<Mini 435> Julius Caesar Mafia, Player Abandoned

[Patrick]

Hey guys.

Vote: Miztef

[Patrick]

Out of random voting stage early. Nice.

I agree with Sarcastro that there is nothing scummy about Miztef's mistake. He feels pretty genuine to me at this point actually. I also don't have a problem with Sarcastro confirming his vote on Miztef for obviously jokey reasons, and it seems weird that two people wanted to make something out of it. Personally I could even see a strategic reason why someone would confirm their vote on Miztef at that stage, though it seems Sarc was just being random.

Guardian has been pretty wishy washy in his reasoning for attacking Miztef. Even now I don't think he's really answered anything, he just repeats that he thinks Sarcastro is bringing up points that support his case, when they are arguing against him. Happy to

Unvote, vote: Guardian

seems slightly better than a random vote.

Guardian - you've said that you think bringing up rolenames is an anti town action and that Miztef wouldn't have done so if he was a protown powerole. Explain what reason you think scum would be more likely to bring it up. My feeling is in a theme game, scum may be more insecure about their role names, and that a newbie playing as scum in a theme game wouldn't be especially likely to bring up the topic in his very first post.

[Patrick]

Guardian, my vote on you had nothing to do with your vote for me.

[Patrick]

The alledged post restriction doesn't do much for me with regards to alignment, he could have it as scum or town, or be faking it I guess.

Phoebus - please clarify what your reasons were for jumping on the biggest bandwagon at that point.

[Patrick]

So how many people think we should be voting someone because he has an annoying post restriction, out of interest? That is, other than Phoebus.

[Patrick]

Guardian, I'm not voting you for anything to do with your post restriction. I'm a little suspicious of Phoebus because he seems to have no good reason for voting Guardian. He just claims to be annoyed with the post restriction.

[Patrick]

I'm unsure whether to switch my vote to Phoebus right now. I don't know how likely he'd be as scum to draw this much attention to himself by pushing through such a blatantly crap agenda as lynching someone for having a post restriction. It worries me.

[Patrick]

Phoebus - The idea is to lynch scum, not annoying people. That's not a matter of opinion, it's just you voting a guy for bad reasons. It also happened to be a decent sized wagon at the time.

[Patrick]

I would also like to add that we do have vanilla townies in this game, since we have a sample of the townie PM written by the mod. I have this feeling it wasn't there before... anyone else remember whether it was or not? If it wasn't, I'd say Lawrencealot is probably legit.

[Patrick]

Hmm. Miztef's list was a bit off, but I get no particular scumvibe from him. And if the mod only changed the front post very recently, I agree that Lawrence is likely a townie just because of that fact. It would be a pretty massive gambit for him to claim no character name if he didn't know what the townie PM looked like, or indeed whether vanilla townies existed at all.

The ryan/Sarcastro debate doesn't do too much for me. I disagree with ryan's stance where he seems to think it's alright to hold back just because two players are too busy or lurking or whatever, but he just seems stubborn more than scummy at this stage. I still like my vote, though Phoebus seems to still not be making sense, especially stuff like this

*All* actions of a pro town player are useful.

I can think of loads of things that a protown player could do that aren't useful, some that are detrimental.

After preview: If pushed, I'd lean towards it not being a fake. I don't see what particular benefit scum would seen in faking a post restriction like that; it's not as if everyone is saying, "Wow, he has an annoying restriction, he must be town!" Plus is it just annoying to keep something like that up all game, and makes it much harder to get your opinion accross. I think he could have the restriction as scum or town, but is not likely faking.

[Patrick]

I don't think you've really done anything worse over the last few pages, I just haven't wanted to move my vote yet though I've come close. Phoebus's frustration feels kind of genuine although as I noted before he isn't making much sense still. I don't see any point in voting one of the guys who haven't posted, since I don't have any read on them, and I don't think their absences are anything scummy. It's not as though you're about to be lynched or anything.

[Patrick]

Guardian - Unless he comes right out and says he's scum I am not planning on lynching him today. I will ask him though if he could to make two post. In both posts I would like him to list all of the players in the game, and place pointless text beside them i.e. "Nightfall likes flowers". The thing is, I would like the names to be in a diferent order on the 2nd list.

Maybe it's because it's in the small hours of the morning here. But I'm not getting this at all.

I too would like to hear more opinions from Eteocles and VanDamien.

[Patrick]

Van Damien seemed to set up two kind of false dilemnas there. I say kind of because he only said fairly likely and not has to be. I don't see it as engraved that one of Guardian or Phoebus has to be scum, just that they are generally two of the higher suspects. And the ryan/sarcastro thing, again I don't see it as that likely that one of them has to be scum. If one was out of the two I'd guess ryan. but he still seems more stubborn than scummy to me at the moment. I might be able to judge him better a little later when an ongoing game is over.

[Patrick]

Guardian, what do you find protown about Eteocles?

[Patrick]

Trolling is not lurking as far as I know. Trolling is being fairly abrasive/aggressive to get raw reactions out of people.

[Patrick]

True that's trolling normally but in mafia it doesn't really mean posting personally offensive comments, but looking for reactions by pushing hard, often for little reason.

[Patrick]

I think I will reread this one tonight, but I've been getting some odd vibes from Van Damien.

[Patrick]

I've really been neglecting this game. I have just done a reread of the thread and a few player's posts in isolation.

Firstly,

unvote

because I think Guardian has been looking more protown lately. I don't think he was making much sense earlier on in the game, although now I look back at it I think I interpretted him as more aggressive towards Miztef than he actually was (since now we know his votes don't mean much and he has to do it).

Ryan strikes me as a bit of an easy target here. Which is fine if he's scum, but I'm not convinced he is. He is a new player, and struck me as too stubbornly defending the fact that he left his random vote on me until the two inactives arrived in the game, but stubborness like that seems more protown than scummy if anything. As scum, I'd say he would have more likely backed down earlier from the debate with a much more experienced player rather than drag it out. The OMGUS later on Miztef doesn't look well thought out though... in his 32nd post, Miztef didn't really throw any great suspicion on ryan, he just listed a few people who looked protown for various reasons, and said that any of the others could conceivably be scum. Ryan flipped out on this one. I have mixed feelings from Ryan overall.

I get protown vibes from Miztef. I noticed he seems to jump around alot with his votes and suspicions, but I'm quickly thinking this is just his style (limited meta on him but I trust it). I don't necessarily agree with the list type posts he made, as noted already his 20th post seemed based largely around who was most visibly getting into debates (and who had already claimed vanilla or non vanilla). I think he has good intentions though.

Having reread, I dislike Phoebus more than before. He has posted alot but there's also alot of rambling to defend his initial vote on Guardian. I don't really see him talking much about other players. He has been clear on his stance on Guardian, but that's about it. I haven't seen any evidence that he's looking for scum.

People who are probably town: Lawrencelot, Miztef. (Sarcastro and Ilumina nearly made that list).

I would like to see more from Eteolces and VanDamien. Eteocles made a few half hearted jabs at Sarcastro early on, possibly did a bit of research, made a few procedural type posts. Not especially scummy but I'd like to see a few more opinions. And VanDamien still feels slightly off to me. I didn't like the ryan vote, nor do I really like the two pairings given with the suggestion that one out of each is probably scum. I don't think there's really enough evidence to justify it at this stage.

Patrick:
I really don’t like how you seemed to be arguing against Phoebus while leaving your vote on Guardian. I could easily see you as Phoebus’s partner. Something I need to look more into on my next readthrough.

It is possible to find multiple people scummy, or disagree with several people over certain things. I have one vote only. Having reread though, Guardian seems to be contributing more helpful content than Phoebus despite the apparent post restriction.
Also, a question for you Emptyger, do you believe Lawrencelot made a gambit in claiming very early on that he has no rolename? I mention that because you said he struck you as too eager to establish himself as vanilla.

Vote: Phoebus

FoS: VanDamien

[Patrick]

Well, the fact that it is possible for the post restriction to be a fake doesn't really make him more suspicious. Whenever someone has a post restriction you could argue that. But in fact with this particularly post restriction, I think it's unlikely to be made up completely. *bites*

[Patrick]

The possibility that it could be made up is not an argument in itself though. Do you think it's likely that someone would make up such a crippling post restriction?

[Patrick]

Hmm. Who's replacing you?

[Patrick]

My point was that Phoebus and Guardian were opposing one another. I couldn’t figure out why you were voting one, yet attacking the other. If you thought that Guardian was guilty, why were you attacking Phoebus for saying so? If you thought Phoebus was guilty, why were you agreeing with him in voting Guardian? If you thought that they both were guilty, then for what reason?

I can be suspicious of two players, without actually thinking they're scum together (it doesn't seem too likely that they are scum together to me). I was suspicious of Guardian, for some of the early things he said and did. However I usually like to point out craplogic or votes made on bad reasoning, even if it's on the person I suspect, since obviously I could be wrong or I could be right and that player is being bussed. Do you think it's only really possible to find only one of them scummy? Did it bother you that Sarcastro also found both of them scummy?

[Patrick]

Can you get round your post restriction that easily? If so then you really don't have much of a post restriction at all.

[Patrick]

I disagree with the Lawrencelot hate that seems to be coming from some people. As for Eteocles, I don't like him much, although Simenon's point about FoSes seemed weird (loads of people use foses and there is no universal dislike for them that I know if). I definitely want some quality input from Eteocles though.

Simenon, explain why Miztef is "almost definitely town" given that he hardly appeared in your notes and that the main thing you noted was a reaction you thought was scummy.

I'm suprised that post restriction wasn't real. Weird guy <3

[Patrick]

Apologies for low activity, which will continue for at least a week due to my exam period/coursework deadlines. I won't need replacing, this is just a heads up.

[Patrick]

I posted in this thread and several others that I had a heavy period of exams and coursework over the past week or so. Connection issues are only a small part of it. Over this period, I've mainly been making token contributions all round the site. Not completely, but mainly. In this game, there's no way I can quickly made a good post without reading a fair amount. I've got a big exam tomorrow, but after that, I'm a bit freer, so I'll catchup tomorrow.

[Patrick]

Ok. One significant thing that happened since I was last here for any length of time was Simenon claiming his restriction was a fake. I know most have given their opinions on it already. I don't find it scummy, it doesn't really affect my opinion of him. One or two people have claimed that scum might be more likely to fake a restriction to try to look protown, which I don't buy. As I think I've said before somewhere in the thread, it's not as if people usually jump up and say that post restricted players must be town. Not interested in applying lynch all liars to this situation.

I still don't think ryan is particularly scummy, and like Simenon I could easily see some scum on the ryan wagon. That said, I can't really back up that opinion with much concrete evidence, since ryan is hardly helping himself, and has been ad homy, OMGUSy, the works. My gut feeling is he is not noobscum though. I'm wary of Sarcastro who's been all over him for most of the game now. I don't know if dogged focus is something he does as town; I've certainly seen him do it as scum against an easy target (CPE, Old maid mafia ).

Eteocles is kind of mildly murky, until his own post 20, which feels extremely off. I've got my eye on him.

I don't know what to do with Phoebs. <3 I like some of the recent stuff he's been saying, though half of his long post seemed to be scraping for reasons to stay on Simenon. I'm not too interested in lynching a guy who lied about a PR just to make a point of go with a principal. Not unless I start thinking he's scum, and Simenon looks pretty town to me right now. I like Phoebus's thoughts on some other players though, like ryan.

Van Damien still looks scummy to me, I could see him as lurking scum just riding the easy looking ryan wagon. I may make my mind up to vote him by the end of this post.

Other players... I just can't see Lawrencelot as scum at all. Even without the busniess with the vanilla claim, his posts seem genuine to me. Illumina seems pretty thoughtful, but probably a fairly good player. Townish. Miztef does seem to follow others a bit, and seems very keen on summarising everyone's position in the form of lists, though I'm inclined to say he always plays like that. I'm still guessing protown. I don't have much of a read at all on Emp or Nightfall yet.

Not sure who to vote for. Trying to decide how likely scum would be to claim nonvanilla in the way VanDamien did early. It could have been he did it just to try to incriminate Lawrencelot some more. I don't like the rest of his play either. Sarc and Eteocles are also options. I'll go with more pressure on Eteocles at this point, because he's been generally unhelpful and I don't like many of his stances.

Unvote, Vote: Eteocles.

[Patrick]

Hard to describe exactly, though it has something to do with reading newbie 356 where ryan was town and he feels similar here.

[Patrick]

Change it to my gut feeling is he isn't scum then if you want.

[Patrick]

I think ryan has been too hotheaded in this game and I dislike how he asked to be replaced. Unsporting as you said. I buy his frustration as legit for now, even if not really justified.

I think it is a big mistake to suspect Phoebus more than Simenon. Not because Phoebus isn’t suspicious. But rereading Guardian’s attacks on Phoebus with the knowledge that Guardian est falsus: why would Guardian argue to lynch someone who accused him of lying, when he in fact was lying? This just doesn’t make strategic sense for a protown player. And that’s on top of the lying bit.

As I understand it Phoebus had a bad reason for attacking Guardian. Now, we know what Guardian did makes no strategic sense for a protown player anyway. Faking a post restriction like that can only be called a daft move if he's town. I've seen people do it though. Simenon isn't really playing like scum in my opinion.

[Patrick]

Well, from reading the whole thread, I would have cast my vote for Ryan in an instant, had he not asked to be replaced. I'll have to keep an eye on that. IGMEOY rolandofthewhite

Are you saying he looks more protown because he asked for a replacement? Welcome to the game btw.

[Patrick]

I disagree with a strict LAL policy. Plenty of cases of lying deserve simply to be lynched but I don't see how it's warranted here. I think it's too easy for people to say, "Yeah let's lynch him based on LAL" without really explaining why he's more likely to be scum. I don't have any beef with Simenon at this point. I could see Miztef just being lazy/bored town there but am starting to worry about Phoebus again.

Emptyger I see what you're saying. But assuming Guardian to be innocent, I could see him attacking Phoebus even if he knew he was faking the post restriction, because Phoebus was still being oppotunistic in using that as an easy reason to vote him. It makes Guardian's actions less logical and less easy to understand, but I could still see him doing it, sadly enough.

[Patrick]

I don't think you should be referring to ongoing games and using it as evidence. We don't know his alignment and motivations in that game. I agree that the case against him isn't strong though. But I'd avoid pointing to ongoing games.

[Patrick]

Guardian was obnoxious as well as lying.

Oh noes.

Punishing bad play is a bullshit reason to lynch someone. Period. Unless your win condition says that you win when all bad players are lynched.

[Patrick]

Patrick:
You have *no excuse* for lurking under a deadline. You have posted frequently onsite since it was announced.

I've been thinking alot about Lights Our Mafia 2, the huge game. I was in a difficult endgame situation. I've spent the last few hours wallowing in self pity having screwed up that endgame, and I don't feel particularly great. Not a good excuse, but that's what I've been doing and this game took a back seat.

I'm now seeing another difficult situation; my favoured lynch has claimed a powerole, and Miztef claims to have information suggesting Eteocles is innocent. I don't usually like vague/incomplete roleclaims, but I feel the odds are poor with an Eteocles lynch now, since for him to be scum, that requires Miztef to be scum with him or Miztef to be making a pretty serious mistake.

Miztef's behaviour is weird, he seems to be like a yoyo. I don't like the jumping around, but it's absolutely consistent with how I've always seen him (admittedly not that many games, but I trust it).

The problem is who to vote for; I don't like either the Simenon or BrazeGoesMoo plays. If pushed to go for one I'd pick Braze simply because him/his predecessor haven't been of any help, but Simenon could potentially be if he's town, and he's been decent so far.

Unvote

with intent to put it somewhere before the deadline. Lucky the deadline isn't tomorrow.

[Patrick]

I'm going to add a

Vote: BrazeGoesMoo

here. Not wild about a braze or simenon lynch, as I don't strongly suspect either, but being realistic it has to be one of them today.

[Patrick]

My guess would be if two people are equal then the one who reached that number of votes first will be lynched.

[Patrick]

The winner.

[Patrick]

But you’ve been posting significantly in every other mafia game: Mafia LX, Mini CDXXXIV, Mini CDXLIII, and Newbie CCCXIII- none of which were deadlined. But not here. I don’t buy this explanation.

Partly true, though many of the posts have been ones I could make fairly quickly and with little thought, especially the newbie game, which is now over. I didn't say I'd allocated my time in a particularly logical way, this game just hasn't particularly interested me over the past week or so, for whatever reason.

Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about Miztef? What are your feelings about him?

Miztef is a player who you can be forgiven for finding pretty uberscummy for the way he plays. As noted before, he's like a yoyo, seeming to generally follow wherever the momentum is taking suspicions, which is often the hallmark of scum. I've played with him once previously, in a mini. The game is ongoing so I can't say too much, but suffice it to say I actually think this is just the way he plays. There's also a finished newbie game where he was scum which may be worth looking at. I still think the premature claim early on is somewhat in his favour.

[Patrick]

Right. We have some stuff to work with now. Will look back over later, but I'm leery of the hardcore LAL crew as I was yesterday. I don't think we need to rush into any kind of mass name claim, certainly not without discussion. It forces scum to commit to stuff, but also gives them a map of the entire town ( who has a powerole and who is vanilla). That allows scum to pick their nightkills efficiently.

[Patrick]

I am willing to massrole claim, and am completely fine with emptyger's order, he was obviously doing his best to look out for the town, and so I trust his opinion.

The thing is, although we know he had no ulterior motives, that doesn't mean his judgement was necessarily right.

[Patrick]

True, but I gotta say, he played alot better then most of us. I feel comfortable claiming my role, unless someone has information that gives great reason to lynch someone.

Well possibly. It's true he was the choice of nightkill, though perhaps scum picked up some powerole hints/vibes from him. I wasn't particularly impressed with his choice of vote yesterday though.

Many claims to power roles (at least 3) have already been stated, so I think clearing these up will be valuble. Also, claiming sooner gives the scum less time to formulate a plan in the mass claim, and more time for the town to dicuss the roles.

Yes, taking away scum's flexibility is the main advantage of any kind of massclaim. What bothers me is potentially giving away the identity of every powerole in the town to the scum. I'm also pondering whether PBug would make a game that can be broken easily by massclaiming names (games that allow towns easy shortcuts are considered bad). I'm willing to give it some thought, and see what others have to say, it just feels a bit early to be outing a bunch of poweroles. Note that, with every protown powerole only having 50% chance of success, each one is individually weaker, so we might have quite a few more in the game, even assuming that the claimed ones so far happen to be legit.

[Patrick]

Heh. I think I know why he voted for Lawrence. I'll let him explain it though, I could be wrong.

[Patrick]

Vote: Phoebus

[Patrick]

Still not up for a massclaim, though I am starting to get more wary of Braze, because I think he lurks as scum, and posts more as town. It's a pretty simple tell but seems consistent so far. I don't like Phoebus either; he hid behind LAL yesterday, and today votes Lawrence for something minor.

I'm curious: does anyone have a clue what the event that will empower us is?

The obvious guess would be Caesar's assassination, which happened on the 15th of March in history. Today is day 2: the 14th of March. So it will be interesting to see what might happen tomorrow. Can't really think why that would empower poweroles though.

[Patrick]

Mod

can we get a prod on Abalidoth please? He has only made a couple of posts.

Still happy with my vote on Phoebus, cause he's really stretching with his attack on Lawrencelot there.

[Patrick]

Sarcastro, that is a pretty blatant misrepresentation of the attacks on Phoebus. At least, its a misrepresentation of why I'm suspicous of him. I don't think he's done anything useful in this game. He stayed on Guardian for reasons which even you'd have trouble denying were complete crap. He then hid behind the metagame policy of LAL, to push the lynch of the guy who replaced Guardian. I think I made it clear I thought Simenon was a bad lynch. He was trying to do stuff and I don't think LAL was applicable there at all.

His play today doesn't seem any better. The vote on Lawrence was really stretching it, and I still see no reason to think Lawrence is scum, same as most of the game. I know Phoebus is a gut player and have trouble buying into him really thinking Lawrence was worthy of a vote at that point. Period. I can live with the OMGUS on Miztef, I don't necessarily think OMGUS is a scumtell. I've played before with Phoebus where he was town, and I'm used to his manner. I'm not voting Phoebus purely for being Phoebus. I don't think he's acting like he was when he was town, where my thoughts tended to jive with his more, if not all the time.

I haven't seen a particularly convincing case against ryan/Braze this game. Seriously. What bothers me is the obvious lurking which as noted before I think he tends to do as scum, but that's only because I've met him before, and I'm prepared to bet that others did not have that meta on him. I certainly don't think he's a no brainer lynch and that we shouldn't be looking at anyone else.

I really don't feel like going in depth, because I don't feel that it's necessary, but I will if any more foolish/opportunistic people actually buy into this ridiculous wagon.

I don't think I've behaved either foolishly or oppotunistically. Again, I am not voting Phoebus because of his irritable manner, which I sometimes quite like anyway. And if you want to measure oppotunism, I think you've been at least as oppotunistic as me this game, if not more.

Miztef continues to bother me by seemingly having no opinion of his own, and changing his mind at the drop of a hat. He's been doing it all game. A few posts/days ago I could have sworn he was all for a Phoebus lynch, now suddenly he's decided he doesn't really have anything on Phoebus and wants to kill Braze, the lurker again. I don't know quite what to do with him.

Mod

I take it you mean July as the month for the deadline, not June. If Abalidoth is being replaced, I hope you'll extend that, because we have little to go off from that character. Also, can you prod Illumina? I'd be interested to hear from him.

[Patrick]

I am a bit curious about your claim that I have been "at least as opportunistic as [you] this game, if not more". I don't recall you being particularly opportunistic, but I'm wondering exactly what I've done that you'd consider opportunistic.

Just that you've been all over one newbie and then the newbie who replaced him. I realise you often focus on one person, but I was just pointing out that I think ryan/Braze is an easier target than Phoebus if anything. Phoebus can stick up for himself.

@Illumina, it's difficult to point to, just that I could see where he was going more and agreed with him more in this previous game (amazing race mafia). There is another game where he is dead, but it's still going so I can't point to it. In this game, I haven't really agreed with many of his suspicions. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. (I don't actually think my own case against Phoebus is very persuasive at all, but I'm still uncomfortable with him right now).

Incidentally, I can see what people are saying about a Sarcastro/Miztef connection, but I don't especially think it makes them more likely to be scum together than the average. I was more thinking of a Phoebus/Sarcastro connection last night. Sarcastro invoked the playstyle defence alot for Phoebus. The other interesting thing is that I know from scumchat that Sarcastro is strongly anti LAL, but he didn't seem to fight very hard against it as Phoebus and others used it to lynch Simenon. Why?

As a general note, I'm having trouble deciding where to draw the line with metagame defences in this game. We've got a few people saying Phoebus is just being himself, and Miztef's behaviour is something I'd normally be going after if I didn't know he plays that way all the time. His last one or two posts seem fairly placating of Sarcastro, which isn't something I usually see between scumbuddies.

Pattie...
Maybe *you're* scum if you can't see eye to with me Wink

<3
I just thought, when you kept asking me to bite you, were you breadcrumbing your vampire role in that vampire mini game?

[Patrick]

Good point. I think I forgot Eteocles is in the game.
I don't want to lynch until we've gotten some real stuff out of Abalidoth or his replacement.

After that, I'm fine with a Phoebus lynch and I think Braze would be an acceptable one. For anyone interested, the game I've been referring to where he lurked as scum was Newbie 309, where I was town. There is another game where he was town and contributed

significantly

more when under pressure, even getting pissed off, but unfortunately I can't refer to that one as it's still going. I will if it finishes though. I consider him a practical lynch because of his lurking.

I don't want to lynch Sarcastro today, as my opinion of him could go different ways depending on other stuff. If Phoebus is lynched as scum, I'd look heavily at Sarcastro, if Braze is lynched as scum Sarcastro is probably town. The friction between the two seems too genuine to be busing.

Illumina and Abalidoth are neutral to me, and difficult to read. Abalidoth mainly because we haven't heard anything from him or predecessors. And Illumina is inscrutable.

I just don't see Lawrence as scum.

[Patrick]

Ok, lol. I don't really get that post, but happy birthday Braze.

[Patrick]

Meh. The mod posted that there is a deadline set for today, but without giving an actual time of day, and without saying whether or not the deadline has been extended.

Unvote, vote: BrazeGoesMoo

so we can get a lynch hopefully. I'm ok with a Braze lynch, even though I still don't like Phoebus. Also,

Minor FoS: Abalidoth

. It's getting silly now.

[Patrick]

Simenon's lynch was horrible.