Micro 431 - Noughts and Crosses Mafia

[Belisarius]

I'm down with lynching a corner, but haven't decided which one, so I'm not committing a vote. I know I'm not voting Mathdino, though.

[Belisarius]

Why not mathdino?

A non-obvBS attempt to create a breaking strategy on page 1. Yes, this could come from scum if there's a clear flaw to it that scum could exploit, but it's less likely to.

[Belisarius]

I'm not saying it's

impossible

for Mathdino to be scum based on the evidence presented, merely that it is less likely and thus suboptimal to lynch him on Day One.

Another point in his column is that his initial strategy placed him squarely in his own proposed lynch pool, something that scum are less likely to propose, although apparently I am required to disclaim that it is once again

not impossible

for this type of gambit to come from scum.

[Belisarius]

Yeah, that's not happening; this is still a game of Mafia and we're not

knowingly

lynching Town unless there's no choice.

[Belisarius]

Simple: We can't win by playing TTT; all TTT games played between players who know what they're doing end in a draw. We need to win by lynching the scum, same as we would in a conventional Mafia game. Lynching town is not a path to victory in a conventional Mafia game, therefore we're not taking the centre square.

[Belisarius]

Actually, I'm a bit tempted to go there too, in order to preserve the players who have been talking sense; so far the only player talking bollocks (with the possible exception of myself, I'm no fit judge of that) is confTown.

[Belisarius]

Okay, everyone stopped laughing? Hear me out. If we do this, we retain control the entire game. The scumteam never force us into lynching anyone with their kills because we have the center square. Every lynch we do will effectively control the scumkill as well because otherwise they lose. For instance, say we lynch Pine and scum kill me. We can lynch anyone except T-Bone and force the scum's hand. If we then lynch, say, vettrock, then the scum have to kill Kaboose. If Kaboose isn't killed, he's confirmed scum. If Kaboose is killed, this doesn't help the scum get any closer to winning on the board. Then we can lynch, say, Mathdino, and the same thing applies to Equinox.

Lynching the center square is like giving us two free investigations, I think. Granted, we have to sacrifice our IC to get it, but if we don't lynch Pine today, the scum will kill him tonight and we'll be stuck chasing the scum around the board.

I'll admit, I hadn't considered the investigative implications.

The problem is, if scum are any of the corner pieces, they can NK the opposite corner to make their cornerscum untouchable D2, and then we have an unacceptably high probability of winding up in in a 5p lylo in which the interactions needed to catch scum haven't occurred because we've been playing TTT instead of Mafia. For the nonce, I'm still thinking taking a corner is our best move, but I'll keep an open mind.

[Belisarius]

I just explained how it effectively nets us two investigations

If and only if we happen to lynch opposite scum. There's no equivalent of a cop inno in your scenario, just a

potential

to get the equivalent of a cop guilty in a very specific circumstance which may never arise.

[Belisarius]

No, you're not following it through.

---
---
--O

---
-X-
--O

--O
-X-
--O

--O
-XX
--O

Seems to me that even in this worst case scenario, our hands aren't tied until D3. How many mislynches can we afford in a 9p game to start with? 2. This also assumes we don't hit scum D1 or D2, when we will have the whole board to pick from without setting scum up for a TTT win.

Assuming we'll reach D3 in such a manner without hitting scum along the way sounds like the way scumBeli thinks when applying Shaheed's Law.

[Belisarius]

I've no objection to L-1 (Or a hammer, for that matter) at this point, but I'll withhold my vote due to multiple townreads being unready.

And that little doubting voice in my head? As Shakespeare once said, "

Fuck

that guy."

[Belisarius]

Nah. There's a pretty obvious next lynch, though I'd rather not elaborate

Although you'll definitely die before you can elaborate?

A yes or no answer will suffice.

VOTE: RedCoyote

I grow weary of waiting.

[Belisarius]

Nah. There's a pretty obvious next lynch, though I'd rather not elaborate

Although you'll definitely die before you can elaborate?

A yes or no answer will suffice.

VOTE: RedCoyote

I grow weary of waiting.

LOL

Belisarius is now the top of my townreads.

Some day, I'll understand why someone townreads me, and on that day, Armageddon shall ensue. Yet when townMe relies on this, I get lynched or forced to claim. For this reason, I consider my atheism justified.

[Belisarius]

I expect scum to be in {RC, vettrock, T-Bone} so I'm fine with this. In this setup, I'm even freed of my normal preference for being NK'd instead of lynched due to the lack of culpability. BRING IT!

[Belisarius]

Nah. There's a pretty obvious next lynch, though I'd rather not elaborate

Although you'll definitely die before you can elaborate?

A yes or no answer will suffice.

VOTE: RedCoyote

I grow weary of waiting.

Depends. If I were them, I wouldn't shoot me

I'm pretty much ready to lynch

Don't tempt me when I've been drinking, I swear to god I'll make Frankie Boyle look like Mary Poppins.

[Belisarius]

Also @Math, I read that. I was unmoved by it though, and would not counsel a townie to bother.

[Belisarius]

Really no sense reading scumposting anyways, so no harm done. You know what would be more pro town? A survey about condom flavours.

Pedit: It disnae change fuck all.

[Belisarius]

But it's nice to have confirmation that T-Bone is a scumfuck in case I lack the charisma to swing a vet lynch/force-NK tomorrow

[Belisarius]

1. Salacious Strawberry
2. Apfelstrudel
3. Hawk Sauce

[Belisarius]

I really hope condoms come in the same flavours as vapes, lest I be revealed as a non-cocksucker as well as a vapist!

[Belisarius]

Yeah go ahead and lynch me next if RC flips town because that isn't fucking happening.

Pedit: hawk sauce is a "complex" flavour, so it's not for everyone. I prefer fruit/candy flavours to menthol/tobacco types, so it's not really for recent ex-smokers, and according to Health Canada, it's for children. Apparently, at age 30 + tax, I contitute a child BUT AT LEAST I'M NOT BITTER

[Belisarius]

Also

1. Cinnamon
2.Bacon
3. Lemon

Or you're un-American

Yes, as an ardently Monarchist Canadian, I am very much unamerican. PS: cinnamon vapes are worse than syphilis. ECV's Apple Pie, however, is better than sex, and Americans make not only the best ejuice but the best APVs. Canadian ProVari users represent!

[Belisarius]

Also, T-bone's recent posts put him above vet in my to-lynch list

Pedit: Mathdino, I am your biggest fan ATM, I'm all for icing T-Boner regardless of RC's flip on account of what a fuckballs awesome lynch vet will be in the unlikely event this game is still being played once we irrumate RC and T-Bone with rope

[Belisarius]

I saved this for a separate post: @T-Bone: yeah, but I'm going to have to insist we reserve our incredulity at the stupidity of my government for the dead QT/PT

[Belisarius]

@Math Scum pretty much have to kill Pine tonight. A T-Bone lynch tomorrow is still acceptable (and a preferred lynch of mine) regardless of RC's alignment. You shouldn't be too concerned, we can definitely swing a T-Bone lynch tomorrow based on the sheer volume of people townreading me, and the fact that I'm townreading you hardcore.

@scum: For you, sir/madam, the war is over.

[Belisarius]

Fill yer boots, mate.

[Belisarius]

At this point I can't even see where you'd be coming from a town perspective because the hemming and hawing at this stage makes absolutely no sense.

In what universe do competent townies fail to consider the possibility of being wrong?

[Belisarius]

Alas, that is correct.

I kind of want to lynch vettrock and win today, but if I'm wrong, we lose the initiative.

VOTE: Mathdino

[Belisarius]

But if vet is town, scum NKs obvTown Mathdino for the block and then we are *forced* to lynch Equinox, also obvTown.

If we lynch Math and I'm wrong about vet, scum NKs him and we are forced to go for Kaboose, who I consider to be significantly more likely to be scum than Equinox.

[Belisarius]

Also, as an added bonus, lynching Math puts T-Bone back into the line of fire.

[Belisarius]

Right now, he's invulnerable because lynching him sets up scum to control the board. I think he

is

scum if vet isn't. That means I need a T on the board on the top row or left column

before it's too late

if I want to get him lynched.

If you assume T-Bone scum, RC's actions yesterday make sense. TTT is a solved game, and it's accepted that taking a corner is the optimal move for the player starting. RC had to know that arguing against a corner would rain fire down upon him even if it didn't involve lynching confTown. Why would scum do that? Well, the risk-benefit analysis evens out a bit if town has a 50% chance of hitting scum by lynching a corner even at random, and RC knew that even if he did get lynched, T-Bone would be untouchable for a while. It adds up. RC's not a newbie, he's easily capable of following that logic.

[Belisarius]

You'll like me fine when Vet flips scum.

[Belisarius]

My fear is if we lynch T-Bone we'll pretty much be left with Kaboose, vettrock, and whichever of me and Equinox that scum wants in LyLo

It's even simpler than that: if we lynch T-Bone and he's not scum, we lose. Scum will just use their NK to direct our lynches onto townies.

[Belisarius]

The only way I'll believe Equinox and Scripten could be scum is if they flip that way or everyone but the two of them and me is dead and the game isn't over.

T-Bone, as I've said, is my second strongest scumread after vet.

[Belisarius]

inb4 "that can be arranged"

I doubt it, since the game will be over.

As for the read on Equinox: There's only one reason I ever get NK'd given how often I fuck up LyLo, and that's because I love being scum to the point where I think like scum

regardless of my alignment

. There is no townBeli. I'm scum even when my role PM says town. That means I can get into scum's headspace, and when I put myself into the headspace of a hypothetical scumEquinox, I start screaming blue murder because this is not the way to win a scumgame.

When you're scum, if you're actually playing to win and not just phoning it in because you don't like your wincon, you think about things like how everything you say is going to be perceived -- the first basic fact of being scum is that if you flip, the whole goddamn town is going to be going over every word you wrote with a fine-toothed comb. Yes, I can see lurking because "scum don't lurk lest they be lynched for lurkers," but there's going to be some sort of effort to try to guide the town to that conclusion. This is absent in Equinox's ISO, and although I've not read a

lot

of her meta, I don't see her as the sort to phone it in because she doesn't like her role PM. If she was trying to play sitemeta, there'd be some sort of nudge to get us to think the way she wants us to think.

The same applies for the "coaching" tell. Yes, you can catch scum by looking for coaching, but as scum, I'd make damned sure that if I fucked up and posted some coaching, I'd follow up with loads of bullshit in the hopes of making people miss out on it through sheer volume of posts. When you've got a long enough ISO, people with short attention spans are going to skim. Nobody is going to skim Equinox's ISO.

Lastly, strategic lurking is just that: strategic. This means it'll be discarded once the risk/benefit analysis swings towards the risk axis. I could see maintaining a stratlurk in a large or even a mini, depending on setup, but this is a micro, on D2, with one scum left. The last scum in this game is panicking. I see no panic.

Yes, individually, all of these points are WIFOM, but the whole damned game of Mafia is WIFOM and when you combine them, they paint a sharper picture that points so far away from scumEquinox that it will take the light from scumEquinox sixteen thousand years to reach it.

Granted, before you asked the question about why I was townreading Equinox, the answer was "gut," but now that I've peered deeper into the belly of the beast, I'm much more satisfied with my read, so thanks for that.

[Belisarius]

inb4 "confbias"

[Belisarius]

so you're saying equinox is either sucking at scum this game by pointing directly to his partner

or he's lurky town

this makes me more confident in both your slots, cool

lynch t-bone if we get to lylo

Equinox isn't sucking at scum. She's got enough experience to play more proscum than this even if she's slumping harder than I was in Cephrir's FE:A game (which I consider to be my shittest towngame of all time)

[Belisarius]

Lastly, strategic lurking is just that: strategic. This means it'll be discarded once the risk/benefit analysis swings towards the risk axis. I could see maintaining a stratlurk in a large or even a mini, depending on setup, but this is a micro, on D2, with one scum left. The last scum in this game is panicking. I see no panic.

Talk about this a bit more. I've had zero site activity since Day 2 opened apart from this past hour; how could you say that you "see no panic" if there's no evidence of my ever being here?

You're assuming, incorrectly, that I noticed that.

[Belisarius]

Also, fun fact: the joke about flavoured condoms being intended for children was purely serendipitous; I was involved in multiple conversations at the same time and my IRL conversation about vaping spilled over into this game and I was too drunk to notice. Still, it was damned funny so awesome.

[Belisarius]

I need you. I can't fight it.

I know, I know, I'm awesome.

[Belisarius]

Vet *is* voting for Equinox.

Fuck, I'm gonna have to wait for LyLo for a win

[Belisarius]

I, too, am delighted to join the "lynch Beli at LyLo" club because fuck you, lylo isn't happening.

[Belisarius]

Wait what? I clearly don't know what I think.

Hit me with your best Pol Pot joke!

[Belisarius]

I'd do it, but I'm already voting obvchoice.

Really anyone who doesn't think a Mathdino lynch leads inexorably to a town win and isn't voting ME is fucked in the head.

[Belisarius]

bet you thought you'd never selfhammer as town.

[Belisarius]

Let's not lynch until the new year so Equinox has a chance to chime in.

[Belisarius]

T-Bone, Scripten, Equinox

[Belisarius]

Equinox, Beli, Scripten from most to least.

Why Equinox before Beli? I thought you were convinced that Beli was scum?

Psst: he just posted his preferred NK order by mistake.

[Belisarius]

Equinox's V/LA period is listed in the Activity Overview.

[Belisarius]

Equinox's V/LA period is listed in the Activity Overview.

Oh that's nifty! Most town thing you've done the whole game.

Remind me to slag you off for this post after the game.

[Belisarius]

Equinox, Beli, Scripten from most to least.

Why Equinox before Beli? I thought you were convinced that Beli was scum?

Though really Beliscum can do whatever the fuck he wants (and he is).

In case I'm full of shit (and AMoL forces me to consider the possibility seriously) I consider it important to say that at this point, however confident I may be that I'll be here at lylo an there be one, I'm fucking terrified that I'll let my team down by being lynched tomorrow.

Please for the love of fuck, Kaboose, be scum.

[Belisarius]

But realistically, I think T-bone is the last scum, and regardless of which townie I wind up in lylo with, I don't know if I can beat him because of how fucking town that last T-Bone post was.

[Belisarius]

Town-case on T-Bone prz.

[Belisarius]

Equinox said she wanted to add more. When that happens, or at 24 hours to deadline, I'll vote.

We have the time and we don't have to argue about who to lynch, so being this close to deadline isn't the crisis it would normally be.

[Belisarius]

I'll be here.

[Belisarius]

Belisarius, if you were scum after my lynch who would you night kill?

Tough call. Part of me would want to ice T-Bone to throw off any town plans made in the night and foment confusion and FUD, but I think my recent scumplay (particularly in Mini 1518 where I voted in a bloc with my scumbuddy and still won even though said scumbuddy flipped) has probably used up about all of the luck I have, so I'd probably take the safe move and shoot Equinox, since nobody has any real desire to lynch her.

[Belisarius]

Do you think Scripten assuming he'll be alive on the last day was at all a slip of some type?

No. I'm assuming that I'll be alive on the last day as well, it's statistically pretty likely.

It'll definitely be either Scripten or me, and I think it's more likely for Scripten to eat the NK due to the fact that more people want to lynch me than him, but that could easily be a perspective problem.

[Belisarius]

I'm ready for the hammer any time, and may not have another chance to post before deadline.

[Belisarius]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Ready to vote T-Bone and win this any ol' time.

[Belisarius]

Annnnnnd now I have doubts.

Why do you need us to crossvote in order to figure anything out?

[Belisarius]

That was before you got so hurry-up-and-votey.

[Belisarius]

Why did you just not-answer a question with a question?

[Belisarius]

If I was scum, don't you think optimum solution would be to go along with you and vote T-Bone?

If I'd voted, sure. But what happens when

you

vote first, with practically zero discussion during lylo: I'd post "not scum" right afterwards and remove your ability to push a lynch on me if I didn't stick to the plan from previous Days. T-Bone would then

know

you're scum, and the cross-vote situation puts you squarely in the line of fire if I look over your ISO more closely, like I just did, and noticed all of the nervous energy evinced by the rapid-fire sentence fragments you used early on before you became confident that you were definitely going to win. I could notice that that nervous energy dissipated when it became clear that Math was going to be lynched D2 instead of Equinox, who would have been an equally valid move from a TTT perspective, which put the game on a trajectory that led clearly to you being in lylo. I could revisit that you were

so

confident that you weren't going to get NK'd last night. I

sure as hell

noticed that you waltzed into lylo acting like you're actually conftown, and anyone with even a basic understanding of marketing knows the principle of brainwashing people into believing something just by repeating it often enough.

T-Bone, conversely, didn't vote right at the beginning, and scum who thought they'd already lost the way T-Bone does would have nothing to lose. Why didn't he vote me? Because he's not sure he's right. He would be sure of both of our alignments if he were scum. From a scum T-Bone perspective, a Beli vote would be one last fuck you to town, and I know if I walk into lylo certain of losing, I'm going to face Jack Ketch with a defiant snarl and an upraised middle finger. I'd want to go down like Khan, quoting Melville.

You sure you want me to vote right now?

[Belisarius]

By the way, you're still dodging the question about why you need me and T-Bone to crossvote before you can scumhunt.

[Belisarius]

Oh.

I guess you are scum.

And you're still dodging the question.

So that was a reaction test?

No. I was pretty sure until you asked me and T-Bone to crossvote.

When was Equinox viable as a lynch in D2?

All of it. I wanted to lynch Mathdino to get vet and T-Bone and spare Equinox, so I was happy to go along with Math's volunteering to get lynched, but lynching Equinox would have been a better move for anyone who wanted to get

you

and spare Mathdino.

Oh, so it

is

scummy now that it's convenient for you to use? Weird how that happens.

That's not what I said. I thought it wasn't relevant

then

...but then you asked me to crossvote. That made me re-evaluate my position. Townies who want to win need to be willing to re-evaluate their reads.

By the way, good job glossing over this without looking like you were glossing over it by quoting two sentences and only respondng to one:

I

sure as hell

noticed that you waltzed into lylo acting like you're actually conftown, and anyone with even a basic understanding of marketing knows the principle of brainwashing people into believing something just by repeating it often enough.

So now that you're caught, you're trying to buddy T-Bone?

Now that

you're

caught, I'm trying to get you lynched. I need T-Bone's vote to do that.

How does being alarmed at non-conftown requesting a crossvote in lylo make me "caught?" That's pretty laughable.

Your logic is pretty bad, by the way. Even newbie scum would know that being first to vote in LyLo would absolutely out them in this situation. Your reasons for switching to T-Bone from me are pretty simple. You know I've caught you and you need to 180 on him to get him to vote with you.

Your

logic is pretty bad. The gamestate at the time would have cost T-Bone

nothing

to throw out a vote as scum. As town, though, voting wrong would make him culpable for the loss instead of just being unfortunate.

The gamestate at the time I switched from T-Bone to you had us on the same side. You've been buddying me all goddamn game, you attacked Kaboose in your #256 for attacking me, and you reached out to me for a T-Bone lynch as early as #23. The only way I would have seen you voting me at the start of this Day is if T-Bone voted first and you were scum. Here's where Occam's Razor applies: You're attacking

me

because you thought you had me in your back pocket and now you're pissed that your surefire win has gone away.

Considering you were ready to go right out of the gate on T-Bone but now suddenly want him to vote with you is a little blatant, don't you think?

It's pretty surprising, yeah, but that's what happens when you piss away a townread by being scummy as fuck.

Doesn't really matter much to me where your vote is, now. You still need town to vote with you regardless of whether you're voting me or T-Bone.

That's a tautology. No wagon can go to lynch without town on it at any phase of Mafia, or the game would be over. Words, words, words.

I haven't started scumhunting yet? From the looks of things, I've caught scum.

See an optometrist immediately. You need glasses. Or possibly a seeing-eye dog.

[Belisarius]

What did you both think of F-16 yesterday?

He was right about those read lists just being a roadmap for scum on who to NK. I actually considered refusing to do it, but the damage was done and I'd already outed my reads before it was called for anyways.

Thanks to Math (and maybe me), we were never on a trajectory to lynch Equinox.

Desaccord. I went with it because I wanted to kill you and vett. If vett had been less scummy, I would have considered and Equinox lynch. Yes, I was townreading her, but I was also townreading Math.

[Belisarius]

That said, in this situation, it should be obvious that you would have been scumread

He was

already

being scumread.

[Belisarius]

No. I was pretty sure until you asked me and T-Bone to crossvote.

So what

was

the point of that first post of the day?

Announcing how sure I was, at that time, that T-Bone was the last scum -- based primarily on RC's maneuvering to make T-Bone untouchable unless we wanted to risk scum winning via TTT.

You wanted to lynch Mathdino to get Vettrock and T-Bone? How's that work, exactly?

Lynch mathdino and even if vett wasn't NK'd, we'd have lynched him for the TTT win. As of D2 T-Bone was untouchable because it wouldn't have set up the board for a TTT win, but with a T on Mathdino's square, T-Bone would be a viable lynch again unless we were blocking.

This part of your post makes no sense. I said that Equinox wasn't a viable lynch and you respond by saying it was because it would have been a better move to get me. How does that make it viable?

I don't understand how you're not getting this. For what reason would you say an Equinox lynch was

not

viable? Because Mathdino volunteered? We could have overruled him.

So it's not scummy until you need to use it to bullshit up a case as quickly as possible. Nice.

Pot to kettle, come in kettle.

By the way, good job glossing over this without looking like you were glossing over it by quoting two sentences and only respondng to one:

I

sure as hell

noticed that you waltzed into lylo acting like you're actually conftown, and anyone with even a basic understanding of marketing knows the principle of brainwashing people into believing something just by repeating it often enough.

Because the other part of that quote is fluffy, empty BS, perhaps? Are you next going to accuse me of hiding blipverts in my text?

Fluffy my ass. It's proven that that kind of brainwashing works. Town doesn't want to brainwash anyone in lylo. Scum does.

You've flipped your opinion on him 180 because, as you stated in (424), he didn't vote immediately out of the gate.

No, I flipped my opinion on him 180 because

you

did something scummy as fuck and it gave me a stronger scumread than my earlier hypothesis about RC trying to protect T-Bone.

Pedit: @ T-Bone Math didn't have to get what he wanted, and no, I was

not

considering an Equinox lynch because I wanted vett dead.

[Belisarius]

Nobody was going to vote Equinox that day.

Yeah, look, buddy, I've already shown you that making assertions instead of showing reasons isn't going to cut it with me. The fact that you keep doing it just seals the deal. I'm ready to take the risk.

VOTE: Scripten

[Belisarius]

Now I don't know which of you is trolling.

[Belisarius]

Nope! I spill the beans after being hammered if I'm the last scum. I'm not scum.

[Belisarius]

Fuckballs. I guess it's true, never underestimate a town's ability to tear itself apart.

I actually had more fun playing when I thought Scripten was scum, though. I was

so sure

that crossvote request couldn't be coming from town, and thought Scripten had been playing me all game the way I played LynxKuroneko in Profia.

Agreed that the setup is balanced just fine.

[Belisarius]

Sorry for the hastily conceived reaction test. I thought you were trying to test if you could buddy me in LyLo, so I tried to turn that against you. I should have remembered my adage about town being most likely to tunnel one another.

Heh; had I been scum, it wouldn't have worked. The crossvote request wouldn't have set any alarm bells off because I'd have known your alignment.

It might have worked as intended if I hadn't recently finished this game in which I, as scum, had kept a townie in my back pocket all game long the way I thought you had done to me.

[Belisarius]

We weren't playing TTT in lylo. TTT stopped mattering.