866 replies to this topic

[The Warrior]

So 11 times out of 11 experienced players choose to lynch, but we're smarter than those noobs and well go no lynch route, is that right?

What do we expect to do tomorrow after todays no lynch? Our joats are no cops. To the contrary, they are very likely to find nothing at all.

Secondly no lynch saves us a guy but does not give us additional day ( wed need two no lynch days for that), so it acctualy give us one less wagon to analyze and robs us of opportunity to eliminate notorious lurkers that will be a pain during upcoming days.

Vote Rafay

 

Are the JOAT's likely to find anything tonight? No, but at least we have a chance for something to work with tomorrow. We have nothing to work with today and a lynch isn't likely to produce anything either. No one will take it with anything other than a grain of salt. I'd rather not risk outing a JOAT just to get "grain of salt information".

[lilweirdward]

So 11 times out of 11 experienced players choose to lynch, but we're smarter than those noobs and well go no lynch route, is that right?

What do we expect to do tomorrow after todays no lynch? Our joats are no cops. To the contrary, they are very likely to find nothing at all.

Secondly no lynch saves us a guy but does not give us additional day ( wed need two no lynch days for that), so it acctualy give us one less wagon to analyze and robs us of opportunity to eliminate notorious lurkers that will be a pain during upcoming days.

Vote Rafay

Are the JOAT's likely to find anything tonight? No, but at least we have a chance for something to work with tomorrow. We have nothing to work with today and a lynch isn't likely to produce anything either. No one will take it with anything other than a grain of salt. I'd rather not risk outing a JOAT just to get "grain of salt information".

Genuine question: if by some miracle one of the JOATs gets lucky and catches someone doing something tonight, should they instantly RC and announce what they found this early in the game? We only have 2 JOATs to 3 mafia, and once a JOAT announces themselves, they have basically one more day to survive, assuming the other JOAT didn't use their doctor shot the night before. This is assuming too that the JOAT doesn't accidentally catch the other JOAT moving instead of the mafia. I can see an argument both ways, but I wouldn't blame someone for trying to hold on an extra day or two to gather more information.

I'm bringing this up because if they don't immediately RC, we'll have no more information as a town than we do today, and any lynch is probably going to be just another shot in the dark, except we'll have one less townie to do it with. I just don't get how the very marginal chance of gaining information is worth losing a townie to start the game. We're likely going to have to lynch someone without any information at some point soon (unless you're all planning on no lynching the whole game until someone RCs), so we might as well not give scum free night kills before we start.

[KevinH]

Vote Count:
brewersalliance (3): Lilweirdward, Torres951, Tony Maurice,
Finster Baby (1): Robert2424,
Robert2424 (1): Finster Baby,
Rafay (1): Ali bin Turban,
Lilweirdward (0): 
Ali bin Turban (0):
Ferastical (0):
ghaws (0):
Lord MK (0):
Lyner (0):
The Warrior (0):
Tony Maurice (0):
Torres951 (0):
Velocity (0):
Wolfpacks (0):

No Lynch (5): brewersalliance, Lord MK, Velocity, Ferastical, ghaws,

Not Voting: Lyner, Rafay, The Warrior, Wolfpacks

With 15 alive, it takes 8 to lynch or 4 at deadline.
Deadline is Monday, August 24 at noon EDT.

[Ferastical]

But does it mean that lynch strategy is bad, or maybe that the setup is hard for town?

 

 

Nope, actually this setup is heavily town sided.

 

I did some reading on that Mafia Championships website and looked into the games. There's one really smart post there about a viable strategy, I don't want to copy+paste, I will instead write down everything important and rephrase some stuff:

 

The main problem for every single game is that Town does not use their JOATs to their full capabilities. A game with 12 vanilla townies (no PRs) and 3 mafia goons by itself would be more town sided because of the numbers, and adding 2 power roles, even weak ones, would generally make the game even more town sided. 

 

First thing - attempt to understand that this is in no way a mountainous game. If you get a JOAT as your role PM, no, you can't just "play like a vanilla townie". You might think that you could, but really not, professional players have tried and it didn't work out for them. Essentially, two town players are handicapped. They will seem "off", most probably stand out to the Mafia and possibly get suspicious looks from the Town.

 

Secondly, the Town is compelled to play "around" the JOATs. When you suspect someone for being "off", is it really because they're Mafia, or because they're a JOAT? Your pushes will always have that uncertainty. The presence of the JOATs confuses Town.

 

Most games will approach this setup in the same way, despite this way not getting good results. Here's what we can do instead:

We use a strategy from a different setup. If you're familiar with Cop Niner, then you'll know that it's a standard setup and played so much, that there's a standard strategy. EVERY player provides a result. If they don't, they get lynched. This means that when the real cop (or in this case, the JOAT) flips dead, the information he/she collected isn't lost, because it's all in the game thread, and JOATs can put it there without getting the instant knife from Mafia.

 

So, at the start of day two, and any day that follows, as long as a JOAT lives, you WILL post the result of your night action. And if we're going to do this, we have to start using this mindset right now.

 

 

Question: But that will make me feel awkward...

 

Yeah, no kidding. That's what happens to JOATs. That's why they get sussed by Town and have to claim or get killed from Mafia, because they can tell who is being awkward and who isn't. Sure, you would like to "town it up" and be easy to find as Town. But if you want that win, you're going to have to put in the effort.

 

 

Question: But I AM the JOAT...?

 

Well, good then. You just need to post results like everyone else does, except not lies. If the other JOAT flips before you, then you are going to know what they did and where they did it. You are going to be able to look at all the lies everyone else has told and in many cases you should be able to identify the towny lies from the scummy lies. That will be valuable. This is where the town gets enough value from having JOATs to overcome the benefits to the goons.

 

 

Question: What kind of results should I claim then?

 

READ THE JOAT INFORMATION! Don't go posting results that actual JOATs won't be able to come up with. Some of you might be thinking "ohh, I'm going to make a bad claim, so the scum knows I'm not the JOAT and I won't get NKed". Do not let those thoughts lead you to scum-siding here. Claim a tracker, motion detector, or a doctor while following the instructions. Over the first three days you have to claim each one. Make them look good.

If you claim a tracker on someone, DO NOT include where they went. They are going to be making a claim about going to someone for themselves. We don't want to tell the Mafia that we're obv lying, now do we?

 

THE CRITICAL EXCEPTION:

If one of our JOATs makes a successful save, take a look at the claims you've already made. If you COULD doc, claim that you did. If you already "used" your doc, then claim tracker or motion detector as usual. IF THERE WAS A SUCCESSFUL DOC, DO NOT INCLUDE A TARGET IN YOUR CLAIM WHEN YOU CLAIM A DOC ACTION. The Mafia KNOWS who actually got saved.

 

 

Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

[Ali bin Turban]

In other cases I'd agree with you TW, but taking a look at the situation:
Are joats likely to find information today? No
Tomorrow? No.
Day after Tomorrow? No

Thing is joat gets an information only when he targets scum that performs a kill ( around 7%), or when he targets other joat (again around 7%).
His chances next night will only increase slightly ( 8%). Is this what are we waiting for?

[Ali bin Turban]

Thats a good info Ferastical, worth thinking about.

[Lyner]

lol that's interesting strategy, ferastical, but I'm pretty sure we can't pull that off

 

partly because some of the players won't be very active

 

agree that the 2 joats might confuse town

[lilweirdward]

@Ferastical, thanks a ton for doing that research. That helps so much. It seems like a really clever strategy, and one that would be much harder for mafia to play around, although it'd require a lot of discipline from town to commit to the game. I'm guessing this would be an incentive to no lynch today then, right? Don't force any of the JOATs to really play this day at all, and then let them blend in more easily the next day when we're all essentially acting like JOATs.

Either way, I think your analysis of the pitfalls of town having to play around JOATs who are trying to play like town makes a ton more sense than whether or not we no lynch having any meaningful impact on the game. Even if we don't try your strategy, I think it's still good to keep in mind what makes this game harder than the setup suggests it should be.

[Ali bin Turban]

Theres a serious flaw here. All historical information posted by Joat without target is worthless. Lets assume he posted that he tracked X on N2. What does it say to us when joat dies?

[Lyner]

I can see why they keep trying to choose lynch D1

 

There is 20% chance of getting scum if we can do this randomly (scums trying to manipulate selection will happen), with only 14% chance of hitting our JoAT

 

Out of the 11 games, did any of them hit scum on day one? and what's the results?

[Torres951]

Dang, I thought this was a mafia game, and not an AP stats class

[ghaws]

you know what will be really interesting if all three brewers MK and TW they all turn out to be scums trying to lead us into a specific direction

 

i do agree doing a no lynch will only harm them further but this is just a speculation just to make sure they are safe being on the side of the town

 

I am just saying it will be really interesting to happen if it did not basing it out of any sort of evidence ...

 

i hope i am not ruffling some bad feathers in here ;-;

[Ferastical]

Theres a serious flaw here. All historical information posted by Joat without target is worthless. Lets assume he posted that he tracked X on N2. What does it say to us when joat dies?

 

Not totally worthless... If a JOAT posts that he/she tracked X on N2, and gets knocked out immediately N3, you might want to suspect X, for example   The thing is, we can't reveal who the person visited, otherwise it would ruin the strategy. As I said, the problem is that Town doesn't use their JOATs properly - this strategy insures 3 things - 

 

1) The Town attempts to keep the JOATs safe

2) The actual JOATs can present the town with information every day, even if it is limited

3) If one of the JOATs finds the other (most possibly by tracking), he/she can confirm the other JOAT without letting Mafia know

 

And if a JOAT uncovers enough valuable information, there's always the possibility of RCing.

 

Another thing I want everyone to remember is that the game does not orbit around the JOATs. Even without them, the town has a possibility to win. The actual main flaw for this strategy is that analyzing the claims that we're made about vanilla townies, the Mafia might eventually cross off certain people who definitely can't be the JOATs. But the truth is, the JOATs won't stay alive for long anyway. In one sense or another, the JOATs are doomed from the beginning.

 

So don't expect JOATs to do all the work for us. The main burden is still on the townsfolk, to lynch those who seek to wreak havoc on our innocent lives.

 

And yeah, someone needs to set up a counter how many times the word "JOAT" has been said in this entire thread. lol

 

 

partly because some of the players won't be very active

 

That is a real concern, since this is just a casual forum game, not the actual Mafia Championships 

 

Still, I think it's worth a try. Might be fun, even.

 

 

Out of the 11 games, did any of them hit scum on day one? and what's the results?

 

 

Out of the 11 games, D1 lynches hit 9 vanilla townies, 1 JOAT and 1 Mafia Goon.

 

And in the game, where they hit that one mafia, the mafia still won. That's the thing, there never is actually a 20% chance of lynching a scum player, everybody forgets that we are able to talk. Mafia will talk, at least attempt to talk their way out of a lynch, that is their actual goal in-game.

[lilweirdward]

Out of the 11 games, did any of them hit scum on day one? and what's the results?

Out of the 11 games, D1 lynches hit 9 vanilla townies, 1 JOAT and 1 Mafia Goon.

And in the game, where they hit that one mafia, the mafia still won.

That's crazy, and also the problem with relying too heavily on statistics. Put another way, town were actually more likely to win by mislynching on D1 (1/5) than correctly lynching a scum (0/1). Obviously these don't have any correlation and I'm not suggesting we try to prove the theory lol, but playing a game completely based on stats can lead you down the wrong path if you're not thinking about the game critically.

The mass action claiming strategy makes me nervous because there are still too many people who hardly post or won't get the strategy right, but it sounds fun and it's probably the only way I'd be ok with no lynching today. Otherwise I completely agree with Ferastical's point that we can't play this game waiting for the JOATs to win for us; we need to give ourselves as many opportunities and as much information as possible to scum hunt, and the best way to do that is through normal gameplay.

[Ferastical]

The mass action claiming strategy makes me nervous because there are still too many people who hardly post or won't get the strategy right, but it sounds fun and it's probably the only way I'd be ok with no lynching today. Otherwise I completely agree with Ferastical's point that we can't play this game waiting for the JOATs to win for us; we need to give ourselves as many opportunities and as much information as possible to scum hunt, and the best way to do that is through normal gameplay.

 

Yes! This is the type of energy I'm looking for! Virtual high five to you!   

[brewersalliance]

The only reason I'm suggesting to vote no Lynch is because scum are winning at a 4:1 clip lol

If that strategy ferastical pulled is so strong and this game is town tilted like he said THEN WHY IS TOWN ALWAYS LOSING?

We should change up what they are doing. Try something different.

If we just keep doing exactly what's happening in the mafia series guess what? We are more likely than not going to get the exact same results. A loss

[Ali bin Turban]

Not totally worthless... If a JOAT posts that he/she tracked X on N2, and gets knocked out immediately N3, you might want to suspect X, for example 

 

 

That is not true. The likehood of JOAT tracking town and being killed on the next night is far greater than tracking mafia killer and then getting killed on the next night. 8 times out of 10 that X you want to suspect will be town.

That Cop Niner tactic worked because players not only posted who they visit, but also posted results (non cops were making them up). When vanila died you know his result was a fiction, but when cop died you know it was true. And it was somewhat working, because there are just two results: guilty / not guilty (so it's harder to tell whether someone is a cop or just making up things) and because every cop's result was valuable (not finding a scum was valuable too). 

 

We don't have that easy. First of all JOAT posting his result as "nothing detected" has no value (either town or scum that did nothing that night). Secondly JOAT posting result of kill detection is mostly dead because he most probably will be a target at night.

[brewersalliance]

Plus let's be real. Our players are
A)mostly inactive
fairly erratic with their actions
C) lacking expierence as a whole (we have lots of noobs)

So this whole mass claim results thing could work in theory but I don't trust it for our community. We will have some players post 1 time In a day

[lilweirdward]

His strategy is exactly what someone on their board suggested players do to correct the results they were seeing. The whole idea is that everyone was doing the same thing by trying too hard to play around the JOATs and it ended up making them easier to spot and kill before they could help secure the win for town. This is the way they were recommending to mix it up; not by no lynching lol.

Scum are winning at a 4:1 clip because it's easy to rely on the JOATs until you lose them, and by then the mafia have gained a foothold and can tilt the odds. We need to start scum hunting now, even with no real information, and let the actual information that eventually does come help complement the patterns we're already seeing.

[brewersalliance]

Not totally worthless... If a JOAT posts that he/she tracked X on N2, and gets knocked out immediately N3, you might want to suspect X, for example

That is not true. The likehood of JOAT tracking town and being killed on the next night is far greater than tracking mafia killer and then getting killed on the next night. 8 times out of 10 that X you want to suspect will be town.
That Cop Niner tactic worked because players not only posted who they visit, but also posted results (non cops were making them up). When vanila died you know his result was a fiction, but when cop died you know it was true. And it was somewhat working, because there are just two results: guilty / not guilty (so it's harder to tell whether someone is a cop or just making up things) and because every cop's result was valuable (not finding a scum was valuable too).

We don't have that easy. First of all JOAT posting his result as "nothing detected" has no value (either town or scum that did nothing that night). Secondly JOAT posting result of kill detection is mostly dead because he most probably will be a target at night.

This makes a lot of sense

You can easily say x is guilty/not guilty

But the JOATs have multiple abilities.

People are gonna just confuse the shit out of everyone

So and so visited so and so. I protected blah blah

The fabrications will be WAYYYY too in depth. It won't really get us anywhere