MAFIA 92 - The return of the Witchfinder General [GAME THREAD]

[BunnyGo]

Haven’t caught up anything except to see the bot. Was at services and will be taking a break from screens for Shabbat. But that was a dumb*** choice fellow townspeople.

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

wolf works nicely with the sheep metaphor, though

Oh god it's my worst nightmare
please don't try to tell me about my meta
##vote miminena

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

Haven’t caught up anything except to see the bot. Was at services and will be taking a break from screens for Shabbat. But that was a dumb*** choice fellow townspeople.

I tried to counterwagon worcej!

[DiplomacyandWarfare]

ok it seems like everyone's done trying to disassociated themselves with that daykill
I'll go write my EoN posts now

[ghug]

Haven’t caught up anything except to see the bot. Was at services and will be taking a break from screens for Shabbat. But that was a dumb*** choice fellow townspeople.

Why?

[miminena]

onto bb

I don't overall like their voting patterns throughout day 1. the damo vote was probably a mostly arbitrary vote, and foodcoats was a mistake, so I won't count those for now. The vote on spirit came almost directly after foodcoats brought the wagon into the lead, but then again spirit was supposedly the intended vote when bb had voted foodcoats. still worth noting imo.

The vote on ND came after their self vote, but as Demon said earlier, it feels mostly personally motivated (611), which is weird when piling on a plausible wagon. my gut read is that one of Vecna or bb is mafia, but this is based on almost nothing, I'm just putting the idea out there.

The vote on DW is what makes this pattern stand out to me. bb put a vote on them almost right after will had done the same, and brought the DW wagon into contention with the ND wagon, which bb had also had something to do with.

The vote on worcej follows a similar pattern, bb was hedging on voting worcej, but once the wagon started they jumped on rather quickly. this one feels more townish than the others, since it was EoD pressure.

overall, my read on bb is slightly mafia leaning, but I don't think this is strong enough to make a full argument, and thus they are mostly null to me.

[miminena]

wolf works nicely with the sheep metaphor, though

Oh god it's my worst nightmare
please don't try to tell me about my meta
##vote miminena

lol

[ND]

I'll do a full analysis in the morning. And, I have some questions. I'll respond to any questions obviously. Just dead tired.

[miminena]

Last one for today, I'll still be on for a bit if anyone wants to drill me, but I won't post any analyses. Skipping Demon for now because they were very low posting overall, so this post will be about DW.

intuitively they looked pretty bad around eod, but in retrospect they actually don't seem that horrible. they seemed to support killing red throughout the day for the sake of removing lurkers (see 767 and 913), rather than any actual strong read on them. notably, DW flipped pretty quickly to worcej when it looked like an actual piece of evidence had appeared. Their shifty behavior during the day feels more like town than mafia to me, but this falls under the vibes category, so disregard this when looking for empirical evidence. overall, I have a slight town lean on DW, despite their push on Red near eod.

[worcej]

nope. You don't get to do that. townread worcej or don't.

TOWN

Worcej (reluctantly)

(reluctantly)
you are attempting to claim a townread on worcej to back up your sheeping worcej tomorrow but adding a * to distance yourself

I fully expect not a single person to follow or sheep me in any way on D2

[SpiritoftheRadio]

TOWN

Worcej (reluctantly)

(reluctantly)
you are attempting to claim a townread on worcej to back up your sheeping worcej tomorrow but adding a * to distance yourself

I fully expect not a single person to follow or sheep me in any way on D2

all hail the new god, yippity yee

[SpiritoftheRadio]

life is easier when i dont make my own decisions and trust in some acid trip ron paul guy on the interweb

[worcej]

life is easier when i dont make my own decisions and trust in some acid trip ron paul guy on the interweb

[SpiritoftheRadio]

vibes

worecj - yeah town, but also isn't he the guy who would do that and then end up being mafia? I'm going to sit on my hands until day 5 when I repeat this argument, you all kill me and then go after him. My honest take when reading EoD was that I would have switched to him as a wagon, but also if ifs and buts could be candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry christmas

Dipandwar - He's totally scrambling in a way only a towny does. He's more freaked now than he was day 1, folks need to get over this.

Will - tbh I read him as town and he's tunneling. I'd be impressed if this was his mafia game but also he is supposed to be pretty good. Slight town.

Foodcoats - My fav choice for death, I think I got him trying to push a wagon he didn't care about on me, and he continues to not care about it.

Brainbomb - We're both 100% VT's and its getting to us. I have been wrong about him before, but I think this time he is wrong about me.

ND - He's a coin flip, only thing he did all day which can be judged, to me, is switching to red, could be self pres. I dont care about him, I've established he is a black hole of bullshit, let's move on

Mimi - I've gone back and forth silently a couple times, being a new player I felt they were mostly town in the beginning but the way they keep shifting their vote as kind of a follower trying to bring around pressure and hedging (something like: I'll move my vote as soon as I get an answer) doesn't feel right. But also new person, so I gotta given it some bandwidth, most malleable read going forward.

Vecna - He lurking, but less than normal? I feel like he feels town but I don't have a good scope of what mafia him looks like. Slight town for now.

KingofPirates - I just like his vibe, pretty high in town rankings for me, he analysis feels genuine and I voted along with him on red in spite of foodcoats being on it too because I bought the vibe of him.

damo - guy I have a hard time reading, and usually scum read in isolation. Kind of null on him this game. Which probably leans town when I throw away my bias

bozo - felt off this game, I normally agree with most of the things he says, and now it feels like he is not being his normal self. I can't tell if its that he showed up late and is just going through the motions or not, but I have scum vibes

Bunny - I usually read him as scum, isolating for bias i think he is coming off more towny this game but also hasnt done anything of note besides throw up a vote on dip and staying there, he didn't like dip theorizing about will and bozo ganging up on ghug? yeah but theyre also the two guys who sling every possibility out there and try and make sense of it. Filtering my bias, slight town, def in character

Ghug and RHK - They have nothing to link them, I just feel the same way about them, generally reading them as more scummy then usual, respecting their game enough to think they'd be doing more normally. Ghug was poking me and ND for wagon potential early, ghug does that as town and scum to see who takes the bait, but the dip and worecj votes I don't buy a town ghug doing as much. The vote for worcej with the "i think he's town though" is either the kind of thing scum ghug does or is a bridge too far for town ghug to do in order to increase his plausible bandwidth of town behavior for future scum games where I think he deserves to die for it. RHK's votes all screamed like of conviction and gives off the vibe of someone going throw the motions to seem active enough to not draw suspicion but has no desire to contribute in any meaningful way to the game. I could see this as a mafia trying to end up where other mafia aren't when the hammer comes down or a 3rd party who is just trying to fly under the radar. I usually don't see rhk as scummy, but he has been since the get go for me. I think one of ghug or rhk is probably the last of the 3 mafia between them. Maybe one is mafia, one is 3rd party.

Tl;dr: a fair bit of town reads, besides mimi and ND who are coin flips, foodcoats and bozo are probably scum, ghug and rhk are my picks for 3rd scum or 3rd party. If worcej lives a long time, he is probably a sly 3rd scum tho

[SpiritoftheRadio]

bare through the misspellings, I wrote my reads half sober and then the other half after delicious dinner and whiskey

[ghug]

bare through the misspellings, I wrote my reads half sober and then the other half after delicious dinner and whiskey

Sus

[SpiritoftheRadio]

bare through the misspellings, I wrote my reads half sober and then the other half after delicious dinner and whiskey

Sus

Mmmhmm. It's criminal to be accused of deeds when youre telling nothing but truths and you know you're the most towny man alive

[damo666]

Poor red. Probably best he didn't PR claim, he would probably have been the NK anyway and we would just have killed another town (probably). He should have made the requested statement though.

I don't think there's much to learn from late votes.

I'm curious why Bunny stayed off the 2 main wagons.

I guess worcej has guaranteed his survival to D2.

[ND]

Analysis

Obviously, what happened during EOD#1 is not ideal. I’ll share my analysis below:

I’m going to start the analysis on Page 36. Roughly starting with Foodcoats and his vote on Red Neurax.

There is a bit of discussion about me from the so-called ‘community historian’ whatever that means prior. I’m not going to really comment on that beyond a few brief asides at the end.

If we look at Vote Count 1.6 from Jamie:
-We can see that my wagon has Ghug, Red, myself, and Vecna.
-I will discuss this at the end.
-Count 1.6 is our last real count prior to the EOD window which I define as the last two hours of the phase.
-Count 1.6 has three viable wagons
Wagon A / ND / Ghug, Red, myself, Vecna
Wagon B / DiplomacyWarfare / Bunny, Will, Brainbomb
Wagon C / Red / DiplomacyWarfare, KingofPirates, Foodcoats

Vote Count 1.7 from Jamie:
-The count taken during the EOD window does not show a lot of movement on the three wagons of the day.
-Wagons are mostly stable at this point. Which is somewhat strange, but more on this later.
-The votes look very similar in the final 1.8 count with 25 minutes remaining.

For the rest. We have to dig into the weeds. However, it is strange that for a good portion of the EOD1 window there isn’t real movement. This suggests a satisfied scum team. The movement happens at the very end.

Other Observations (until 25 minutes remain)
-Miminena attempts to solicit opinion about the top three wagons and gives their preference for Red. This is an attempt at consensus building which may seem town indicative, but if Miminena is mafia and none of the three wagons were mafia (which I suspect) then it looks town -but from a scum’s perspective it doesn’t matter as long as one of Wagon A, B, C goes down. Plus we have Miminena’s comment about information poking -fine. It should be stated that Food does go back and forth on Miminena’s motivation here, and claims to be interested in this player’s opinion. Spirit buys into the solicitation and offers little beyond a hedge which he does follow up on. Brain also throws a hedge out there between Wagon A and B. Brain also offers Spirit as an alternative. The suggestion does poke a few people. Fine.

-The lack of movement or any real attempt to push something new in this two hour window appears to me as if the scum team was satisfied with Wagon A, B, C.

-DiplomacyandWarfare is a strange case. His reason for voting Brainbomb is because, “I’m tired of being pushed based on faulty perceptions of my playstyle.” When no one bites he jumps to Red. This brings us to Count 1.8.

Final 25 Minutes
-I vote for Red Neurax. My reasons for doing so were highlighted earlier in the day. I was very suspicious of how Red followed Ghug with little explanation given that Ghug’s reason for voting me transcends the game (aka he doesn’t like me). I thought it could have been an indicator that Red was following a more experienced team member. This hypothesis was disproved.
-DiplomacyandWarfare doesn’t like people voting in the last 25 minutes it is to quote, “very scummy”. He states this several times, again commenting that Will “showed up less than 20 minutes before EoD”
-DemonRHK votes DiplomacyandWarfare. DiplomacyandWarfare clearly is defensive. He doesn’t like the vote. He accuses DemonRHK and Red of being mafia, “you stand accused of deliberately not posting until your buddy red neurax was in danger of dying.” Obviously Red isn’t mafia so this is a disproved accusation. If DemonRHK is scum then why bother to post at all if Wagon C is getting momentum? If DemonRHK is scum then he could be trying to get ‘town vibes’ from Spirit (at least) for showing up to put Wagon B overboard but that only works if DiplomacyWarfare is scum.
-DiplomacyandWarfare votes for me with 17 minutes remaining. Miminena says, “now I might actually have to think about who to vote.” Interesting, so you haven’t thought about it? You softed a vote on Red already on Page 36.


Final 10 Minutes
-Worcej emerges in the last ten minutes and it gets real chaotic. He votes for Red and states me as a reason for doing so.
-However, interestingly, we still do not see a lot of movement between Wagon A, B, C up until this time. There are a few vote changes. Red is barely leading, but it could still go three ways up until this point.
-Again this is indicative of an un-interested scum team fine with any of the three wagons: Wagon A, B, C.
-Miminena once again softs the Red vote.
-Vecna is fine with either Wagon A (me) or Wagon B (D&W), interestingly who else said something similar? Ah yes, our friend, the quack, Brainbomb. He doesn't float Spirit as a possibility however unlike Mr. Quack.
-DiplomacyandWarfare states anyone voting in the last ten minutes is scummy. He cites Damo as an example of this behavior.
-Will offers Spirit up as a possible wagon. Who else did this? Brainbomb.
-Red literally responds to one of my comments about his wagon being better than DiplomacyandWarfare with, “I agree”. I have no words. No words.
Damo votes for Red.
Worcej states that he will “force a tie to save ND” at 6 minutes remaining.
Ghug leaves my wagon which effectively kills it and votes for DiplomacyandWarfare. In response, DiplomacyandWarfare votes for Red Neurax at 4 minutes remaining.
Brain appears and states he will consider Worcej. Interestingly not taking the bait that Will offered concerning a possible Spirit wagon, but neither did Vecna.
Vecna starts a new wagon on Worcej which begins Wagon D. Brain follows Vecna. DemonRHK follows Vecna. DiplomacyandWarfare follows Vecna. Will follows Vecna. Ghug follows Vecna.

I have to quote this because it is funny: “Worcej wants to save ND because he enjoys having an evil person in the game. I don’t think its (game) scummy.” -Ghug

Final 3 Minutes
-There is a little bit of momentum towards Wagon D (Worcej) in these moments. Worcej is in very real risk here.
-Bozo, who has mostly been absent from this EOD analysis, emerges to vote for Red. No explanation given.
-Facing momentum towards his Wagon, Worcej literally states that he will be the most worthless kill ever.
-Will switches back to DiplomacyandWarfare.
-Miminena votes for Worcej (never once mentioned earlier by this player btw) and follows Vecna.
-Ghug votes for Worcej and literally states “I think he’s town though”
-Red votes for Worcej
-Vecna seeing all the votes following him then votes for Red.
-Will votes for Worcej again.
-Mimi goes back to Red again following Vecna.

Final Count
-Red: King, Food, Spirit, ND, Worcej, Damo, Bozo, Vecna, Mimi
-Worcej: Brain, DemonRKH, DipandWarfare, Ghug, Red, Will.
-DipWarfare: Bunny

Thoughts

Worcej’s wagon formed because of his stated intent of saving me. He was in very real risk of being eliminated. If Vecna and Mimi had held their votes on Worcej then he would have been eliminated. There was some rapid movement towards him as well.

If Worcej is scum then why go out on a limb to save me? If I was scum and if he was scum then everything he did in the last ten minutes would be ultra damaging to the success of the team. If Worcej is scum and I’m town, which I am, then still his statements don’t make sense considering that the scum team wins the day if I die or if Red dies. Why would a scum team member sacrifice themselves to save a town member? It doesn’t add up and thus for the moment I am inclined to read Worcej as town.

Vecna is very suspicious to me for other unelaborated reasons I want comment on now. He is the driver of the Worcej wagon. His vote starts the cascade. He doesn’t follow through with it which indicates that he doesn’t really have a strong reference between Wagon B (Red) or Wagon D (Worcej). Same goes for the town solicitor Mimi, the consensus builder, who follows Vecna between wagons. For someone who never indicated a reason for voting Worcej they did vote Worcej and then moved back to Red, but through following Vecna.

I will look at this pairing / Vecna - Mimi / in a later post. If the theory holds that the scum team is disinterested in the wagons for most of the day because no one on their team is actually a wagon then it doesn't matter to them if Worcej or Red dies. Vecna sees Worcej say he will force a tie, starts a cascade then switches back to Red at the end. If Worcej is town, which I suspect, then it doesn't matter which of Red and Worcej dies if Vecna is mafia which I suspect.

Ghug is an alignment null. His reasons for voting me and holding the wagon are entirely out of game. In fact, he is the exact type of person you would never invite to a professional game of Werewolf/Mafia. He can’t separate a dislike from the game. If you want to talk about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ players then you can certainly put him on the ‘bad’ list. He votes for people that he thinks is ‘town’ and doesn’t care if he is voting for someone who is town simply because he doesn’t like them while offering little of anything of note throughout the day.

Brain bases most of his opinions around pseudo ‘histories’ from this website and spreadsheets and other elements from legacy games in the community. He can ramble about this stuff all day long, but it doesn’t matter. Each game is a new game. People can change. People can play differently. When you approach the game with an eye to the past without considering the here and now you are not playing effectively. Other complications arise when you use this stuff to inform decisions and then guard yourself with them. If people played in such a way then it would easily give a scum team member something to clutch onto without offering anything of value to the current game.

His preferences guided discussion. He was fine with either Wagon A (me) or Wagon B (dip and warfare) as stated. He softed another wagon (Spirit) and this was also considered by Will. These guys were fine with the options for most of the day which feeds into the theory that there wasn’t movement because the town was fairly locked in on hunches and the scum team wasn’t under threat. Will-Brain are a possible alternative pairing.

DiplomacyandWarfare is strange. His mannerisms are strange. His statements are strange. That doesn’t make him scum. He reads like a terrified child afraid of being eliminated. You have to face elimination and sometimes be eliminated to shake the fear. He complains that people vote in the last 30 minutes. He complains about people changing their votes. He wants to live. He is willing to do anything to live. Join any wagon. This may be scum indicative, it may be third party indicative, it may be town indicative. It’s too early to say.

Spirit
For now, I don’t think Spirit is scum. This could change. He is a creepy guy who has a fixation on me -that’s for sure. Probably because I bested him once and he can’t let go of it which is more of a meta problem. Bunny, no idea. He clearly checked out at EOD. I can say some more about Food, KingofPirates, Damo, etc., but this post is long enough. I got other stuff to do today.

Anyway, those are some thoughts.

[damo666]

To be succinct it was probably TvTvT