"ND: I feel like a lot of your case on bo is based around the mindset of assuming your statistics you posted page 32 will apply to this game as well. If bo is town, then I assume that the scum team will try to take advantage of this to win the game. Please try to keep an open mind as you look forward."

Oh no I agree. I am approaching this with an open mind. I had to throw my whole case out after D3. There is an 11% chance I am scum. It is up to bo to respond to my case and convince me I am wrong. Part 1 is out there and there is a mini-case on his softing/fake breadcrumbing already out there. Let's hear what he has to say. I think Lucland would be the better lynch for D5.

11% chance I am wrong/89% chance Bo/I am scum (44% each). Edit*

@TrPrado - what do you want me to say? I'm new to this way of playing the game. There isn't always a good reason for what I did. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing, but I didn't take notes and I didn't post what I was thinking, so it's a little hard to remember in retrospect. I've explained everything to the best of my memory, but even then, my reasons for some of my actions were stupid. I'm still learning to play the way you guys do.

*Got internet back later than I thought I would. Won’t be able to discuss this tonight but want to get my case in anyhow, in case I die*

My defence to Prado’s case on me (includes my reasoning on Prado, see MY PRADO CASE section):

I have lost internet, so I’m having to type this without actually looking at his case or at the thread. I think I remember the details of his case and the thread history, but there might be some inaccuracies here and there. I will post this when I get internet back (it’s important to get it out there soon so whoever is killed tonight can give their opinion on it, since we will know them to be town), but I will go back over it and the thread and try to find and correct any inaccuracies and answer any sections I forgot about.

AMERICANSLACKER

Firstly, I want to make this clear – I do not have an explanation for AmericanSlacker’s actions or votes on D1/N1. I know he was having trouble keeping up with the game which was why he asked to be replaced (Ghug told me this) but I was subbed in without talking to him. I am a new player with the same role as him – I am not the same player. If you want to use his actions to try to determine what that role might be, that is fine, but any D1 evidence is tenuous at best especially for someone who wasn’t keeping up.

MY LACK OF POSTING

I was indeed on holiday and then travelling over the first few days I subbed in, and had very little time to catch up. I was on Ameland (a Dutch island) with somewhat limited internet, then travelled back to Joure before driving to the Hook of Holland the next day to take the 7 hour ferry back to England, heading to Oxford, then travelling up to Manchester two days later. I had saved a bunch of pages of the mafia game onto my computer in the event I wouldn’t have internet, but less than I thought I had. I did have internet on the ferry, but webdiplomacy was blocked and all the proxies I tried to use timed out. I really did not have the time to read over everything. I lurk until late game in most games anyway, but in this one I did actually have reason to.

MY INITIAL BO/GUAK/SS READS

I never like D1 information, but I have caught 2 mafia in one game previously with it (even if I later dropped the case against one of them) so I figured I might as well try to use what I had. In previous games, the new player who suggests really terrible ideas is never mafia – I have used this logic several times before, and every time I have been correct – the time I most remember was when I used it to clear Mintyboy on D1 in G6 (I think? Might have been G5, Chaqa messed up the ordering), and it came down to me, Minty, Vash (scum), Maniac (scum), Phil (confirmed town) and Yoyo, and Phil would not believe my case for Minty being town and helped the Scum to lynch him. He didn’t believe it because it was based on something right near the start of D1 – but it was correct nonetheless. I figured SS’s actions in this game were somewhat similar, although now knowing that he has played Mafia before, and at his normal place No Lynch is accepted as good, I don’t think my argument stands in the same way it did for Minty. The argument is that Mafia would always heavily consider any proposal they made to the town, so very obviously bad ideas for town would not be proposed by mafia players, but if it’s seen as towny at his normal place of play then this argument doesn’t hold. Still, it was the best I could do with the information at hand, and the thing that stuck out to me. Just because I had not read to the point others had yet does not mean I could not make cases based upon what I had read – that’s not a reason for discrediting my argument, unless something written later completely contradicts it, which nothing did.

I can’t remember my initial reasoning for Bo and Guak – I think it was tenuous and based upon the fact they weren’t really contributing or something. They weren’t good reads, but they were the best I could do with the limited information I had. I don’t think either case would really stand now.

MY TOWNREAD ON JEFF KUTA

This one is somewhat hard to explain, since most of you haven’t been in any previous games with Kuta. There was something really off about his play in this game – not just that he wasn’t going around shouting ‘100% VANILLA TOWN TM’, but also that he was trying to sort of contribute (with vote counts, mainly) while still lurking. Jeff was a really strange person to play with in previous games – he would deliberately act scummy, sometimes lurking but making sure he told everyone he was going to lurk and gave no reason for it, all for no real reason. He played the Doctor one game and as his day 1 posts he wrote something like “This is post one.” “This is post two. See you tomorrow.” (two posts was the minimum required). He got himself lynched doing this.

I figured he couldn’t be a Vanilla Town with the change in attitude. He was trying not to be noticed, which is not Kuta-like at all, so I put him as a scumread when I listed them on D3 (I think?). I changed this to a slight townread after thinking that maybe he was the Cop.

My reasoning behind this was that Jeff probably wouldn’t change his playstyle that much if he was mafia, since he has a pretty strong reputation for it and there are people in this game who would notice the difference (namely Bo and Guak) and question him about it. He has been a PR before, as I said above, and screwed it up horribly with his actions. I figured that since Cop is not only the only PR in the game but also the thing that decides this game, any Cop (including Jeff) would have realised that they need to survive if town is to win, and if Jeff was the Cop he would not survive long with his normal playstyle – he would probably be forced to claim before too long.

As such, I figured Jeff could well be the Cop trying to stay incognito, so I moved him up from scum (where I would have had to explain what made him look like scum, so the mafia might have caught onto that meaning he might be the Cop) to tenuous town where I didn’t have to give an explanation.

I turned out to be wrong in my assumption that Jeff wouldn’t change his playstyle if he was mafia, but I stand by the fact that he seemed like the Cop.

JEFF KUTA TOWNREAD ON ME

I can’t respond to this, other than saying that it wouldn’t make sense for a mafia member to say ‘slight town’ on someone who looks like it should be null when they’re a mafia teammate – it doesn’t help them in any way, since the read, having no info, doesn’t affect anyone else’s opinions much other than to link the two players together, which mafia wouldn’t want.

However, that is a valid instance of WIFOM and it’s hard to derive anything from it.

MY COP ADVICE, AND STANCE ON COPCLAIMS

I had a few posts where I gave people advice either regarding the Cop or directly to him. The points I made were as follows:

[TO ALL] Do not lynch Espi, they were likely a scan and that can be revealed tomorrow.

[TO ALL] Do not claim Cop if you are a Vanilla Townie, at any cost.

[TO COP] Do not reveal before the end of the night phase unless you [or an innocent scan – can’t remember if I said that or not, if not I should have done] is to be lynched, regardless of whether there is a fakeclaim.

[TO COP] If you have not scanned Espi yet, do so tonight.

The two Espi related ones are fairly obvious and should have been obvious to all. Espi was an extremely likely Copscan target because he was being attacked in lynches so much, and if we lynched him we would either be doing something we would know to do tomorrow (so we would not have gained anything), or we would be doing something that would lose us a confirmed townie or possibly our Cop if he outs to come to the rescue. The second part was a later addition on the small possibility that Espi had not been scanned – if he had not been, we would need to make sure we knew his role because he was an obvious lynch target going into the next day, and if he was town the mafia would almost certainly try to lynch him.

My other advice was fairly obvious too. With no VTs claiming Cop, we would know that any Copclaim that was countered had to be scum or the actual Cop, a VT claiming would damage us immensely since it would mean the next day’s lynch would almost certainly be between the Cop and a VT. The Cop not revealing also gives him another scan, which is extremely useful, and means that he (probably) won’t die the following night, giving us two confirmed town or a 50/50 on choosing the right Cop the next day (probably better odds than that since we can check out their post history, it’s not a random guess) if we did not lynch the fake Cop that day. However, I was also setting up for lynching a fake claim on that day if one happened.

If Prado had claimed Cop, I would 100% have continued to press the lynch against him. Since I told Vanilla Town not to Cop Claim (and it seemed people understood why) a Cop Claim had a 3 in 4 chance of being Mafia. Since anyone I was voting against I also scumread, I would consider that probability higher. If Yoyo had claimed Cop earlier I would have pressed for his lynch also. I told the Cop not to counterclaim any fakeclaim because I was fully intending to lynch anyone who claimed Cop regardless – the probability it would be mafia was high enough that I figured it was not worth getting confirmation, since it would lose us both our Cop (to the nightkill) and the scan he would have otherwise got off that night. Had Yoyo claimed and I pushed for his lynch, the gambit would not have paid off, but I would argue that it was still a risk worth taking.

This is something Uclabb brought up in the game Bo fakeclaimed Doctor. Lynching a PR claim can be a good idea, especially if mafia outnumber power roles, since mafia will usually claim a PR.

MY PRADO CASE

Bear in mind that when I came in on D3 and started to lead a charge onto Prado, nobody was really gathering any momentum whatsoever. There were 4 or 5 tiny wagons. That meant a mislynch was practically certain (tiny wagons heavily advantage mafia, since they can essentially choose the lynch target), and I did not want that to happen, especially since the leading candidate was Espi. I did not have any fantastic evidence against anyone, but based on what turned out to be scumtells in previous games (WIFOM abusing, lurking without lurking too much) I did have a scumread on Prado – that was the best I had, and I decided to press it, because a town-led lynch at least has a chance of getting mafia whereas if the wagons stayed like this we’d essentially be giving the mafia a daykill.

I was fairly vocal about consolidating and managed to get two people to join. I thought Yoyo joined too quickly (as did ND), and proposed that I’d be willing to switch to him, which was a mistake. I note that when I was leading a charge onto Prado, only ND and Yoyo followed, and nobody else was willing – which is understandable, given the lack of evidence I presented. However, once I mentioned moving onto Yoyo with the reasoning that he moved without much evidence, there was a sudden massive movement onto him. Why was this? That was much less evidence than I gave for Prado, yet with no other influence his wagon took off. You know that at least one Mafia member (Jeff) joined this wagon, I know that at least 2 did, since Yoyo, myself and Espi I know to all be town, and I suspect 3 did, since I suspect ND to be town. That’s a massive swing – why would all the mafia members jump onto one target with so little evidence? Isn’t that risky in connecting you to your fellows? The only reason to do it would be if they were trying to save someone – and that has to be Prado. I was suspicious of this at the time and tried to get people to come to the Prado wagon, but people wouldn’t switch, until SaladinSmith voted someone random (I don’t remember). At this point, there were 3 on Prado (ND, myself, Yoyo), two not on a major wagon (Espi, SS) and 4 were on Yoyo (Prado, Bo, Lucland, Kuta). I think at this point Bo changed (I can’t remember, it might have been someone else) and then SS followed, making it 5-3. It being 5-3 at that stage was still close, but nobody could switch from Prado to Yoyo without causing a tie vote, which would be regarded as scummy, so it was fairly certain that Prado would be the lynch. Kuta finally followed, making it 6-2.

It stayed this way until very, very close to the end of the day when I remarked that Prado would have claimed cop by now if he was mafia (I think someone else also mentioned it just before me, maybe Bo). In the final minutes, SS dropped off the wagon onto someone random again (possibly to avoid a tie being possible), Bo tried to tie the vote saying that he thought both were town, I switched to Yoyo also thinking he was more likely to be mafia of the pair since Prado had not cop claimed, and Jeff followed, making the final result 5-2 with 2 essentially abstaining. A final attempt to save Prado would have worked even without me – Bo and Kuta switching with SS dropping off would have lynched Yoyo, and without SS dropping off it still would have tied the vote. Additionally, I’m fairly certain Kuta saw my vote before he switched, meaning he knew that his swap ensured a Yoyo lynch.

This whole thing points to Prado being mafia and an attempt to save him was in place. Kuta very clearly attempted to save Prado, both in his initial vote on Yoyo (making the Yoyo wagon 2 votes ahead of Prado, so any switch would cause a tie) and his second vote on Yoyo (ensuring the Yoyo lynch). If my defence convinces you that I am town (which I hope it does) then 2 mafia members on Yoyo were ensured, and if you think ND is town then all 3 were on him. They would not group up like that unless they were trying to save a mafia member.

I believe (I may be mistaken here, this is from memory and I don’t remember this very clearly) that Kuta also asked me when I started trying to press the Prado wagon why I was creating a 5th wagon, and that doing so was a mistake. This again translates into protection of Prado.

ND ARGUMENT WIFOM

My ND argument is certainly not WIFOM. You can see from the effect Yoyo has had on the game just how gamechanging the cop can be – with just two living scans he’s decreased the number of successful consecutive lynches we need to win the game from 3 to 2, which is huge considering the hardest one is the first since you have more townies you have to get onto the same target. Had Yoyo not been lynched (and we had lynched a townie) and had he, Espi and whoever he scanned the final night all survived to the following day, it would have led to an almost certain win – we would have had either 3 confirmed townies and 1 confirmed scum in a 4v3, meaning at least one confirmed town would survive to the final day, or we would have had 2 confirmed townies and 2 confirmed scum, meaning we would only have to find one mafia member to win. This would have been with just 3 living scans, after we had lynched incorrectly all the way to LYLO! The Cop is an incredibly powerful role because of the lack of a roleblock or mole (usually there are both, which gives the mafia some counterplay to him without having to kill him) and the starting innocent scan. If the mafia are intelligent, and I think all remaining players are reasonably so, they would have realised that this role decides the game and all Mafia kills would have been made with the intention of hitting the Cop.

I know I’m reiterating my argument here, but I feel that it’s extremely important that it is not discounted. Phil’s reads were ordered in a very specific way – usually everyone posts a player list with ‘Null’, ‘Slight Scum’, ‘Town’ and whatever written next to them, but Phil wrote the players down in order from most scummy to least. The fact that ND was at the bottom of that list, and was the only true townread on it, shows that if Phil had been the Cop then ND was his innocent scan. I argue that the mafia would not have killed Phil if ND had been mafia, because they would have known that ND was not the Cop’s innocent scan so Phil would have been unlikely to be the Cop.

Let’s go over what WIFOM means in this game, briefly. WIFOM is when you cannot trust evidence because a mafia member might have set it up to look that way – usually doing something against their obvious interests so that town will use that to clear a mafia member or incriminate a townie – for example, a mafia member might vote for a fellow mafia member to try to clear themselves as town, so it’s hard to use that as evidence for townclearing.

WIFOM can be applied to practically anything, but when applying it to a situation you need to look at the risk/reward return for the mafia. Remember, it usually involves one of the possibilities being the mafia doing something against their obvious interests, in the hope of some reward. Let’s look over the situation in my ND/Phil argument.

OBVIOUS INTERESTS: Killing the Cop. I have said before that the Cop decides this game, and hopefully everyone can see that by now. The possibility of killing the Cop is extremely important for mafia if they want to win this game. If they were trying to kill the Cop, ND is clear as per the above argument.

WIFOM ARGUMENT: Mafia decided not to aim for the Cop to gain some other benefit.

POSSIBILITY #1: If you believe me and ND to be Mafia, then the reasoning behind killing Phil was almost certainly to set up my argument for clearing ND. Is this enough of a benefit to kill someone you know is not the Cop? I would argue not. It’s a fairly intricate argument that people might dismiss as WIFOM, and additionally it links me strongly to ND as the only person I had really defended the entire game. The possibility that someone decides that this argument does clear ND is not worth the risk of both having the Cop get an extra scan off and linking ND and myself. Therefore, I would say this WIFOM argument does not hold – the mafia would be too unlikely to do this (of course, I know it doesn’t hold anyway since I know I am town, but this is assuming my role is unknown). In this possibility, mafia would not have killed Phil.

POSSIBILITY #2: If you believe me to be Mafia and ND to not be, then my claim that the mafia would not have thought Phil to be the Cop does not stand, since ND is innocent. Therefore they are not sacrificing their ability to aim for the Cop. In this possibility, the mafia would have killed Phil.

POSSIBILITY #3: If you believe ND to be mafia and me to be town, what benefit could there be? As per my initial argument ND being mafia implies that the mafia knew Phil wasn’t the cop, so they are targeting a non-cop for some reason. I would argue that my argument was not something the mafia could have predicted, so it was not to clear ND. Maybe it was to stop pressure on them, but is that worth killing someone you know is not the cop for? Absolutely not, IMO, the Cop decides the game, as I said above. In this scenario, the mafia would not have killed Phil.

POSSIBILITY #4: If neither ND nor I are mafia, then the mafia could have thought Phil was the Cop with ND as his innocent scan. Therefore, the mafia could have killed Phil in this possibility.

That’s covered all possibilities (Me&ND Maf, Me Maf and him Town, Me Town and him Maf, and both Town), and in every possibility with ND being mafia, the conclusion is that it’s not worthwhile to kill Phil, even taking into account WIFOM. Therefore Phil being killed => ND is town.

I hope that’s clear enough for everyone. I would prefer not to have to write it out yet again.

MY ESPI INTERACTIONS

I have explained this already, but maybe I put it in too many words. I do overcomplicate things sometimes.

To put it simply, Espi as confirmed town was ridiculously important to us as a ringleader for town to follow, so I wanted to try to ensure he survived. My argument with him was based on two points:

1 – I would not vote alongside him. If Mafia had left both of us alive and I had actually done this, town would lose for certain if either of us picked an incorrect target, possibly even if both of us picked a correct target if they went for a last minute draw. Therefore, it was in the Mafia’s interests to keep Espi alive (if they actually believed I would do this, and/or if they thought about it).

2 – I would not present my cases to him or discuss anything with him. Since the next day was supposed to be a predetermined lynch (Jeff for certain), the only reason Mafia needed to kill Espi that night was because he would lead discussion over the next day and night phase. I had hoped that my refusal to debate while Espi was around would make the Mafia let him live for the next phase, since his presence would be stifling discussion, not helping it, then we could go for a lynch on someone other than Jeff while Espi was still alive to rally the townies to one target.

It didn’t work. But I’d argue it was the correct play regardless – we’d have had a massive advantage if Espi had survived to the next phase.

I think that’s everything covered. I will post this when my internet comes back up (hopefully before EON) and then I will look through and update with anything I’ve missed.

N4 (and possibly final) Reads:
ND - SLIGHT TOWN
bo_sox48 - slight scum, but by virtue of who I think is scum team, DE FACTO TOWN
captain/slacker - PROBABLE SCUM
SaladinSmith - PROBABLE SCUM
Lucland - SLIGHT TOWN

Everyone post your reads.

Okay, so, this is purely hypothetical, but:
a) If I'm right about scum team, and
b) you guys catch scum tomorrow, then
The remaining scum would kill bo and try to use Lucland assuming his inexperience would help to kill ND or they'd NK Lucland and try to use ND's stats to get him to kill bo.

After a long day of napping, Section 9 spends the night resting to recuperate.

Sadly, the hackers catch wind of this and ghost hack captainmeme, preventing him from waking up.

CAPTAINMEME has died. He was a VANILLA TOWNIE. Day five has begun. You have 48 hours.

What in the hell??

So this pretty much means de facto town gets dropped to scum, but this needs another look.

Have you ever gone to an amusement park with your friends and had a really good time, until you get to the inevitable part where they ask you, and they will, to ride the biggest roller coaster ride in the park. You've done a pretty good job of hiding the fact that you are deathly afraid of roller coaster rides. hate them with a passion. and avoid them at all costs. But you agree, because you don't want to let your friends down, or seem like you're somehow inferior. But it can't just be that you ride the roller coaster. You have to ride in front and your friends make you sit next to the person who loves it the most, the one who's been egging it on all day. And everyone's excited and jumping around, but you're having a really hard time faking it. And then the bar snaps in and everything gets real quiet and you look around and realize that everyone is looking at you with huge wide grins, and you realize that you can't get off, and you have a front row ticket on a ride to hell. and you HATE every single one of them.

That's what I'm feeling right now.

Yes, I'm a noob. I am not an idiot, but I just don't know where to go from here. When I do my own analysis. I'm wrong. When I follow someone else's analysis. I'm wrong. And I really want to win. And I really want to be RIGHT today.

One of the guides in the "Mafia How-to" says doing the right thing 5 times and being wrong 5 times knowing that it's right will get you to the 6th. Well, I don't have the luxury of that at the moment.

But I will say this. Right now, I think there are strong cases on just about everyone. What can we AGREE on? How the heck do we move on from here?

I need to re-think things. Since I left the thread after my last post today a lot has happened.

@TrPrado - Yeah, I'm pretty surprised as well. I figured you'd be next for sure. You being passed up does lend support to captain's theory that you're scum (and I was finding captain convincing on several points) but I'm going to need more than that to convince me.

Prior to his death you were saying that captain and I were the scumteam. How does that theory change with his death? I'd imagine you're still pretty well convinced about me, but who's your second choice?

Yeah, his defense was actually pretty good. Damn, he almost didn't get it in either. He explained his play better in that single post than at any other point in the game. As I said, this needs a fair amount of looking into, but it makes ND's theory more likely.

N4 EON Analysis

To begin Captain’s most lengthy post to date with the bulk of his thoughts was posted eight minutes before the deadline. Which means that either the mafia speed read it with 8 minutes to go or he was already their target for the night. If he was their target, the question must be asked why? Let’s look at some of his keypoints and previous posts going into EON #4

Page 79: Captain posts his reads.

“Town - please remember that townreads at this stage as just as important as scumreads. If you have evidence to townread someone, share it. It helps.”

-Captain advocates for townreads. He firmly believes I am town until the end. Would the scum just try to kill him so I would have one less person who townreads me? No. There is more to it then him townreading me.-

“However, I don't think it's much evidence either way. I think it makes sense as town to try to divert a kill by softing cop, but it makes sense as mafia to try to breadcrumb to support a false copclaim later. The problem here was that he had to know Espi was town in order for a bait to work, otherwise he'd be telling the mafia that he wasn't the cop. Bo - how did you know Espi was town?”

-This I think is much more important. Out of everyone, who has agreed with my argument that bo’s false bread crumbing was suspicious? Captainmeme did. His most substantial post leading into EON #4 confirms that he too thought it was out of place and scummy what bo was attempting to do.

“I read Bo as mafia for similar reasoning - it follows on from Prado being mafia.”

-Again suspects bo, but also Prado. This is something Captain maintained until the very end. And remember the mafia are picking or trying to select a target. They aren’t waiting until the last five minutes to make a choice. It’s locked in earlier in the night.-

Then of course we have his mega post on this page (82) which discusses TrPrado in-depth and why he is still scum. He believes that Prado was protected which was my initial thought. I don’t know if I can reconcile that fact with TrPrado’s final words at 6:00 timestamped. To me that does not seem like something a dying scum would say, but maybe he was maintaining his innocence until the end.

TrPrado is someone I have to look at again. Lucland is someone I suspect is scum, but I’m not going to rule SS or TrPrado out. What is clear though folks is that we have to vote bo up today.

He was preparing a cop claim that much is clear and there is only one reason why you would ever do that. That is to confuse the town in a MYOL scenario and split the town between the actual cop/mafia claiming cop. It happened to me in M9 when I was oracle and Wjessop was mafia. It is a legitimate mafia strategy that has to be what bo was doing.

From this page: “a VT claiming would damage us immensely since it would mean the next day’s lynch would almost certainly be between the Cop and a VT.”

With only one PR role in play someone of bo’s experience would have to know that softing and preparing a cop claim as a VT would be damning to the town. Absolutely damning. But, bo isn’t a vt he is mafia and his plan was to damn the town when he fake claimed it. He was setting up for it as early as D3.

##vote bo

With captain's argument for reading ND as town better explained, then it also isn't outside the realm of possibility that they wanted to protect Lucland (as he was phil's top scum read followed by 2 who are now confirmed town), which also builds up ND's theory. But then I'm not sure I want to just rule out ND or simply drop SS. Either way, I'm not at all prepared to cast a vote.

So you think that Captain's death places more suspicion on Lucland? I am not sure I see that. Explain?

Not his death. It's the understanding that his defense put up in his explanation of town clearing you. With captain now confirmed as town, it means that it would make sense for Mafia to have assumed phil as cop. And Lucland was phil's top scumread at the time. It's mostly coincidence, but it does lend to that possibility.

Hmm, yes it does tend to favor the jeff-lucland portion and I think Meme was onto something by casting suspicion on bo along with me. That would make the team lucland-bo-Jeff. Still it's important not to rule anyone out at this stage.

I'm not dead. Meme must be smarter than me. Maybe I have been on the wrong track this entire time.

Either way, my plane is about to board. I will check in either late tonight or when I get up tomorrow. I can't read back far or post a whole lot right now.

ND: I would really like to see you finish your suspect analysis soon since you've only gotten one part out.

Doing some reading for grad class now/some orientation for part-time job tomorrow/night class tomorrow. In between all of that I will get part two out, but you will have to wait a bit.

I've been thinking. . .

Care to share your thoughts, then?

Gosh darn it. Again. I have so much WORK to do in my life right now. And I get sucked in for hours.

Are we all agreeing that ND is town? Because that's what it feels like is being said here. Based entirely on Captainmeme's last post. I get it we know now meme was town, but was he right? Why are we just taking for granted that his reasoning has been stronger than anyone else’s through out the game?

I’m asking, because this is a really important moment. We CANNOT mislynch here. We cannot. And here's the deal. Right now, if what I'm hearing is right, and we're calling ND town, we are without a doubt offering ND a free pass without any further scrutiny. We cannot turn back.

I just have a couple of things that don't quite work out too well for me. . .

1.) Is it possible that meme is wrong? I for one and pretty concerned about it. He seems to be inferring that TrPrado and I are mafia and I just could disagree more.
2.) If he’s wrong game over, and if he’s right, we live another day, it’s 2 -1, and who do we trust?

Does it sound good? Is it well written? Sure. Is it conclusive. No. fricking. Way. Let's look more carefully at his final case: My commentary is starred. Thanks yoyo for the tip on starring.

Captainmeme: “… Phil’s reads were ordered in a very specific way – usually everyone posts a player list with ‘Null’, ‘Slight Scum’, ‘Town’ and whatever written next to them, but Phil wrote the players down in order from most scummy to least.

*Uh, ok. That doesn’t guarantee us a successful lynch. But, ok. Let’s look at this very helpful and detailed and as meme suggests, damning analysis from Phil.*

** I’ve included it here for your convenience, You can find this on pg. 53. **

Phil: “List is ordered from most scum to least scum

Lucland - scum, why didn't we lynch him yesterday again?
**Because Phil, my crime was being a sucker on the guak lynch, which others got sucked into too. Just because you didn’t doesn’t make you right and it certainly doesn’t make me mafia. **

Espi - still think this guy is likely to be scum, I'll try to build a new case on him sometime tomorrow
** Nope, wrong here, This one, I think it’s 100% fair to say, has thrown us all for a loop.**

Yoyoyozo - because of his participation pattern, and the relationship with Espi

** Wrong Here too. But, I feel you, in fact, this was partially what we used to lynch him, am I right? Whoops. Sorry about that yoyo, but Phil has you as third . . . I wonder, watching from the outside how you would explain this. It’s hard isn’t it? I really was convinced of the guak lynch and felt somewhat solid on the yoyo lynch. I wanted to continue on with ND’s statistical evidence. Which, by the way, is the ONLY real thing he’s contributed and the ONLY real thing that has moved this group. Besides meme himself. (can you see meme coming in swinging & singing “wrecking ball?” **

TrPrado - on the grounds of both potentially having been saved by the Balkiwagon, and of guak having a tendency to get into a big fight with scum and then get lynched for it

**wow, really? Wow. This comment alone is enough for me to throw his arguments out the window. And this is what meme is partially using to point fingers at Prado. No way man, get real. **

captainmeme - huh, I managed to forget he was playing, never a good sign

** right, so playing or not playing has turned out to not be much of an indication of alignment. Meme, Yoyo and Jeff arguably some of the least contributing players in the game all represent different roles. Could this reasoning be part of his reasoning for having me at the top of his list, or is it a mix of guak’s “tendancy to get into a big fight with scum and then get lynched for it.”??? Another reason for Phil’s hunch that I’m mafia… Really guys? Do you not see the pattern here of the older more experienced guys getting to beat up and scapegoat the newer younger players. And then act like it’s thorough and well reasoned evidence, when in fact it’s just another reiteration of a good ole boy system. This is partially why Yoyo got dropped too. No? go back and look at that.

SaladinSmith - because not only is he consistently useless, he doesn't really appear to be trying to be useful

**classy, very classy. Except, nope. Rude disrespectful and pretty lame. What? He can deliver a read like that on SS, well so can I. This is completely unhelpful. And tells us nothing.”

Jeff Kuta - I can't really decide very well on him, I'll reread once I get the time

**Well, He was mafia, Phil. He was mafia. If only he was higher on your list, we might have caught him sooner.”

bo_sox48 - similar to above

** Nice, just gonna lump him in there with Jeff like you did SS with meme. Right, so. Jeff and Bo are getting lumped together, BO IS MAFIA!!!! OMG!!! OMGIFUS. (is that right? Should it be OMFGYSOBIHYA?!?)

ND - I was paying attention to ND quite a bit after the Balki lynch, but most of his participation before and since has been pretty towny

** Oh, ok, cool. Thanks for clearing that up. **

**I mean Phil no disrespect here. Truly, my posts from the past are cringe worthy. How can we know what we don’t frackin know? Right? **

**What I have a problem with is meme using this as evidence to lynch. This? Dude, we lynch on this and our lynch flips town then WE ARE the chumps. Really. This is flimsy at best. **

**But let’s look at more of meme’s case based on Phil:**

The fact that ND was at the bottom of that list, and was the only true townread on it, shows that if Phil had been the Cop then ND was his innocent scan. I argue that the mafia would not have killed Phil if ND had been mafia, because they would have known that ND was not the Cop’s innocent scan so Phil would have been unlikely to be the Cop.

** Right, but you are basing this on the fact that you know the mafia’s intention behind a kill. You DON’T know that Phil was killed because the mafia is searching for the cop. That may be how you play, but there is NO GUARENTEE that this is their motivation.

** That said, it is possible that Phil was killed to distract attention. It’s complicated. It may be - that of the remaining of us (and Jeff) killing Phil was about taking attention off wherever the focus was going during this phase. It may be that taking this evidence in context with the bigger picture as opposed to cherry picking it may hold the key. Let’s look at the whole day. Not just Phil’s crappy reads.**

**But let’s continue with his analysis. **

OBVIOUS INTERESTS: Killing the Cop. I have said before that the Cop decides this game, and hopefully everyone can see that by now. The possibility of killing the Cop is extremely important for mafia if they want to win this game. If they were trying to kill the Cop, ND is clear as per the above argument.

** Two points to consider here:

1.) Ok, I can see that the cop is helpful. But what if we lynched someone else who was town, Prado, let’s say and then yoyou was killed at night? We’d have been SCREWED. Killing the cop may be a potential interest, but we don’t know that’s what they were intending with Phil’s kill. Further, wouldn’t they avoid making a kill that’s obvious? Face it, we got Jeff because of Yoyo. Bless you, Yoyo. I had NO IDEA. Did you? I mean besides Bo, who else has really put out a case on Jeff that had ANY merit? Again, my thought is it possible they were looking for the cop, sure. Is it possible the kill was meant to distract from something else. Yes.

2.) And this is where I’m heading with this. In no way, does this clear ND as town. Meme’s dead. He’s participation has been limited. But I want to FRACKING win, and I don’t think a free pass from a guy who can basically say “meh, I was wrong. we’ll get em next time. just like he did with his other admitted failed attempts. The weird Espi behavior which still makes ZERO sense to me, and the yoyo lynch, WHICH HE SPEARHEADED.”

This is mafia, but remember it’s also DIPLOMACY. Which means you backstab to win. So, who has the MOST to win. Well, ND.

But, again with the meme’s full case let’s look at his third possibility:**

"MEME: POSSIBILITY #3: If you believe ND to be mafia and me to be town, what benefit could there be?
** Providing a shield or cover for ND, distracting from another dangerous move. Trying to NOT look obvious.***

As per my initial argument ND being mafia implies that the mafia knew Phil wasn’t the cop, so they are targeting a non-cop for some reason.

**Not sure how it implies that, Meme. It could be that they (with ND) thought Phil WAS cop and that he just didn’t waste a scan on ND. Plus with the actual cop read. One thing that has kinda struck me, (I don’t remember who first said it and that I never even thought about it) was the fact that Espi was the obvious first day scan. So, at that point in the game, one scan. Who’s scanning ND on N1? **

I would argue that my argument was not something the mafia could have predicted, so it was not to clear ND. Maybe it was to stop pressure on them, but is that worth killing someone you know is not the cop for? Absolutely not, IMO, the Cop decides the game, as I said above. In this scenario, the mafia would not have killed Phil."

** See it really comes down to this question right here:**

MEME: “Maybe it was to stop pressure on them, but is that worth killing someone you know is not the cop for?

**And the hang up is on these two words, **

Meme: “Absolutely not . . .”

** and this thinking **

Meme: “YOU KNOW is not the cop for?”

** meme speaks in absolutes here. That’s the problem with this game. It is possible for them to choose killing someone who is not the cop even if they’ve cleared them a town read. There are 3 mafia members. Not 1. And it is in my mind it is likely that Phil died not just because he was believed to have been the cop, but as meme points out “to stop pressure on them.” Somehow, somewhere.

Town, this is very important. We cannot give ND a free pass based on meme’s faulty logic above. And you certainly cannot lynch Prado based on it either. If he is wrong on either count. We. Lose.

I’m not sure who the remaining team is and I will even consider the possibility that ND is town, however, we’re fools and deserve to lose if we clear him based on that.

I would respond to that wall of text, but homework.

With that. I'll begin.

ND has been driving us with statistics about the balki bandwagon throughout his game. It is the only piece of real science and fact we have.

There are some challenges here:

We are now at the point in the game where if we lynch and get mafia. Great, one more and we win. Question is who? Well, in my mind it's always been Bo. Right? Think about this, If we're following this lynch and one of the four has to be lynched. Why would ND propose this theory if he were town? We lynched guak and were wrong. Espi was mafia killed, but was nearly lynched except we lynched someone not on the wagon . . . who happened to be the cop. And now, here we are in the predicament of having to decide between Bo and ND. One was town cleared by a previous player which is gold in this game, right? I hate being accused, it feels stoopid and frustrating.

But here's the deal, if we lynch Bo and we get it wrong, game over. That's just not a risk I'm willing to take on the number of flub ups meme has made.

So, I need to know are we really convinced that these statistics are legit. Are we really convinced that it's Either Bo or ND?

What if they both are?
OMG.
What if they both are?

No,no think about it. We lynch one, we won't lynch the other because we found our 1 and we lose.

OMG.

What if they both are!!!


And

sigh.

Exactly. Hours, fracking hours on this game and I've got work.

I'm done for the day.

@Lucland:

“inferring that TrPrado and I are mafia and I just could disagree more.”

Where exactly did Meme say that about you?

“ Because Phil..”

Are you literally responding to a read from 53 from a dead person?

“No way man, get real. **”

Seriously? Phil died. Did you read meme’s argument about why Phil and his reads are important? It’s about cop searching.

“Do you not see the pattern here of the older more experienced guys getting to beat up and scapegoat the newer younger players.

More of your anti-town behavior and arguments I see.

“it may be - that of the remaining of us (and Jeff) killing Phil was about taking attention off wherever the focus was going during this phase.”

Who is “US” + Jeff. I assume you mean yourself, Jeff, and ? (bo) ?

@All: “I mean besides Bo, who else has really put out a case on Jeff that had ANY merit? Again, my thought is it possible they were looking for the cop, sure. Is it possible the kill was meant to distract from something else.”

This is exactly what the mafia (Lucland and Bo) want you to think and one of the key points to the Jeff-Lucland-Bo analysis in Part 2 and 3. More on this to come later, but remember this quote from Lucland.

The rest reads like an angry rant.

True. You can’t give me a free pass because of Captainmeme’s work. However, I hope everyone who is town (obviously not you) looks at it in-depth and his earlier case from 79. No one is getting a free pass here. Meme’s townclear case on me however is the closest town is going to get to a confirmed town besides TrPrado’s town EOD D3 statements. Now, TrPrado could STILL be mafia, but I am inclined to say no until re-reads or new questions are called into question.

I’m not voting TrPrado today. I am voting bo. Fake cop softing/breadcrumbing is reason enough to vote for him because anyone who knows the game knows a VT fakeclaiming is damning. Basically forcing the town to choose between the VT fake claiming and the cop real claiming. It wouldn’t happen. That is why bo (only bo) was preparing softing throughout so if the mafia did not get a chance to kill the cop they could fake claim and confuse the town at MYOL.

@All: Lucland’s wall of text here reads like an angry rant. Almost as if a two year old got told off by his mummy then went out and stomped on an ant hill in rage. There is a lot going on here and probably the closest thing we will get to a mafia confirmation in this game. Clearly, Lucland is upset about Captainmeme’s final post. Vote bo first, vote lucland next cycle and town wins.

Part 2 coming sometime tomorrow, Part 3 coming before EOD #5.