@uclabb
"(these are relative to the probability that a random player is scum, of course- there's no player except maybe Espi that I think is more likely to be scum than town yet)"

Why did you feel the need to say this now but not at any point in the other ~10 games you've played?

RE: Viglynch, why midway through day two? I think the best way to utilize is basically to kill both major wagons from D1 for info (giving us time if the flip of the first clears/incriminates someone) and then use it for a second lynch midway through D2 or D3, with the JOAT using his shot as a more typical vigshot.

@ghug- I have said it in previous games

@uclabb, have you? I don't remember you doing so, and it seems like the sort of thing that's so obvious that you'd assume everyone understood it and then get really annoyed at ND for misinterpreting.

Also respond to the part that matters more. Jeez.

The reason for midway through D2 is to make it so that D2 is D2 and D3. The most productive time for town is EOD, so we should make 2 EODs rather than just have 1 with 2 kills, and to have time to actually research and respond to the information from the day vig kill. Shooting near EOD just makes it so the second lynch will be chaotic and less effective.

My inactivity is largely due to a long work day, studying for a midterm tomorrow and just suddenly being told I'm getting sent to a debate tournament this weekend. I figure it'd be best to get a replacement but let's see if I can stick it out as I'm not sure there are any?

Anyway, I'm posting on my phone but I want to point on that I didn't think my argument on wjessop was so invalid. We've also never actually seen him play town.

If I was scum I'd be a loooot more cautious than I've been with my words. I didn't "get excited because I have a fancy new role"! Something like that would probably make me a lot less likely to jump on wjessop off the bat. Perhaps I come across stupid on this game as I don't post too much.

My initial thoughts are they y2k and Damian are town, although someone said to watch out for the latter. Y2k seems town to me because of his irrational, out of touch reads and cases. Obviously, knowing how wrong he is on my case helps me see the light. Reminds me of the allstar game where he was so sure and things that were so wrong. Good to see your initiative y2k but don't be so convinced so quickly.

I'll back track on wjessop for now until I catch up and can make better analysis on her ;) ##unvote

@ghug- without looking back, I'm very confident I did it in at least one other game where I had a lot of scum reads. In this situation it bears clarification as I'm confident a lot of people don't think about it this way (hence people saying things like "I know that's too many scum reads") . It's also not unreasonable (on the surface) to aim to have exactly as many scum reads as there are scum if you think that you can find connections and looking at the whole team is valuable. to be clear, I do think that this belief is extremely stupid.

I'm also seeing some bizarre wjessop - Balki links that make me raise an eyebrow. Can see Balki defending wjessop if the latter is town, and Balki is scum.

@wjessop just when I think you're leaning town you say something sooo scummy like

"As it stands, I think we have 2 clear choices for lynch with maximum potential scum flip in DO and damian."

Are these not your thoughts from back in like the first hour? Have you not actually, unlike me, read everything and engaged with people? You're convinced with our 4 post interaction that either me or Damian is scum? You actually think I'm scummy because I wanted to play the game and post?? This is a strange reason for thinking someone is scum. Your read on me is crap, and is based on the fact that I chose to put pressure on you at the very beginning. You're too afraid of being lynched.

damian

P2: answers DO about being new, agrees with Balki about VT claiming PR being a good thing, potentially taking out suicide bomber. also has a big analysis about fake TrPrado vote, then goes off on wjessop.
P3: says he doesn't care about looking scummy in his accusations, he's trying to help.
P4: retracts wjessop vote, defends from me saying i didn't like the blow-up at wjessop in that he had an honest read on wjessop. at this point in the reread, i think i believe him. he was going on little but that's all we have, it's what i've been doing as well in my early accusations. he goes on to ask why Balki hasn't been active and should respond to questions concerning his suggested VT claiming PR strategy that damian already claimed he personally thought was OK.
P5: acknowledges issue with VT claming PR. explains why he had a big TrPrado analysis. i don't see mafia doing that when i think about it.
P7: talks a bit more about the PR claiming VT issue, nothing conclusive, agrees with my interpretation of Balki's post
P8: lots of talk about how to handle lurkers, some debate on the situation with mafia day-talking, engaging multiple people namely wjessop maniac ghug and HR
P9: appreciates me not liking his wjessop case, calls out lurkers again, reiterates situation with TrPrado analysis
P10: more about TrPrado with ND putting pressure, posts short but full reads, agrees with me again about not liking a post from Balki
P11: answers more challenges to his actions, namely case on wjessop, wonders why people should be demanding strong reads now
P12: more clarification concerning his scum-read on wjessop while he continues to get hounded for it

My conclusion is that damian is pretty strong town. He had a weak case on wjessop that he didn't even push all that much compared with others, but weak cases on few pages is reasonable townie play. He's been very clear with his thoughts and very active, almost more active than me. his defenses all seem honest and I can't find a single contradition among them. i definitely feel like i quickly and unfairly lumped him in with my dislike of DO's vote on wjessop as well. and as a matter of fact, DO's posts coming in now on this page 13 are sounding town to me. I'm leaning town on DO, i'm accepting the likelihood that i did tunnel on her. wjessop i'm actually not leaning town nearly as much on. wjessop's attack on damian in the more recent pages strikes me like the scum wjessop we've all come to know. i've got a closer eye on him now. definitely sensing a tunnel on my dislike of the wjessop case. the case was still weak, but i fixated more than necessary on it. Balki remains my top scum-read.

Balki, can you clarify about why i'm Town MVP for all the wrong reasons?

My thoughts on lurking and policy lynch:

Lurking is anti-town. Since we don't know anything about who's town or scum on D1, lurkers look like a better target than anyone else.

People who don't meet the minimum requirements of the rules aren't worth targeting, because they might get modkilled. Thus, the best person to vote for would be the one who posts and votes, but does no investigation, and gives us zero actual content.

A policy lynch gives us little information. I would prefer not to policy lynch. However, I do want my vote on the lurkers, and if I make it known that I'll take my vote off the lurkers, my vote means nothing.

I don't want a policy lynch, but I'll do it if the person I have my vote on is dead-set against contributing.

I understand that guak's vote will be on me for supporting a policy lynch, but I'm willing to take that risk.

wjessop has started contributing on p11, and stopped on p12. Still, thanks to his contribution, he is no longer my top choice for lynch. I don't agree with his tunneling damian, but at least he's here and taking part. Or at least he was on p11.

So let's take a look at the lurkers:
DO - slightly more useful than last game.
OB - gave an excuse for his absence and promises to be more active.
captainmeme - only contributions so far are his two posts on p9, and meta info on damian on p2.
Maniac - very little contribution so far. He looks at the game in a very unusal way.
guak - contributed slightly more than captainmeme
Espi - slight contributions on p2 - p4. Nothing since then.

At present, I think the best targets are captain, Maniac, and Espi. I'll ##VOTE captainmeme.

I think a lot of you need to realize that this game isn't about "who can hit the highest word count" and "who posts the most". If you're basing your votes of who is lurking and who isn't then you're going to lose as town. There are many instances where someone who heavily lurks comes in with a few lines of amazing and convincing constructive that has been used to catch scum.

Quality, not quantity (I say as I'm studying for my Qualitative Research Methods class...)

Responding to guak's comment:

"@BB: what the hell is wrong with you? why are you even trying to justify VT fakeclaiming? "

@guak, I know you have a rigid, unyielding view of what constitutes appropriate town play. And I know you do not care to revisit or reconsider the theories that you misinterpret as theorems. Not based on new arguments, and not based on new setups. So this statement really wasn't directed at you.

@town, I stand by my statements that I believe that vanilla townies should be prepared to "PR claim" or claim specific PRs in this game. I happen to think that these tools should usually be in a vanilla townie's toolbox, and certainly in this setup, as I've explained. Two basic reasons for this:

(1) It is important to provide cover for our PRs. If mafia are the only ones who will possibly fake claim, then mafia knows everything about every claim. They know which claim is true, and which claim is false. If there is a non-trivial likelihood that anyone could fake claim, then mafia is in the dark.

(2) The truth will eventually come to light for everyone, and should come to light before we are in a mislynch or lose situation. Town is going to learn eventually which Sayid claim is the true claim, and can then go back and reevaluate everything based on that truth. Thus, I think the confusion that occurs in the interim is marginally better for town.

I'm not saying everyone should bread crumb, or everyone should fake claim. I'm not telling anyone how or when to fake claim. I'm just saying that town is better off if a Vanilla Townie fake claim is in play. As just one example, my fake claim in MXII was one of the great manifestations of game theory wisdom this website has ever seen.

*Cue the theorem police.

@Saladin, I'm surprised you wouldn't include Toemato on that list. Did you forget about him, or was that a conscious decision? What thoughts do you have about Toemato's alignment?

@Y2K,

That was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But I guess the bottom line is this: my list of contributors does not line-up with my list of scum. I want everyone to post so that they can bring their arguments to the light of day and undergo scrutiny. The fact that they post a lot (as you do), and make a lot of arguments (as you do) is not necessarily alignment indicative. It just gives us all a chance to evaluate them.

I appreciate very much that you've been so active, and so opinionated. And I think your poor argument on Demon, and your tunneling on me for poor reasons has helped to clarify the role that you were assigned to start the game.

Also, I'm curious -- you told me what I need to do to change your read on me. Apparently I need to take stronger positions and tell town who I believe to be scum.

@town, I believe Y2K is scum, for the reasons I've set forth here, and in the past few pages. As I've said, he is my strongest scumread.

@Y2K, how does that impact your read of me?

@Y2K, how have my various townread's impacted your read of me?

@Saladin - why Meme over Espi or Maniac?

@y2k, you get high and then suddenly everything I'm doing makes sense. I wonder what this says about my mental state. :O

Jokes aside. Balki it would be nice to get a response from your to Y2k's question, you listed him as a town MVP and later said he was an MVP for all the wrong reasons. What did you mean by that?

Unrelated but:
The problem with explicitly putting fake PR claims in the VT toolbox is that it makes mafia fake PR claims that much more powerful. Since they can claim to be motivated by your suggestion.

With that said the cat is rather out of the box now. Given that this discussion has happened. At least some people have come out in support, meaning fake claims have ended up on the table whether we like it or not.

Meaning we have to deal with the consequences of that, namely more powerful mafia fake claims. Additionally, and I cannot stress this enough. Given the above problem we have to be extra skeptical of just claiming to be a PR and not being specific.

It is useful for town PR's to do that. But it is even more useful for mafia members since nobody can counter claim unless they scanned the claimer, or all remaining PR's claim.
I'm not saying lynch people who make a generic PR claim. Just that we have to be even more skeptical of those people than normal.

Additionally, reporting roleblocks, and doctor visits is super important. Since it gives the JOAT a means to confirm the roles of the people who visited you if he happened to track them that night.

Finally, we shouldn't report jailings I think. Since the JOAT cannot track himself, or doesn't want to anyway. Better to save reporting jailings as a way to confirm the JOAT in case of a fake JOAT claim. The JOAT claimant can say who they jailed and another person can confirm or deny being jailed. Yes the mafia can abuse this. But if they do than the real JOAT will know who two mafia are and can target them for night kills.

Wait, I didn't realize that JOAT's actions were single-use.

JUST KIDDING, THE JOAT SHOULD PROBABLY SHOOT NIGHT ONE

Reasoning: a track is much more useful when you can try to narrow down power roles and the odds of tracking somebody dead are less, meaning the track will be far more useful later on. I maintain that the track should be used to find a power role as vanilla-clearing isn't very useful and there aren't many scum to try to find out of a large pool.

Shooting a lurker would serve the purpose of a traditional vigshot and give the vig more flexibility.

Argh. I really need to check the page before I post. Especially when I'm writing these long posts. Balki has responded to y2k. Ignore that bit of my post

@DL. Oh that is important. I missed that too. Track definitely shouldn't be used night 1. I'd be inclined to say the JOAT should wait to act until after day 1, unless they think they are in danger. Their actions are all limited use, and are all more useful to the town the more information we have. I think waiting longer than 1 day you start risking not getting to use powers. The first lynch will give us a lot of information. And if you need to you can always commute if you're in danger.

Save your three active powers until you have more information and I think the town will be better off.

@DO - I didn't see much quality from you last game.
@Balki - My thoughts on Toemato's alignment: mostly harmless.
@DL - I put captainmeme over the others because, unlike the others, I know from experience that captainmeme is capable of being useful. Slightly. Sometimes.

@Damian, I'd love for mafia to claim "PR." We may not know the truth immediately, but we're going to get a ton of information as this game unfolds, and those early claims that yield little immediate information become critical.

That's another reason why I like the track on night 1. We may not be able to fully evaluate the information right away, but so long as we get the information before the JOAT dies, I think it stands to be really helpful later.

Also, the JOAT is probably going to be most usefully employed to jail someone/commute as the game progresses. Those are the actions that ought to be saved. Really, the only question for night 1 is whether to night kill or track. I'm skeptical of a night kill being accurate on night 1. If JOAT has a really good lead by the end of the day, or we have counterclaims to sort out, that's one thing. But barring that, I really think the track has the best expected value, considering both the risks and the rewards.

@Balki

The problem with track is that if he tracks any of the 10VT or The Godfather, Encryptor or Suicide bomber. He'll get the same result. They didn't visit anyone.

There is no way for him to use that information. Unless we lose a lot of VT's or kill off all three of those mafia roles. In which case he can clear a VT

The JOAT to get useful information needs to follow the Doctor, Investigator. Vigilante (if the vig night kills otherwise same result as above), Mafiso (if the mafia make a kill), Roleblocker (in the mafia roleblock)
His odds of getting information that is likely to be useful at any point in the game is 4.5/18 (counting the Vig as half, since we have already established why day kills might be useful for the town)

He has to have an incredibly good lead for it to be worth tracking night 1.

@Balki pt2.
Often, its only mafiosa who fake claim.
Meaning that if there is a fake claim and it is eventually exposed we have pretty much caught a mafia. With your encouragement though, its more likely we will have VT fake claims. Meaning that that information down the line is muddied.

It becomes easy for the fake claiming mafia to turn around and say, I was just trying to protect the real power roles.

getting high resets the read of the game more easily and helps avoid tunnels. Balki, so you think I'm scum. It's a start. Any other scum-reads? Why haven't you voted me?

I also think that if the vig is the sort of player who isn't at risk of a nightkill, they should definitely hold a shot for late-game when a dayshot might prove useful and give us huge flexibility.

Vig shot 1 + JOAT shot means we still have two shots as is usual, and we get the dayvig ability late-game to sort out CCs or provide us with instant flips/info so we can draw more connections