Mini 560: Methodical Mafia 2 -- GAME OVER

[Yosarian2]

Ok...so, some general points on stratagy:

1. Shy Guy' origional point is correct; if we can figure out correctly that X, Y, and Z are pro-town, and we all put them at the bottom of our lists, then we win. Of course, the correllary to that is that if we do that and it turns out that Y or Z is scum, we lose.

2. As scum's voting lists are (I assume) more likely to hurt us then to help us, if we can catch a scum and all rank him high and he gets voted off early, then at least his votes won't hurt the town in future pre-decided days, right?

3. I'm really interested in VD's idea...Not really sure how that could work. All the obveous stratagies I see (like 1 and 2) seem to involve most of us ranking most people in a similar way...even just figuring out what happens if we all rank people differently seems tricky, and I can't imagine how we could arrange it so that the town is guarenteed to win. Could you explain in a little more detail how that might work, VD? Even a half-completed thought or somethign that might help me figure out where you're coming from might help.

[Nocmen]

Ok...so, some general points on stratagy:

1. Shy Guy' origional point is correct; if we can figure out correctly that X, Y, and Z are pro-town, and we all put them at the bottom of our lists, then we win. Of course, the correllary to that is that if we do that and it turns out that Y or Z is scum, we lose.

2. As scum's voting lists are (I assume) more likely to hurt us then to help us, if we can catch a scum and all rank him high and he gets voted off early, then at least his votes won't hurt the town in future pre-decided days, right?

3. I'm really interested in VD's idea...Not really sure how that could work. All the obveous stratagies I see (like 1 and 2) seem to involve most of us ranking most people in a similar way...even just figuring out what happens if we all rank people differently seems tricky, and I can't imagine how we could arrange it so that the town is guarenteed to win. Could you explain in a little more detail how that might work, VD? Even a half-completed thought or somethign that might help me figure out where you're coming from might help.

1. I pretty much said the same thing earlier, but its good to have someone else that noticed this large flaw with me. Do you think anything of the players that want to go along with this "rank as town/scum" plan still, if it means that it would be a loss to the town if scum got on the bottom of our lists?

2. This is correct, I think a good way to catch scum would be to look at how their ballots compare to others.

3. I think there is a possible way with the numbers, but the theory I have would still come down to requiring one other person who is near confirmed town. And I need to test this theory more. If anyone else has ideas of how this could be pulled off, please by all means let us know.

[Yosarian2]

1. I pretty much said the same thing earlier, but its good to have someone else that noticed this large flaw with me. Do you think anything of the players that want to go along with this "rank as town/scum" plan still, if it means that it would be a loss to the town if scum got on the bottom of our lists?

Neah. At least if we all do that together, and all agree to all rank on the bottom together the people we think are less scummy, then we win or lose based on the correctness of our deductions, which isn't a bad palce to be. If we all do different things, then, uh...then I'm not really sure what happens

2. This is correct, I think a good way to catch scum would be to look at how their ballots compare to others.

Good point. Also if a few people suddenly shift their vote order in subtle ways for wierd, mysterious reasons as the deadline is approaching, look out. That being said, at least the scum won't know exactally when the deadline IS, so if they try to take advantage of us there a quick acting town might be able to respond to it.

3. I think there is a possible way with the numbers, but the theory I have would still come down to requiring one other person who is near confirmed town. And I need to test this theory more. If anyone else has ideas of how this could be pulled off, please by all means let us know.

Hmmm...ok. Seems like no matter what, though, we always end up with at least 2 people at endgame, and they both have to be town or we lose, right?

[Mr Stoofer]

Right.

(Except if you end up with 3 Mafia.)

[Nocmen]

I really would like to avoid the scenario I mentioned in point 1 though. I think that deductions can be deceitful, and I don't want to use them as the sole method of deciding whether we win or the scum win.

And on point 3, that is what I was trying to say exactly. While it sort of goes against my stance on 1, the best thing to do would be to almost-confirm two people, and make sure they are the final two alive regardless of the scenario. If that is possible, I'm not fully sure about the numbers, there are so many outcomes with the votes that I can't assume for every situation.

[Sarcastro]

It's not possible to create a combination of lists that would work that way. It would require the lists to be affected by who's scum and who's town. But given any list, we can figure out in advance, no matter who is scum and who is town, who will be left at the end of the game. So no, there's no possible way of breaking the game in that way. Given any combination of votes, there will always be someone who would win the game for the scum if he is scum.

[Mr Stoofer]

Current ballots

:

[col]

andersonw

--

[col]

Ectomancer

--

[col]

Max

andersonw
Ectomancer
springlullaby
Thesp
VanDamien
opie
Shy Guy
Sarcastro
Oman
Nocmen
Yosarian2

[col]

Nocmen

Oman
andersonw
Ectomancer
Max
opie
Sarcastro
Shy Guy
springlullaby
Thesp
VanDamien
Yosarian2

[col]

Oman

--

[col]

opie

--

[col]

Sarcastro

--

[col]

Shy Guy

--

[col]

springlullaby

--

[col]

Thesp

--

[col]

VanDamian

--

[col]

Yosarian2

--

[Yosarian2]

I really would like to avoid the scenario I mentioned in point 1 though. I think that deductions can be deceitful, and I don't want to use them as the sole method of deciding whether we win or the scum win.

But that's all we've got to go on this game. Our deductions will determine if we win or not, that's unavoidable I think.

I really only see two real options, help me out if you come up with a thrid one. The question is, do we want to come to some kind of general concensus now and all make our votes look the same (at least as far as, say, the bottom 3 go), or should we all "vote naturally", which makes it a little harder to predict and perhaps a little easier for scum to manipulate and to use their votes to help themselves out, but is probably easier to do, and also has the benifit that the people we generally think are less scummy (and thus who live longer) would tend to have more influince on the way the later stages of voting go.

[Sarcastro]

I think a general consensus would be great, Yos, but how exactly do you propose getting it? I know that I for one will not be particularly willing to change my votes to match those of others if the votes of others are, y'know, stupid.

Really, it makes more sense to think of it as a continuum of consensus. To move towards consensus from a free-for-all, someone has to be willing to say "I'll change my vote in a way that, according to my opinions, will make the scum more likely to win". I just don't see that happening on a very large scale.

That said, I can't speak for everyone. Maybe some people would be willing to change the ordering of people they feel less strongly about and such. Maybe some people would be willing to simply put faith in someone else's opinions. I just know that I wouldn't.

[Yosarian2]

(shrug) Well, Sarc, if we really wanted a general consensus, if the large majority of us really thought it was for the good of the town, we could basically force one, since all votes are public and anyone not going along with the consensus could quite easily and effectivly be pressured by the collective will of the rest of the town.

I'm not really sure we would want to do that, though.

[opie]

Perhaps we can get a concensus on who the 3 or 4 most pro-town players and the 3 or 4 scummiest. People couple feel free to order them in whatever order but they would be the players on the top and bottom of everyone's list.

[Sarcastro]

(shrug) Well, Sarc, if we really wanted a general consensus, if the large majority of us really thought it was for the good of the town, we could basically force one, since all votes are public and anyone not going along with the consensus could quite easily and effectivly be pressured by the collective will of the rest of the town.

I'm not really sure we would want to do that, though.

Well yes, I'm sure that if a majority wanted it, it would be no problem. My point, however, was really that any sort of consensus would be difficult to establish in the first place, unless a large number of people agree closely regardless. I suppose that's not especially improbable, so maybe we will end up having that sort of a consensus. Really, I suppose my point is more that we can't really decide that we're going to have consensus. If enough people agree, maybe we can force one, but I'm not sure how much benefit there is in talking about it right now.

[Shy Guy]

I tentatively suspect that Ectomancer is town because of his apparently sincere attempt to discern the allignments of others and frustration with Sarc when he interefered.

Yosarian2, why did you feel the need to respond to my question directed at opie?

[Yosarian2]

You directed a question directed at opie?

(looks back)

Ah, I see, you had origionally directed that question about "why should we hunt scum" specifically at opie. I was assuming that we were pretty much just discussing general stratagy, so I explained to you why I think hunting scum helps us figure out alignments better then hunting town would.

Was there some reason you specifically wanted opie to answer the question?

[Ectomancer]

I tentatively suspect that Ectomancer is town because of his apparently sincere attempt to discern the allignments of others and frustration with Sarc when he interefered.

Yosarian2, why did you feel the need to respond to my question directed at opie?

Actually, I was talking about

relationships

between other players in order to have a baseline by which to judge their interactions. A technical point maybe, but a definite difference, as I would not expect the answer to give me

alignment

information.

[Nocmen]

We could try to do this, but I want to hear more from everyone first, and I think a good amount can be drawn from voting styles, even though there really aren't any ballots submitted yet, and neither of which has been posted to be taken seriously.

I tentatively suspect that Ectomancer is town because of his apparently sincere attempt to discern the allignments of others and frustration with Sarc when he interefered.

Yosarian2, why did you feel the need to respond to my question directed at opie?

Why would you criticize anyone else when you asked such a broad question? Asking anyone how they would find scum will get more then one response, is there a problem with someone other than opie answering that question? that continues with this question I answer, which was directed towards Yos.

[Nocmen]

EBWOP: The first part of my post, before the quote, was supposed to be a response to opie's #60. Quote tags fell off.

[Oman]

G'day scumbuckets.

Ready to play?

[Oman]

Code: Select all

Nocmen
Max
springlullaby
Sarcastro
opie  
Ectomancer
Shy Guy   
VanDamien 
Thesp
Yosarian2
andersonw

FTR: I think Nocmen and Max to be mutally exclusive scum at this point, and so they're both at the top, later I will probably shift one to the bottom.

[Shy Guy]

Mafia is about evaluating people's intentions. If you (Yosarian2) interject your opinion before they (opie) are able to answer a question, how am I to evaluate their response if it is at all similar to yours? Feel free to proffer your opinions

after

the person specifically addressed has responded, but doing so beforehand only serves to pollute any information that might be gleaned from their answering of the question.

Can anyone explain why is Yosarian2 at the bottom of everyone's list?

The distinction between relational and alignment information aside, what do you all think about my points on Ectomancer?

[Mr Stoofer]

So, now that everyone has checked in, the timetable for the rest of the game will be as follows:

• Everyone must post a ballot by
  9am GMT Monday 25th February
  . Anyone who does not do so shall be replaced.
  
  
• Assuming that I do not need to make any more replacements, Day 0 will end at some point on or after
  Monday 3rd March
  but no later than
  Friday 14th March
  . The exact deadline will be random, subject of course to my convenience (i.e. when I am at my computer).

[springlullaby]

Quick question on a point I'm not clear on, is the ballot we cast on day 0 to be used for the whole game or do we get to cast a new ballot everyday?

For the moment I find the most emotive ones in their post to be scummy, but I have to reread.

[Mr Stoofer]

You only get one ballot. Use it wisely!

[04] Every day starting with Day 1, there will be an election using the ballots posted on Day 0. Whoever "wins" the election will be lynched. The next day there will be a new election using the surviving players' ballots. This will continue, until one faction has won.

[Yosarian2]

Mafia is about evaluating people's intentions. If you (Yosarian2) interject your opinion before they (opie) are able to answer a question, how am I to evaluate their response if it is at all similar to yours? Feel free to proffer your opinions

after

the person specifically addressed has responded, but doing so beforehand only serves to pollute any information that might be gleaned from their answering of the question.

That's not really the question I asked you, though.

How would him explaining what seems to me to be a fairly obveous point of general stratagy help you "evaluate" him?

The distinction between relational and alignment information aside, what do you all think about my points on Ectomancer?

Meh. I don't have a strong opinion of Ecto's alignment yet, one way or the other.

[andersonw]

Can anyone explain why is Yosarian2 at the bottom of everyone's list?

I'm pretty sure it's because most people are doing their ballots by alphabetical order.

My opinion on the strategy discussed so far is that it would be a good idea to come to a consensus on the most scummy and least scummy players, because as someone stated earlier, if we do our own ballots, it will be easier for the mafia to manipulate them.