Mafiascum.net

I was cop in a large game at MTGS. A discussion came up (Day 5, I think) about whether the cop should reveal himself or not and clear some townies (assuming the cop was still alive). We weren't sure if the doc was still alive, either, since roles weren't revealed upon death.

If the cop (assume sane) hasn't found any scum, at what point is it worth it to come forward as the cop? How many living townies must the cop be able to clear? Should I have come forward even if I could only have cleared 2 people (with 16 still alive)?

Depends on how close to the endgame you are, and how likely you think you are to receive doc protection. To be on day 5 and only know 2 alignments, you must have had a lot of people die after you investigated them?

To clear only 2 out of 16 I wouldn't have come forward, except maybe to save an innocent from lynch.

At that point, I had only had 4 results. One had died, the other two townies were alive, and the fourth was a blocked result (but that person was outed as a scum during the day anyway). So I only had two living results. I thought about coming forward because my two live targets were at one point attacking each other, and it might have helped to settle the matter. But then there was a mod-related incident that resulted in one of the two withdrawing from the game, leaving me with only one live result. I decided not to come forward, and I got killed during the night.

But anyway, that's all beside the point. I feel the same way you do, that 2 out of 16 doesn't seem to be enough, especially if those two aren't in danger of being lynched soon.

With some extra information, though, I realize I probably should've come forward. In terms of it being the endgame, we figured there were about 4 mafia left out of 16 players. We already knew 1 (he was outed and had given up), so he was the definite lynch for that day. We also had two other confirmed townies by their roles, so that leaves 3 out of 13 people for the remaining scum. I suppose if I had come forward and cleared two people plus myself, that would have given us 3 out of 10. That's actually not so bad, I guess.

Even with that extra info: no. 2 innocent results are not worth coming out over that early in the game unless you are sure the scum are on to you. Better EV waiting. Not that I've run numbers on it, but that's the intuition.

Well, it would have helped me, .

You people lack faith in me anyway...

You did the right thing, and got unlucky. In a different situation, maybe it would have been the right thing to do.

So is there a general rule of thumb that should be followed? Say, if you can clear 1/3 of the remaining people? 1/4? Or should you keep hoping that you won't be killed so you can get another investigation?

I've been meaning to run numbers on this for a while now. I'll get around to it eventually, I'm sure.

It is, of course, very dependent on how likely you (and your confirmed innocents) are to be killed before you come out. I'd guess 1/3 (counting yourself) if you haven't found any scum, though. We'll see.

I'd say if it leaves you with a 50% or better chance of catching scum.

I'd say it also depends, among other things, on the repartition of killing powers (presence of a vigilante may be important).


Raaaahhh, gimme a gun !

Well, of course it depends on a number of things, but I was hoping to get somewhat of a "baseline" figure, assuming a normal game (randomly lynching "non-confirmed" people, nightkilling "confirmed" people starting with the cop). I think mith has the same idea in mind. This would give you a general idea of when it's worth it to come forward, and then you can adjust it accordingly to your circumstances.

It really depends on how many people are left, how many lynches you can afford to get wrong, how many mafia are left, whether you think you've investigated the SK, whether the doctor is alive/outed, etc.

There is no real baseline figure, but an arbitrary rule of thumb might be to wait till at least Day 2, preferably Day 3 if you can manage it. By that time you've hopefully got a couple of investigated suspects who are still alive, and you're down to about 8-12 people and your results make a difference. So I'd roughly use the following ideas:

- Come forward if you're about to be lynched (duh)
- Come forward if the town can't afford to make a mistake
- Come forward if you can significantly reduce the list of possible mafia (eg by knowing 2 out of the 4 remaining suspects are innocent)
- Come forward if there's only a couple of mafia left and you've investigated one
- Come forward if you have more than 2 guilty results (see next)
- Don't come forward unless you are satisfied with your own sanity

Remembering of course that someone else claiming cop can usually be counted as an extra guilty result

Would it ever be worth coming out even if you weren't satisfied with your own sanity, say if you had a guilty result on one of two remaining scum or something like that?

4 YEAR BUMP
OUTSTANDING

Yep! I'm going for a record, actually.

The cop should come forward if the information you have will significantly improve the towns chances of winning in relation to you being NKd.

this bump comes from a relatively obscure vintage- planted in 2005 it only garnered a few replies on its initial run. Bouquet suggests a promising, if oft discussed topic. In the mouth one, however, one gets initial notes of poor pretext for bumping thread with a cloying lack of humour on the mid-palate and an overall superfluous mouth-feel. Aftertaste is bitter and suggests grapes were slightly underripe and immature.

Ever? Yes.

This pretty much always depends on specifics. Dasquian's post is about as you're going to get in general, not least because (amongst other things) it doesn't say "never come forward unless you are satisfied with your own sanity".

(Is this a serious bump, or am I being toyed with mercilessly?)

It depends on the size of the game, what's going on and other major factors. The site I'm on people just go "I'm cop. I found Player A and B as Town, then C as Scum. Kill him." then die that night because Doc's don't EVER seem to do their job. (We must've had two-kills stopped in about thirty-games.) But recently a guy hit some Town, and two Scum, never came forward and survived until the endgame after getting both lynched.

IMO Cop should come forward if they think there's a point to it. If they've gotten multiple results and not all Guilty or all innocent (because you'd be thick to assume you were that lucky, and thick to simply come forward on all Town unless pushed into a corner) then they're in a position to give something to the thread. From then on, it's up to that player entirely on how pressured they are, how likely they think they are to get hit, and how appropriate they feel it is to come forward.

Necropost is loved by me. <3

YJ

agree with some posts here, but something else too: If you claim in lylo, you are too late.

mmm hmm, a day before Lylo is os much preferable to Lylo

I love these really old necro threads...get to remember all the people that used to be on the site.

I think the answer to the original question is probably pretty complicated, but my general rule of thumb would be to compare probable days left in the game to the number of people you can out. In a 25-person game with one scum group, even if I could verify 5 townies for free on day one, I think it would be a bad call. You'd run out of verified townies well before the end of the game. But again, this is just an intuitive reflex -- depending on the level of sophistication of the model, I don't think it would be too hard to get exact numbers in a vanilla cop+mafia+townies game.

Cam

It also depends if you're a rolecop. If you are and you're getting vanillas, then outing them as suspects, but obvously not revealing they're vanilla, would be highly beneficial. The bullseyes become you (Cop) and a bunch of vanillas. You're decreasing the pool to pick Scum out of, and Scum would at least start off by hitting some of those players. If they didn't, it'd be way too late by the end of the game.

YJ

It's also worth remembering that if town ever gets to the point when more then 50% of the town is confirmed innocent, then if there's only 1 scum kill a night, town should always win (unless something stupid happens).

So, if there's 12 people left alive, there are 3 known masons, and you are a cop with 2 confirmed innocents, then claim. With 1 claimed cop in the open (soon to be night-killed most likely), 2 cop-cleared innocents, and 3 masons, that's half the town confirmed innocent; all town has to do is to lynch one person in the pool of "unconfirmeds" every day, and town wins.