Team Rocket Mini Mafia |OT| Prepare for trouble...

BoJack Horseman · Jan 22, 2022

I think I agree with Alexem that only malus' partner was on Sparks, and that Sparks' scum mate was off wagon.

But if Sparks' scum mate WERE on the wagon, I feel like it'd either be Fando or nin - start or the end. Fando was early enough that it could have been an accidental bus, and nin could have jumped on just to seal the deal and move on from the day early, cut the losses.

If Sparks' team mate is off wagon, it would be me, Alexem, Wizard, or Hedin. I've had a good feeling about Wizard's posts the last couple of days, but I need to reassess because I don't think it's Alexem, leaving Hedin, who laid on the Sparks defence real thick. Would say it's a toss up between Hedin and Wizard.

MrHedin · Jan 22, 2022

BoJack Horseman said:
I think I agree with Alexem that only malus' partner was on Sparks, and that Sparks' scum mate was off wagon.

But if Sparks' scum mate WERE on the wagon, I feel like it'd either be Fando or nin - start or the end. Fando was early enough that it could have been an accidental bus, and nin could have jumped on just to seal the deal and move on from the day early, cut the losses.

If Sparks' team mate is off wagon, it would be me, Alexem, Wizard, or Hedin. I've had a good feeling about Wizard's posts the last couple of days, but I need to reassess because I don't think it's Alexem, leaving Hedin, who laid on the Sparks defence real thick. Would say it's a toss up between Hedin and Wizard.

I see where you come from on Fando but I saw him as more likely to be malus' partner when I read through D1. Something about Fando seems a bit off and I wish I had explored that more yesterday instead of just throwing up my hands along with everyone else.

As for off Sparks I think you would be at the top of my list although I have not read through Alex very thoroughly yet. I do feel pretty good about Wizard although I guess he could just be looking to solve the other team.

Who is everyone's top 2 town as of right now? For me it's Kyan and probably Wizard.

Fandorin · Jan 22, 2022

BoJack Horseman said:
So during the night phase, I had a little think about where the scum might be. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and put people into 4 general categories. It's not water-tight and please do criticise it; I'm just trying to figure it out and want to speak it out loud.

As I see it, you can put people into one of 4 categories if we assume they're scum:

On Sparks wagon, not on EC (which would imply malus' team looking to not hit scum with the EC vote):
Fando
Haw
nin

Not on Sparks wagon, not on EC (implying Sparks' team looking to not hit scum):
Alexem
Wizard

So for these two, it's assuming they weren't on EC yesterday because they didn't want to kill the other scum. But what if they had a good feeling EC wasn't scum?

On Sparks, on EC (implying malus' team who know it's not EC):
Nat
Kyan

Not on Sparks, on EC (implying Sparks' team who know it's not EC):
BoJack
Hedin

I know it's not perfect and doesn't cover every scenario, but I want to use it as a jumping off point. Just not sure where I want to look yet.

Good cross reference, but I don't think scum would be so unwilling to vote for the opposing scum if he thinks that. Remaining scum don't know each other and have as much information as town on who's who, so any lynch is a potential risk of hitting the opposing team.

Fandorin · Jan 22, 2022

MrHedin said:
I see where you come from on Fando but I saw him as more likely to be malus' partner when I read through D1. Something about Fando seems a bit off and I wish I had explored that more yesterday instead of just throwing up my hands along with everyone else.

As for off Sparks I think you would be at the top of my list although I have not read through Alex very thoroughly yet. I do feel pretty good about Wizard although I guess he could just be looking to solve the other team.

Who is everyone's top 2 town as of right now? For me it's Kyan and probably Wizard.

Top 2 town would be Nat and Bojack right now.

On mobile and kinda busy, but I'll go back to answer your case on me later. General idea on my Sparks vote: I don't have much to back it off indeed, I wasn't really feeling the vote until later on when Sparks tripped himself with the backpedal that Kyan pointed out, until then I was just fine with it. I put my initial vote mostly to see where the votes ended, and it stayed when I thought about worst case scenario, where town could be on Mylo on D3 with a wild card like Sparks.

Hawthorn · Jan 22, 2022

The more I think about it, the more I think town is in a bad place right now. Yes, it was good to get two mafia on D1 and D2. But because of the split teams, we're now essentially about to have D2 all over again. What is there to analyze about yesterday? Nobody argued to save a partner. Nobody voted to save a partner. Nobody bussed. Nobody built a case against a townie while cynically secure in the knowledge that that player is town. The two remaining mafia players are able to essentially act as town -- they can search for each other without worrying about protecting or distancing from partners.

The only way forward for town seems to be to pick over D1 with an even more finely-toothed comb. I feel like we're going to get there, but we also have to be careful of exhausting ourselves and deciding that we have to go down a list of one or the other trains. That strategy has led town to disaster in the past. But I hope that if we keep reevaluating, eventually mafia will get tired two, and both James and Cassidy will become tired of faking extensive analysis.

That's part of why The Wizard and Fandorin, and a little bit Bojack, continue to be high up in my town reads. I see them analyzing from the perspective of trying to find both Cassidy and James, something that it would be harder for Cassidy or James to fake.

In terms of my scum reads, I still feel confident in my push for Alex from yesterday. Nobody was willing to go there, but I would really like to hear people's thoughts on what I consider to be a soft defense of Sparks from Alex. Here's the post, for reference:

Hawthorn said:
Alex made posts that defended Sparks without appearing to defend Sparks, which fits my profile of Cassidy. I'm talking about posts like this one:

This would have been a good post for Cassidy to make at this (early) point in the game. It doesn't mention Sparks by name, doesn't tie the poster to him, it sounds towny -- but it implicitly argues against voting out Sparks.

However, when Alex elaborated on that point, he made it sound like he wasn't even talking about D1:

I don't think Cassidy would pull back that quickly, if his early post was strategic. Alex could easily have said "even on D1, a policy vote is lazy." Some players did say that. That would be the direction to go if you wanted to keep soft-defending Sparks.

But, then he had this post, which others have quoted:

This would be a great post for Cassidy, because it defends Sparks while simultaneously talking about why Sparks's partner would be unlikely to defend him.

Then, in the end despite his arguments against policy votes, Alex essentially made a policy vote:

This vote criticizes EC for not giving thoughts, which is essentially EC's style, same as Sparks's erratic posting is his. "Not giving thoughts" is not a mafia quality -- mafia are fully capable of faking thoughts.

Conclusion: Alex doesn't exactly fit my profile of Cassidy, but he's the closest. In accordance with my goal from earlier today, I'm going to put my vote on him and see where it takes us.

vote:Alexem

I will try to check in periodically a little tomorrow, though it's another tough work day.

I would like to see Alex voted out today, but I'll try to look more and see if I can find someone I suspect of being James, or another option for Cassidy. We do have several pieces of information about each player:

Cassidy
-Cassidy was teamed with Sparks throughout D1.
-Cassidy decided to kill Malus N1
-Cassidy decided to kill Kopite N2
-Cassidy knows, as of now, that James was teamed with Malus and that James has not had a successful kill

James
-James was teamed with Malus throughout D1.
-James decided on N1 to kill someone who ended up being protected by the doctor
-James woke up on D2 to the unpleasant surprise that his teammate had been killed by the other mafia team
-On N2, James again decided to target a player who the doctor also decided to protect.
-James knows, as of now, that Cassidy was teamed with Sparks, and that Cassidy has had successful kills both nights

I feel like there ought to be some way to figure this out.

Natiko · Jan 22, 2022

Fandorin said:
Hey guys. Should be able to play a lot more this phase.

Don't think it makes sense for James to skip a kill with another scummie still out there; that creates another "green check" and the game balance already considers that we'd have double scum kill, which still didn't happen.

Cassidy killing inside both Sparks' wagon is weird to me yet, but I think at least James is there. Maybe Cassidy as well. malus was a low information kill off wagon which makes more sense when you factor in that Cassidy was trying to avoid the Sparks wagon on D1 to create buffer (even if just for James' sake). James' targets are hard to guess as we have good protection targets inside and outside wagon, but my take is that he went after general townread players instead of low info kills like malus on both nights.

Don't think EC's wagon will tell us much; we already have Kopite dead, but either way vote analysis won't matter as much anymore with single members scum teams. It will help on end game, but D1 votes are still our best lead.

Assuming that both scummies are on Sparks wagon, my picks right now would be either Kyan or Haw as James (both had pratically zero interactions with malus and had genuine takes on the Sparks discussion, plus Kyan's final push to hammer so I don't think they'd be partners) and nin as Cassidy (a lot of prodding Sparks to post more on D1 but no actual push, and then the "easy" hammer for some cred). Content-wise, Alexem and Hedin fit Cassidy's role better I guess, but those would be my picks limited to Sparks' wagon.

I'm not sure the D2 votes should be cast away so casually. Where do you think two solo scum's would want to do in that scenario? Be off wagon or on?

BoJack Horseman said:
So during the night phase, I had a little think about where the scum might be. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and put people into 4 general categories. It's not water-tight and please do criticise it; I'm just trying to figure it out and want to speak it out loud.

As I see it, you can put people into one of 4 categories if we assume they're scum:

On Sparks wagon, not on EC (which would imply malus' team looking to not hit scum with the EC vote):
Fando
Haw
nin

Not on Sparks wagon, not on EC (implying Sparks' team looking to not hit scum):
Alexem
Wizard

So for these two, it's assuming they weren't on EC yesterday because they didn't want to kill the other scum. But what if they had a good feeling EC wasn't scum?

On Sparks, on EC (implying malus' team who know it's not EC):
Nat
Kyan

Not on Sparks, on EC (implying Sparks' team who know it's not EC):
BoJack
Hedin

I know it's not perfect and doesn't cover every scenario, but I want to use it as a jumping off point. Just not sure where I want to look yet.

This is fine and all, but I need to see actual thoughts from you about what all of this means.

MrHedin said:
I see where you come from on Fando but I saw him as more likely to be malus' partner when I read through D1. Something about Fando seems a bit off and I wish I had explored that more yesterday instead of just throwing up my hands along with everyone else.

As for off Sparks I think you would be at the top of my list although I have not read through Alex very thoroughly yet. I do feel pretty good about Wizard although I guess he could just be looking to solve the other team.

Who is everyone's top 2 town as of right now? For me it's Kyan and probably Wizard.

Bojack and The Wizard probably. Neither have given me particularly bad vibes and neither was on the Sparks vote. Bojack is more Town to me than Wizard, but both are up there.

Hawthorn · Jan 22, 2022

Hawthorn said:
eventually mafia will get tired two

*too

The Wizard · Jan 22, 2022

Don't have a lot of time to play today so just going to check in with some quick thoughts and then read through today's posts after.

- RIP EC, I can understand where the vote came from and I think the majority had support for it. My gut feeling is that he was difficult enough to read that his flip doesn't open many leads. It does shrink the pool of Sparks voters. There were some interactions with Nat that struck me as a little off but I don't know these players well enough to flag it.

- Kopite from Cassidy is interesting. I feel like they are not worried about shrinking the sparks voter pool because they are off it. Feels like Cassidys kill MO is more about trying to secure kills than hitting particular targets.

- Wonder if the mention of shuckle is just flavor or if that is Cassidys partner Pokémon. Doesn't matter much as I think I'm the only one who has said who I have and no else has an incentive to believe that.

- It's hard to speculate much about what is happening with James without talking about the doctor. My guess is they targeted the same person (someone town read) both nights and hoped the doctor would blink.

The Wizard · Jan 22, 2022

Didn't mention it EOD yesterday but I was shakier on BoJack and less certain of Alexem by day end. Bojack has a stronger D2 in my opinion, there was one post where he discusses Cassidy and removes me from his list of suspicion while including himself in a group of 3 which I thought was an interesting angle as scum.
I thought Alexem talked circles a little bit. He spent a while warming up his vote on me but I didn't feel like he was trying to interact with me at any point. This could just be a playstyle thing, but some of his posts came off confused in terms of his enthusiasm to solve / the explanations he put forth.

Natiko · Jan 22, 2022

The Wizard said:
Didn't mention it EOD yesterday but I was shakier on BoJack and less certain of Alexem by day end. Bojack has a stronger D2 in my opinion, there was one post where he discusses Cassidy and removes me from his list of suspicion while including himself in a group of 3 which I thought was an interesting angle as scum.
I thought Alexem talked circles a little bit. He spent a while warming up his vote on me but I didn't feel like he was trying to interact with me at any point. This could just be a playstyle thing, but some of his posts came off confused in terms of his enthusiasm to solve / the explanations he put forth.

This was honestly the first Wizard post to concern me that I can recall this game lol

The Wizard · Jan 22, 2022

Alexem said:
Either the doctor is very good at guessing what James is going to do, or James has skipped at least one kill - that would certainly be a way to starve town of information (it's not surprising that Cassidy went for one of the quieter players), but they'd have to be very confident of being able to play the long game and stay off of Cassidy's radar.

I hadn't considered a skip. Seems too weak to pay off IMO. I did kinda laugh at the gif Ael posted and considered a possible AFK, but everyone was around close to day end and most people have checked in since so I doubt it.
Main gameplan I can see for a skip would be to hope to confuse the doctor or get their target and bait out some misleading green checks late game but seems too convoluted compared to doctor hitting.

Natiko said:
I think the only way you skip a kill in their position is if you're really confident the doctor will protect you and you're hoping to get one of those dull green checks out of them. Quite a risk because it's entirely possible the doctor just dies at night and never gets to reveal their targets.

Yeah it's such a high risk play, doctor really has no incentive to claim unless they are on the chop and have amassed a couple of dull green checks that are helpful in solving. James would need to be very confident in their town appearance and hoping for a number of things to work out in their favour. Don't really buy it.

Fandorin said:
Cassidy killing inside both Sparks' wagon is weird to me yet, but I think at least James is there. Maybe Cassidy as well. malus was a low information kill off wagon which makes more sense when you factor in that Cassidy was trying to avoid the Sparks wagon on D1 to create buffer (even if just for James' sake). James' targets are hard to guess as we have good protection targets inside and outside wagon, but my take is that he went after general townread players instead of low info kills like malus on both nights.

Pretty good post from Fando here, agree with most of this. Need to think on the suspect list at the end.

BoJack Horseman said:
So during the night phase, I had a little think about where the scum might be. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and put people into 4 general categories. It's not water-tight and please do criticise it; I'm just trying to figure it out and want to speak it out loud.

As I see it, you can put people into one of 4 categories if we assume they're scum:

On Sparks wagon, not on EC (which would imply malus' team looking to not hit scum with the EC vote):
Fando
Haw
nin

Not on Sparks wagon, not on EC (implying Sparks' team looking to not hit scum):
Alexem
Wizard

So for these two, it's assuming they weren't on EC yesterday because they didn't want to kill the other scum. But what if they had a good feeling EC wasn't scum?

On Sparks, on EC (implying malus' team who know it's not EC):
Nat
Kyan

Not on Sparks, on EC (implying Sparks' team who know it's not EC):
BoJack
Hedin

I know it's not perfect and doesn't cover every scenario, but I want to use it as a jumping off point. Just not sure where I want to look yet.

Don't totally follow what some of the group's are here, my personal take is no one had a good grasp on ECs alignment and those votes will be hard to read / combine in this way. I guess scum are a little bit confident in who is town since they only looking for one person while the rest of us look for two. Appreciate the grouping though, will give it a think and see if anything hints somewhere.

MrHedin said:
Who is everyone's top 2 town as of right now? For me it's Kyan and probably Wizard.

EC gives me a small bit of pause on Nat so I guess my new top 2 is:
Hawthorn
Fando (absent day 2 but good start today, good D1 IMO)

Hawthorn said:
The more I think about it, the more I think town is in a bad place right now.

Feels like we are still fine with the two whiffed kills. Is it a difficult solve? Yes. Do we have room to make some mistakes? Also yes. I agree with the end of this post where we should be building a case for each scum even if we ultimately feel better with out vote landing on one of them.

To be fully transparent none of the new flips give me strong vibes outside of looking at non-sparks D1 and so Alex/Hedin/BoJack are still the highest information flips for me. Cassidys choice of kill has me thinking they are in here somewhere, picking one is proving difficult from their day 2 play. I think I'd vote Alex or Hedin sooner than BoJack even though I had him higher yesterday - something about his solving has seemed the most genuine D2 / today.

The Wizard · Jan 22, 2022

Natiko said:
This was honestly the first Wizard post to concern me that I can recall this game lol

What's the concern?

Natiko · Jan 22, 2022

The Wizard said:
What's the concern?

It felt very much like a backpedal post to open up more possible wagons.

Hawthorn · Jan 22, 2022

The Wizard said:
Feels like we are still fine with the two whiffed kills. Is it a difficult solve? Yes. Do we have room to make some mistakes? Also yes. I agree with the end of this post where we should be building a case for each scum even if we ultimately feel better with out vote landing on one of them.

I appreciate the positive thinking. But what do you mean by two whiffed kills?

Natiko said:
It felt very much like a backpedal post to open up more possible wagons.

This is at least the second time I've noticed you dropping a scum read by just quoting a post without explaining what you mean. I know that you always do have answers. What's the strategy behind holding them back? Why didn't you mention backpedaling when you first quoted Wizard's post, so that other town reading along can assess your argument?

The Wizard · Jan 22, 2022

Natiko said:
It felt very much like a backpedal post to open up more possible wagons.

That's fair and I can see it, for me it's more like I have this pool of 3 that I have a good feeling scum is within so I'd like to focus there but I don't wanna tunnel vision or dig my heels in stubbornly enough that I'm not willing to update my reads.

The Wizard · Jan 22, 2022

Hawthorn said:
I appreciate the positive thinking. But what do you mean by two whiffed kills?

James had two nights where he could have killed town and didn't. Worse case game stare for day 3 is 6 dead town, instead we are at 2 dead scum and 2 dead town which makes me think we are still in a favourable position. Doesn't mean we should get complacent and I'd agree day 2 was pretty low on information.

Hawthorn · Jan 22, 2022

The Wizard said:
James had two nights where he could have killed town and didn't. Worse case game stare for day 3 is 6 dead town, instead we are at 2 dead scum and 2 dead town which makes me think we are still in a favourable position. Doesn't mean we should get complacent and I'd agree day 2 was pretty low on information.

OK, thanks, that makes sense. I read your sentence as "we're still fine, despite the two whiffed kills", but now I see you meant more like "especially considering". Misreading on my part.

MrHedin · Jan 23, 2022

Thinking over the kill and looked at the final PIK list Kopite did:

Kopite said:
I'm going to revise my PIK:

Protect - Bojack, who I think has been making good posts and putting some effort into scumhunting. Previously I had Hawthorn here, but she's gone a bit out of sight out of mind since she's been busy.
Investigate - I can't quite decide between Alex and Hedin here, both because of their connection to Sparks. Both of them defended Sparks and it can be argued that they either were scummates defending their only partner with arguing against policy votes or that they're townies who surely wouldn't be so silly to defend a scummate more openly. I don't know if I can decide which without seeing a flip. Previously I had Nat here who's been a bit more chill but whose voting/pressure remains congruent with their D1 play so I feel a bit better about them now.
Kill - EC. The boring kill because I can't specifically point to them being actual scum but if it wasn't for Sparks I would've voted here. Since we had a fantastic D1 and night I think we can continue aiming at disruptive players and see where that takes us. Previously I had Hedin here but I think Hedin's got more to offer town and I don't think they're a better target than EC.

Bojack is the only one who voted for Kopite but even still it looks like he was either Kopite's biggest town read at that time and had said he liked what Bojack was doing for awhile:

Kopite said:
I'll have to reread Alex, but from what I saw Bojack seemed to be trying to figure out where posters stood rather than outright defending Sparks. Granted if he was Spark's partner, he could've done that to run interference and claim plausible deniability but that's the game.

Kopite said:
What do you think of Bojack's post in #388, I keep feeling better about them.

I like the case you've made for Alexem as well, I'll need to reread them.

Sparks' remaining partner was the one who killed Kopite who was one of the four that was off train on D1. It's WIFOMy but would a scum Bojack target someone who had him so high on his list? I think that would be risky even though he really hasn't faced any heat. Doesn't mean that Bojack couldn't be malus' partner but I don't think he would be Sparks'. Off-wagon on D1 would then be myself, Wizard, and Alex for a potential non-bus Sparks teammate. It's not me and I'm feeling pretty good about Wizard so I really need to stop saying that I need to read Alex and do it to see if I can see where Hawthorn is coming from.

Kyanrute · Jan 23, 2022

Abstaining from kills is just anti-scum, I see no reason to believe in it. Succeeding in two protections is rare, but still galaxies away from unthinkable. Timewise we are worse for wear, but still ok. We have two votes for sure and maybe even a third one, depending on how N4 goes in the worst case scenario.

Blue is going for safe kills or something, Kopite doesn't fit the idea that blue voted Sparks and killed malus to keep their cover as intact as possible. Red might be hitting safe targets, but what's the frame of mind that they are operating on, what do scum think town sees as town in the game's current state? Wizard's idea about spamming the same target feels like a possible answer. It would point at red being one of the off-train voters again, but without the actual targets to back the theory up, basing much on the idea is a fool's errand. Back to D1 then I guess.

Sidestep to D2 first though. Scum on train or not, man that is so player-dependent. Aggro scum can assert themselves both on and off train, but I'd say there is a chance that hiding scum would prefer defending their unique anti-x stance instead of trying to make the best argument and the most credible push against EC. Better to push an unique vote than risk looking like you just voted EC for reasons that others stated. nin looks bad, having done so little. Alexem is the worst for me, as he has his own thing in Wizard but I don't think the case works. Fandos of both alignments had an incentive to drop by, as continuing the absence and not voting would've made him look worse, NAI.

With both Kopite and EC dead, the Sparks bus gang consists of people who were more clearly against him. Could be nin if he continues on this path, kill your mate and find out that now you have nothing to talk about is a very classic scum tell. Works even if he is red, luck into a blue kill and then the reality hits back with blue killing your mate and now you are all alone. If blue is hiding in the early three voters, I'd start with Fando. He was the tamest of the three with Sparks, not so much fitting the pattern of defending Sparks, but at least giving himself the chance to change his mind about Sparks, should people have not been interested in him. Still a somewhat brave bus, something that feels contradictory in the face of the relatively tame night kills from the blue side. malus-Fando connection is also almost nonexistent and if red-hunt is the name of the game, start with Nat. He on the other hand does not feel blue to me.

Playing defense of the Sparks: Alexem, BoJack and Hedin. Alexem has gone down since D1, need to think about Hawthorn's idea. I think that BoJack's content has been stable enough that it makes him look the best among his peers. Hedin is likely the best remaining combination candidate that I see. Defended Sparks, had a connection with malus. On surface level his quote gathering on D2 felt like he was trying to seem like he was working instead of actually working. Need to check the posts for meat.

Top 2 town would be Wizard and Hawthorn.

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

Fandorin said:
Good cross reference, but I don't think scum would be so unwilling to vote for the opposing scum if he thinks that. Remaining scum don't know each other and have as much information as town on who's who, so any lynch is a potential risk of hitting the opposing team.

Yeah, I realise now that it's hard for scum to know 100% that EC was/wasn't scum, but like Nat said, it still serves a purpose.

Natiko said:
I'm not sure the D2 votes should be cast away so casually. Where do you think two solo scum's would want to do in that scenario? Be off wagon or on?

This is fine and all, but I need to see actual thoughts from you about what all of this means.

The first part of your quote is what I was trying to do by categorising people. Why would/wouldn't they be on the EC wagon?

So looking at the group of people who didn't vote Sparks, would they vote EC to hide in an easy group? No one was really going to scrutinise that wagon, at least not for a day or two. So you could say me or Hedin were Sparks' partner looking for a way to blend in on D2 and avoid attention.

On the other side of that, what benefit is there to being off both wagons? If you're Sparks' team mate who voted off wagon D1, what do you accomplish by doing it on D2 too? This would be Alexem or Wizard. That I'm not so sure of, would like other people to feed back on that one.

You can do the same for the Sparks wagon and try to find malus' team mate. Would they also want to hide on the EC vote? Then you'd look at Nat and Kyan. Is there any benefit to being off the D2 wagon? Then you'd look at Fando, Haw, and nin.

Out of those scenarios, I would look at Hedin, just because the logic makes the most sense. The problem with my idea though is that it's a rabbit hole of thinking. You can just go in circles with it and what I'm worried about doing today. I'm really considering just going with my gut today. If I go looking for evidence, I'm going to overthink it. Might go back to my D1 gut read and consider nin for today.

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

The Wizard said:
- Kopite from Cassidy is interesting. I feel like they are not worried about shrinking the sparks voter pool because they are off it. Feels like Cassidys kill MO is more about trying to secure kills than hitting particular targets.

Now this is interesting. If we follow that logic, who do you think it would be? My mind jumps to the person who would potentially be low down the list if we chose to vote of the off-wagon D1 voters. So it could be Alexem thinking he wouldn't be the first vote from that group? Seemed like only Haw was on them yesterday.

It sounds like you're not so sure on me, so if you look at me with the logic above, what's my aim as scum?

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

MrHedin said:
Who is everyone's top 2 town as of right now? For me it's Kyan and probably Wizard.

Right now I'd say Nat and Haw. Alexem is still high up but I want to listen to Haw and rethink that one.

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

Hawthorn said:
I would like to see Alex voted out today, but I'll try to look more and see if I can find someone I suspect of being James, or another option for Cassidy. We do have several pieces of information about each player:

Cassidy
-Cassidy was teamed with Sparks throughout D1.
-Cassidy decided to kill Malus N1
-Cassidy decided to kill Kopite N2
-Cassidy knows, as of now, that James was teamed with Malus and that James has not had a successful kill

James
-James was teamed with Malus throughout D1.
-James decided on N1 to kill someone who ended up being protected by the doctor
-James woke up on D2 to the unpleasant surprise that his teammate had been killed by the other mafia team
-On N2, James again decided to target a player who the doctor also decided to protect.
-James knows, as of now, that Cassidy was teamed with Sparks, and that Cassidy has had successful kills both nights

I feel like there ought to be some way to figure this out.

If we're looking for a way to figure it out, you could run through each person and ask "are they Cassidy/James". That way you can whittle down the list of suspects.

So you, for example, I can cross off as being Cassidy not just because you voted Sparks, but how you talked about that whole topic. This post in particular is why I would say you weren't Sparks' partner:

Hawthorn said:
On the argument about voting out a "usual suspect"/somebody based on play style, I'm for it, however mean it sounds. I think it's much, much, better for town than voting randomly on D1. That said, if I end up having a strong feeling that somebody is mafia, I would of course vote for that person over anyone else. Though I should be so lucky as to have such a strong feeling on D1.

If we're voting someone out based on their playstyle being likely to be opaque/not helpful to the town -- I hate to say it, because he seems like such a sweet and enthusiastic person, but it should be Sparks. I do not have confidence in his ability to communicate in a helpful manner as the game progresses. EC and nin, while some may have valid criticisms of their play styles, are able to participate meaningfully and capably as town players.

As is often the case, I found myself thinking that Kyan's reasoning seemed well thought-out, but meta-based reasoning on D1 is equally easy to do as town or as mafia -- if mafia you simply imagine that you were town -- so this means nothing. Natiko I want to watch more.

If you're Sparks' team mate, I don't think you would not only advocate for voting out a usual suspect, but so specifically call out Sparks like that. So I'd cross you off that list.

This way, you can start to at least create a shortlist and see what you think of it. I think that's the only way to solve this. I did it personally on D2 and for Sparks, my shortlist was EC, Alexem, and Hedin (others would probably add me to that too). malus was harder to do based on the lack of info.

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

Natiko said:
Do you still think there's scum in the non-Sparks voters? If so, who?

I still have a feeling that there is, but I can't pin it down with any conviction. I feel like BoJack is the one that I trust the most, but I also have to consider the possibility that he might be trying to pocket me. I can't 100% town read him in clear conscience, but I do feel better about him than Hedin and Wizard. Between them... I'm stumped, if I'm honest. Each time I think of reasoning why one may be scum, I discount it.

A thought that's occurred to me was that scum may have been aiming at players that they pushed against in the day in case they turned out to be an opponent. In that case, Wizard would make sense as Cassidy, having already voted for malus on D1. (A big part of my suspicion was based on him managing to vote for two scum players on opposite teams on D1 - I found that hard to swallow as pure co-incidence.) That doesn't line up so much with Cassidy's shot at Kopite, which would - seeing as EC is out - put BoJack in the frame, not Wizard. (There is, of course, the possibility of Cassidy!Wizard shooting Kopite as a low-info kill, but without further evidence, it's only a possibility.) Hedin was, at least, consistent in his pursuit of EC, and I can't imagine EC being a big scum target - if scum were that worried about him, I think he'd have been lined up for a kill on N1, but they clearly weren't both aiming at him and I don't think he'd have been high in the doc's list of players to defend. I suppose that does still make me more dubious of Wizard than the others, but it's on the basis of how I think scum may have played rather than anything conclusive.

I think I still see Kyan as town - at the very least, he's not raising any red flags. I'd like to say BoJack would be my other top town read, but as I mentioned before, I can't rule him out completely. I feel like he's earnest in what he's saying though, and to me he's still the least likely of the off-Sparks voters to be scum aside from myself.

I'm not sure what to make of Hawthorn. At the surface level, I'm inclined to see her as town - although she's on the wrong track in pursuing me, she has made an overt display of doing so, and has been consistent in that between this phase and the last. Similarly to my earlier comments about EC, I would have thought that if scum!Hawthorn seriously thought I was a threat, she would have shot me overnight instead of pushing town to vote me out, and again, I don't think there's much chance of the doc protecting me, especially after the Sparks flip. The counterpoint, however, would be if she thinks I'm opposing scum and wants to build town cred by leading the charge against me. Even then, though, I think that if scum!Hawthorn were that serious in her suspicions, she'd just shoot me in case she could take a rival out of the picture early doors. In balance, then, although I'm not absolutely certain, I'm leaning towards Hawthorn being town.

Kyanrute · Jan 23, 2022

Hawthorn said:
Alex made posts that defended Sparks without appearing to defend Sparks, which fits my profile of Cassidy. I'm talking about posts like this one:

1) I'm wary of leaning too heavily into a 'take out the usual suspects first' approach. If we get into a hit-list mindset and start looking like we're forming a consensus on who to vote in what order, I suspect that if any are town, both scum pairs are liable to try to stir up FUD about them and let them get voted out, while they save their shots for players that look less likely to draw PoE votes.

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This would have been a good post for Cassidy to make at this (early) point in the game. It doesn't mention Sparks by name, doesn't tie the poster to him, it sounds towny -- but it implicitly argues against voting out Sparks.

However, when Alex elaborated on that point, he made it sound like he wasn't even talking about D1:

2) Using D1 for that, I can understand - it's setting up a kill list and running with it for the next couple of days that's the problem.

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I don't think Cassidy would pull back that quickly, if his early post was strategic. Alex could easily have said "even on D1, a policy vote is lazy." Some players did say that. That would be the direction to go if you wanted to keep soft-defending Sparks.

But, then he had this post, which others have quoted:

3) Probably an unpopular opinion, but I can't really get behind the Sparks push myself. He's come up as a candidate for pretty much the same reasons in the last couple of games and it didn't do us any favours in either - it ended the game in EastEnders and didn't get us anywhere in Nightless. He strikes me as playing similarly now to how he did then, and my gut feeling is that if he were on one of the scum teams, his partner would be pushing him to play safe and look like less of a target - I can't see how leaving him exposed to get hit for quite some time now could benefit a scum-mate. As it is, I think he's more likely to be low-hanging fruit than scum right now.

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This would be a great post for Cassidy, because it defends Sparks while simultaneously talking about why Sparks's partner would be unlikely to defend him.

Then, in the end despite his arguments against policy votes, Alex essentially made a policy vote:

4) VOTE: EC I understand that there's not a great deal to work with on D1 and that can be demotivating, but it's not as though there's been nothing at all to discuss here. As things are, I still can't really tie much at all to EC beyond some thoughts on Natiko, whereas I've been able to note down more from everyone else. To me, that feels like a potential attempt at hiding in plain sight, so I'd rather vote there.

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This vote criticizes EC for not giving thoughts, which is essentially EC's style, same as Sparks's erratic posting is his. "Not giving thoughts" is not a mafia quality -- mafia are fully capable of faking thoughts.

Conclusion: Alex doesn't exactly fit my profile of Cassidy, but he's the closest. In accordance with my goal from earlier today, I'm going to put my vote on him and see where it takes us.

I don't feel that 1) and 2) amount to any sort of Sparks defense, to me it feels more like Alexem sidesteps the topic by turning it to an argument about vote chains being bad. You know, two very basic "Hey, lets not do this dumb thing, ok?" D1 posts. NAI, both town and scum post those.

My original read about 3) was that if it was nefarious, it did not amount to much of a defense. "Don't agree with Sparks, I'll do my own things." In hindsight it perhaps could be said that the post gives him justification to seek alternatives to Sparks. The post wasn't the defense, the votes that came after were. But while the votes look like they work against Alexem (he did push both two counters to Sparks), the way he did it does not. Sparks and Kopite were 4-3 at one point and when Kopite defended himself by voting Sparks, Sparks could've still retaliated and made the race 5-4. Blue Alex had an incentive to keep the trains close, but he moves to EC, making the trains 5-2-2. He even limits his ability to go back to Kopite when he says that Kopite's show-up was enough for him to drop the vote.

D2 puts 4) into a new light, as Alexem says that he still feels quite the same about EC. But Alexem does not vote for him, because he prefers his case on Wizard. Did he fear that he was right about EC being scum or did he not want to vote for the same townie two days in a row? Because I don't feel the Wizard case was that good.

I think the vote switch and the way it was done was anti-blue. Cannot drop the red consideration, but to Alex's benefit, IIRC he was completely unconnected to malus.

Kyanrute · Jan 23, 2022

nin Who is the second blue? Where do you think we should look for the second red? Top two townies? Anything cool going on?

nin · Jan 23, 2022

Kyanrute said:
nin Who is the second blue? Where do you think we should look for the second red? Top two townies? Anything cool going on?

Okay. My guess is Natiko.

In regards to second red. My guess is as good as yours. Nonetheless i will put down my thoughts out in a bit. Don't want to get taken out without my thoughts out in the open.

Top town ?

Hard one but I like Bojack. I liked alexem in the beginning but it sent down a bit the last days. The wizard is also doing a good appearance

Even though Mr.Hedin is doing some analysis which helps us it just looks like busywork to me sorry.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

One thing that strikes me about day 2 is that most people were trying to solve within the group (on/ off sparks) they were on. I think this might be because town members can shrink those lists using their allegiance, but it might be useful to get opinions about the opposite wagons today.

nin / Natiko from memory I don't know if you have expressed positions on this. Do you think you could answer the following:
1. Do you think Cassidy was on or off sparks?
2. Do you think James was on or off Sparks?
3. Since you were on sparks, where do you think the scum could be off of his wagon?
4. Top 2 scum reads for each team?

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

Similarly, Hedin, Bojack and Alex I think we should update our reads of Sparks readers considering there are now 5 in that group.

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

The Wizard said:
Similarly, Hedin, Bojack and Alex I think we should update our reads of Sparks readers considering there are now 5 in that group.

I suppose from best to worst feelings in that group, I'd have to go:
Kyan > Hawthorn > Nin > Fando = Natiko
I don't think I've fully trusted Natiko since that post about pushing for anyone claiming doc, and I've not really been able to get a good feel for Fando - very null, even now.

MrHedin · Jan 23, 2022

Looking at Alex there is a small Sparks defense but it wasn't full bore, in one post he said he's OK with a policy vote. He was consistent in believing that Sparks' teammate would not bus given the game setup which would knowingly put him in the cross hairs in the smallest pool.

The one thing that gives me pause is a look at who is dead. Alex had EC and Kopite on his list on D1, he fell back on Kopite after the activity explanation but kept his vote on EC. Yesterday he didn't go back to EC but went off wagon again on Wizard. And then yesterday he stated that he had trouble reading malus. In all likelihood these are just coincidences but in certain lights I can see scum trying to hunt the other scum.

Can I see a case here? Yes I can. That said I don't think it's really a strong case at all or even a medium strength one. I still think both of the remaining scum are likely Sparks voters.

MrHedin · Jan 23, 2022

nin said:
Even though Mr.Hedin is doing some analysis which helps us it just looks like busywork to me sorry.

That's because it is 100% busy work but busy work with a purpose. I'm at my best when I can find a small something from someone and use that to build a case and push. That has gone spectacularly bad on occasion but it also has been effective for me. When I can't find that, like in this game, I tend to struggle. I am hoping that by going to through like I have been that a couple pieces click in place for me to start to narrow down on someone. And then I was hoping on D2 when I was doing those reads that someone found something interesting to follow up on that could lead us somewhere.

The Wizard said:
Similarly, Hedin, Bojack and Alex I think we should update our reads of Sparks readers considering there are now 5 in that group.

Kyan as the most town, Fando most scum of that group. I would probably order the others Nat, nin, Thorny from town to scum but I don't have a whole lot of conviction in that order.

Natiko · Jan 23, 2022

Hawthorn said:
I appreciate the positive thinking. But what do you mean by two whiffed kills?

This is at least the second time I've noticed you dropping a scum read by just quoting a post without explaining what you mean. I know that you always do have answers. What's the strategy behind holding them back? Why didn't you mention backpedaling when you first quoted Wizard's post, so that other town reading along can assess your argument?

I don't scum read Wizard over one post lol I just said it was the first one that's made me concerned. I could say it was some grand plan, but that post at least I was drunk and hanging out with my girlfriend and just didn't bother to give details until prompted.

The Wizard said:
One thing that strikes me about day 2 is that most people were trying to solve within the group (on/ off sparks) they were on. I think this might be because town members can shrink those lists using their allegiance, but it might be useful to get opinions about the opposite wagons today.

nin / Natiko from memory I don't know if you have expressed positions on this. Do you think you could answer the following:
1. Do you think Cassidy was on or off sparks?
2. Do you think James was on or off Sparks?
3. Since you were on sparks, where do you think the scum could be off of his wagon?
4. Top 2 scum reads for each team?

I've been on the record plenty saying I think both are probably on Sparks, which makes the third question moot.

Blue: Kyan and Nin
Red: Haw and Fando

Natiko · Jan 23, 2022

Also sorry folks but weekend phases are tough for me. It's why I used to run games in the cadence that always avoided weekend phases.

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

The Wizard said:
Similarly, Hedin, Bojack and Alex I think we should update our reads of Sparks readers considering there are now 5 in that group.

From most likely scum to least likely scum, I'd go:
nin
Kyan
Fando
Haw
Nat

And from Fando down, I'd be surprised. I see a few people are wary of Fando, but my gut thinks he's town.

I still think there's more to that hammer D1. I see Kyan's point about not going in circles, and it probably kept us from a classic Era swerve in the last five minutes. But hammers just strike me as very anti-town as it cuts down not only OUR discussion time, but scum discussion time. Less time to make a post they could be called out on in the future. So whether you want to attribute the hammer more to nin or Kyan is up to you, but I think there's something there.

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

Also, now everyone's given their two town reads, Wizard comes out on top with 5.

So to anyone suspicious of Wizard, does this change your thinking? How likely is it that over half the game would have some faith in him? Do you think people are off the mark?

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

BoJack Horseman said:
Also, now everyone's given their two town reads, Wizard comes out on top with 5.

So to anyone suspicious of Wizard, does this change your thinking? How likely is it that over half the game would have some faith in him? Do you think people are off the mark?

It doesn't really make any difference to me. I don't know if my concerns are well placed or if I'm just tunneling, but I still don't like the possible voting implications that I went through earlier. If it does turn out that he's scum, it just means that he's sitting pretty at the moment - popular opinion doesn't equate to the truth.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

Without a reread sparks voters for me, most town to least town:

Hawthorn > Fando = Kyan > nin > Nat

nin would be higher as Cassidy for me, there were some d1 posts which could be interpreted as being frustrated with a sparks partnership.

Nat is closer to what I suspect from malus' partner, the thing that struck me so far is their votes have followed a pattern of prod > vote on players who are conforming to their meta. I expect a bigger solve from them going forward.

I think nin would have less predictable kills as James, so it feels to me that James and the doctor are both stronger players in sync with their read of who top town targets are.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

EvilChameleon said:
MrHedin and Natiko are your last two mafia members, by the by.

Thoughts on this last post from EC? On the one hand he was about to be voting out and could have been annoyed at the people who were on him. He doesn't give much detail on this vote so it's unclear if it is drawn from his interactions with these players or something else. That said, these reads are from a confirmed town member and so they are clean of deception.

Natiko · Jan 23, 2022

The Wizard said:
Without a reread sparks voters for me, most town to least town:

Hawthorn > Fando = Kyan > nin > Nat

nin would be higher as Cassidy for me, there were some d1 posts which could be interpreted as being frustrated with a sparks partnership.

Nat is closer to what I suspect from malus' partner, the thing that struck me so far is their votes have followed a pattern of prod > vote on players who are conforming to their meta. I expect a bigger solve from them going forward.

I think nin would have less predictable kills as James, so it feels to me that James and the doctor are both stronger players in sync with their read of who top town targets are.

Yesterday's vote from me was not remotely that and I'd love to see you explain how it was from your POV.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

Natiko said:
Yesterday's vote from me was not remotely that and I'd love to see you explain how it was from your POV.

Sure, these are your two votes and the posts that I was thinking of in that post.
On Sparks:

Natiko said:
What do you consider to be alignment indicative. I'd love to see you try to explain it.

Natiko said:
Describe the habits. Give details

Funky Dude Sparks said:
NO U

Natiko said:
VOTE: Funky Dude Sparks

Start playing mafia if you're going to signup. You just come into games, spew word salad, and then get voted out.

Starts with a reasonable line of questioning / request for information. Sparks is uncooperative. Vote goes down and sits there for the day.
What I was wondering here is, do you expect Sparks to give a thoughtful or helpful answer or are you baiting him on his meta?

On EC

Natiko said:
Have you explained your town read on Malus at this juncture at all? I couldn't find anything.

EvilChameleon said:
Hi! At that point in the game I just picked out two random names to pad my list.

Natiko said:
But..why?

EvilChameleon said:
Captain Confusion

Natiko said:
VOTE: EvilChameleon

Guess we'll start here until I get time to review the others in my POI to see if any of them strike me as a bigger concern.

Again a strong start that reads fine, EC does nothing to help his case and then the vote until day end.

Neither of these are big red flags for me. This play seems like it has a decent chance of revealling scum. With Sparks, you could argue his vote on you did help out him as Kyan highlighted. It's just a vibe I'd like to keep an eye on. From what I've seen on who is left there are fewer players this kind of thing would work on if the plan is to bait town into looking like scum.
I feel like my James reads / sparks wagon reads are still very weak so I don't think my vote will land in there today.

BoJack Horseman · Jan 23, 2022

The Wizard said:
Thoughts on this last post from EC? On the one hand he was about to be voting out and could have been annoyed at the people who were on him. He doesn't give much detail on this vote so it's unclear if it is drawn from his interactions with these players or something else. That said, these reads are from a confirmed town member and so they are clean of deception.

I'm hesitant to give this much weight considering his last scum reads are Hedin and Nat yet his vote for the rest of the day was nin. I think it mainly came from the fact Hedin and EC were more vocally against him at that point.

It doesn't mean he's wrong, but bless him, hard to give him the credit at that point.

But it does remind me of something I wanted to bring up from EOD.

Fandorin said:
I hate voting offwagon, but I'd also Vote: nin I guess for a juicier flip.

What was your thought process with this vote Fando? Came two minutes before EOD. You say you dislike voting off-wagon, so were you hoping it would swing to nin? What are your thoughts on nin now?

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

BoJack Horseman said:
Now this is interesting. If we follow that logic, who do you think it would be? My mind jumps to the person who would potentially be low down the list if we chose to vote of the off-wagon D1 voters. So it could be Alexem thinking he wouldn't be the first vote from that group? Seemed like only Haw was on them yesterday.

It sounds like you're not so sure on me, so if you look at me with the logic above, what's my aim as scum?

Yeah this is a good question to ask. If cassidy was off wagon on sparks, what were they hoping to accomplish in killing kopite?

Kopite said:
I think it's likelier that in 2 man mafia team you're more likely to defend than bus a teammate D1. So Hedin's getting some side eye from me for sure.

Kopite has suspicion on Hedin.

Kopite said:
Protect Hawthorn
Investigate Nat
Kill Hedin

In his first PIK, Hedin was in kill.

Kyanrute said:
. I still like the idea though. Right now I think that EC and Kopite are the best candidates. Both could be red or blue and both were on Sparks, fulfilling the kill WIFOM idea. Kopite already has some heat, so-

Kyan was on kopite, and had EC whittled from this list at the time of the night kill.

Kopite said:
Protect - Bojack, who I think has been making good posts and putting some effort into scumhunting. Previously I had Hawthorn here, but she's gone a bit out of sight out of mind since she's been busy.
Investigate - I can't quite decide between Alex and Hedin here, both because of their connection to Sparks. Both of them defended Sparks and it can be argued that they either were scummates defending their only partner with arguing against policy votes or that they're townies who surely wouldn't be so silly to defend a scummate more openly. I don't know if I can decide which without seeing a flip. Previously I had Nat here who's been a bit more chill but whose voting/pressure remains congruent with their D1 play so I feel a bit better about them now.
Kill - EC. The boring kill because I can't specifically point to them being actual scum but if it wasn't for Sparks I would've voted here. Since we had a fantastic D1 and night I think we can continue aiming at disruptive players and see where that takes us. Previously I had Hedin here but I think Hedin's got more to offer town and I don't think they're a better target than EC.

Updated PIK has Bojack in protect and Hedin/Alex in investigate.

MrHedin said:
I'm mixed here. Was pretty consistent with his stance on a policy vote being ok on D1. Still I'm kind of bothered by how much he mentioned Nat but never tried to get anything started there at all. I haven't played with Kopite much so I don't really have much in the memory banks about playstyle so maybe he's not the type to try to make something happen but that felt like a time to try to make something happen and see what would result.

Hedin is kinda lukewarm on kopite from the sparks train

MrHedin said:
Rough ranking of Town -> Scum based on the Sparks vote: Kyan > Nat > nin > Kopite

We can see Hedin has kopite around the middle of his sparks wagon scum hunting.

BoJack Horseman said:
I definitely feel better about Kopite on a reread. When he does manage to post, I feel they're always very considered and genuine, the recent PIK being a good example. So for now I'll unvote and give a little more thought to my EC vote.

BoJack walks back his kopite vote and starts to have him more town read.

Kopite said:
I won't be able to make it to EOD, going to leave my vote on EC. Note that we are 2 away from a hammer so someone else on this train can unvote if they want a bigger cushion to avoid a hammer.

Vote: EC

Kopites vote on EC is relatively weak, it seems like scum could have put some pressure on kopite day 3 if he was still with us.

So Cassidy thought kopite was less useful to him alive than the rest of the pool.

BoJack - had backed down on a kopite vote, so alive kopite wasn't a place to hide his vote today without another reversal. However kopite was town reading BoJack in his later posts, having a town member on your side seems useful in a game state as precarious as this one. <- unlikely bojack killed kopite IMO

Hedin - was getting some heat from kopite. Had option to go in or back off on a kopite vote depending on how the next day went. However the post from Hedin that most makes me think he is not the scum who killed kopite comes today:

MrHedin said:
Sparks' remaining partner was the one who killed Kopite who was one of the four that was off train on D1. It's WIFOMy but would a scum Bojack target someone who had him so high on his list? I think that would be risky even though he really hasn't faced any heat. Doesn't mean that Bojack couldn't be malus' partner but I don't think he would be Sparks'. Off-wagon on D1 would then be myself, Wizard, and Alex for a potential non-bus Sparks teammate.

Why would Hedin dig to use the kopite kill to clear Bojack and shrink his pool to three if he had setup the hit, while kopite had suspicion on Hedin that would become more visible on death?

Alexem - I only found one post mentioning kopite, which pushes back on BoJacks vote by stating that most of the anti-kopite sentiment was based on inactivity. Not clear if he would or would not vote kopite during this day.

I don't see a strong incentive for any of this set to target kopite. I think BoJack comes off best and Hedin propping him up is a confusing scum play. So I would rank likelihood of kopites killer as: Alexem > BoJack > Hedin.
If Hedin didn't make that post today, I would flip him and BoJack.

My wild card here from the on-wagon group would be someone like nin, since I'm not seeing a pattern in the kills.

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

Quite frankly, I don't think Cassidy had much motivation to kill Kopite beyond taking out a low-activity player. Kopite only posted twelve times in D2 - only Fandorin had less posts with eleven - and only posted 23 times in the entire game. He hadn't exactly stood out as someone as someone for the doctor to prioritise saving and taking him out wouldn't have left as much for the remaining players to go on than others. If he'd turned to be James, that would have been a bonus.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

Alexem said:
If he'd turned to be James, that would have been a bonus.

You think scum would be happy to be in a 1v8 with the doctor still on the board?

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

The Wizard said:
You think scum would be happy to be in a 1v8 with the doctor still on the board?

It'd be tricky, certainly, but as long as James is around, someone's out to get Cassidy. What's more, the more the numbers fall as the game goes on, the more danger there is of James hitting Cassidy before James is taken out of the game. You can't apply normal scum logic to a multiball setup.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

Alexem said:
It'd be tricky, certainly, but as long as James is around, someone's out to get Cassidy. What's more, the more the numbers fall as the game goes on, the more danger there is of James hitting Cassidy before James is taken out of the game. You can't apply normal scum logic to a multiball setup.

That's valid, there are risks with either approach. Cassidy also doesn't know if James will miss, so I guess it could be a 1v7. I think scum would still prefer to cull town and use their day phase to scum hunt. If they can get the other scum through a good showing in the vote, they get the most cache to ride out the sequence of kills/votes they need to get to 1:1

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

Leading town to vote out their counterpart would probably be the 'cleanest' option for both scum, but when they're both taking what are effectively blind shots, both are always going to be in danger of getting hit in the crossfire each night until their rival's gone.

The Wizard · Jan 23, 2022

Alexem said:
Leading town to vote out their counterpart would probably be the 'cleanest' option for both scum, but when they're both taking what are effectively blind shots, both are always going to be in danger of getting hit in the crossfire each night until their rival's gone.

Just one thing I thought to add here, Ael has said kills resolve concurrently. So if scum is worried the opposing team will take them out, day vote is just as good as the night kill unless they suspect they won't be able to get that suspect to the vote. I don't think kopite fits that bill, he had a series of inactivity, a weaker vote on EC and some suspicion building on his Sparks vote.
I think Hawthorn pointed out early that expecting optimal play from scum is a trap, but I do think Cassidy felt they were going to hit town with kopite.

Alexem · Jan 23, 2022

I think that's most likely as well - as I said, if Kopite had turned out to be James, that would have been a bonus. Unless they were taking a 'just in case' punt, it probably wasn't their goal.

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