Mini 1800 - Game Over

[Wingback]

Hey guys. I was halfway through before I offered to replace in - at the beginning of page ten. I'll catch up with the rest of it in a bit.

[Wingback]

@Mod -

I think Snork requested replacement.

@mod: I apologize - I won't be able to play this game right now. A major project was dumped on me at work on Friday and it just doesn't give me the time I normally have to read a game properly. I will need to be replaced.

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I read up to the end of page fifteen. I have solid, confident townreads on Dierfire, The Bulge (Chumba's slot), Saru, and qubixes. Got a leaning townread on Persivul.

Scumreads, I'm less confident on. I'll catch up with the last few pages and ISO the remaining players which should help me figure things out. Going to head off to bed and finish tomorrow. If there's anything important you want to look at, let me know.

[Wingback]

I'm caught up. Mizzytastic can go in my townpile as well.

Karnos is the only active player that I'm scumreading. Particularly hated the jump onto the Persivul wagon as it was picking up, the abundance of null/scum reads in his massive readslist which is a load of fluff that doesn't say anything, and the way he buckles down from pressuring Dierfire after Mizzytastic reams him over it. This could be playstyle though so I'll re-ISO him in context of his other games. I think he's already at L-2 so I won't add my vote right now.

I don't like Snork's sole content post (Post 96). He townreads Chumba for weak theory reasons and is way too sure of the read. He swipes at MechaGoomba for "busywork" questions when I thought Goomba's questions to Chumba were pretty legitimate. It reads as if Snork decided he was going to buddy Chumba and started fielding away attacks on Chumba.

JohnnyFarrar (Shadyhood's replacement) is another possible candidate for scum regardless of what Karnos flips. He sounds way too certain about his scumflip repeatedly asking why Karnos isn't already dead and agreeing with pretty much every case on Karnos. The day is not even halfway done. It's been six days since the game started and we still have eight days left. A bunch of people either need to catch up or be replaced and there's plenty more discussion to have. I think it's obvious why we haven't lynched yet. I think it's partly just rhetoric but I find it very overblown and the confidence doesn't match up to what I'd expect from someone who just replaced into the game and is catching up. It sounds like he's pre-decided he's pushing Karnos.

Kappy is a player I'm very conflicted on. I think he was acting very loose and unself-conscious at the beginning (someone mentioned this already but I can't recall who) and I think that his free-flowing posts and constant vote changes were town. I dislike his evaluation of Sickofit vs Persivul though and there's a lot of stuff he completely misinterpreted (Saru pointed most of this out).

@Wingback Why do you read Dierfire as town?

Mostly based on his entrance (Post 228 and Post 229). A lot of what he said in those two walls was stuff that I was thinking too. A couple of examples:

• His townread on Persivul matched mine and came at a point where Persivul was picking up a wagon. I was leaning town on Pesivul for the same reasons (because of how he was updating his read on Sickofit) and it's a point I would have brought up had Dierfire not beat me to it.
  
• His difficulty in reading sickofit. I had some conflicting opinions on my predecessor too when I was spectating so this hits home with me. In fact, the reasons I started leaning town on him were the same posts that Dierfire had linked and for the same reasons as well.

@ Karnos - a few questions:

persivul

- I had a strong town vibe for him yesterday, but now I am really starting to wonder, especially given the town vibe I had for him in 640 in which I just discovered he was actually scum. (nullscum)
VOTE: persivul

Are there any specific reasons you were townreading Persivul for? I didn't read the entirety of Open 640 but from an ISO of you and Ctrl+F Persivul, it seemed like he was scum with GreyICE and when GreyICE attacked you, he defended you leading you to townread him. Nothing in this game is comparable to that so where is your read coming from?

[Wingback]

I was talking about Open 640 where GreyICE was scum.

@qubixes, I actually thought Dierfire's evaluation of Kappy made sense. Kappy's behavior was weird and the multiple vote switches were hard to make sense of (unless you assume that Kappy was just "having fun" and absolve him of responsibility during that RVS phase).

[Wingback]

I'm second-guessing my read on Karnos. I think it's possible he's town. I need to check something and I'll elaborate in my next post. I do want to see the replacements and species post though. I'm not ready to end the day.

[Wingback]

[quote="In post 504, karnos"]I decided to go the other route this game and shared a nearly full read list (minus persivul for obvious reasons- if I revealed that I read him as town, my vote on him would seem incongruous and I wouldn't be applying any pressure).

I find it hard to believe that Karnos is scum that decided to fake a "reaction test" on Persivul by voting him and then made sure that all his actions from then on (not including Persivul in his reads list) matched up with that elaborate ploy, and then said nothing about it until it was brought up just now.

In other words, if he's scum, he didn't just hop onto the wagon opportunistically. He was intending a fake a reaction test all along from the beginning. The reason I think that's unlikely is that firstly, Karnos doesn't come across to me as the skilled and sophisticated player who would pull it off, and secondly, scum like showing off their scumhunting by revealing the results of their test but Karnos hasn't said anything about this until now. But when you go back and look at his vote on Persivul and then the readslist, and his explanation now, it's all quite consistent.

[Wingback]

FIXED TAGS

I decided to go the other route this game and shared a nearly full read list (minus persivul for obvious reasons- if I revealed that I read him as town, my vote on him would seem incongruous and I wouldn't be applying any pressure).

I find it hard to believe that Karnos is scum that decided to fake a "reaction test" on Persivul by voting him and then made sure that all his actions from then on (not including Persivul in his reads list) matched up with that elaborate ploy, and then said nothing about it until it was brought up just now.

In other words, if he's scum, he didn't just hop onto the wagon opportunistically. He was intending a fake a reaction test all along from the beginning. The reason I think that's unlikely is that firstly, Karnos doesn't come across to me as the skilled and sophisticated player who would pull it off, and secondly, scum like showing off their scumhunting by revealing the results of their test but Karnos hasn't said anything about this until now. But when you go back and look at his vote on Persivul and then the readslist, and his explanation now, it's all quite consistent.

[Wingback]

Also, Dierfire, I see your points on Mizzytastic. I think the way he pushed Karnos had a lot of original reasoning and he stuck his neck out considerably to make the push which I found town. I'm not very confident in my townread there though so I'll see what the replacement has to say and then factor it in.

[Wingback]

If he faked a read, why did he leave out Persivul in his readslist? That would be a very odd co-incidence, wouldn't it?

[Wingback]

He did say it was "obvious" why he was leaving "someone" out. I'm assuming he is not thinking here that he is "obviously" reaction testing. So, I guess it's because he already gave his reasons?

Yeah, he said that when making the readslist. I think he knew people would ask about why he left out Persivul and he didn't want to explain at that point and "ruin" the test. But he left a vague enough hint to avoid being pressed on it.

[Wingback]

The key thing here is:

Karnos admits to faking a read.

He's just saying he did it for town purposes, as a reaction test. But he is still claiming it was fake. He just claims the motivation was town, not scum.
So I suppose the question has to be: If he was reaction testing, why did he leave out Persivul in his readslist?
Wouldn't any answer to that question be just as good an answer if he was scum?

He did say it was "obvious" why he was leaving "someone" out. I'm assuming he is not thinking here that he is "obviously" reaction testing.

Yeah, that doesn't make much sense in the unlikely hypothetical where karnos is town either.

Three scenarios here:

1) He is town and did a reaction test. (He voted Persivul to "put pressure" on him despite townreading him. He excluded Persivul from his readslist because it was ruin the test if he revealed that he was townreading Persivul. He left a vague hint about omitting someone to fend off questions about it.)

2) He is scum and pretended to do a reaction test. (He voted Persivul and left him out of a readslist with a vague hint so that after some time passes, he could pretend to make this grand reveal that he was in fact townreading Persivul and this was an elaborate test in order to read Persivul.) I explained why this is unlikely based on Karnos's experience and skill level.

3) He is scum and faked the read entirely. (He opportunistically jumped onto the Persivul wagon hoping the mislynch Persivul. He omitted Persivul from his readslist with a vague hint. Why? Why not write up some fake reasons for scumreading Persivul? Karnos certainly doesn't seem like the type who is incapable of writing large volumes of text. Surely, he could have made something up.

Is this an accurate summary of the possibilities? If you are pushing that the third option happened, then why did he omit the Persivul read rather than make something up? I don't see the scum benefit here. But I do see why he as town would try to do a "reaction test." Especially because Persivul was scum in a recent game and Karnos had wrongly townread him in that game so is understandably a bit wary on Persivul.

Pedit: Qubixes, are you arguing that #2 is what happened?

[Wingback]

@qubixes - It's not so much that he omitted Persivul but that when I look back at his train of thought - voting Persivul at the time he did, omitting Persivul from his list, and finally revealing that this was all a test - I had a lightbulb moment where everything fell into place. That made me feel that there was genuine underlying scumhunting intent and a consistent chain of thought that I hadn't felt before.

Your case is based largely on him being careful, not having any strong reads and being self-conscious. Those are all good points but some people are naturally very self-conscious and careful, and lack confidence in their reads. I'm thinking Karnos fits that profile. I will read through the game where he was scum to see what level of play he's capable of. If there's anything specific you want me to look at, let me know.

[Wingback]

@ MechaGoomba - You are seriously misinterpreting.

If he was town, he voted Persivul to see Persivul's reaction to pressure. He apparently thought it was a better idea to not say anything about Persivul:

Could I make up some absolute BS, and try to use that to attack him a little more? Maybe, if I tried, but I didn't want to get myself miss-lynched bad enough for that. In retrospect the whole thing was a poor play. Maybe I should have gone all in on the attack, but I felt my slot was already viewed as scummy by several players and I couldn't risk a full gambit like that.

If he were scum that simply wanted to mislynch Persivul, he could have come up with something to push him.

I'm not saying he's town because he lied in a "less deceptive way." I think he's town because I believe that his reaction test was genuine. I believe this because his actions after voting Persivul all line up and make sense from town doing a reaction test.

[Wingback]

@Masquerade, I agree that Shady was unimpressive and Johnny hasn't done anything to change my opinion of that slot. In fact, presenting himself as a leader and assuming that he'll be nightkilled doesn't match up with his half-hearted semi-catchup and lack of activity since. A good majority of his catchup contained quotes of other people making cases on Karnos and piggybacking off of them. He doesn't give any of his own reasons and his catchup style of quoting people's posts and either approving or disapproving them doesn't take much thought or effort and is really easy to fake as scum. If someone replaces into the game, it means they have at least some spare time to catch up and Johnny not doing catching up on a short twenty-page game in over three days shows me his heart is really not in it. He doesn't redeem Shady's posts and in fact, it made me more confident that the slot is scum. Would like to understand what you are seeing here. I'm also interested in seeing everyone's comments on my read on Johnny.

Also, Masquerade's entrance re-inforced my townread on Mizzytastic.

@qubixes, I glanced through the towngames that Karnos linked in Post 432 but didn't find anything that I could confidently say that this is the difference between his play as town and scum. The one scumgame he had was multiball which means he was genuinely hunting for the other team which makes it unreliable as meta. From a cursory glance, I noticed that he was pushing back hard on GreyICE in Open 640 as town but that was mostly him reacting to a very aggressive/ruthless push. He's reacted to Mechagoomba in a similar way but overall, I didn't find a smoking gun.

I think the push on him for worrying about being implicated in a mislynch doesn't take into account that while scum might be thinking that, it's very unlikely they would actually say it in thread. I don't want to keep rehashing the same argument as I doubt it'll convince you if it hasn't already. I do want to know if you are willing to compromise on any other player. JohnnyFarrar and Mathblade are good alternatives - explained Johnny above, I'll explain the Mathblade read in my next post.

[Wingback]

Here are my issues with Mathblade:

Firstly, their view of the gamestate is extremely simplistic. The scum are the biggest wagon and the two people defending the biggest wagon (me and Masquerade) and I at least have already received some blowback for sticking my neck out. Mathblade doesn't consider the possibilities that I could be town and right, or that I could be town and wrong, or that I could be scum defending a town-Masquerade. Obviously, I think I'm right but the way they narrow it down to both of us being the same alignment and adds Masquerade in for good measure looks very crude and not well thought-out.

Secondly, most of their reads are either based on Karnos or just completely arbitrary. The qubixes townread references the post where he voted Karnos (the bit about calling Persivul vs Sickofit TvT doesn't make sense either since Sickofit is my slot). The Dierfire townread was also because of the post where he voted Karnos. The Persivul townread for Post 406 where he simply clarified a post is weak as Persivul made several posts in the game and had a lot of readable content. The Saru read for Post 326 is similarly weak. This supreme confidence in a Karnos scumflip makes very little sense from the POV of a replacement who wasn't involved in the game and never came up with their own original reasoning for pushing Karnos (that's the major difference between how Mizzytastic and qubixes were pushing him and how JohnnyFarrar and Mathblade are piggybacking).

Also, you're using the competence argument on Karnos both ways. He is not good enough scum to fake a reaction test, but he is good enough scum to not say he is worried about being implicated. I don't think the difficulty of the two things are vastly different, so please choose.

I'm saying Karnos is not good enough scum to fake a reaction test while keeping all his actions consistent with that for a prolonged period of time. On the other hand, I doubt even a newbie-scum would blatantly say "I'm worried about how this will make me look."

Who is scum if Masquerade is town?

[Wingback]

That should read "who is scum is

Karnos

is town?"

[Wingback]

@Dierfire, what made you abandon the push on Kappy and vote Karnos? Qubixes's case was there for a very long time. Why did you only now decide to verify Karnos's meta and put down a vote?

More than Dierfire's vote, I'm far more interested in what Mathblade thought was so awesome about Dier's Post 558. "

It seems spot on. Looks like they are trying to figure out the game and analyze things

" is an odd way to describe a post where Dierfire agrees with qubixes and sheeps him.

[Wingback]

VOTE: Mathblade

Could also vote JohnnyFarrar. I'd appreciate everyone's opinion on my scumreads of Mathblade and JohnnyFarrar. I'm scumreading both current occupants of the slots as well as both of their predecessors (Snork and Shadyhood). Heading off to bed so I'll check in tomorrow.

[Wingback]

I'd caution against universally applying tells like that. It's not that Mathblade was

confused

, it's that I suspect them of pushing an agenda:

• Find a reason to townread Qubixes since he's a universal townread anyways. That post where you called my predecessor town was a decent enough one.
  
• Find a reason to tie Wingback and Karnos together since Karnos looks to be the default lynch and Wingback is catching flak for defending him.

I suspect Mathblade is just trying to find things to push without taking care to look through the game at a deeper level and re-read and double-check their facts.

When I entered the game, I took quite a bit of care to check who replaced who so I could develop a compound read on each slot. What each occupant did influenced my read. I think it's less likely that scum would care that much since the reads are fake anyways, and you only need to push an agenda, not develop accurate reads.

Scum can be more careful and self-conscious in some ways but town are more likely to put extra effort into getting accurate reads.

[Wingback]

What is the point of tying you and Karnos together if Karnos is town? He said that you and Karnos probably share the same alignment, so after Karnos supposedly (according to you) flips town, he wouldn't go after you? I just don't see the point from a scum perspective.

I think Mathblade wanted to present a scumteam theory that appeals to the crowd. Tying me, Karnos, and Masquerade together accomplishes that and places Mathblade squarely in the anti-Karnos camp with plenty of allies. That and if the Karnos mislynch fails or he claims a PR, Mathblade could always pull a "well, let's lynch his buddy Wingback" move.

Wingback (replaces Sickofit1138)- I read sickofit a lot like I read kappy- a bit of an immature town player. With the replace in, and change of posting, I am reading this slot very differently. If mathblade is the scum on my wagon, this is the scum going for towncred by opposing the wagon. Of course, by saying this I might just push him to quickhammer me. I honestly hope I am wrong, I hope an actual town player is on my side here, but knowing I might get lynched in the near future I'd rather out this theory now rather than wait.

Any town player still scumreading Karnos after this is knee-deep in confirmation bias and should re-think their views.

Scum rarely push back against one of the only people defending them when almost everyone else is against them. They'd be ecstatic about having an ally. The fact that Karnos thought my predecessor was town means he doesn't even have to do anything to keep townreading me. But he actively changes his read despite his fear that I may hammer because he's worried that he's going to get lynched and wants it out there that he suspects me.

Do you know why else this makes a ton of sense? In Open 640, Persivul defended a town-Karnos and was scum. I think Karnos is worried of the same thing happening here which is why he scumreads me.

[Wingback]

Do you believe Karnos would expect that your defense would be able to get the lynch off of him? If yes, why? If no, then why would he care whether you defended him or not?

I think that's up in the air. Maybe I succeed. Maybe I fail. But I'm still his last hope and burning that bridge isn't something scum would want to do but does make a lot of sense if he's town.

[Wingback]

I think there's a good chance I was wrong on Karnos.

Unlike MechaGoomba, I do vote players who I don't think are scum. In my very first newbie game, I voted killthestory and put him at L-1 with my entry into the game, because my thinking was it'll either get some good information out of him, or scum will hammer and we can nail the scum.

Of course that was very immature thinking, scum are extremely unlikely to hammer like that

, but the basic thinking is something I still hold onto in my play today.

If this was the case, why were you worried I might hammer you?

More than that, I don't understand why you decided to openly say in thread that you thought Mechagoomba was a mason. There is no benefit to town at all for you to do this. On the other hand, there's a ridiculous amount of scum motivation to speculate about people's roles before being lynched to help your team find the PRs.

Claim now please. Consider this an intent to hammer although I'm going to hold off on hammering until everyone's caught up and ready to go.

[Wingback]

I am fully aware that it's not pro-town to reveal a town power-role, but

between that or lynching myself

, I see it as the lesser of two evils. I'm not just going to ignore the obvious and go down without a fight.

How is this an either/or scenario?

[Wingback]

This is frustrating. There are some three or four days left in the game. I'm not completely sure about you either way but I'm suspicious enough because of your mason speculation that I'm not going to derail your lynch. Claiming now would be really helpful as it would give us the time we need to analyze the claim and decide what to do with it. I don't see what you are waiting for here exactly - there is very little chance of anyone but you getting lynched so digging your feet in the ground and waiting for L-1 with intent reads more like you are stalling and want a deadline scramble.

Pedit: Was going to vote him but Dierfire already did so

now

it's L-1 with intent to hammer.

[Wingback]

I'm ambivalent of the claim and on my read of Karnos. On the one hand, there are the two towntells that I've pointed out from him both of which I still believe. But there's also the really blatant mason-fishing which is exactly how scum about to be lynched can benefit their team. Not to mention, nine times out of ten, when scum get run up on D1, I'd expect them to claim a PR to buy themselves another day.

I don't really expect any counterclaims. Neapolitan seems to be a fairly uncommon role. If any has a very similar role (Neapolitan, vanilla cop, or some type of flavor cop), they should counterclaim when they log on. Until I see that, I'll proceed with the assumption that there aren't any.

Regardless, I'm not voting a null/conflicted read that just claimed a PR. Even if he's scum, he has a pretty short shelf life and we did what we could locking him into a claim. If he's town, we'll get useful results leaving him alive for a day or two. Optimal move today is to focus elsewhere.

Mathblade and Johnny are the ones I'm scumreading the most and where I'm willing to vote today.

[Wingback]

VOTE: JohnnyFarrar

[Wingback]

What's the problem with the votes on the Johnny wagon? Persivul's analysis on Johnny is accurate as is Mechagoomba's elaboration of it. I gave my reasons why I'm scumreading Johnny at least twice now and said I'd vote for him so that shouldn't have been a surprise.

If we're going to dismantle a wagon purely because it formed quickly, how are we ever going to lynch anyone?

[Wingback]

Reading the thread will answer that question. You should get on with it.

[Wingback]

Well then, after work, carve out some time to go through the thread and post your thoughts. You couldn't be bothered to read the game for around five days now and you can't have been working 24/7. If you were so busy that you can't find any time at all, you shouldn't have replaced into the game.

I'm not going to hold your hand and spoonfeed you while you ask questions that have already been answered or are obvious if you glance through someone's ISO to see their progression of reads.

[Wingback]

Alright high and mighty, be obtuse because that sure is helpful to town. Here's my question again, you can read it slow.

You say in 653 that you don't want to vote Karnos. You say you want to vote me. Then you vote me.

20 fucking posts later.

Why did you wait?

Okay, I read it really, really slowly as can be seen here but still couldn't understand it. Can you say it a bit more slowly. With feeling this time?

[Wingback]

Alright high and mighty, be obtuse because that sure is helpful to town. Here's my question again, you can read it slow.

You say in 653 that you don't want to vote Karnos. You say you want to vote me. Then you vote me.

20 fucking posts later.

Why did you wait?

Okay, I read it really, really slowly as can be seen here but still couldn't understand it. Can you say it a bit more slowly. With feeling this time?

I think it is a fair question. Why not answer it?

Because the answer is obvious and boring. I wanted to see if he'd ISO me and figure it out even if he doesn't want to read the whole thread. If you actually look at the post he's referring to, and where my vote was at that time, it'd be obvious to you as well.

[Wingback]

Where did I clearly state I wanted to vote you? Quote that sentence for me.

[Wingback]

At that time, my vote was on Mathblade who I'm also scumreading. While it would be a beautiful thing to have two votes, I'm not that fortunate so I have to pick one person to vote.

What do you do when you are voting a scumread and a wagon forms on your other scumread twenty posts later?

[Wingback]

Did some re-reading of the game. The townread that I most think I've been wrong about was Dierfire which is where I want to focus.

On Dierfire:

• Regarding Post 355/Post 559: What gave you the impression that Kappy's read on Sickofit in Post 181 was very strong? While he does have Sickofit at the bottom of his readslist, it was still early game and the reasons he posted make sense with the kind of reasoning expected that early. I don't know what level of reasoning you were expecting for page seven.
  
• Your entire read on Kappy seems to be based off of that and Kappy's early votehopping and while both of them are fine early game, neither are convincing reasons this late into the day. Kappy's early votehopping could just be him having "fun" in RVS so I don't find that point very strong either.
  
• The sequence of Post 354 and Post 355 looks like an "
  oh well, I have nothing to say, might as well respond to Kappy
  " rather than have any real desire to get your suspect lynched.
  
• Do you have any follow-up on your read on Mizzytastic that you mentioned in Post 494? It seems you like that he suspects the same people as you but other than that, you find his posts superficial and easy for mafia to generate?
  
• As Mathblade pointed out, your unvote in Post 610, and revote in Post 642 onto Karnos is hard to follow. If you unvoted because you were waiting to re-read and get a "good handle on the game," why revote before you did that?

Overall, I don't like that you spent much of the game tunneling Kappy with a short detour at Karnos. There's never any focus on the rest of the game or trying to get reads elsewhere. I don't find anything compelling in your push on Kappy either.

[Wingback]

@qubixes, what of MoI's point about not lynching Karnos did you find persuasive that you didn't when Mechagoomba made the same point? I've quoted the posts one after the other to illustrate:

A Neapolitan is different from a Vanilla Cop in that they get "Vanilla Townie" or "Not Vanilla Townie" instead of just "Vanilla" or "Not Vanilla". In other words, any Vanilla Townie targeted by a Neapolitan can be confirmed as 100% town. That would be extremely valuable during LYLO, and, as long as he doesn't reveal any "Not Vanilla Townie" results unless they claim vanilla,

he'll only be making things harder for scum by making them choose between PR hunting and eliminating conftown.

Rule Number 1 of Mafia – in a closed set-up you do NOT lynch a claimed investigation role that is un-CCed Day 1. You just don’t. If the claim is countered? Sure it is possible. We will get more information (from Karnos’s potential claimed results, future interactions and Nightkills) to sort him.

Specifically on Karnos’s claim – Neopolitan is actually stronger than some other Non-Alignment Cop roles as it provides 100% clearance with Vanilla Town results. It isn’t as strong for catching scum outside of incorrect VT claims but

vetting VTs is huge from a standpoint of putting scum in a bad position as to whether to choose to kill suspected Power-roles or kill VTs who are 100% clear. Any time you handcuff the scum in some way you are benefitting Town.

Also, for your suspicion of Johnny, I made similar points about Johnny's wall post earlier:

JohnnyFarrar (Shadyhood's replacement) is another possible candidate for scum regardless of what Karnos flips. He sounds way too certain about his scumflip repeatedly asking why Karnos isn't already dead and agreeing with pretty much every case on Karnos. The day is not even halfway done. It's been six days since the game started and we still have eight days left. A bunch of people either need to catch up or be replaced and there's plenty more discussion to have. I think it's obvious why we haven't lynched yet. I think it's partly just rhetoric but I find it very overblown and the confidence doesn't match up to what I'd expect from someone who just replaced into the game and is catching up. It sounds like he's pre-decided he's pushing Karnos.

@Masquerade, I agree that Shady was unimpressive and Johnny hasn't done anything to change my opinion of that slot. In fact, presenting himself as a leader and assuming that he'll be nightkilled doesn't match up with his half-hearted semi-catchup and lack of activity since. A good majority of his catchup contained quotes of other people making cases on Karnos and piggybacking off of them. He doesn't give any of his own reasons and his catchup style of quoting people's posts and either approving or disapproving them doesn't take much thought or effort and is really easy to fake as scum.

If someone replaces into the game, it means they have at least some spare time to catch up and Johnny not doing catching up on a short twenty-page game in over three days shows me his heart is really not in it. He doesn't redeem Shady's posts and in fact, it made me more confident that the slot is scum.

Would like to understand what you are seeing here. I'm also interested in seeing everyone's comments on my read on Johnny.

which you haven't engaged with and later said that the Johnny wagon was "easy."

After MoI's post here,

Yeah I would ask you to read that post again with a critical eye. Notice there is lots of language that looks like he is assessing scum but really doesn't build to any conclusion.

As for the "I'm busy" angle - why should he not be engaged with the game? He replaced in of his own volition. He know the length of re-read (which by the way is small since I did it basically today FYI). Giving him a pass for not being engaged is a poor choice IMO.

you decided to re-read Johnny's catch up and vote him.

Can you explain the difference between MoI's posting and other people's posting (mine and Mechagoomba's for a start) that when he makes a point, you immediately agree and jump on it but when other made the same or similar points, you tend to double-down and stick to your position?

[Wingback]

@MagnaOfIllusion,

Reads til my official replacement in (Page 24 / 594) –

And Wingback immediately reverses field on karnos. Since we know that scum have Daytalk this could be a signal that something got worked out in the Mafia QT. And also starts distancing from the Mizzy (Masq) Town read which I dislike. Was ready to push him back to the Scum read pool but 567 makes solid sense. An element I dislike is that he hasn’t moved his vote from Pers who he isn’t scum-reading to Johnny by this point.

Mathblade’s entrance seems reasonable, if misguided on “Wingback and karnos are partners” angle. Snork who was a non-factor moves to soft Town read.

Why do you think Mathblade was misguided in calling me and Karnos partners when that seems to be your stance as well (or at least, that's what I'm gathering from the daytalk comments)?

I'm also not sure how Post 567 made solid sense from your perspective as you seem pro-Mathblade, anti-Wingback & Karnos.

What do you think of my reasoning for townreading Karnos? Do you think it is implausible for a town player to townread Karnos? If Karnos were to flip town, how would that affect your reads on the people that attacked and defended Karnos and why?

You haven't said anything about Dierfire. What's your opinion on him?

[Wingback]

I'll compress all my thoughts over the past few days into a single wall so make sure you read it in its entirety. I'll put in section headings to this so it doesn't become a huge long unwieldy mess and hopefully people actually read.

Section 1: Impressions of Johnny's meta
Section 2: Johnny's read on me
Section 3: MagnaofIllusion's Johnny wagon analysis and associative read on me
Section 4: Dierfire is a scumbag (please read this)
Section 5: Some miscellaneous stuff

Section 1: Impressions of Johnny's meta

I went over some of Johnny's past games. The first towngame I looked at was Mini 1782 where he replaced in and was immediately engaged from the get-go. He didn't bother reading older stuff and preferred to interact with and question players in real time. In contrast, in Newbie 1537 (also town), he takes a much more thorough approach catching up fully. Also read a few towngames where he was playing from the start and he's always active and questions people. Scumgames are more interesting. Twin Trap was a game he was in from the start and spent quite some time in catch up mode although never completely checks out like he did here. In the Third Fortnight which was a special 14 day game, he was there from the start but sometimes falls behind but makes an effort to get current and drive wagons on town away from his partner. Many at endgame commended him for his scumplay.

My impression of his play is that he's more naturally engaged as town but when he's scum, he doesn't just sit by and get lynched. He's definitely the kind that would put effort into digging himself out of holes that he might be in and coming through for his team. This game is completely atypical for him so that lends credence to the fact that he was genuinely busy whatever his alignment. I still find his confidence in the Karnos push in his catchup wall to be scummy. See below for some of the reasons I don't like the content that he did put it since his catchup wall. But he's not my strongest scumread. That honor goes to Dierfire and if we can get a wagon there, I'll switch over. Also willing to go with Mathblade and I found some interesting things in a scumgame of theirs that I need to finish reading.

Section 2: Johnny's read on me

If Wingback were newbie scum he'd still be at my throat, not continuing to pressure others. They've both got pretty strong d1 townreads.

I don't understand how you started townreading me. The timeline doesn't fit.

• In Post 674 is your first mention of me where you said I was hard to read.
  
• In between those posts, my Post 685, Post 687, Post 689, Post 694, Post 699, Post 702, and Post 708 were all focused on you.
  
• In Post 723, you started townreading me.
  
• I pressured Dierfire (Post 730)
  after
  you said you were townreading me.
  
• Then in Post 755, you give the reasoning in the quote above. That looks like you made it up after the fact.

Section 3: MagnaofIllusion's Johnny wagon analysis and associative read on me

Given what has been presented against Johnny I don’t think scum stays away from that wagon as I am seeing if he is Town.

I'm not following why this is a reason that Johnny is scum. You are saying that if Johnny is town, scum would join the wagon. But if Johnny is town, your remaining scumreads according to the list you posted earlier would be Karnos, The Bulge who hasn't posted in several days, and me who was already on the wagon. Possibly Mecha who you had as null but who already was on the wagon. This argument is essentially coming down to "

if Johnny was town, Karnos would have voted him.

" Were there any other players you were plausibly seeing as scum who you thought would pounce but haven't? (This bit is relevant as I'm not quite sure what part of this reasoning Dierfire found persuasive).

What is your updated analysis now that people actually have joined (Saru, qubixes) or intend to join (Dierfire) the Johnny wagon in a way that you predicted would happen if Johnny were town?

That said if karnos is Town my opinion would absolutely change for the reasons I said in my prior section – Town you defending scum karnos is feasible.

Why do you think that's more likely than me being town correctly reading Karnos as town (at that time)?

if you sort through the posts you find lots of preflip associatives, lots of relatively weak stuff buried in the walls.

I don't like MoI's overreliance on pre-flip associatives and conditional reads i.e. Karnos is scum but if he's town, then I'm scum, as well as me and Johnny not being partnered together etc. The benefits of doing this as scum are obvious - he can move onto the next read once one of his scumreads flip town. I don't know if this is how he normally scumhunts as town so I'll try and look through his games to verify when I have time.

Section 4: Dierfire is a scumbag (please read this)

I have two questions about your second point. First, do you think that the case on JohnnyFarrar (your current vote) is substantially stronger than the case on Kappy? If you say that it is I will surely ask you why. The second question is, if you feel that my case on Kappy is weak, why were you concerned (569) when I moved my vote away in 558? Some of that appears to have been a misunderstanding of my reasoning for voting for karnos, but the phrase "abandon the push on Kappy" doesn't quite sound as though you were thinking along the same lines there.

On the first question, I'm not supremely confident Johnny is scum but I do think it's a much stronger case than your case on Kappy and I've listed out the reasons why I suspect Johnny - in addition to what I already said, his overconfidence about the Karnos scumflip in his catchup wall looked fake considering he just sheeps off of other people's reasoning. His Post 693 where he weakly says he was "fine" with a Karnos lynch and "didn't have a problem with it" also doesn't match up to the "why isn't this day over yet" high-confidence stance he took on Karnos when catching up.

I don't even get why you scumread Kappy. You bring up a bunch of his early posts and basically say that his vote hopping is scummy. Nobody took anything you said seriously but you haven't asked anyone for feedback on your case. You seemed content with getting ignored until bigger wagons cropped up and then you weigh them at deadline to see which one to hop on. You weren't even going out of your way to push Karnos and you going "oh, well I don't have anything to contribute, let me look at a Karnos post to respond to" comes across like you are not really sold on what you are pushing and are just going through the motions looking like a good townie. I think that should answer your second question as well.

Wingback

was Sickofit1138. I agreed with most reads on entry in 452 (I noted the exception for the read on Mizzytastic in 494). He's been more open to what karnos was saying than I am, but the perspective sounds plausible from a Town player. The reasons given for the vote on JohnnyFarrar in 673 are essentially the same as above--a lack of helpful activity, which is easy to do as a Mafia player (reasons were given well before the vote, in 565).

I still think that I'd lynch Kappy first.

...
I'm reading most of the players voting for JohnnyFarrar as Town (of them,

I'd lynch Wingback first

).

The underlined portions together suggest that I'm your second scumread after Kappy. Yet, nothing you said about me in this quote are reasons why I'm scum and could potentially be reasons for townreading me. Apparently you agree with all my reads but one. You think my perspective on Karnos is plausible from town, my reasons for lynching Johnny are apparently not scummy to you considering you don't find it suspicious when you thought Persivul said the same thing. So, how am I your second scumread? That read looks like you saw my list of points against you and decided you'd push me but couldn't come up with any reasons why.

[MagnaofIllusion's]reasons for voting for JohnnyFarrar are good--better than most others on that wagon. While he also presents the inactivity angle in 750, he additionally noted the possible association between JohnnyFarrar and karnos in 740 and some wagon dynamics in 785). I'll call this a Town read.

See above for my analysis of wagon dynamics. I don't get why you find those reasons much stronger than the ones that I've presented. This read seems entirely arbitrary. You also misinterpret my reasons my scumreading Johnny. I quote my main reasons up until that point in Post 759.

Short summary for people who hate reading

:

• Dierfire really doesn't care about getting Kappy lynched. He's tunneling Kappy for show so he doesn't have to focus elsewhere.
  
• Never pro-actively asks anyone else what they thought when no one joined him on the wagon.
  
• Total lack of bloodthirsty hunger for getting Kappy lynched. Just "oh, I suppose I could respond to Kappy, I have nothing else to do."
  
• I think if Kappy was one read among many, his passiveness would make sense but for most of the game, Kappy was his only scumread.

Section 5: Some miscellaneous stuff

I have never done this 1v1-thing before but now I get why people want to. I want to prove math is wrong SO BADLY I want to flip for it.

This came completely out of the blue. Barely anyone has expressed any interest in lynching you and you are in no danger. On the other hand, Mathblade has attracted considerable suspicion as well as a wagon. Why would you want to flip rather than just lynch Mathblade? Why do you think seeing you flip town will suddenly cause everyone to lynch Mathblade when you could just as well be wrong? This looks like something that

seems

townie on the surface but doesn't really make sense in the context of this game so I want to know exactly what you were thinking here. I see you answered in Post 812 but I still don't get why you want to allow yourself to be lynched just to show that Math's case "blows."

Johnny Farrar is a town read based upon meta I have read and the current events in the thread.

I commented on this at the beginning of this post. How are you reaching the conclusion that Johnny is town based on meta? There has not been a single game I've seen where he plays like this as town or scum. Edit: I see you linked a game in your Post 834. Yeah, I read that. He was a whole lot more engaged, persistently questioned players and stayed current with the game. He may not have re-read anything but there's a world of difference between that game as town and this one. I don't see how you are reasonably concluding that he's town.

@Johnny

, do you think Mathblade's conclusion is reasonable given this game is atypical for you?

@Saru and Persivul

, you were both very active at the beginning of the game. Is there a reason that you have slowly become less and less active? This goes especially for Persivul since he seems fairly active elsewhere, but also Saru whose seems to be following the thread and responding to posts directed at him or to hop onto a wagon but nowhere near the same level of engagement as before. @Saru, if you are unhappy with the lynch on Johnny and are equating it with a policy-lynch that you are only on because of the deadline, why didn't you try to influence the game over the past few days by pushing it in a direction you liked? Do you have any actual scumreads?

[Wingback]

@Mathblade, why would a hypothetical scum-Masquerade quickhammer Johnny if all the other lynch options (Dierfire, Mathblade) are town? You say Dierfire is a bad pick and I'm assuming you think you are town.

Masquerade's hammer makes the most sense if he's scum with one of Mathblade or Dierfire, and Johnny is town. I'm guessing he saw the case on Dierfire and qubixes agreeing and panicked at the possibility of a last minute switch. I don't buy for a second that there would be "apathy and no flip" when there are more than two days left to deadline. Also think if Masquerade was town, he'd at least give Johnny time to claim after hammer intent was stated. There was a four minute gap between his intent and hammer.

I need to thoroughly re-read Saru as well. In my notes I had him as town for his angry/genuine response to Persivul and his breakdown of Kappy's logic in Post 237. But his later posting has been a cause for concern.

[Wingback]

Good game. Thanks for modding Grey. Thought the game was very balanced and I liked the simplicity of it and the Jailkeep enabler role.

Scum played very well distancing but always managing to let their votes end up on town.

@Qubixes - You did good. I liked that Karnos case and you clearly saw something in his meta that I thought was just playstyle so those were nice insights. Keep up the good work. I enjoyed reading Saru's posts as well

except the ones bolded inside the quotes, seriously who does that?

You guys just had a clash of playstyles this game but now that you are used to each other, you'll probably mesh better in the future.