Micc's Micro Normal Review, October 2020

[implosion]

Just realized he hasn't sent me the setup, so he can post it himself!

Primary: callforjudgement
Secondary: Isis (!)

[callforjudgement]

/egosearch

[Micc]

Setup:

Town Lazy Watcher
Town Jack-of-all-Trades (Cop, Doc, RB)
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Mafia Goon
Mafia Goon

Setup Information

• This game will use a Closed Normal setup which has 7 players aligned with the
  Town
  and 2 players aligned with the
  Mafia
  .
  
• All private threads in this game are open for Daytalk.
  
• All players in this game have Multitasking by default.
  
• Here is a sample Vanilla Townie Role PM:

Player Name

Welcome to Micro XXX!

The game thread is [url]here[url].

You are a

Vanilla Townie

.

Abilities:

You have no special abilities.

Win Condition:

You win when all threats to the Town have been removed from the game.

[Micc]

Player Name

Welcome to Micro XXX!

The game thread is here[url]. You are a [color=#008000][b ... [url]here as long as you are alive.
One member of the Mafia may target another player with a factional kill during each night phase.

Win Condition:

You win when only Mafia aligned players remain alive, or nothing can prevent this.

[callforjudgement]

This has got to be townsided, right? It's only mildly scumsided even with just the JOAT, and Lazy Watcher isn't all that weak a role. It also seems somewhat prone to Follow the Cop; there's no scum counterplay available and the required claim combination for town to try it could easily arise naturally. Also, this specific JOAT is hard to balance a setup around because it's fairly obvious that it should be accompanied by exactly 1 town-aligned role, so it in effect creates an extra clear (or a 1v1) via setup speculation.

I'm not sure I'm that comfortable with making a suggestion that stays fairly close to the original setup. The best I can come up with, off the top of my head and short of sleep, is:
1-shot Bulletproof Townie, Town Lazy JOAT (Cop, Doctor, Roleblocker), 5 VT vs 2 Goon.
But I'm not really satisfied with that (it seems like it might play a bit randomly in practice, because a kill hitting the BP hurts scum rather more than usual), and would be quite interested to hear counter-offers. (This is one of those times when the rule that I always need to have a viable counter-offer is somewhat regrettable.)

At least now there's more scope for confusion if scum claim a power role, and the town roles are weak enough to not overbalance the setup by themselves. (A 7:2 doesn't need much additional power – in fact, town win around 30% of the time in inadvertent-vanilla 7:2 setups in which they have no useful power roles.)

[Micc]

my initial thought was that this JOAT was weaker than the Cop in [Cop, 6VT vs Goons] and that lazy watcher worked to make up for it. but it's entirely possible that evaluation undervalues both PRs.

[callforjudgement]

It's weaker, but it's not that much weaker, and implying a second PR in the setup is huge information for town (the major reason that Cop+6 vs Goons isn't overpowered is that town can't confirm anyone but the Cop by setup speculation, so a weaker role ironically helps town by implying a second role in the setup). Additionally, an RB shot is actually stronger than a Cop shot later in the game, in a MIcro (Cops can be killed to silence their results, Roleblockers can't be if they breadcrumb their target well). The Doctor shot is noticeably weaker than the other two, so the role is probably a little weaker than full Cop overall, but not that much weaker (and a full Cop is not quite enough to balance a closed Micro by itself, which is why it's clear that town would have additional power upon seeing the JOAT claim).

Lazy Watcher is, in effect, a more powerful Lazy Doctor (because the results are unambiguous, whereas if a Doctor stops the kill, you won't know for certain their target was town), and it has a powerful interaction with the JOAT (as the JOAT is likely to be a nightkill magnet if it claims, and everyone knows it). The Laziness probably halves the power of the role, but half a Watcher is still too much to balance your almost-a-Cop.

[Isis]

Yeah I agreed with this looking townsided. It's kind of like 2/3rds of a cop plus 1/2 a cop = too much cops. Since the JOAT can sequence things to use the roleblock when one scum is already down it should be a hard investigation a lot of the time.

[Isis]

Town Universal Backup
Town Jack-of-all-Trades (Cop, Doc, RB, Watcher)
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Mafia Jack of all Trades Enabler
Mafia Goon

Would definitely be swingy but swingy is better than imbalanced

[callforjudgement]

I might go all the way to making the JOAT lazy, there (rather than Enabled). If the wrong scum dies first, the town power role is likely to solve the setup by itself (the only redeeming feature is that a Cop or Watcher result gets lost upon a nightkill, although an RB clear won't).

In a way, it's comparable to Mason+Mason+6 versus Goons, except that one of the Masons has a Cop shot; the Universal Backup isn't necessarily town in this setup, but it's one of those claims that, in practice, scum are unlikely to think of and thus town are likely to believe (especially if the JOAT's existence is known by that point). Of course, it's not nearly as townsided as the Mason pair (especially if the UB claims first), but it's still quite likely that scum will have to deal with them using their nightkill rather than being able to talk the town into eliminating them with the Day vote.

Another possibility would be to give scum a Roleblocker rather than an Enabler, but that seems a little bastard when combined with a Universal Backup (because now town are rewarded for eliminating their power role).

[Isis]

I think you get that problem either way with Lazy which was why I deleted that out. Like you have to do Town Lazy Universal Backup and Town Lazy Jack-of-all-Trades to keep from rewarding town for killing their PR, but then the town universal backup can setup spec the lazy JOAT claim to be town pretty easily and that doesn't seem desirable.

[callforjudgement]

Universal Backups inherit modifiers (as opposed to regular Backups, which don't).

[Isis]

What about the opposite of your idea cfj:

Town Macho Townie
Town Jack-of-all-Trades (Cop, Doc, RB)
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Vanilla Townie
Mafia Goon
Mafia Goon

[Isis]

preview edits in normal reviews whew: I didn't know Universal Backups inherited modifiers, thanks.

[callforjudgement]

The problem with the Macho Townie setup is that the balance comes down a huge amount to modWIFOM. That makes it very hard to predict how the setup will turn out, because different players react to modWIFOM in different ways.

Generally speaking, the only time I put modWIFOM into a setup is if it's balanced by night actions but townsided by setup speculation; throwing in a few red herrings in that situation generally leads town to give up on setup speculation and take the setup back to balanced.

[Isis]

I don't really see how it's more modwifom than 1-shot BP since they both make the doctor shot "not work", but you might have better ideas about the normal queue players' attitudes towards macho townies and BPs than I do

[callforjudgement]

Well, 1-shot BP saves you from a kill even if the Doctor isn't protecting you (and runs the possibility, if a very rare one, of buying an extra day via saving twice).

If you give a player a pure negative utility role, the player list need to decide whether that's meant to make the setup be more townsided or make the setup be more scumsided or is a scum fakeclaim. (There's a genuine debate, for example, about whether changing a VT to a Miller in a random setup makes it more townsided or more scumsided, assuming no Rolecops or comparable roles, and I'm not sure we came to any conclusions on that.)

[Isis]

Ohh, that makes sense. So if it's literally the negative utility what about named townie or fruit vendor? or do you think the BP power is actually needed to keep the setup from being scumsided

[callforjudgement]

Named Townie is not Normal, and also pure modWIFOM (because it doesn't do anything apart from to act as a Rolecop result, which is still modWIFOM in case it's a Named Goon instead). Given the publicly known Multitasking, So yFruit Vendor would work fine (it's provably not a scum fakeclaim, but might plausibly be scum trueclaiming). So yes, it's purely about the role not being negative utility.

[Micc]

Seems like the JOAT should go away and not the Lazy Watcher.

(as the JOAT is likely to be a nightkill magnet if it claims, and everyone knows it).

Trying to think of something weaker to substitute in that wouldn't have this problem. One Shot Bulletproof is the thing that comes to mind, but it doesn't feel super interesting or fun to play.

[Isis]

Lazy Watcher is weaker than JOAT so I think you're free to do something stronger than one-shot BP. Like a Simple Doctor or something.

I think cfj and I both perceived you as being more attached to the JOAT.

[Isis]

oh simple doctor doesn't fix the interaction you were remarking upon where the watcher is easy to use.
Bodyguard does, not sure if that's too weak.

[callforjudgement]

Sorry for not responding here; I was V/LA and forgot to announce it. I'll still be V/LA for one more day, but will take a look after that.

[Isis]

Lazy Watcher + Hider? (not weak hider, hider)

[callforjudgement]

One thing that worries me a little about Normal Hider is that players might not understand how the role works (given that Hider used to imply Weak). That can be fixed during confirmations, though. Isis' suggestion does seem reasonably balanced, though (and has the advantage that the Watcher can't possibly get a false positive from the Hider, because if the Hider's target dies, the Hider will too).