/Invitational 11: Pick your Poison 5 (Game Over)

[Patrick]

Votecount

Janitor (5) -- SpyreX, Kmd4390, DrippingGoofball, Ellibereth, Papa Zito
Rolecop (1) -- ooba
Roleblocker (9) -- Hoopla, Ellibereth, Kmd4390, Papa Zito, ooba, VasudeVa, SpyreX, Rhinox, Amished
Assassin (4) -- VasudeVa, Rhinox, Hoopla, Amished

20 alive, 11 votes to choose.


Deadlines

Number one (2) -- Rhinox, VasudeVa
Number two (9) -- Hoopla, SpyreX, Papa Zito, ooba, Elmo, ekiM, zoraster, Amished, My Milked Eek

[Herodotus]

do you have any objection to discussing it on the basis of "this is something under consideration only as a whole-town strategy, and would only be implemented with a consensus"?

I don't have any objection to that, though I do feel like it would be harder to do. I also don't have a strong opinion.
At the moment, the roleblocker seems very popular. If we do go with the "hiders must claim day 0" idea, it's obviously important to not have a roleblocker. This is why I warned about the L-2.

[ekiM]

@ekiM, the potential benefits of two hiders to the town and danger to the mafia be largely negated by town picking a role blocker for the scum. Troll thinks that essentially everyone who has chimed in has said that roleblocker be the first choice them would make (Troll would have to go back and check that but it be at least close to what has happened.) Troll thinks that if scum considered hider a weak role (and we be talking about a role that can get itself killed by hiding with mafia, hiding with obv town that mafia kills or hiding with whoever any potential vigilante's choose to kill; despite the potential to clear townies it be a dicey role on it's own) them would have been tempted to double it up if them could count on the synergy being countered (which them almost certainly could.)

Two confirmed and unkilllable town players is game breaking. I don't believe scum would allow even the possibility of that happening, given a choice. Even if they assumed that they would have a roleblocker then it might get killed off before the hiders were outed, leaving no way to deal, and the game handed to town. I think mafia players are generally adverse to game-ending risks.

The chances of having two hiders in the game be slim but them exist. If them be there then we be fools not to use them.

It's not true that we should take the chance just because it exists. If the chances of two hiders was 50% then a claim would be good. If it was 0.02% then it would be bad. The true chance lies somewhere in between, but I can't evaluate it quantitatively. I think it's rather low, though, so I'm opposed to this plan.

If there no were a chance to have multiple hiders Troll probably wouldn't have suggested a hider claim.

I don't believe that we have multiple hiders.

[VasudeVa]

The main argument for RB + Assassin is this:
We are ultimately giving them 2 PRs that do roughly the same thing. Having an Assassin and an RB effectively neutralizes the RB because scum will definitely choose to kill rather than RB a PR if they ever find one(And they won't because the fact that we KNOW there is an assassin discourages PR claims.).

The end result is: They have 1.5PRs, we have 4 PRs.

If that isn't a convincing argument, I don't know what is.

[ooba]

Looking at Hero's massclaim idea - I am surprised he chose Rolecop\Roleblocker as the combo to go with it .. Why would we want to out the power roles and then give chance for scum to make them powerless (or) fakeclaim and block the real PRs

Massclaim + Rolecop\Janitor:
- We start the game D1 with 4 confirmed town roles.
- Rolecop role is useless. Plus Janitor role loses its disadvantage of possibly letting scum with a fakeclaim live on with town never knowing the count for sure. (One flip will still be Janitor-d so that'll have to be taken into account)
- Scum will have to waste 4 nights to kill the PRs (Maybe even waste a kill if a Hider is present)
- Plus whatever information we get from our PRs till death is 100% accurate without a roleblocker - Hence all the informational components of Hider, Weak Doctor, JK and tracker is fully reliable for three days.

Obvious the above is a no-scum fakeclaim scenario. I'll need to work out how it changes when 1\2 scum fakeclaim day zero. Obviously this is dependent on what scum gave us so I'll be working it out with whatever setup possibilities people have mentioned in the thread so far.

P.S: I PM'd the mod regarding how role allotment to scum will happen - scum will get to choose allotment during the first 24 hours of day 1. "The reason to claim on day 0 is that the scum won't know which of them is the RB, so they can't decide which of them will fakeclaim in advance." so this argument is not true.

[Papa Zito]

Hello. I was prodded. I'm just waiting for this business to be over so we can start hunting the scumz.

[Kmd4390]

Prodded. Will post something relevant whenever I get a decent night of sleep. Or probably before that but still.

[mith]

I'm starting to come around on the massclaim idea a little... ooba makes a good point that Rolecop/Janitor is a better combination for massclaim. I think it's better than a Hider-only claim, at least.

My main concern is that I can think of too many power role combinations that don't give us much benefit beyond the "Named Townie" effect (either we have confirmed innocents, or scum have to fake claim, and either provides an EV boost). While there are some combinations that would be really good (the 2 Hider or 2 Weak Doctor possibilities that Troll brought to our attention, among others), it's the same problem as the Hider-claim strategy - I don't know that the likelihood of those "really good" combinations is high enough to warrant outing power roles and shortening the time they have to use their abilities.

VasudeVa: That argument is more an argument for the weakness of the Roleblocker than any synergy issue - the scum always have a kill, whether we give them the Assassin or not, and if there's a power role out they are usually going to prefer to kill it rather than block it.

The question, then, is whether they are

able

to kill it, and that's where my earlier synergy comment about the Rolecop/Roleblocker breaks down a bit... but even moreso with your argument. There are reasons the scum might want to block a power role found secretly with the Rolecop, but with an outed power role it's much more likely that the kill attempt from an Assassin might be prevented, and the Roleblocker also helps the scum there by making sure the power role can't do anything until eliminated.

[Slicey]

Hello, sorry I'm late. Just read through the first 3 pages, and got bored. I'm not nearly intelligent enough to figure out what's good and what's not but Hoopla's/Rhinox's Assassin/Roleblocker plan seems pretty good. Janitor is absolutely out of the question, as someone said, it basically leads to 2 Day Ones. Daycop is deadly placed with either Assassin or Roleblocker, and Janitor is no good, so Assassin/Roleblocker seems best.

Vote: Roleblocker
Vote: Assassin

Vote: Deadline 1

[Herodotus]

@Ooba: I think it's nearly certain that one of the scum would fakeclaim. If the scum have a janitor, I expect that they would use it to cover up either one of the PR's, or the scum who fakeclaimed. Then we would remain in doubt about whether the remaining claimers were telling the truth, unless they could confirm each other.
And I'm glad you asked about how the scum PR's were distributed. I assumed it was random.

Does anyone besides me think it might be best to wait until after 24 hours into day 1 before we start giving serious reads?

@Mith: The named townie effect is what I was going for. I was thinking of the discussion in the numbers thread about an open game in which a fixed number of townies was in each of two groups. But it's not worth it unless someone can find some other benefit or modification to the strategy. For instance, if we were certain there was at least one weak doctor, all PR's except any who are weak doctors could claim, and any WD's investigate/protect the people who claimed. But that probably won't work either.

@Slicey: I like assassin/RB as well, but we're still considering whether we have a better strategy available. I'd appreciate it if you'd temporarily unvote RB, as it's at L-1.

[Ellibereth]

Does anyone besides me think it might be best to wait until after 24 hours into day 1 before we start giving serious reads?

nowhy

[Herodotus]

Does anyone besides me think it might be best to wait until after 24 hours into day 1 before we start giving serious reads?

nowhy

so that the scum have to choose which of them will be PR's without knowing which of them will be under fire

[Ellibereth]

oh. Didn't know they get to choose who gets what, my bad.
Soooo we should all lurk through the first 24 hours of D1 then rite? Or talk about stuff that doesn't matter.

[Herodotus]

@Ellib: Are you 100% certain that the best overall strategy that the town will find during day 0 involves choosing the roleblocker? If not, unvote so that we can continue exploring the options.

Soooo we should all lurk through the first 24 hours of D1 then rite? Or talk about stuff that doesn't matter.

Or ask questions.

---

Considering how quickly the scum chose which roles to assign, I'm not so sure that they fully explored every possible town strategy.

[Ellibereth]

unvote Roleblock

I haven't really followed all the stuff but what combos without roleblocker are being considered? I didn't have any without.

[mith]

ATTN: Slicey, and anyone else bored by the strategy talk.

Please read posts 92 and 99. To make clear my current stance (which I didn't word correctly in post 73): I am very much against the plan proposed by Hoopla/Rhinox of "Let's give them an Assassin, and then discourage power role claims/lynch them so the Assassin can't kill anyone". I am not so much against the idea of giving scum Assassin/Roleblocker - since it may be the weakest combination - but if it's getting votes because you think the "lynch all power role claims" plan is a good idea, I think you're being led astray.

Also, what Herodotus said: we're not done discussing possible alternative plans, don't hammer Roleblocker. Basically, I think we're all in agreement that we're giving them the Roleblocker

if

we don't come up with some big clever potentially game-breaking plan, but if we do come up with such a plan the Roleblocker would screw it up.

---

Herodotus: Yeah, the Named Townie/Census thing isn't good enough on its own (thus my initial stance of "massclaim is a bad idea"). I think the fake claim issue is less an issue with actual power roles in play, though... the scum are left with an interesting dilemma:

a. No fake claims, and give us four confirmed innocent power roles. They'll kill these off as fast as their able, but we'd get

some

use out of them, plus the Named Townie effect of reducing our suspect list during the day and increasing our chances of a successful lynch.
b. One fake claim. Here, a lot depends on the lineup of power roles, but there is potential for catching the scum out via a Jailkeeper or Tracker (and maybe some other ways). The important thing here is that with only one fake claim, we probably wouldn't lynch a claimed power role until we were sure who the fake was, the Janitor spent that ability, the Janitor died, or etc. etc. So, I don't think the "power role count" downside of giving them a Janitor is in play as much with a massclaim.
c. Two fake claims. Now the scum can make it very difficult as far as figuring out who the fakes are, but they've put two eggs in the proverbial basket to do it.
d. Four fake claims. Obviously a winning strategy for the scum. Do this one.

Which of those options is actually best depends somewhat on the power role distribution. Anyway I won't be advocating massclaim unless I can convince myself that our potential gains outweigh the downside even in the "scum are smart about it" case (and even if I do that I'm not sure how well I would be able to persuade anyone else without giving more info to the scum than I want about how to play it, bleh).

[mith]

Ugh. "their" = "they're". I hate when I catch things like that right after clicking submit; at least if I don't spot it, I don't

feel

like an idiot, just look like one...

[Herodotus]

Basically, I think we're all in agreement that we're giving them the Roleblocker

if

we don't come up with some big clever potentially game-breaking plan, but if we do come up with such a plan the Roleblocker would screw it up.

I agree with the above. I'd be voting/hammering RB except that I think it's worthwhile to first consider different ideas.

d. Four fake claims. Obviously a winning strategy for the scum. Do this one.

Vote: mith for mentioning the best scum strategy.

[Slicey]

Sorry,

Unvote: Roleblocker

[VasudeVa]

I am against massclaim = Daycop/Janitor. Of course the daycop would be useless, All the PRs would have claimed already.

Still,

unvote: RB

because it is at L-X and whatever. I don't see how we would ever end up NOT choosing the RB though, but acci-hammers are my pet-peeve so w/e.

[mith]

The idea isn't "let's massclaim so we can stick the scum with a completely useless Daycop, hurrah!"; that's as silly as "let's lynch power roles so we can stick the scum with a completely useless Assassin!".

The idea is "massclaim could potentially be game-breaking, or at least give us a definite advantage over playing this out in a more normal fashion;

if we decide that's the case

, Daycop/Janitor is the best combination of abilities to give the scum, because one is useless and we can work around the other to some degree and the other two options are worse".

[Hoopla]

I'm more in favour of massclaim than a Hider claim, even if it means letting go of the Roleblocker/Assassin combination.

The most beneficial route for scum depends on the roles they've given us, but no scum fakeclaiming doesn't really seem like a possible play if we have more than one of the Hider, Vigilante or Weak Doctor. Four confirmed town players essentially forces the scumkill to those players the first four nights in a row, and any one of those three roles can be damaging if left alive until N2.

I feel like the only real option scum has in a massclaim is one of them claiming a power role, rather than 0 or 2. This means we have to give them a Role-Cop/Janitor combination, and as much as I hate the Janitor, it might be a play worth considering. The knowledge of the exact amount of powerroles town has is a very exploitable function - it serves almost as a neighbourhood. We separate the town into two pools, and we know how many scum is in each pool. But of course, unless scum don't fakeclaim at all, they can never kill off

all

the powerroles without confirming their fakeclaimer(s) as scum. And because we will almost never lynch a powerrole in the first 2/3 days, the janitor is only really making a difference in covering up the alignment of a VT or goon, which isn't so bad, even if it hurts bandwagon analysis. Although, I feel as if the scum cannot waste the Janitor on D1 anyway, as their best possible use of the Janitor is when we have to lynch a powerrole later in the game, and we might have caught it by then.

Unvote RB
Unvote Assassin

I don't know if we should follow this path yet or not, but it is attractive enough to warrant an unvote of PR's and a good think.

[VasudeVa]

Sooo the major difference is: "

Let's

If

we massclaim, we can stick scum with a completely useless Daycop, Hurrah!"

Not exactly sure why the 'if' part is important nor why it makes the argument more convincing.

The Janitor makes it all moot. Remember:

Scum have daytalk

and if we do go with this plan, it'll be easy to coordinate fake claims and janitorization which would benefit scum

alot

. (I'm actually more scared of teh daytalk than I am of the scumPRchoices.)

Also, with five claims and a janitorization = Our real PRs are now unreliable and thus effectively neutralizing our PRs until we find the fakeclaiming scum(which we might not, because of the Janitor.). 5 claims in the DC/Jan plan absolutely needs a scumflip to be effective and it will only help us for 5 days or so if we play it perfectly and lynch correctly knowing that there will be a ???? flip.

4 claims in the DC/Jan plan is next to impossible. The Janitor is a fake-claim WIFOM machine, I don't see why scum won't take advantage of that. In fact, it will practically force them to claim otherwise they'll have 4 confirmed townies to deal with. The scum countermeasure here will be one goon fakeclaims, scum team kills off ALL 4 PRs which is obviously bad considering only get to catch 1 scum.

What's the Town advantage here anyway? I don't see it. All I see are PRs dying early with little to no benefit other than a temporary voting block.

[Hoopla]

VasudeVa - The Janitor is only works on lynches, and if there are five claims, we probably shouldn't be lynching power roles in the first 3/4 days, unless we can be absolutely sure they are a liar. Scum having no ability to mess with PR's at night means they have to start killing PR's which in turn will narrow down or confirm who the fakeclaimer(s) is. Scum sacrifice their fakeclaimer(s) if they kill all the PR's, which might not be a good move for them if we lynch one or two scum in the first three days. But by not killing PR's, we get new information each day for longer in the game. It feels like a good idea to me.

[Zorblag]

Troll had life come up for a bit there. Troll catch up and post Troll's thoughts later this morning (PDT). Sorry about that absence.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh