Mini 810: Infection! Mini - Game over!

[Kelly Chen]

Wow. The situation was drastically worse than I thought.

[Xylthixlm]

The setup was tilted against the scum. I was afraid if it wasn't, townies might play to get infected rather than play to win as town. It might have been more heavily tilted than necessary.

The scum's best play might have been to not try to infect and just treat it as vanilla nightless. They had no way of knowing that though - and the threat of a security guard discouraged that play.

[tubby216]

wel since i think its veerus and kelly i will help out,

unvote, vote kelly

^ FINALLY I WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and in an Xyl game at that lol

[populartajo]

Yey, win.

Yeah, three scientists and two test subjects seems a little excessive against scum. I guess it could be balanced by the idea that at some point townies would ponder their odds of winning if they got infected (I thought it at some point) and stopped playing optimally.

Fallen angel's lynch day 1, I think, was the breaking point, I guess.

Good game all and thx Xyl, loved the concept, althought sometimes the game gets too wifomy. But I enjoyed it.

[Kelly Chen]

What to say.

I was happy to see that I nailed Mokina scum. Unhappy that scum thought the best way to get heat off Mokina was to recruit me.

Before I made my case against Shotty (which I probably would've made as town, too; note that I mentioned I suspected Shotty D1) I thought the game was going to be a flawless victory, with a Replacement lynch and Kelly vig (by BM). So I was rather desperate in making that case.

ani repeatedly proposed recruiting Rally, but I didn't see the point as Rally mostly played nice with us.

N2 the main ideas were Kelly recruits Shotty and ani recruits charter. I didn't want ani to recruit as 1) I thought he might be vigged, and 2) I didn't think I'd survive another day if he died.

I didn't realize ->Shotty was so transparent.

N3 I was sure we didn't have a vig, and I thought ani's number was up. He proposed ani->pop and I almost went with that because I was very busy. ani thought recruiting charter was too risky after the Shotty lynch. But I reread and felt that it would be better to recruit charter and lynch pop.

I was pretty excited about this possibility...

Good bunch of players.

I liked the setup more than I thought. I would cut almost all of the power roles and change it so a final lone scum turns into an SK (or else mafia just completely lose at that point; rebalance accordingly).

There's little to be gained in bussing. More important to survive in the short term, which I think makes scum scummier than usual. The only thing is that it's hard to make a case against the very last scum recruited.

Thanks.

[Xylthixlm]

I was a little surprised when people started assuming there would only be one scientist. I did some randomized computer simulations to help with the setup design, and multiple scientists don't help nearly as much as you'd think - they mostly just end up vaccinating people some other scientist vaccinated on a previous night.

[Kelly Chen]

The setup was tilted against the scum. I was afraid if it wasn't, townies might play to get infected rather than play to win as town. It might have been more heavily tilted than necessary.

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me as the setup wouldn't be revealed until a few days in... Did you expect the town to reject selling out to the scum, by metagaming that the mod wouldn't make the game winnable for scum?

The scum's best play might have been to not try to infect and just treat it as vanilla nightless. They had no way of knowing that though - and the threat of a security guard discouraged that play.

Maybe, but as vanilla nightless it's not balanced. You have to play as though you have a shot... e.g. generally I didn't think about what a doctor might be up to. Before BM rescinded his claim I considered having Replacement recruit him, gambling there was no doc

[Rally Vincent]

ani repeatedly proposed recruiting Rally, but I didn't see the point as Rally mostly played nice with us.

You can say that twice. I think I only made two things right - pointing on malthusis Day 1 and protecting charter last night. For the rest of the time, I have been running around with a blindfold in a dark room.

It's only a bit of a relief that I was right with charter being a potential infection target after Shotty's lynch. Nevertheless, I need to get more experience.

[Xylthixlm]

The setup was tilted against the scum. I was afraid if it wasn't, townies might play to get infected rather than play to win as town. It might have been more heavily tilted than necessary.

This doesn't make a lot of sense to me as the setup wouldn't be revealed until a few days in... Did you expect the town to reject selling out to the scum, by metagaming that the mod wouldn't make the game winnable for scum?

Actually I expected some townies to hedge their play a bit from the very beginning, and a few days in if the scum were obviously winning I'd expect it to become worse.

[Kelly Chen]

Some other comments on the scum discussion.

Mokina basically planned to be the first to suicide, on the second calendar day of the QT being open

But there was soon general agreement that Mokina was doing a good job looking town.

fallen proposed recruiting the whole town so everyone could win.

Mokina: "Battle Mage looks like one of those townies who's an intelligent scumhunter but acts cripplingly scummy about it himself. How should we play this?"

fallen: "I don't think we should try to get him lynched/infected today, because someone who appears very scummy themselves can be an asset in LyLo or later on in the game. As long as he can't prove we are scummy, it might be best to let him live a bit longer."

malthusis recommended infecting me or Battle Mage.

Mokina: "Kelly Chen seems too smart to live. She knows something's wrong, even if she can't quite explain it."

Mokina: "Rally Vincent picked up on your lurking, malthu."

malthusis thought everyone could recruit and asked FA who he was recruiting.

fallen: "Kelly Chen. Possibly tajo, whoever seems more confirmed in the town's eyes."

malthusis: "I'm infecting Kelly Chen myself. You infect someone else if you somehow survive."

fallen: "Oops, I got lynched. Didn't notice. Good luck."

malthusis to Replacement: "I am infecting Kelly Chen since my cover is nearly blown. Remember that even if you are in a tight spot, if you survive until the end of the day, you have a chance to swap people. Mokina was fairly pro-town and the only one who even has a sniff of your scumminess is KC, who I'm infecting tonight. Good luck."

---

Another move I considered more than once is recruiting Kise. I was unsure how dangerous Kise was to me, but I was also unsure how much cover he could give me.

---

At the end, D3, I didn't seem to have any good options. Logically I was only able to suspect poptajo, Rally, and tubby. I think a poptajo-Rally scumteam is not totally unreasonable. But making an issue of it would most likely just force Rally to vote for me.

[veerus]

Night 1 actions

Rally Vincent (scientist) - Vaccinate Battle Mage
charter (scientist) - Vaccinate tajo
Shotty to the Body (scientist) - Vaccinate KKN
Malthusis (infected) - Infect Kelly Chen

Kelly Chen (technician) is infected!

Night 2 actions

Rally Vincent (scientist) - Vaccinate populartajo (fails, already vaccinated)

charter (scientist) - Vaccinate Shotty
Shotty to the Body (scientist) - Vaccinate Kelly Chen
Kelly Chen (infected) - Infect Shotty (blocked by vaccination on Kelly)

Kelly survives due to being vaccinated.

Night 3 actions

Rally Vincent (scientist) - Vaccinate charter
charter (scientist) - Vaccinate Kelly Chen (fails, already vaccinated)
animorpherv1 (infected) - Infect charter (vaccinated!!!)

animorpherv1 dies, but fails to infect because his target was vaccinated.

I thought vaccinations only worked for one night?

[Kelly Chen]

Right and then they never work again.

[populartajo]

I am assuming you arent sharing the qt, huh Kelly?

[populartajo]

fallen proposed recruiting the whole town so everyone could win.

Awww.

Also I had totally forgotten scum could day talk.

[Kelly Chen]

It seemed like there was an inadvertent reveal from another game or something. If you want more info I will provide it?

[Kelly Chen]

I'll copy/paste from the time of my infection if you want, hold on

[Xylthixlm]

Each player could only be vaccinated once. A second vaccination on a later night would fail, even if it came from a different scientist.

[Xylthixlm]

The quicktopic link was in the posted role pms...

[Kelly Chen]

Oops.

[Kise]

I only had a small suspicion of you Chen. I was about ready to question charter's pseudo-counterclaim, but now I see there were 3 friggin' scientists. Good job, all. Good game, Xyl.

[charter]

Good job town. Were any of the test subjects immune or were they fake?

I think it was a pretty cool game, though I think it might be better off with fewer players and just two original infected.

The day one lynch was probably the only way we pulled this out, but something that really helped, that I didn't even realize when we started, was night one gave us some nice info to work with when malthusis suicided. I wonder if it would be better for scum to not suicide unless they're under heavy fire.

Also, I think it's pretty odd how none of the scientists protected themselves.

[Kelly Chen]

I think it's odd that Shotty lied about his targets.

Would it have saved Shotty if he hadn't? On D2 I was just waiting for someone to speak up with an explanation of why there was no recruitment.

I don't know if the game would be better if smaller because I think this concept becomes stupid once you're down to one scum; if they survive then you almost start from scratch the next day.

I don't think not recruiting is a promising strategy... It's like no-kill except nobody has a "clean slate" going into the next day.

[charter]

Well, I blocked Shotty night two, so that cemented my belief that he was scum even more.

Had he not lied, it would have been much faster lynching you probably.

That's a good point, I forgot about when you're left with one scum it's dumb.

[charter]

Actually, Shotty, why did you lie about who you protected? Did you think you were the only scientist or what? (I thought I was the only one)

I would have claimed what you actually did, claiming what you claimed just nailed your coffin shut.

[Rally Vincent]

I assume Shotty lied so that scum wouldn't have a safe passage for infection in case there was another scientist, especially since there seemed to be no guard. I have to admit I didn't think there was a second scientist (or three), but after Shotty turned scientist, I didn't think he vaccinated charter, which is why I did.