Mafia 46 - Ace Attorney - GAME THREAD

[Nephthys]

@Espresso, you say you've played this a lot IRL and so I would have hoped that you would have logically waited until closer to the phase, we almost always have enough people online to change things if you he claims. Doing so now is horribly poor play.

[rdrivera2005]

I think ##VOTE Espresso

It's likely they are both town, but et's posts feel more off-the-cuff and spontaneous and Espresso's posts are more considered, which is not necessarily scummy but there's not much more to go on.

I don't think claiming VT, especially so early helps town, but it's not particularly scummy either, just not well thought out.

This is hedgy af Xorxes. Spontaneous vs considered is not alignment indicative, I make posts of both types as both alignments. Genuine vs Fake is alignment indicative. Do you think Et's spontaneous posts are genuine and EP's considered posts are ingenuine?

I really like this post from Squigs and if et flip scum Xorxes is likely scum.

[EspressoPatronum]

PART II.

IV - My Actions This Game
Getting put into a 50/50 scenario left me with a number of difficult decisions. Keeping in mind the Goals and the Premise (from PART I), here are the reasons I did the following:

A. My Immediate VT claim
I claimed VT on my second post after learning about the judge situation. The first was more of a reaction/shocked post, but the second was down to business. Both posts are on page 120. I did this to immediately signal to the town that I was a safer lynch option if et turned out to be PR. VTs are expendable, and I thought it was important to give the town as much information as possible to make an informed decision on the 50/50.

Seeing that my VT was being questioned for some reason (??), I reinforced my VT claim on page 122.

B. Asking et to Claim
On page 120, shortly after my VT claim, I make a post with 2 suggestions. First, I signal to et that I think it would be a good idea for him to claim. Second, I also suggest that et wait a bit to see what the town thinks of my suggestion. I’ll work through both of these suggestions.

On the first, I think the town needs as much information as possible to make an informed vote in the case of this 50/50. Recalling the Premise and the Goals (see PART I), et being a PR significantly changes how I think the town should vote. As discussed in the end of PART I, there is a very high chance he does not claim a PR.

On the second, I didn’t want the town to think I was being too pushy. I expected some resistance to my suggestion, but I must admit that I didn’t expect to have to write a mini essay on it. I also didn’t expect the opinion to be so controversial that at least 2 (maybe 3) people scumread me on it.

C. How I Normally Behave - Hypotheticals
Unfortunately for me, you guys haven’t had the chance to play any games with me. As such, the following will mostly rely on @Durga to confirm or deny. I didn’t do any of this in m1007 bcz I was Doc, so anyone with my in that game likely won’t be able to comment.

If I were scum in my position, I would claim a PR every time. I’ll get into why later, but first consider the theory behind it: if the Premise is the town’s prime directive, then the mafia’s primary goal is the opposite: get the town to lynch PRs. If the town wants to lynch maf and protect PRs, maf want to do the opposite: lynch town, find PRs, protect maf.

If you’re a caught scum (especially a scum caught in a 50/50) you lose nothing from a PR claim. At worst, the real PR CCs you and you die. Your maf kill the PR that night. At best, the real PR gets lynched, you survive one more night, then the town has to spend another day to get you lynched. That’s a huge win for the maf team right there.

Now this all boils down to: would this EP noob actually fake claim? Here’s where @Durga comes in. I’ve done fake claims in Secret Hitler before (remember the claim against SHL?). I’m also pretty sure I’ve mentioned before that my favourite role in Werewolf is the sorceress (think evil cop) because you get to fake claim against the seer (cop) when you find them. My mindset in this game is to win as the team, and sacrificing myself to take down



V - Responses to Criticisms and Questions

A. CRITICISMS

“It’s too early”
1) This criticism operates under the assumption that D2 is like any other day. We only have 2 candidates for votes, so time isn’t an issue as much. The time doesn’t matter as much as (a) not lynching a PR
2) The town needs to vote together here. It’s 6 maf against 12 non-maf (shoutout to whoever pointed that out first), so we don’t have the luxury of EoD shenanigans. The earlier we lock these votes in, the better.

“Claiming VT is bad” @xorxes
See Section IV(A). Asking the town to make a decision on a 50/50 vote without as much information as possible is strange.

“No lynch”
Per my post on page 56, the town should almost always vote to kill. This isn’t an endgame scenario, so it’s better to lynch one of us to get the information. Even though I disagree with the judge’s decision, they’re a confirmed town, so we have to assume they had some sort of plan in mind. Best not waste it.

“EP is scum for suggesting et claim”
See all of Section IV. Consider reading PART I.

B. QUESTIONS

Et’s questions/comments
“Why Espresso encouraged me to claim?
I think 4 cases.
1 Espresso is VT and he thought of me as VT
In this case, I think we had better not to claim.
Mafia may think of aliving one as PR.
2 Espresso is VT and he thought of me as town PR
In this case, he had better to say that 'I am VT, not PR. So, please vote me'
3 Espresso is VT and he thought of me as Scum
If I were scum and claimed town PR, he would be killed by lynch.
But, I alive at next day. Town can doubte me.
4 Espresso is scum.
As Prad said.
I think, most likely 3. But 4 is possible too.”

I hope my posts have shown you that I had scenarios 1-3 in mind.

Questions from Squigs
“You really only pushed Chippe's wagon in the first half of day 1. Why were you not pushing Chippe's wagon during the second half of day 1 when consolidating wagons mattered more.”
- I work 9-5 EST. I was gone for a significant portion of the last half of D1. I was also way behind, so I wasn’t able to update anything on my lunch break.

“Was Chippe your strongest scumread at the end of day 1? If you had been able to make it to the end of day 1, would you have stayed on Chippe, or voted for another wagon do you think?”
- I don’t think ‘scumread’ on Chippe is entirely accurate. As stated in my post to ND in early D2, my vote on Chippe was highly policy-focused. I think I also answered this question in a response to TrPrado on D2.

“Your scumreads on Fox and Flav seem like they came off of other people's theories. Can you explain both of these more?”
- The Fox vote was in response to the theory that darg was the maf target. If that was true, Fox was a strong possibility as maf because darg was outspoken against Fox. It wasn’t my idea, but it made a lot of sense to me and I went with it.

I’m not so sure my Flav theory came off of another person’s theory. Happy to give credit where it’s due (maybe I have forgotten?), but I think it came more from the clarifications on when the assassin’s day bomb had to be used and when it exploded. Worcej has confirmed (a) the bomb had to be activated during the day, and (b) the bomb kills at the EoN. Given that Flav was under extreme pressure EoD, I think he activated his bomb to ensure he could kill someone. Fox’s WIFOM rebuttal to this is somewhat true, but I think it’s far more likely that my theory was true vs the maf using it to frame Flav.

[EspressoPatronum]

@Espresso, you say you've played this a lot IRL and so I would have hoped that you would have logically waited until closer to the phase, we almost always have enough people online to change things if you he claims. Doing so now is horribly poor play.

See the "it's too early" criticism.

Also worth noting that all IRL games play out within 20-60 mins. There isn't really any 'waiting until EoD' kind of stuff.

[TrPrado]

I’m like the only person who’s posted thoughts on both of them, and I already said I also liked this move. Everyone is lashing out against it, but it feels so nearsighted on the part of the unenthused.

What are your thoughts again? Please keep it under 3 sentences for each player. Also, how would you know if its nearsighted if you were town. Even if you, for some reason, liked this move, as a townie (I can see being scum and knowing both players are town and liking the move)

Aghhhhh that is the scummiest thing I've really read all game.

Also, just for the record, I think Flav is town. I feel his reaction to this is townie, and that he cares about the game and the outcomes, and I'm really coming around on him.

With et, there's stumbling, but there's a clear train of what he's thinking. He doesn't shy away from the game and takes his matters into his own hands without relying on others, and in a new player that looks really good.

With Espresso I feel a lot of pulling things out of his ass and making excuses, especially with his teacon town read. He's contributed a lot more today, but the PR thing hitting once he knew he could've died anyway feels very scum ploy.

With regards to why I think it's a good thing, it takes everyone out of their comfort zone. It forces everyone who hasn't done so already to look at people they've not really considered. If it were, for example, me and Fox like some people wanted, everyone would be just arguing the same way they were for D2. The scum would be able into their prepared cases because they're more expected to comment on those sorts of bigger fights, but with this they've gotta make shit up that they may not have been prepared for. Which will be great to reread. What information would we get from me vs Fox that required Judge to step in and make us the wagons when a significant portion of people wanted to see that anyway?

[EspressoPatronum]

SUMMARY of my wall posts


PART I - theory and numbers

Theory- My theory of the game is that town lynching PR is real bad. Happy to die for the team if it helps avoiding a PR lynch.

Numbers - There is a very low chance et is PR. One of us needs to die.



PART II - my gameplay and responses

Gameplay - I did what I thought would give the town the most information to make an informed decision. If I was maf, I would fake claim PR every time.

Responses - a few criticisms here and there. Nothing too major imo. Responses directed to et and Squigs

[EspressoPatronum]

I’m like the only person who’s posted thoughts on both of them, and I already said I also liked this move. Everyone is lashing out against it, but it feels so nearsighted on the part of the unenthused.

What are your thoughts again? Please keep it under 3 sentences for each player. Also, how would you know if its nearsighted if you were town. Even if you, for some reason, liked this move, as a townie (I can see being scum and knowing both players are town and liking the move)

Aghhhhh that is the scummiest thing I've really read all game.

Also, just for the record, I think Flav is town. I feel his reaction to this is townie, and that he cares about the game and the outcomes, and I'm really coming around on him.

With et, there's stumbling, but there's a clear train of what he's thinking. He doesn't shy away from the game and takes his matters into his own hands without relying on others, and in a new player that looks really good.

With Espresso I feel a lot of pulling things out of his ass and making excuses, especially with his teacon town read. He's contributed a lot more today, but the PR thing hitting once he knew he could've died anyway feels very scum ploy.

If you think I'm making things up, you can check for yourself in m1007. As a town Doctor, I made a number of posts explaining how I see the game + the merits of a policy lynch.

If you aren't willing to give me the benefit of the doubt and entertain what I'm saying, you're either tunneling or you're scum. I think you're tunneling, so I'm trying to work with you.

Can you point me toward the excuses I have made? Of the ones that you find, are there any you think aren't warranted?

[ChippeRock]

##vote ET

Explain this vote please.

[TrPrado]

You look worse because you quickly jumped onto Cruuader's wagon *immediately* after ND jumped on it. Again, as I've stated before, I think that based on the information present at the time, the Cruuader scum read & vote was just dumb and it really doesn't reflect you in a good light. Additionally, the fact that you jump off of Cruuader's wagon a few hours later is very suspicious - this coupled with your "impulsive" jump onto Cruuader doesn't shed you in a good light in my opinion.

I don't disagree that, with the additional information that Cruuader provided, reading Cruuader as scum was completely justified (which is why I haven't jumped onto teacon's case about it - there was a big indicator from Cruuader before that that he had played Mafia before), but my issue is the impulsiveness to jump on Cruuader's wagon and overall very bad & scummy looking scumread of Cruuader when the information that would back that read wasn't available at the time.

This is kinda part of what I mean by you assuming the worst. I’ve explained my position, one I stand by and don’t regret, but you’ve completely ignored my reasoning. Whether or not he played games off site factored completely 0 into my consideration of him, which is a point I tried to make very clear several times.

Not factoring in a player's experience in your reads is just plain dumb.

I have a very good reason for not doing it. My definition is very particular where I'll consider someone who's played a hundred games but this is their first on the site as new, whereas someone who's in their second or third game but they've played on this site as not new. If you've never played with a community before, you'll be wide eyed, in a strange land, and ultimately adopt the same sort of mindsets and characteristics that truly new players exhibit. And from there they're easier to break down.

[Nephthys]

@Espresso, you say you've played this a lot IRL and so I would have hoped that you would have logically waited until closer to the phase, we almost always have enough people online to change things if you he claims. Doing so now is horribly poor play.

See the "it's too early" criticism.

Also worth noting that all IRL games play out within 20-60 mins. There isn't really any 'waiting until EoD' kind of stuff.

Theres an easy counter though,

If you are clearly going to be lynched then ET doesnt need to claim at all and going by your plan you have just outed (and therefore killed) a PR. I believe that is goal C...

Your plan undermines your own goals.

[Squigs44]

Lets do a modified Pascal wager, EP.

Lets operate under the assumption you are VT.
There are two actions:
1) Claim VT and ask et to claim
2) Do not claim my role and let et claim his role only if he is a PR and is the lead vote-getter near EoD
There are three possible facts:
A) et is a VT
B) et is a PR
C) et is scum

That makes six outcomes:
1A : Both claim VT, day goes on as if there were no claim
2A: Neither ever claim, day goes on as if there were no claim
1B: et claims, you are lynched, et is NKd
2B: If et the lead vote getter near EoD, et claims, you are lynched et is NKd, if you are the lead vote getter near EoD, you are lynched, et's role remains hidden
1C: et can claim VT, day goes on as if there were no claim, or he can fake claim forcing a CC
2C: et can not claim a role, day goes on as if there were no claim, or he can fake claim near EoD forcing a CC, or mad rush onto you.

1A and 2A have the same outcome, 1C and 2C have almost the same outcome, but 2B is better than 1B. Thus, 2 is equal to or better than 1 in all cases. Do you disagree?

[ChippeRock]

This is kinda part of what I mean by you assuming the worst. I’ve explained my position, one I stand by and don’t regret, but you’ve completely ignored my reasoning. Whether or not he played games off site factored completely 0 into my consideration of him, which is a point I tried to make very clear several times.

Not factoring in a player's experience in your reads is just plain dumb.

I have a very good reason for not doing it. My definition is very particular where I'll consider someone who's played a hundred games but this is their first on the site as new, whereas someone who's in their second or third game but they've played on this site as not new. If you've never played with a community before, you'll be wide eyed, in a strange land, and ultimately adopt the same sort of mindsets and characteristics that truly new players exhibit. And from there they're easier to break down.

What? A player who has played 20 IRL games but no online games will always be better than the player playing his 3rd ever Mafia game (the previous 2 being online). I'm failing to understand what your point is here and why a player's experience is not being factored into your reads!

[TrPrado]

As promised, here’s why I think et should have claimed. This is PART I of 2.

I - The Central Piece of My Argument
My central premise is this: the worst thing the town can do is mislynch a PR (henceforth the “Premise”). If you disagree with the Premise, you will likely disagree with my actions & and none of my arguments will be very persuasive.

So listen. The big overarching problem that makes this whole thing inexcusable in my eyes is that it doesn't protect PR's. If they out then they're as good as dead anyway. No matter how many words you put on screen to defend the concept, that's the only direction that can head.

[TrPrado]

Not factoring in a player's experience in your reads is just plain dumb.

I have a very good reason for not doing it. My definition is very particular where I'll consider someone who's played a hundred games but this is their first on the site as new, whereas someone who's in their second or third game but they've played on this site as not new. If you've never played with a community before, you'll be wide eyed, in a strange land, and ultimately adopt the same sort of mindsets and characteristics that truly new players exhibit. And from there they're easier to break down.

What? A player who has played 20 IRL games but no online games will always be better than the player playing his 3rd ever Mafia game (the previous 2 being online). I'm failing to understand what your point is here and why a player's experience is not being factored into your reads!

It's an evidence based system. Don't come for me, come for the numbers.

[Durga]

I'm thinking they're both town. At which point, EP is probably better to keep around.

[ChippeRock]

I'm thinking they're both town. At which point, EP is probably better to keep around.

Got it.

[ChippeRock]

I have a very good reason for not doing it. My definition is very particular where I'll consider someone who's played a hundred games but this is their first on the site as new, whereas someone who's in their second or third game but they've played on this site as not new. If you've never played with a community before, you'll be wide eyed, in a strange land, and ultimately adopt the same sort of mindsets and characteristics that truly new players exhibit. And from there they're easier to break down.

What? A player who has played 20 IRL games but no online games will always be better than the player playing his 3rd ever Mafia game (the previous 2 being online). I'm failing to understand what your point is here and why a player's experience is not being factored into your reads!

It's an evidence based system. Don't come for me, come for the numbers.

Again, I'm truly failing to understand what your point is here. I legitimately don't understand how it backs up not factoring experience into your reads. Please explain.

[TrPrado]

What are your thoughts again? Please keep it under 3 sentences for each player. Also, how would you know if its nearsighted if you were town. Even if you, for some reason, liked this move, as a townie (I can see being scum and knowing both players are town and liking the move)

Aghhhhh that is the scummiest thing I've really read all game.

Also, just for the record, I think Flav is town. I feel his reaction to this is townie, and that he cares about the game and the outcomes, and I'm really coming around on him.

With et, there's stumbling, but there's a clear train of what he's thinking. He doesn't shy away from the game and takes his matters into his own hands without relying on others, and in a new player that looks really good.

With Espresso I feel a lot of pulling things out of his ass and making excuses, especially with his teacon town read. He's contributed a lot more today, but the PR thing hitting once he knew he could've died anyway feels very scum ploy.

If you think I'm making things up, you can check for yourself in m1007. As a town Doctor, I made a number of posts explaining how I see the game + the merits of a policy lynch.

If you aren't willing to give me the benefit of the doubt and entertain what I'm saying, you're either tunneling or you're scum. I think you're tunneling, so I'm trying to work with you.

Can you point me toward the excuses I have made? Of the ones that you find, are there any you think aren't warranted?

From D1:

Yeah, this reminds me a lot of teacon's town play last game. Scum!teacon would likely be able to replicate it though, as it's more of a probative style of play.

I'd say he's town

To Balki's teacon case:

Interesting points, but I don't agree bcz I think his play is consistent with last game.

The latter of these had me tearing my hair out during my reread. You literally accepted his points but refused to spend more than 5 seconds considering them, which feels like an excuse more than anything else.

[Squigs44]

Questions from Squigs
“You really only pushed Chippe's wagon in the first half of day 1. Why were you not pushing Chippe's wagon during the second half of day 1 when consolidating wagons mattered more.”
- I work 9-5 EST. I was gone for a significant portion of the last half of D1. I was also way behind, so I wasn’t able to update anything on my lunch break.

From page 29 to the end of the day you made 12 posts spanning over 31 hours and 7 minutes (thank you peterbot). None of those posts pushed Chippe as a wagon. Why make those 12 posts but not weigh in on Chippe?
Your second to last post:

foxy why are you buddying me when you aren't even voting MF

Him agreeing with you is hardly buddying. He brought up a pro-policy lynch argument pretty early in the discussion. Can't point you to it directly rn because I'm on mobile

Makes it look like you were caught up, as you were quoting a post from Durga from the previous page. Was this post more important than pushing the Chippe wagon?

“Was Chippe your strongest scumread at the end of day 1? If you had been able to make it to the end of day 1, would you have stayed on Chippe, or voted for another wagon do you think?”
- I don’t think ‘scumread’ on Chippe is entirely accurate. As stated in my post to ND in early D2, my vote on Chippe was highly policy-focused. I think I also answered this question in a response to TrPrado on D2.

“Your scumreads on Fox and Flav seem like they came off of other people's theories. Can you explain both of these more?”
- The Fox vote was in response to the theory that darg was the maf target. If that was true, Fox was a strong possibility as maf because darg was outspoken against Fox. It wasn’t my idea, but it made a lot of sense to me and I went with it.

I’m not so sure my Flav theory came off of another person’s theory. Happy to give credit where it’s due (maybe I have forgotten?), but I think it came more from the clarifications on when the assassin’s day bomb had to be used and when it exploded. Worcej has confirmed (a) the bomb had to be activated during the day, and (b) the bomb kills at the EoN. Given that Flav was under extreme pressure EoD, I think he activated his bomb to ensure he could kill someone. Fox’s WIFOM rebuttal to this is somewhat true, but I think it’s far more likely that my theory was true vs the maf using it to frame Flav.

You quoted me here:

GM NOTE: A car definitely exploded at EoN. That's pretty clear.

The actual players who died are clearly listed.

This is what I get for not reading flavor. Usually flavor doesn't reveal types of kills like that. The fact that the car bomb is confirmed used makes me think that someone on the chopping block was mafia.

Great catch. Maybe Flavius used it bcz he thought he was going to die!

And here:

Hold up... I am re-reading Flavius again, and came across this:

First game Im being accused of being scum :shrugs:

But you were lynched in Lylo last game. How in the world were you lynched without being being accused of scum?

Flav lied, was accused of lying, then tells another lie. Or was this just another "mistake"?

Another factor to add to the Flav list.
- Caught lying
- Saved by an influx of last minute votes
- The most likely candidate for the assassin doing a panic day kill

These two posts started off your read of Flav. Agreeing with a case and voting because of it is not scummy, but doing so twice in quick succession without looking into the players more yourself seems awfully hasty and opportunistic.

[TrPrado]

What? A player who has played 20 IRL games but no online games will always be better than the player playing his 3rd ever Mafia game (the previous 2 being online). I'm failing to understand what your point is here and why a player's experience is not being factored into your reads!

It's an evidence based system. Don't come for me, come for the numbers.

Again, I'm truly failing to understand what your point is here. I legitimately don't understand how it backs up not factoring experience into your reads. Please explain.

Because they're still in unfamiliar territory. The second criterion is the learning curve. If it factors in at all, it'll be there. The first is all about early posts, though, when they're still going to be uncomfortable and treading the same ground as a new player's mindset. I've considered whether prior experience factors in that much before, but the evidence has suggested it's negligible.