[KH-21] JOAT^2 Mafia
This game mimics Mafia Championship Season 7 as found at
https://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/forums/69-Mafia-Championship-Season-7
The setup:
3x Mafia Goon
2x Town Jack Of All Trades (9x Doctor, 9x Motion Detector, 9x Tracker)
10x Vanilla Townie

The Jacks Of All Trades must use all three actions before repeating an action, i.e. they are rotating. This does not mean they must use the actions in the same order every time.

Players:
Lilweirdward, Vanilla Townie, killed Night 1
Torres951, Vanilla Townie, killed Night 2
Tony Maurice Vanilla Townie, lynched Day 3
Wolfpacks Vanilla Townie, lynched Day 4

ghaws, Vanilla Townie, killed Night 4

Lord MK, Mafia Goon, lynched Day 5

Ali bin Turban, Town Jack Of All Trades, killed Night 5
Velocity, Mafia Goon, lynched Day 6

Ferastical, Town Jack Of All Trades, killed Night 6

Rafay Vanilla Townie, lynched Day 7

The Warrior, Vanilla Townie, killed Night 7

Finster Baby, Mafia Goon, lynched Day 8

brewersalliance, Vanilla Townie
Lyner, Vanilla Townie
Robert2424, Vanilla Townie




Rules:
• During the Day phase, each player may speak and vote in-thread.
• If a player receives the majority of the available votes during the Day, they are lynched.
• At deadline, a player with half-majority will be lynched; tied votes will result in a player being lynched at random from among the tied players
• You may vote No Lynch.
• After the Day, the game goes to Night.
• The game thread is closed during the Night.
• All Active Roles may submit actions via PM at Night.
• The Mafia can, as a faction, kill one player at Night.
• Mafia factional kills are assigned; they display as an action to the Tracker and the Motion Detector actions.
• The mafia faction kill is mandatory.
• Mafia may communicate at any time.
• After the Night, the game goes to Day.
• All dead players (lynched or killed) can no longer participate in the game.
• Basic rules for maintaining the integrity of the game thread are in effect (i.e. players may not quote their Role PMs, nor may they discuss the game outside the game thread unless otherwise permitted, etc.)
• The game is won when only one faction remains in the game, or nothing can prevent the same.
• Mass role-claiming is allowed.

Game Days will last half as many real-life days as there are players alive.
Game Nights will last 48 hours.

Sample Role PM:

Hello, xxxxx
You are a Vanilla Townie
You win when all threats to the town are eliminated.

Oh cool. I'm alive.

 

VOTE FINSTER

 

Haven't seen you in forever playing mafia. I feel I should give the IRON Mafia welcome.

The guy has been playing in a lot of recent games.

You are the one who vanished, lol

Please provide links to all examples that back up the stats.

I dunno where everyone else got them, but if you scroll through the JOAT^2 tournaments on the actual mafiascum forums you probably could find their numbers

 

Please provide links to all examples that back up the stats.

I dunno where everyone else got them, but if you scroll through the JOAT^2 tournaments on the actual mafiascum forums you probably could find their numbers

 

To be honest I wasn’t even gonna read, just seeing if all the statisticians would back them up with links lol.

i guess i have to take the word and their numbers seem to be about right so i would continue with the no lynch movement which is going in here

 

I am sure i will not be able to speak with experience in these mafia games as i am new in here but what i can say for a certainty is how much i like to read into people and seeing brewers take a no lynch shows to me that it is in fact important and i do not see any advantage to the scum with a no lynch it seems logical to go for a no lynch 

 

Vote : No lynch               

                

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

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

And 8 of those 11 times scum won. And town only won two times. So we can try exactly what they did 11 times that lead to overwhelming scum victories or we can try to change the strategy.

 

I think 11 games is enough evidence to suggest it is a failed strategy.

Unless you think our town players are talented enough to overcome scum even tho they couldn't do it in the ship

Damn..everyone is a mathematician at this point

 

Sir 11 data points are not stastistically significant

 

Also we are not that expert

 

But I also advocate for no lynch

Vote brewers

 

we have different minds here and we need to use different strategies. You need to stop bamboozling us with statistics. You are scum and lying. You are evil. You should be lynched.

And 8 of those 11 times scum won. And town only won two times. So we can try exactly what they did 11 times that lead to overwhelming scum victories or we can try to change the strategy.

 

I think 11 games is enough evidence to suggest it is a failed strategy. Unless you think our town players are talented enough to overcome scum even tho they couldn't do it in the ship

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

Did you consider, that possibly in all of those plays they didnt switch from lynch, not because they were bad players, but because they knew no lynch would lead to even worse outcome?

 

Tell me what should we do tomorrow and how todays no lynch will help us with that?

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".

 

 

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.

 

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.

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.

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?

Thats a good info Ferastical, worth thinking about.

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

@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.

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?

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?

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

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 ;-;

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.

 

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.

 

 

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!   

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