Mini 980 - Trader Mafia (Game Over)

[Jack]

Just so everyone knows, there is a breaking strategy that guarantees a town win.I havnt read the rest of the thread, but please no one vote or bid until I can get home and detail the win.

If this is true I will appoint myself honorary mafioso and aid them any way I can.

[Zang]

@ farside: We could have the Vig be the town killer, and have the Cop investigate the Vig the first night. That would clear up his alignment. The only way he could get around that is if he had invest-immune as well. Which we could complexify by jacking the price up.

unless scum take the cop.

Just so everyone knows, there is a breaking strategy that guarantees a town win.I havnt read the rest of the thread, but please no one vote or bid until I can get home and detail the win.

your a little late. There are already bids on every power and there have been a few votes. And even if you had a great plan, scum would probably still bid on the kill.

[flashstorm]

Sorry for wanting to play up to my win condition, Jack.

So, basically the fundamental basis of the strategy is that a concentrated town will have a much stronger buying power than a segregated town. A side-effect of the strategy is that the scum, in order to appear as town and avoid being lynched, need to weaken themselves and strengthen the town. The strategy, in order to work, will need a confirmed or highly trusted townie who is careful and not prone to error. Also, it helps if they're good at math or using a calculator.

Details:

1) The town elects an official. It is essential this official be confirmed or highly trusted. The mechanics of the game make it difficult and expensive to confirm a townie but it is possible. I will put how to confirm a townie at the end of the post.

2) Every person sends that official by wire enough money to bring him up to $999 after the 5% tax. Anyone who does not is scum and is lynched. The amount that is sent by each individual is calculated as so: the official checks his current balance and subtracts it from $999. He than divides this amount into almost-equal parts, one for each other player in the game, but where each part is a unique number at least a dollar different from any other number. He multiplies each of these amounts by 1.05 to account for the 5% tax and posts each new amount in a list in thread.The rest of the town makes a post to "claim" an amount to send, and wires that amount to the official. The official can tell who sent what amount by the value of the wire, since wires are anonymous. Whoever doesnt send an amount by a deadline is lynched.

3)The official buys the nightkill. He also buys the pickpocket, and anything else that protects from a lynch. The rest of the abilities are confienent, but unessential. If the official needs more money, he repeats a modified step 2 to get the money from the town.

4) If someone has done something worthy of a lynch, he is lynched. If the town is smart, this will always be scum. Otherwise, we no lynch. The official is never to use his night kill, but is always to use his investigative roles and his pickpocket to lure out scum (a smart official can find scum just by the amount recieved by a pickpocket.

5) On a new day, the town wires the official their wage, divided in a fashion similar to 2), except that someone who claimed a lowvalue last time must claim a high value this time. The nightkill, if any, is purchased, and any helpful investigative roles. The cycle continues until all four scum are found. Even with the amount of money that the official will be sending, he should be gathering enough of a wage (with the pickpocket and with town sending him money) that he should never be outclassed by any scum pair. Remember that scum will be losing just less than half their wage more often than not, and is losing most of their bank balance at the start of the game while the official starts with $999, effectively more.

This strategy would have worked leagues upon leagues better before people bid on shit. Alas, I didnt expect the thread to open pre-game. Town can still do it as long as they win the night kill this round, and preferably the pickpocket. If scum gets pickpocket, it throws the strategy out the window. So it really makes the most sense to elect a townie and send them money asap so they can claim those two.

How to confirm a townie

:

Effectively, the way to do this is to choose a player to confirm. Randomly choose two other townsmembers. One of them bids enough to win the cop, and uses it that night on the confirmed player. The next day, he puts it up for bid, the second townie wins it, and uses it to confirm the townsmember. This is not foolproof, because scum can lie, and if the official we choose is scum we still don't end up with a confimed townie. But it's better than likely to work. This is also inconvienent because it wastes alot of money, and takes two nights to work, two nights where other townies need to win the nk. It's really better to just use common sense and elect a townie: it's usually easier to get a strong town read on someone than a scum read anyway. Plus, randomly selecting the official still gives town a 66% chance of winning using this strategy if executed flawlessly, which is much better than random.

Personally, I think we should go for it.

[flashstorm]

*convienent, coficient

[flashstorm]

ebwop: convienent, not coficient

[Jack]

I'll put him over $999. Now lets play mafia.

[SaintKerrigan]

##vote: SaintKerrigan
Where are you during this discussion and thought process?

Not around/doing other things.

@ Flashstorm: As Jack implied, the strategy fails because scum can put said official over $999 and remove that player from the game. If your strategy actually broke the game for town, I would refuse to comply with it because it makes the game not fun or fair (and I'm saying this as town).

[zoraster]

double post.

[zoraster]

Day 1 Vote Count

Nobody Special ( 2 ) Andrius, Steam-Powered Shovel,
farside22 ( 0 )
Zang ( 0 )
Jack ( 4 ) VasudeVa, Jack, SaintKerrigan, Fishythefish,
SaintKerrigan ( 1 ) farside22,
Zajnet ( 0 )
NavyCherub ( 0 )
VasudeVa ( 0 )
Andrius ( 0 )
Fishythefish ( 1 ) NavyCherub,
Steam-Powered Shovel ( 0 )
flashstorm ( 0 )
Not Voting ( 4 ) Nobody Special, Zang, Zajnet, flashstorm,
Total Votes ( 12 )
Deadline: June 14th at 23:00 EDT
With 12 able to vote, 7 needed to lynch.

Marketplace

To place a bid, PM Zoraster with the highest price you would be willing to pay.

1 Nightkill x 2

- This ability will give its owner two night shots. (max: one per night)
MB: 10 CB: 147 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

2 Investigation Immunity

- This ability will make its owner appear to be innocent to Cops.
MB: 20 CB: 76 Deadline: 10:00:00 6/2/2010

3 Body Armor x 1

- This ability will allow its owner to take one night shot without dying.
MB: 20 CB: 147 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

4 Pick Pocket

- This ability will allow its owner to steal 25% of the cash his or her target possesses each night.
MB: 50 CB: 251 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

5 Cop x 2

- This two-shot ability will allow its owner to investigate a player (max: one per night). That player will come up as either innocent or guilty.
MB: 50 CB: 151 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

6 Double Voter

- This will cause a player's vote to count for two votes. (Not separable).
MB: 20 CB: 41 Deadline: 9:30:00 6/2/2010

7 Doctor x 2

- This two-shot ability will allow a player to select another player to protect against a night kill the following night. (max: one per night)
MB: 10 CB: 147 Deadline: 9:30:00 6/2/2010

Current bids may not be up-to-date. Current Bids and Deadlines will only be kept up-to-date by edit until the next vote count is posted.

[NavyCherub]

I share Jack and SaintKerrigan's sentiment; if scum put him over $1000 and sends him out of the game, we're left at essentially square one again except everyone's money who participated so far is in shambles. If anything, we would end up worse off than we started.

[Andrius]

Woah, $251 on the Pickpocket? I guess its possible to get that much by yourself, but still. Wow.
I think the most interesting part is watching the bids roll in, lol.

Does it make a difference if we die indebted or die with bling in our pockets? Does dying with a debt have consequences?

Because if not, then I don't see why we all wouldn't just take out massive loans right now. Its not like we have an incentive to pay them off.

Oh wait, the NK got sold? Shoot, deadlines are coming in.

How do we know if a deadline is in the PM or the AM?

Re: The Uber Plan

It would be a waste of a Cop investigation, and a Doctor protection, if we clear that townie and then have the scum send him over $999.
Given that the scum can have over $400 right now, (with a massive loan), two scum could easily send one player over the $1000 limit.

[Fishythefish]

Hmmm. The scum-will-put-him-over $1000 could be fixed by making $999 smaller (500 would probably do) and him taking out a big loan to buy things.

There are other problems which it's probably unwise to go into right now, but I don't think they are fundamental.

However, it totally relies on a confirmed townie, and we don't have any of those. Also, with the number of abilities already would probably break it - it's a pretty delicate strategy. It's not going to work here.

The person with the NK needs to claim if they are town. You can't be killed, as you have the only kill, and the town needs to be able to direct you or it

will

assume you are scum.

@Andrius: note that you can't wire money if you're in debt.

Also note that deadline clocks are 24 hour.

[Steam-Powered Shovel]

Why does Nobody Special have less than 7 votes? Suffer not the witch to live!

P.S. that's one sucky plan.

[zoraster]

Day 1 Vote Count

Nobody Special ( 2 ) Andrius, Steam-Powered Shovel,
farside22 ( 0 )
Zang ( 0 )
Jack ( 5 ) VasudeVa, Jack, SaintKerrigan, Fishythefish,
SaintKerrigan ( 1 ) farside22,
Zajnet ( 0 )
NavyCherub ( 0 )
VasudeVa ( 0 )
Andrius ( 0 )
Fishythefish ( 1 ) NavyCherub,
Steam-Powered Shovel ( 0 )
flashstorm ( 0 )
Not Voting ( 4 ) Nobody Special, Zang, Zajnet, flashstorm,
Total Votes ( 12 )
Deadline: June 14th at 23:00 EDT
With 13 total votes, 7 needed to lynch.

Marketplace

To place a bid, PM Zoraster with the highest price you would be willing to pay.

1 Nightkill x 2

- This ability will give its owner two night shots. (max: one per night)
MB: 10 CB: 147 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

2 Investigation Immunity

- This ability will make its owner appear to be innocent to Cops.
MB: 20 CB: 101 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

3 Body Armor x 1

- This ability will allow its owner to take one night shot without dying.
MB: 20 CB: 147 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

4 Pick Pocket

- This ability will allow its owner to steal 25% of the cash his or her target possesses each night.
MB: 50 CB: 251 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

5 Cop x 2

- This two-shot ability will allow its owner to investigate a player (max: one per night). That player will come up as either innocent or guilty.
MB: 50 CB: 151 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

6 Double Voter

- This will cause a player's vote to count for two votes. (Not separable).
MB: 20 CB: 41 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

7 Doctor x 2

- This two-shot ability will allow a player to select another player to protect against a night kill the following night. (max: one per night)
MB: 10 CB: 147 Deadline: SOLD 6/2/2010

Current bids may not be up-to-date. Current Bids and Deadlines will only be kept up-to-date by edit until the next vote count is posted.

All abilities have been sold. The marketplace will not appear again in vote counts until there is something to bid on again.

[SaintKerrigan]

##Unvote: Jack
##Vote: Flashstorm

because the double voter is on Jack (putting him at L-2) and I definitely don't want to lynch Jack right now. Since I can't simply unvote, my vote's going on someone who doesn't have any. (I picked Flash because of his plan. When I find someone that's actually scummy I'll move my vote to him.)

Meanwhile,

V/LA from playing games from today until early Saturday morning. I'll still be around for modding, but that's it.

[Andrius]

4. If you cannot pay your debt off after the third day, you will enter bankruptcy until your debt is fully paid off.

This too. I'm going to consider paying off some of my debt now. lol


Ok, it looks as though all the powers have been sold. (Why Zor had them all set for EST when he lives is CA is beyond me.)

@ SK (Saint Kerrigan, not Serial Killer ): I'm glad you're paying attention to the doublevoter. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. ^^;

[Nobody Special]

I am here. Life got crazybusy yesterday; I will be caught up by this evening.

[Zajnet]

Wow I'm glad SK caught that doublevote. I wouldn't have. We should figure out soon enough who has it, and I doubt that they're scum because the scum probably pooled their money to get the NK and the pickpocket or maybe the cop. While we can't confirm the doublevoter as town for sure, I would bet my money that they are town.

[farside22]

God the timing on this sucks. My computer was down for half the day.
I'm going on the assumption scum has the NK with the amount of money spent and the pick pocket.
SK's vote on fishy makes no sense. In my view flashstorm had the worst idea out there. SK didn't even say he had an idea.

[farside22]

Sorry I see now he did say flashstorm.
Still people who didn't discuss the set up and were "not around" to talk about it are on my top scum list

[Fishythefish]

IMO, poor breaking strategies are way more likely to come from overexcited town than scum. From Flash's post I get a vibe of a feeling I get sometimes when I feel I've had an insightful setup idea, and I think it's genuine.

The double voter should claim, since we'll know who they are soon enough anyway. I'm betting they are scum - it's an ability scum would buy much more than town, particularly if they didn't realise (as was probably common) that it would show up in votecounts.

##vote: Zang

Hi, everybody. I have three pages to read (I didn't think there would be this much pre-game talk.

Also, why is everyone voting? You do realize that you can't unvote.

So, half the players have just put down irreversible votes in Zang's mind? He seems remarkably chilled about it. Then asks Jack if he's claiming scum, which he clearly isn't - I just can't think why you'd ask that question. Not saying anything of interest during the auction is also a point against him (and probably a few other people) - scum would be way more secretive about what they were thinking then.

[Andrius]

I didn't want to bid on Doublevoter because I've never played with it and didn't know how it worked.

I've only seen it like
Vote: XXX
Vote: XXX

Which would completely give it away.
And here its still semi-revealled, so.

[Jack]

##vote:Fishy

Although I agree with the first point.

[Fishythefish]

Any reasons?

[Zang]

So, half the players have just put down irreversible votes in Zang's mind? He seems remarkably chilled about it. Then asks Jack if he's claiming scum, which he clearly isn't - I just can't think why you'd ask that question. Not saying anything of interest during the auction is also a point against him (and probably a few other people) - scum would be way more secretive about what they were thinking then.

i don't see why misunderstanding a rule makes me scum.

How would I know if he was claiming scum? He voted for himself (which I don't know why a townie would want to do) and didn't give an explanation. And I did post during bidding.

Vote: Fishythefish