Civilization Mafia - Town Wins!

[Mr. Flay]

Bamboomancer: So you think only certain players will get unique units?

I'll start right off by saying I never played the real Civ 3, so I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage to understanding the mechanics here... but so far Puzzle's idea sounds fairly good. Tons of Civ & Civ II mean I kinda like early unit building...

Random Vote: Astronaut

for being from Alpha Centauri.

[Mr. Flay]

Swinkee: In Civ II I know that Barbarians could capture cities, and would only be able to make one unit. So it stands to reason that that may be how they advance up the tech tree/get units...

I'm okay with the No Lynch plan, but I'm not sure we need to run the day to and end just yet. There's a lot that can be learned from the day game without totally relying on a breaking strategy...

[Mr. Flay]

Errr, one TYPE of unit; so we may see Barbarian Samurai soon (or something). Can someone state what the Japanese UU does/did?

[Mr. Flay]

The object is to win. I'm sorry if some people don't find it so much fun - but if breaking the game is what it takes, then I'm all for it.

unvote, vote: No Lynch

.

FOS: All those who advocate 'town not winning'

by ignoring the best strategy.

Wow, nice way to try to railroad the town. We've come to no such decision that No Lynch is the way to "break" the game, we don't (or at least I don't!) have any idea what the overall setup is yet. We know there are Japanese, and Barbs, and one other civ, and that's probably it.

VisMajor & Puzzle: I wish I understood half of what you're saying. It seems to make some sense... by the way http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/strat3b.html seems to be helpful to those who haven't played before (if a little hard on the eyes). But I do agree that I don't see why both strats can't be employed while we figure out what's going on... and if it helps, I'm a Main Game civ.

[Mr. Flay]

I'm not sure how all-investigate can be a failure, assuming some sort of rational basis for the cycle of investigations. BUT, does anyone here have experience with Dethy-variant games (all cops, varying sanity/reliability)? I don't, but I figure that's what we'll be up against...otherwise we're buh-roken like whoa.

[Mr. Flay]

If we go alphabetical-investigates-alphabetical, it might be difficult to tell the difference between a scum whose investigation 'fails' and a player who actually doesn't get any information. And multiple investigations on a single target will make it obvious very quickly if we've got sanity issues to contend with.

But I'm with Puzzle, we've got waaaay too many people lurking quiet, probably as a result of the number crunch going on. And I *like* numbers...

[Mr. Flay]

1) Interference by the Mafia can take 2 forms, as far as I can see :
- kill someone who checks one of them : suspicion falls on who was investigated.
- kill someone who doesn't check one of them : higher risk of getting caught.
A lose / lose situation for them, imo.
And scums don't know anyway who built cops and not, so as long as we keep them in the blur, they may target people who didn't and that plays in our court.

You're forgetting:
- kill someone who is targeting someone suspicious : suspicion falls on the target. I have a feeling people did not tend toward building cops N1, so there's a good chance scum will slip through tonight anyway.

I wonder if a variant of 3 is to capitalize on the 'tendencies' of the civs? Militaristic build Vig units, Pacifistic build docs, Expansionist builds cops, etc...? Then we don't have to know who is who right away.

Whoever finds scum should obviously come forward tomorrow.

And I think we should change the order of who checks who every day.

Agreed on both.

[Mr. Flay]

I'm likewise concerned about how we suddenly got to "no lynch is useless", but I suspect it's a numbers issue we're not catching. Even if the barbarians do build roleblockers, wouldn't that mean they'd be giving up at least some ability to vigilante-kill us? I don't necessarily see it as an optimal strategy for them, and I'm curious why EmpTyger now believes it's broken beyond repair.

Thok and ET certainly don't seem to be on the same side, but I'm not sure where to go with that right now...

Unvote

my earlier random vote, however; it's not based on anything and I don't want any accidents.

[Mr. Flay]

Mr. Flay:

<snip>Thok and ET certainly don't seem to be on the same side, but I'm not sure where to go with that right now<snip>

This statement jumped out at me. If, as you are implying, you’re not yet sure of either of our alignments, then why do you think that about our relative alignment? That is, if you aren’t sure which of us might be innocent or guilty, why would you think one of us had to be, instead of, say, us both being innocent? (Not that *I* think this is true, but *I* can make this conclusion because *I* know my own alignment and *I* feel confident about Thok, neither of which is seem to be true for *you*.)

You don't feel that I know my own alignment? I'm not sure of you and Thok being scum or town, all I'm saying is that you don't appear to be on the same side. That means one of four things in my world:

1. Thok is scum, and EmpTyger is not;
   
2. EmpTyger is scum, and Thok is not;
   
3. neither EmpTyger or Thok are scum, but they aren't getting along;
   
4. Both EmpTyger and Thok are scum, but are either on opposite sides, or creating alibis.

In other words, I don't have anywhere to go with this, which is exactly what I said. I am making notes for myself for later, however. I have been trying to follow the discussion, and am still not convinced why No Lynch is suddenly untenable because the scum MIGHT be able to get roleblockers (do we think there's a single scum group of size 7, or that they can build enough roleblockers each night to stymie the town forever from here on out?) I don't understand your quick abandonment of your original idea.

Mr. Flay: Do you really think that all the barbarians can vig kill? Its rediculous what happenss if they can.

Do you really think all of our units will be 100% successful? Or that barbarian vigilantes will be 100% successful every night? What exactly is your point, here?

However,

Vote: dybeck

, my current candidate for scum. His non-content posts seem to go with the ebb and flow, not really adding anything new. If he's scum, then a good look at Puzzle is warranted (via random vote tell).

Did we ever decide how to proceed tonight? Every civ for themself?

[Mr. Flay]

There seems to be a whole lot of nothing building on swinkee. Lurker voting I'm all in favor of, but suddenly 7 of 10 needed? I smell barbarian hordes... which aren't "fun" in my world.

Unvote: dybeck, Vote: d_rouge.

FOS: VisMajor, rajrhcpfreak, Thok, inHim,

and to a lesser extent

Puzzle and HezLucky

. Obviously if swinkee turns up scum I've just painted myself red, but there's something fishy about all of this.

[Mr. Flay]

Flay:
I don’t think that FoS was necessary- clearly if swinkee is guilty, those players are going to be suspected, and being suspicious of swinkee’s lurking does not seem to be more suspicious than swinkee’s lurking in itself is. Was there something more to your selection of d_rouge?
And this doesn’t seem like the time to admit to being pro-stalling, as it were...

How am I pro-stalling? Because I'm not on the swinkee bandwagon? If I had been, it would have gone to 8/10, which is closer than I'm willing to get without a claim/investigation.

As for my FOSes, I've learned not to leave my suspicions unsaid, should I die suddenly. Of course, Day One suspicions/bandwagons are a little more random than others, but it was still worth noting. Also, I'm not necessarily suspicious of ALL parties on the bandwagon; d_rouge (and some others) had particularly spurious explanations of why they jumped on the wagon, and his comment about it being fun was the tipping point, for me.

There seems to be a whole lot of nothing building on swinkee. Lurker voting I'm all in favor of, but suddenly 7 of 10 needed? I smell barbarian hordes... which aren't "fun" in my world.

What? I dont think 3 before lynch is that small a margin. Even with 4 scums, there is chance that 1 or 2 are already on the bandwagon, so no real threat to swinkee yet. Tough I agree that we should wait for a claim.

And to top it off, he has a grand total of 2 posts. out of 150. Thats lurking extreme, yet when suspicion rose, he was there to post. And fell quiet since then again, so I dont see what he could do to not get lynched, actually, as claiming "cop" is silly, is it not?

I don't think anyone's asking for a roleclaim. Some people have said a nameclaim might be helpful, but your last point is just being silly.

As for how many before lynch, I don't know...going from 2/10 to 7/10 between times I check the site seems like a rush to lynch, to me. Especially with as many lurkers as we have, they could bounce a vote or two on without even being aware of it, scum or not.

And 2 posts are not enough for me to decide to lynch someone. Now, what he does the NEXT time he shows up, now that he's under serious pressure, could be an entirely different story. The rate of play in this game has been extremely sporadic (no, I don't have a graph to show you)

Also, before we hit lynch or deadline, we *must* decide if anything coordinated will be done tonight.

I'd prefer every civ for themselves, but the list provides us a more concrete way to shuffle the investigations tomorrow.

I agree that all-cop seems the winning/breaking strategy for now, even if barbs get units... docs can only prolong, not win it for us, and vigilantes/roleblockers will be more useful once we know who to hit.


If we don't go for Swinkee, MoS is a likely candidate for lynch in my world. MishMash games *do* indicate your presence on the board, and saying that they are not a sign of purposeful lurking is disingenuous, at best.

[Mr. Flay]

How is that not helpful, Puzzle? It's true; if you're lurking (as in watching the thread), you're like to pipe up when somebody calls you on it. If you're absent (not even on the site, for whatever reason), that's a null tell.

EmpTyger: Those I put a full FOS on are the ones I thought were fishing/bandwagoning; the ones I said "to a lesser extent" on were the ones I believed had honest, if possibly mistaken, justifications.

::edit while posting:: Puzzle's continued posts this morning aren't getting any better. By the way, can you explain this post from the first page, Puzz?

Open question : how long would it take for each of us to get your first unit ?
.
.
Correction to my question : who cannot build units yet ?

[Mr. Flay]

I don't think I understand, VisMaior:

If we assume 4 scum and 30% attack rate (mix of 1s and 2s), then I get a 6.3% chance of striking scum randomly for each player, and a ~60% success rate for somebody, somewhere, finding scum (cumulative total - I adjusted the end result down 1 for the fact that somebody probably dies tonight, and we lose their investigation).

If we all strike the next person down the line, however, we should end up with a 1-(70%^4) chance of striking scum, minus the chance for our single successful investigator dying...assuming one scum team, that's something like 51% if they hit one of the four investigating them (which will only work one night, more than likely - after that it'll get suspicious). If they're less predictable, the math gets a lot wonkier a lot faster... somewhere from a 69% chance to catch scum on down, subtracting out 1/I or 1/G. Where did you get exactly equivalent numbers from? All of this, of course, is value-neutral with respect to who built what N1...

By the way, the relative benefits of these methods depend on an unknown quantity, namely the I/G ratio. The more scum there are, the better chance of an Ordered set of investigations being successful, to the point where if there are 6 scum, it's better odds even if they DO kill one of the investigators. Of course, at that level, there'll probably be two kills from two scum groups, which makes things a little more even... I think.

It's Friday. Why am I thinking so hard?

[Mr. Flay]

Let:
I = total innocent
G = total guilty
T = total town (T = I + G)
P = probability of success
s = chance of success for 1 townsperson on a given night
S = chance of success for all townspeople on a given night

The chance s of success for 1 townsperson is given by s = P * G / T
Thus the chance of 1 townsperson failing is 1 - s
The chance that every townsperson fails is (1 - s)^I
Thus the chance S of at least one townsperson succeeding is given by S = 1 - (1 - s)^I

With the 16:4 setup, I = 16, G = 4, T = 20, and letting P = 40%:
s = 8%, S = ~74%

There. 40% success rate, because of all horsemen. My math is correct, I do not fuck up 2 times.

Not to say that you are f*cking up, but I don't think you're using the correct formula here. If we use ordered investigations, *and* we are defining "Success" as "investigation which results in finding a scum", then in ordered investigations I occurrances are completely irrelevant! Only G number of investigations *can* result in finding scum, so the formula collapses to 1-(1-s^G). That is why I'm showing different numbers for the two, which I should have spelled out explicitly above. Unfortunately, it also makes the correction factor for one of those G investigators dying MUCH larger, which is why I'm not sure it ends up making it as big an advantage as I originally thought.

Errr, another correction is if scum investigates scum in ordered sets, but I think that makes it 1-(1-s)^(G-(G/T))? And that gets essentially negated when the order shuffles the following night... anyway, deadline's lifted, but we still need to sort out which way we're going to do this.

Support: Random Action

. I think we're better off not giving our scum concrete targets to hit (those investigating them, or those they wish us to THINK are investigating them), and it leads to a possibility of discovering any dethy variants faster.

cut the crap. just because someone happens to check the thread right after a post is directed at them and they have time to post a response doesn't in any way shape or form mean they are scum. I'm freaking tired of people getting lynched on day 1 because they have a life. It's one thing to prod someone until they start posting. It's another thing to lynch them BECAUSE THEY RESPONDED TO THE PRODS. What incentive is there for a lurker to post at all when they have the chance anymore if they are going to be lynched whether or not they post? This is ridiculous.

No, what is ridiculous is you claiming that somehow lurking on Day One is not an acceptable reason to be bandwagoned. Don't want to die Day One? Don't lurk. Then you don't have worry about whether you'll look scummy by responding to a prod.

If you've "got a life", then make sure to check in once every three days or so. Or don't sign up for games (including Mish Mash)... cut the crap yourself, MoS.

Unvote: d_rouge, Vote: Mastermind of Sin

[Mr. Flay]

I don't know quite what to make of the last few posts...Thok's vote seems to be oscillating wildly trying to find someone to get a reaction out of, which is not atypical Day One behavior, but neither is it especially useful (from my POV).

Content with my vote for now.

[Mr. Flay]

I'm also having trouble with EmpTyger's presumption of guilt; his numbers-work seems to indicate that he's on the side of the town, but the way he's attacking Thok (yes, I'll say attack) is fairly over-the-top.

[Mr. Flay]

Wow, Vesuvan posts more than

I

do...

Anyway, many of the points can be rebutted, but the fact that Puzzle seems to know so little about the starting setup for townies (not taking civ advancement into account, misrepresenting what roleblockers do, ignoring Unique Units) has me convinced this is a good D1 choice.

Unvote (but still FOS): Mastermind of Sin, Vote: Puzzle

[Mr. Flay]

Um, Flay, what?

unvote; vote: Mr. Flay

After Puzzle's rebuttals, I don't understand your argument.

Sorry, you don't understand why someone not knowing some of the details of

Townie mechanics

is scummy?? Sure, it's metagaming, but in this setup, it's pretty valid IMO.

And Puzzle: I'm not buying it. You've been fishing TOO much.

[Mr. Flay]

I would comment more if there had been more new information, but right now I haven't seen anything to make me thing Puzzle is not our best D1 lynch. MUCH more information will be available tomorrow.

[Mr. Flay]

I'm partly confused (a lot of which I think will be alleviated tomorrow), but mainly I'm concerned about all the lurkers. However, I still believe Puzzle to be a good chance for a lynch today. We seem to be running out of steam, leaving just EMpTyger and Vesuvan ping-ponging back and forth....

[Mr. Flay]

So now what, we all confirm we're not the Babylonians? it would at least point out the serious lurkers....

I can see the Unique Unit argument from Puzzle's POV, but he's still been really squirrely. It's not like the Bowman couldn't be targeted separately from your cop, and it would cover a scum kill nicely if you succeeded.

[Mr. Flay]

Puzzle: Since you've already built a 'cop' (0/0/2), you could choose to create a UU next, and still use the horseman for investigations. Since your bowman is 2/1/1, it functions best as a vigilante. Coincidentally, that doesn't stop you from killing at night, regardless of which side you are on. Eventually, it WILL make sense to start vig-killing, once we get enough cops going, and sort out how they are to be used.

Does that make more sense? Also,

FOS: Thok

for trying to discourage more investigations on him... with the failure rate, and the possibility of sanity issues, how can we really go wrong with multiple investigations on anybody?

[Mr. Flay]

Unvote: Puzzle

claim seems to be uncontested by the majority, and night investigations can take care of it anyway. Strange game, in which claims have almost no downside...

I still think lynching is a good idea today, but will need to reread a bit to get a better sense of how the landscape has changed.

[Mr. Flay]

You know, Mr Flay, for someone who pays attention to details from the mod, the following sounds very ignorant to me :

Unvote: Puzzle

claim seems to be uncontested by the majority, and night investigations can take care of it anyway. Strange game, in which claims have almost no downside...
I still think lynching is a good idea today, but will need to reread a bit to get a better sense of how the landscape has changed.

You paid very good notice to what the mod made public and used it as a (fair) basis to attack me but you here seem to ignore details about my claim that clear me :
- you do not understand why people drop my wagon.
- you still call for inspection on me.
Your apparent non-knowledge of what makes my claim believable earns you a

big FOS Mr Flay

. Vote stays on Thok though.

I admit I went back and looked at your claim, but I don't see what you're getting at. So a couple of people have cleared you based on the wording of your claim - does that mean everyone's PMs are worded the same? I doubt it... wouldn't that make the game even more breakable than a Mass Claim?

And, I suspect *everyone*, until they're proven to me. If I still want to investigate you, I think that's my right, don't you think? I'm not saying I'm going to, but you seem to consider your claim a done deal. We haven't heard from many players yet (which is a totally different problem). I count these who haven't responded to it:

• Bamboomancer
  
• dybeck
  
• d_rouge
  
• Iammars (functionally, anyway)
  
• Mastermind of Sin
  
• rolandofthewhite
  
• Swinkee

From that list, the highest on my scum radar are MoS and Bamboomancer, but I've already been around the block with MoS.

Vote: Bamboomancer

; he's already set up the idea that he'll be no good at investigation.

[Mr. Flay]

You know, Mr Flay, for someone who pays attention to details from the mod, the following sounds very ignorant to me :

Unvote: Puzzle

claim seems to be uncontested by the majority, and night investigations can take care of it anyway. Strange game, in which claims have almost no downside...
I still think lynching is a good idea today, but will need to reread a bit to get a better sense of how the landscape has changed.

You paid very good notice to what the mod made public and used it as a (fair) basis to attack me but you here seem to ignore details about my claim that clear me :
- you do not understand why people drop my wagon.
- you still call for inspection on me.
Your apparent non-knowledge of what makes my claim believable earns you a

big FOS Mr Flay

. Vote stays on Thok though.

I admit I went back and looked at your claim, but I don't see what you're getting at. So a couple of people have cleared you based on the wording of your claim - does that mean everyone's PMs are worded the same? I doubt it... wouldn't that make the game even more breakable than a Mass Claim?

You doubt it ? Shouldn't you know it's not the case if yours is different ?

Good lord, how dense are you?

I don't know what your PM says

, or anyone else's, so how can I know whether or not they're worded differently? Unless you're claiming mason with another civ, or scum outright! Do you want to compare PMs? You quote first...

I think you're fishing for anything you can use, and I don't like it, personally. You've been trying to run this day ever since we started, despite the fact that your

vaunted

numbers have been wrong on numerous occasions. I wasn't trying to "direct" investigations on anyone; I've already said I think we're better off not revealing who our targets are for tonight. Any other inanities you'd like to utter, Puzzle?

Almost all info that would be gotten out of a mass claim would be gotten from me claiming. At the very least, I want to be the first person to go in a mass claim.

Err, what? You have the names of all 20 civs in your PM?

Either I've completely lost track of what's being "claimed" in this Day, or there's something fishy going on. Being as it's Page 16 or whatever, I'd not be surprised either way (short days benefit scum, but overlong days can obscure the truth, too).

[Mr. Flay]

Well, claim time, I guess, although I would have liked more inputs and positioning from Lurker & Co.

I am Hammurabi - Babylonians.
I started with units everyone have available + the Bowman (Unique Unit, as I understand, 2/1/1) already available. However, I built a horseman 0/0/2 for the reasons I already explained.

There is a bit of flavour at the beginning of my PM, which I can detail if necessary.

Is it ?

It looks like I'm going to be lynched because what Puzle & Vesuvan are saying is too obvious, in my eyes. Puzzle's claim doesn't contain the exact wording as my PM, so therefore I didn't assume they all would be worded the same. Maybe the fact that I don't have my UU yet is the difference here, Vesuvan?

Meanwhile, I don't understand why d8P doesn't want us to lynch someone if they're a barbarian. And one too many WHAT?

Unvote: Bamboomancer, Vote: EmpTyger

.

[Mr. Flay]

Mr. Flay:
No idea what the basis for the vote in [367] was. Not sure how I can reply to it.

Sorry, I thought it was obvious. I find the "Barbarians may not be our only bad guys" comment disingenuous; even if there

are

rogue civilizations, we

know

there are barbarians at the gates; they should be our first priority. If the game has more than one killing group (something that is not established yet), then they're likely to cross-kill at some point and we'll have our answer.

d8P: Thank you for clarifying, I didn't realize you were already voting for him, and your wording confused me.

[Mr. Flay]

I agree with the all-reveal; we lose more by the possibility of a bad lynch/nightkill, than we could possibly save by protecting "reactions" today. An idea how many successful investigations we're getting per day will help plan future actions, too...

[Mr. Flay]

I suppose if we used one of the orders proposed yesterday (alphabetical or order of signup), that would allow scum not room to maneuver/scheme for position of reveals. Otherwise, Armlx should name the next person to reveal, going by the other method.

Doesn't matter much to me...

[Mr. Flay]

errr, not allow scum room...me speek inglish reel gud.

[Mr. Flay]

Aha, that makes me next. I don't have any investigation results today.

[Mr. Flay]

Waiting for d_rouge (and glaring at the out-of-order-ness)....

[Mr. Flay]

Well, at least we know Sinister Overlord wasn't lying to us about the abilities we all have... I'm fine with revealing information incrementally, but I still think all (useful) information should be revealed before we get to the end of the day. This is an excellent way to avoid any lurkers, however, so I say we proceed through the list.

[Mr. Flay]

I don't think Astronaut's suggestion to mass-reveal investigations, guilty or innocent, is all that problematic. Anytime someone does come up scum (through lynch or vig-kill), obviously an early step will be rechecking all of their supposed investigations.

However, the part where he's certain it's 16 civs and 4 barbarians? Really scummy.

Vote: Astronaut

, pending the completion of the investigative results.

[Mr. Flay]

And with me going out of town; that's convenient.

Hmmm, let's see here.... nothing for it but to die gallantly.

Unvote, Vote: Mr. Flay

*falls on his sword*

[Mr. Flay]

Wow. I can't believe this is finally over.

I admit it didn't even enter our (European Barbs)' brain that there might be two barbarian teams. Do you know why were were only seeing one kill a night at first, Thesp?

Surely we didn't double-kill twice...argh. I am glad our sacrificial play kept d_rouge alive for so long, did anyone even really bother investigating him? I think VisMaior and I agreed after he got lynched that if d_rouge could last one more day against such odds, we'd consider it a moral victory....

What an...

odd

setup.

[Mr. Flay]

Eh...it didn't really mater, rouge. With the setup as it was, there was almost no chance for a scum to win a 1 scum-1 townie endgame. I was actually hoping for a scum-scum-townie endgame, where we could have at least gotten a draw.

In case pro-town players aren't sure what he's talking about here, scum actually got NO ability to build/advance on their own. I think maybe we could capture advances (and maybe units?) from civs we NKed, but I didn't live long enough to see that happen.

We also got blindsided by having to guess what the mechanics were for townies, but you probably guessed that already. Here's what my PM said:

You are

Godigisel, of the Vandals

.

With the rise of the civilized nations, you have formed a pact with Attilla, of the Huns (VisMaior) and Theodoric, of the Goths (d_rouge), to work together to destroy them. Unlike the other nations, you have no cities and thus cannot produce units or advance your technology normally. Instead, you can talk as you will with your allies at night, and then one of you can target a player. There will be a massive barbarian uprising next to their territory, and masses of units will assault their cities until they are destroyed.

You win when all the civilized nations have been destroyed. Please confirm via PM.