're saving half a mislynch by vigging them, regardless of if they're actually town or not.

Probably the best option (if there's known to be a vig but not who it is) is simply to vote for two players to lynch every day, then lynch one and vig the other. This makes the game effectively double day, and that's widely considered a townisded mechanic.

What you shouldn't be doing as vig is vigging people because you can't get them lynched, or people that the town doesn't generally consider scummy. Don't try to play the hero. You'll be much better off saving the town a mislynch, rather than eliminating a townie who wasn't going to get lynched before you stepped in.

[mykonian]

if you look at mafia in a really stupid way, all you are doing as town and as scum is reduce the lynchpool for the last day. Come the last day, scum wants as many bad townies (possible mislynches) still in the game, while town wants as little as possible. It's the last lynch that decides the game. Vig kills and lynches aren't too different from that point of view, and having twice as much influence as town on who's there at the last day is pretty huge.

[callforjudgement]

I guess here's the most striking example. Imagine that the game is 3:1, and you're town and have a day ability that kills a random townie. Should you use it?

I'd say yes. It's better than no-lynching, because it gives you a random kill rather than a scum-controlled one, and it reduces the number of townies you could hit by mistake.

[LlamaFluff]

if you look at mafia in a really stupid way, all you are doing as town and as scum is reduce the lynchpool for the last day. Come the last day, scum wants as many bad townies (possible mislynches) still in the game, while town wants as little as possible. It's the last lynch that decides the game. Vig kills and lynches aren't too different from that point of view, and having twice as much influence as town on who's there at the last day is pretty huge.

Way I still see it you take away the chance of the lynchpool player being called town for some reason instead. Lets say that through role claims, tells and other stuff 30% of the lynch pool is going to be called town instead at some point in the game. That means if the vig shoots twice there is about a 50% chance that they kill a player that would become town at some point in the game.

The vig kill is massively different from the lynch because there is no claim and no way for any player who has a different read to make the case of why you shouldnt be touching them. Vigs are a high risk high reward type role, and good town doesnt need a high risk to win a game - if they do the balance isnt there. I would take a VT over vig as town any day of the week and a vig over VT as scum any day. Far far more I see games where the town would have done better with no vig then games where the town won due to the vig. Best thing a vig does is basically confirm its existance.

I guess here's the most striking example. Imagine that the game is 3:1, and you're town and have a day ability that kills a random townie. Should you use it?

Thats a horrible example because thats one of the only situations where you should use a vig. What if its 4:1 and you have the ability to kill a random townie? What if its 6:1?

[UberNinja]

Objectively speaking, they both do about the same amount of damage to scum,

if both are played somewhat competently

, yet not perfectly optimally.

...

You do realize that a cop with 3 innocent investigations in a mini-game=automatic town win, and a vig with 3 tonwie kills=almost automatic town loss, right?

You do realize you forgot to read and respond to the entire sentence, right? (Hint: Three straight town vig targets is not somewhat competently.)

Next time, read/think before you post, Y2.

Also, a cop staying alive for 3 nights, and having three townie investigations, all of which are among non-dead players, and then being able to claim on Day 4, is a statistical near-impossibility. I guess if you aren't thinking in terms of rational players playing a mind game, and were instead just thinking of numbers on a chalkboard, you might have a point. Otherwise, you're probably not going to have much luck with that.

Oh, I see Hoopla has already poked a hole in your brilliant plan of not claiming as a Cop in a Mini until Day 4.

The only way a cop can fail is if the scum kill him early.

See Llamarble's post from earlier. There are downsides to a cop that a vig doesn't have.

Even a vig shooting well above average (say, he shoots 1 scum in 2 nights) is much less effective then a cop picking names out of a hat.

Again, in a perfect world...


Never mind.

[Yosarian2]

Objectively speaking, they both do about the same amount of damage to scum,

if both are played somewhat competently

, yet not perfectly optimally.

...

You do realize that a cop with 3 innocent investigations in a mini-game=automatic town win, and a vig with 3 tonwie kills=almost automatic town loss, right?

You do realize you forgot to read and respond to the entire sentence, right? (Hint: Three straight town vig targets is not somewhat competently.)

Next time, read/think before you post, Y2.

Um, I do think and read, thank you very much.

Are you a competent townie? Has there ever been a game when you voted for town 3 times in a row? I bet there has been. I know I have, I'm sure any townie has. There just aren't that many scum; most of the time, if you try to target a scum, you'll target a townie. That's just how the game works, "competent" or not.

Realistically, a competent townie is one who votes for scum somewhere between 33% and 50% of the time. At those odds, there are still going to be plenty of games where you shoot 2 or even 3 townies in a row, even if you know what you're doing.

And vig shots are usually less accurate then votes, in my experience, at least for night vigs.

Oh, I see Hoopla has already poked a hole in your brilliant plan of not claiming as a Cop in a Mini until Day 4.

Earlier I was talking about 2 investigations, which is pretty normal. A cop who waits until day 3 to claim (unless he's about to get lynched, or unless his n1 innocent is about to get lynched, or unless he catches a scum) will usually manage it; scum only get 2 kills by then, and they have 11 townies to pick from. Unless the cop drops cop tells, he has less then a 20% chance of getting nightkilled before day 3. (Of course, that's assuming that there's just one killing group. If there's also a vig, the cop might have to claim earlier, because the vig basically doubles the odds of the cop getting shot by night 3 if he doesn't claim.)

I'm not saying that's always the best option, but it certainly is a reasonable one. And if you do it, town is in great shape.

[LlamaFluff]

The only way a cop can fail is if the scum kill him early.

See Llamarble's post from earlier. There are downsides to a cop that a vig doesn't have.

This is just a bad arguement.

Lets say you are a cop in a 13P game where there is one role that will give you a false result (if its more than one mod is doing something very questionable) and a VT was lynched day one

You have a 10/11 chance of getting a true result (91%)
You have a 1/11 chance of getting a false result (9%)

Even if you extend this to another VT lynched and your result doesnt die N2

7/8 chance of true result (87.5%)
1/8 chance of false result (12.5%)

So...

79.6% chance two true
20.4% false result

I like that....

Even if you want to say something like 24P with two false:

21/23 True N1
2/23 False N1

17/19 True N2
2/19 False N2

Thats even HIGHER chances of two accurate results.

Vigs are swingy. If you are at all wrong, which chances ALWAYS side to, you are going to damage the town to some extent. Its why in more games then not with a vig they played poorly then were a key part of the win. I would without question take a VT over a vig without relooking at balance, I would heavily consider taking an empty slot over a vig and probably would take it.

[greenknight]

While in theory vig is a good role, I do have to say that in practice, it is the town role I am least afraid of as scum, but I am absolutely terrified of vigs when I'm town. Too many bad experences.

I wonder if that has to do with "hero vigs" (I think I'm getting the gist of this term) who think "Yosscum can't hardly get lynched, better kill 'em!"...

Yeah this is exactly what I meant by the term. Vigs shooting good players out of paranoia that they'll win if they are scum. When they should just be clearing out players generally regarded as scummy/useless, to balance out the scum's tendency to kill townish/competent players.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Now that the game is over I will like to offer the following game as a counter-point to "Vigs who shoot all Town are generally bad"

Tit for Tat

The first two Nights Shamrock shot Bitmap (VI) and the director (very scummy Town player). Both of these shots shortened the game for Town but removed two very questionable / scummy appearing players. Day 2 the actual scummy player who was scum was lynched in large part to the removal of the Bitmap distraction. The Night 2 shot on director removed a player with scummy interactions around the flipped scum and let the Jailkeeper choose a better target, blocking the scum kill.

While every situation is different I think this example shows that even in a non-Large game blankely judging Vig play solely on % successfully shot and Evens / Odds is not good Mafia analysis.