As well, in that setup the mafia do not get to know their scumbuddies before the draft. If they did they'd get a huge advantage because they can coordinate their number picks as well as their role picks.
Pick Your Power Mafia!
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Zona
40426 Posts
As well, in that setup the mafia do not get to know their scumbuddies before the draft. If they did they'd get a huge advantage because they can coordinate their number picks as well as their role picks. | ||
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On May 01 2010 14:09 Qatol wrote: I want the town to deny the mafia the most powerful roles or at the very least control their use. We can't stop the mafia from taking roles to increase their KP, but we can still control who gets what role and try to keep the mafia away from the 3 most important ones: Inventor, Compulsive Vigilante, and Role Blocker. Why are these roles especially important? The first 2 provide the mafia with kill power EVERY NIGHT. The third one allows the mafia flexibility to get around this plan. I think it's clear to everyone that Inventor and Compulsive Vigilante are by far the most powerful and influential roles in the game, so it's no surprise when you mention them, but I find it curious you lump the roleblocker with them. The roleblocker is a very weak role for town, and while it can be useful for mafia, there are far better picks for them. The only critical situation where I see mafia really wanting the roleblocker is to counter a vocal pro-town bulletproof player, as they will have no other way to get rid of them. It's true that the roleblocker can shut down a town power role, even perhaps the compulsive vig or inventor, but don't overestimate the importance of having such roles active for the town. A compulsive town vig will likely hit a lot of town anyways, and depending on which plan the town inventor follows (night-protect vests, investigate kits, etc), it's similar to a medic, or a cop. To be honest a town inventor might get more mileage out of more wild ideas than the ones presented so far. Still, this is just a relatively minor issue I have with your plan. On May 01 2010 15:19 Qatol wrote: There are several roles which are very important for someone to pick up this game. These roles are (in no particular order): The information roles - Tracker, Alignment Cop, Role Cop The hit-related roles - Medic, Meth Dealer, Veteran, Bulletproof Other - Copy Cat It is very important that we have at least the threat of these roles out there. With this in mind, I'm arguing that if you are near the bottom of the list, you should think very hard about selecting one of these roles. More importantly is the lack of focus on town grabbing powers that are important to town success. Particularly, investigative roles (tracker, alignment cop) that are very important for town. Now you mention that these are "very important" in your post but then ask that those near the bottom try to get them? Shouldn't players in the middle or even higher up aim to snag these? Your proposal seems focused on denying powers to mafia, which is a good thing. But that's only HALF the story, and missing the important other half: grabbing essential powers for the town. Without investigative roles on the town's side, the town's chances of winning are very low. When I was digging through statistics of played games when trying to ensure that the balance in Micro-MAFIA was as best as it could be - I found something very striking. In the absense of cops, even a 5:1 ratio of town to mafia was shown to be mafia favored. And it's striking how many games are lost for town when the cop dies early on. This showed me that investigative powers are core to a town's success. In fact, given the unknown sanity on the alignment cop - the tracker is likely the most powerful investigative role in the game. This is really why I don't like how you list roleblocker as the third thing for town to grab - when tracker and alignment cop are far more important for town members high up in the draft order to choose. It's all good to deny the mafia strong powers - I agree this is important. But if town gets denied the investigative powers, it will be very difficult to identify the right targets to lynch, unless you are banking on scum making mistakes. But I'll reiterate - in the absense of cops, even a 5:1 ratio of town to mafia was found to be mafia favored. Town needs the investigative powers. Getting investigative powers is as important, if not moreso, than denying mafia killing powers. So focusing on the latter misses at least half of the picture. Finally, I really dislike how you make a declaration as if your proposal is the only one to be followed, and make statements as extreme as "we will immediately lynch you" if someone steps out of line - especially when your plan is flawed. As well, if the top draft order people actually do listen to you, then they've basically claimed their role day 1, making it a lot easier for the mafia to take steps to mitigate their power. A major part of the mafia's game plan is to identify which players have the power roles which are a threat to them - your plan does that for them. I'd rather players make their picks in secret, and only claim when necessary. This keeps the mafia guessing as to who has what power, and who is really a threat to them. Summary and a proposed alternative: Qatol's plan focuses mainly on denying mafia powers (the good part) and misses the boat on grabbing essential town powers, such as investigative roles (the bad part). While he does mention the "importance" of various roles to the town, the way he asks players to pick does not put any real emphasis on getting such roles. Also, he wants certain players to pick certain roles - so if his plan is followed, it's clear to the mafia who owns what powers. Alternative, better proposal: Follow Qatol's emphasis on the compulsive vig and inventor roles, but not the roleblocker. Include the tracker and alignment cop in the "group of important roles". Do not follow Qatol's plan of person x in the draft order picks role y. Instead, if you are a town player high in the draft order, go for one of these, but don't make it obvious which one you have, so it's harder for mafia to arrange their plans on how to deal with these powers. While it's a risk that certain players in the draft order won't get their pick if not all the picks are laid out beforehand, that risk applies to mafia too. If town members DID in fact follow the plan and picked the role that they were told to, mafia can also pick roles without fear of being bumped into vanilla. | ||
Zona
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And it should be obvious that if citi.zen isn't lying, my first number had to be 12, otherwise there's no way he would have been bumped to the bottom below me. Actually since my pick was 12, 1, that confirms to me the authenticity of what citi.zen claims. But this stuff is useful for later, not now. It's also amusing when someone "feels strongly" that out of 4 or 5 players, at least one is scum. Given the distribution of the game, 4 mafia and 1 sk among 19 players, chances are picking any 4 or 5 players will include at least a scum, so it's not a useful or bold statement at all. | ||
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If you're town, there's 2 goals in picking roles, which you have to balance. 1) Denying a useful power from mafia. 2) Grabbing a useful power for town. Remember BOTH are important. So what's the strategy? I've already laid out what I think are the important roles for those high in the draft order to take - inventor, compulsive vig, tracker, alignment cop. What about everyone below that? One major goal is - PICK A ROLE WITH THE AIM OF GETTING THE ROLE. Why do I say this? Because if you pick a role that someone else has picked, you neither fulfill goal 1 nor 2. You don't deny a role from mafia, nor do you get something useful. If you do get a role, however, the mafia after you will fail if they tried to get it. And you've got an ability which hopefully can help the town, even if it's a minor one. I can't give any more specific advice than that - since my number picks prove that I'm awful at predicting what others in the game are about to pick - but it's something to keep in mind. The one "benefit" of picking a role and getting denied is that you know someone ahead of you in the list has the role. But this really isn't that meaningful, and in fact the information is more useful for mafia (they can narrow down who has what power to arrange their own powers and targets) than town (well it seems someone has the role, MAYBE mafia has it - but maybe town has it too!) | ||
Zona
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On May 02 2010 05:58 Korynne wrote: Darth: We're sacrificing 1 person out of 15 to make 1 person out of 4 useless for mafia. Sounds pretty good to me I don't know about you... We only lynch the Floridian if whoever was supposed to get copy cat didn't manage to get it due to mafia. (Town should not be retarded and take the role of copy cat if you're not designated to take it. If mafia steals it then they're automatically turned into a Floridian, which is very easily under the town's eyes because all we have to do is remember it requires n-1 to lynch) I already said, if copy cat isn't claimed by mafia, then we proceed as usual. We're probably not going to lynch someone the first day, so THIS DETERS THE MAFIA FROM SHOOTING IMPORTANT ROLES FIRST NIGHT because the copy cat will just get the same role and listen to town and continue the work. The copy cat is essentially having two "lives" for a role, to prevent mafia from offing the compulsive vigilant and inventor on the first nights, because then we're just going to have another one. Someone at the end of the list isn't likely to get a good role anyway, so picking Floridian is more useful than being townie, because it's the first power role kill that applies to the copy cat. Mafia would be retarded to pick Floridian so we don't have to be worried about mafia trying to do this. There's only 4 mafia, with vigilant and cops and whatever missing a townie isn't all that important if that means making one of the mafia useless in terms of roles. So can we please consolidate our plans? Right now we're ambiguous on how many people in the front should consolidate roles. Also people I've mentioned haven't confirmed whether they will take Floridian and Copy Cat. If they don't post in this thread to by like 1 hour before roles are due, will you take Copy Cat Qatol? Everyone: Can you post your input on both of these points in a post? This way we can finalize the plans for the front and the copy cat/floridian. I think this one is very important. Whoa whoa whoa...I don't think there's a single part of this plan I like. Now I don't mind being a sacrifice for the town if the plan was sound - but there's a lot going against it. Let's suppose that the plan is "activated" because the person who was supposed to take copy cat wasn't able to, and thus the "lynch floridian day 1" part comes into play. First of all, the only defense we have against mafia is our numbers - each living townie represents a bit more time we have remaining until the mafia dominates the town and wins - we shouldn't sacrifice townies so casually - ESPECIALLY BY POSSIBLY TURNING THE DAY ONE LYNCH, which is incredibly useful for information, INTO SOMETHING THAT GRANTS NO INFO AT ALL since mafia can just join with the town to lynch the Floridian. Second of all, there's no need to fix in place multiple rolepicks as well as a definite day one lynch just to defend against the threat of mafia taking copy cat. Rather than possibly fixating on a particular person for the lynch, simply say that the day one lynch will be chosen from the latter half of the draft order - there probably won't be any strong roles among them. And if you're worried about the possibility that vanilla will be lynched day 1, our protective powers should be focused on the upper echelons of the draft order, so mafia will have to risk missing out on their kill if they really want to score one of the powerful roles for the copy cat. Thirdly, the Floridian is the wrong choice to hand to the mafia even if this plan was a good idea. While it's not a great role in town hands since its power then depends on how good that player's judgement is, it's pretty useful for mafia. Being able to place a hammer vote anonymously is actually pretty useful, especially as the game progresses and the number of players involved diminishes. Summary: Even if copy cat ends up in mafia hands, the chances of the copy cat gaining a great power is low, and can be even made lower by taking appropriate precautions, without resorting to a plan that involves possibly giving up the information gained from the day one lynch, fixing in place a few rolepicks that might have picked something useful, AND sacrificing the eventual "Floridian". Plus even if the plan was a good idea (I don't think it is), the Floridian is the wrong role to sacrifice. | ||
Zona
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On May 02 2010 07:59 Korynne wrote: What about roleblocker? I think Qatol's argument for adding that to the list makes sense. I'll be checking back on this thread if you guys want to add a 4th role for me to take. I guess Qatol will take Copy Cat then. Claim a vet/bulletproof later or no? The copycat doesn't get a choice - the first dead power role is gained. | ||
Zona
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On May 02 2010 19:57 Radfield wrote: hmm, just remembered that CompVig can't shoot until night two, so that role will effectively stay hidden until that point. Qatol mentioned earlier that we should vote on who the Comp Vig kills. This seems like a great plan, and if anyone has any objections then bring them out. If the role landed in townie hands, it allows us to come to a decision as a group, and effectively double lynch each day. It also takes the risk away of a townie with poor judgment shooting up the town. If the role is in mafia hands, either they play along(which is great) or they don't. If they don't play along, we immediately know that CompVig = Mafia. Since we know the CompVig is high up on the draft list, we can quickly zero in on a mafia. So no matter who has the CompVig, we should be able to control it by voting in thread for who gets killed. Any town player would play along(given it would be extremely anti-town to not) and the mafia either go along or get quickly weeded out. So lets add a ##CompVig: Ace## to when we vote(starting on Day 2). Again if anyone has objections to this lets hear it. The big fuckup I can see is if the CompVig somehow slipped down the list into mafia hands, but I think this unlikely. This is a good idea, I think we should follow it. If the compulsive vig is town-aligned, he or she should trust the town's collective judgement over his/her own. Look at World at War and Red Army for striking examples of many town-aligned nukers or shooters killing fellow town members left and right by following their own "instincts". If the compulsive vig is mafia-aligned, he or she could follow the town's will to lessen suspicion (until the town votes on one of their own), but that would be fine as town is directing the kills until an obvious change occurs, which can be dealt with when it occurs (perhaps by lynching the overlooked target). If the mafia-aligned compulsive vig doesn't follow the town's will, we wouldn't have been able to do anything about it anyways, AND it's a clear sign we need to identify the vig and nullify them as soon as possible. The only kink in the plan is if a town-aligned compulsive vig still doesn't go along with town direction, which would screw everyone over. But given that both Red Army and World at War started with a lot of town members agreeing not to shoot recklessly and ended up with just that... | ||
Zona
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Right now my view is that the most important roles for town to protect (if they are indeed in town hands) are inventor, tracker, and to a lesser extent, alignment cop. Compulsive vig in the hands of a town member who follows our plan in theory is a town advantage, by having a pseudo-double lynch every day, but can still speed things more quickly to an endgame situation, especially if town's judgement is poor. Our doctors are not necessarily reliable and might even worry about being the weak variant, so it's best to give our investigators another layer of protection by letting them stay in obscurity and harder for mafia and the serial killer to identify. Every public claim from an honest town member removes a person from the list that mafia needs to consider when trying to pick off the investigators - so I am against any and all public claims. But Korynne's already given out some information that can't be taken back, we may or may not want to resolve this then suppress all further claims. Also - every keep Qatol's number breakdown post in mind when we get to the late game. | ||
Zona
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The first priority for you is to identify your own sanity - otherwise whatever results you get cannot be interpreted in a useful way. It may be best for you to target people you think might die quickly - whether by lynch or nightkill, so when they flip you likely will figure out your alignment immediately. If you ever get an innocent result, you will then know you're not paranoid and thus USEFUL! If you haven't gotten any innocent results yet at some point in the game, you need to investigate more to ensure you're not paranoid. An alternative method is to target two people on night 1 and 2 you think are on different teams, and see if you get different results, but I think this way is more chancy. Still, I'm listing it here so you can consider it. | ||
Zona
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##Vote johnnyspazz Only 4 posts since the game started. About half a day ago says "people are going to accuse me for being a lurker" and "was busy all day" - but since then hasn't done much to rectify the situation. The kicker is that one of his posts was a question asking falcynn to confirm if he was vanilla - very fishy in my eyes. His one contribution is suggesting that the town should direct the inventor's invention - not a huge bombshell of an idea. I made a change to the archiver to change the way it accesses TL to reduce the number of pages it needlessly pulls, but I broke it. I'm trying to get it up ASAP. | ||
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qatol, zona, hobbes, citi.zen 1 vote on amnesia: sidesprang 5 minutes to go... | ||
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I'll read/post about the game later. I'm tired from watching proleague. | ||
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First of all - what does the mafia not know about the game? The mafia doesn't know who has what roles, and the mafia doesn't know who the serial killer is. So the town shouldn't help mafia figure out who has what roles - I've been saying this all game. So I've been saying that town members shouldn't claim their roles. But you know what? If town members lie about their roles - that's good, too. This is the ONLY aspect in which I think it's good for town members to lie - every other type of lie by town members usually muddles the picture and is detrimental to the town, but lying about your role - the thing that mafia doesn't know and wants to know - that's useful for the town. You are trying to pin down which of the people at Qatol's position in the draft order and above is lying about their role - but identifying liars (about roles) does NOT identify mafia! I reiterate - if you catch someone lying about almost everything else in the game, that might be a sign of mafia - but lying about your role is one thing town members likely SHOULD DO! I wish that a lot of the "vanilla" claims that have come out really are lies! But I have a bad feeling they aren't, due to the way things have played out. In fact - your push for everyone to come clean with their role does NOT identify mafia (because liars about roles aren't necessarily mafia) but also make it clearer to the mafia who has what roles, if they can discern who is lying. I'm really unhappy with what's transpired. Especially now that one pro-town doctor has been killed, and the other doctor in unknown hands with unknown sanity, it's probably now a lot easier for the mafia and the serial killer to pick off the targets they choose. (The only time a mass roleclaim is useful for town, in my opinion, is when the town is on the verge of losing and has no concrete information - then that's the time you expect honest roleclaims from every town member and hope to catch mafia and the serial killer lying. But this is a desperation move by the town, not something you should be doing mid game!) | ||
Zona
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On May 05 2010 04:40 Qatol wrote: Zona, Opz isn't showing up in the archive. Probably a typo somewhere in your code. Fixed...his name has a capital Z...sigh. | ||
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Please take what I say as a suggestion, and don't automatically think that someone is scummy because they don't agree with your plan. Perhaps sometimes town members can genuinely fail to see how your plan will lead them to victory, and perhaps they think that the plan they suggest offers a better chance of success. | ||
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Appears innocent to cops. Cannot be killed at night. Has no team - so there will be no teamwork slipups that we can catch. Other than a unlucky hit by this person on the methman, town will have to identify this person and lynch (or dayvig or venge-kill) him or her to win. If this person is careful in the thread and we fail to identify him or her by his or her posts - which is the only role that can identify this person? The tracker. The tracker is the only role (other than an inventor's inventions) that can identify the serial killer. And now it seems like the town has basically told both mafia and the serial killer which half of the players they can ignore if they're looking to kill the tracker. Stop digging after roles, please! | ||
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