Mini 456: Ultimatum Mafia - Game Over!

[Guardian]

NGR News Report

Citizens, we regret to inform you that NGR has been, at least temporarily, shut down. Our office will be closed all of next week at the least, as the government carefully considers what programs to restore funding to. We thank you for your dedicated viewership, and sincerely hope to return to serving you once the final budget comes out. We hate to think what would happen to you should underground radio become your only source of news...

Our last act as a station will be to remind you of the following:

Game Status: Cycle 4
Deadline to Challenge: Sometime between the 3rd and 4th of July (no exceptions for the American holiday)
Deadline to Lynch - 23:59 EDT 7 July 2007

We earnestly hope that we have been of some service, and we encourage you to write your congressmen asking them to continue funding our station.

This is NGR, sadly signing out.

[DeanWinchester]

We need to leave van damien alone for today we need the body. I'm going to do a re-read and see what I can find.

[Stewie]

4-3-1..?

It all depends on how much you trust VD's ability to catch scum and his motivation to help the town.

I'd say it's 0. I don't think he wants to hurt the town, since he has no chance of winning, but he doesn't really have any reasons to help.

[Albert B. Rampage]

If we don't lynch VanDamien, we have 2 shots at finding conservative. If we do lynch VanDamien we have 1 shot of finding conservative. The question is should we trust his judgment ?

[Yosarian2]

I don't really think that's the question. The question is, is VanDamien telling the truth, or is he lying?

If he's a liberal scum, we don't really want to lynch him today, although it'd certanly be better then losing a townie. If we think there's a good chance he's a conservative pulling a gambit to try and get us to keep him alive, he might be a good lynch.

Here's a question for you when you get back, Van Damien: Would you be acting differently if you were a conservative scum? If so, how?

[mneme]

Huh. Yeah, that's more or less the question.

Well, not really. I think he's very likely to be liberal, and not as much to be conservative, simply because of the text evidence of day 1 I pointed out earlier.

So I'm inclined to keep him alive today, and am much more interested in theories for who the three cons could be.

Any sort of linkage between players is useful here.

[Yosarian2]

Well, could be, although there are other people who could easily be the last liberal based on day 1 evidence; for example, early on day 2 you thought Dean was the last liberal, if I remember correctly.

[mneme]

Yosarian: Sure, I think. I'd have to look at the text. But some of the same textev that makes Van Damien likely to be scum also makes him likely to be liberal, not cons.

Other people also have liberal links, but Damien's links point more to liberal than cons.

Also: if he is cons, we don't autolose just because we lynch someone else; we still have to nail two townies (or a townie and a liberal) to lose.

[Mr Stoofer]

This is hard. I can think of 4 people who have been acting very pro-town all game: participating well, making pro-town points etc etc etc.

They are mneme, Yosarian2, Stewie and The Fonz. At least one of them must be conservative scum (from my POV). Probably more than one. I think that there is a lot to be said for trying to get a "hard" lynch today. So far we have made "easy" lynches, with a hit rate of only 1 in 3.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'd also put myself into the "hard" lynch category. I'm not saying the Town should just ignore me.

[The Fonz]

I find it a little disconcerting that you state your preference for a 'hard' lynch, but don't actually make a case against any of us. The aim, as ever, is to lynch the person most likely to be con scum. If you think one of us you've placed in the 'hard lynch' category fits that bill, by all means, argue for that lynch. If you don't, well, then the whole thing just looks like a blanket 'too townie' argument.

[Mr Stoofer]

As yet (pending re-read) I don't have any evidence against any of the "hard" players.

What I was trying to say was that we need to look carefully at them, rather doing somehting easy. It would be the easiest thing in the world to just kill off one of Albert, DeanWinchester or Van Damien without any real thought. Each of them has said plenty of stupid things that would justify lynching them. What is needed is a more careful, critical approach to the other players.

I haven't yet had the chance to go back and do a careful re-read of

all

players, but I think it essential that everyone does that. That was my real point.

[Yosarian2]

Also: if he is cons, we don't autolose just because we lynch someone else; we still have to nail two townies (or a townie and a liberal) to lose.

Well, sure. But lynching a townie is much worse then lynching a liberal; if we lynch a townie today, then even if we lynch a conservative tommorow, we could easily be heading towards an ugly 3 faction prisoner's dilemma endgame.

This is hard. I can think of 4 people who have been acting very pro-town all game: participating well, making pro-town points etc etc etc.

They are mneme, Yosarian2, Stewie and The Fonz. At least one of them must be conservative scum (from my POV). Probably more than one. I think that there is a lot to be said for trying to get a "hard" lynch today. So far we have made "easy" lynches, with a hit rate of only 1 in 3.

Well, I see what you're saying, but saying "at least one of these 5 players (mneme, Yos2, Stewie, The Fonz, and Stoofer) mathmatically must be scum" isn't all that helpfull. Yes, we need to keep an eye on everyone, but I think part of that is that it's hard to tell the difference between good pro-town play and good pro-conservative play until we nail at least one conservative. If, say, Dean turns out to be conservative, it'd give me information about lots of other players, including some of those "hard to lynch" players you're talking about.

At the moment, out of that list of hard to lynch players, the one who looks most suspicious to me is you, Stoofer, for reasons I pointed out during and after that Battle Mage lynch.

[pablito]

Activity prods have been sent.

[Albert B. Rampage]

I'm still for attacking mneme. Even tough he has went after Dylan all game, its highly probable he was doing so as scum, going after townie.

Nominate

mneme...man, I know he's scum, I just KNOW IT.

[Yosarian2]

Could you try to explain why you think that, Albert?

[DeanWinchester]

@VD: Can scum talk in scum-chat?

[mneme]

Dean: huh?

Albert: who do you suspect as scum aside from me? What's your ideal 3-person/1 person pairing?

Actually, that's a fairly good question for everyone. I'll see if I can come up with an answer myself.

[Mr Stoofer]

@VD: Can scum talk in scum-chat?

See, this is the sort of thing I am talking about. DeanWinchester has said plenty of things that would justify lynching him. But it is plain from this question that he is inattentive and quite clueless.

At the moment, out of that list of hard to lynch players, the one who looks most suspicious to me is you, Stoofer, for reasons I pointed out during and after that Battle Mage lynch.

That's a coincidence. Out of the hard players, you are the most suspicious for your baseless accusations against me. I explained the misunderstanding but you have refused to acknowledge my explanation, let alone take it on board. Second on that list is Stewie. Not for anything he has done, but because I have this strange feeling that dylan might have challenged his scum buddy for distancing purposes...

[The Fonz]

Not for anything he has done, but because I have this strange feeling that dylan might have challenged his scum buddy for distancing purposes...

WTF? Dylan came up town!

[Mr Stoofer]

Actually, there is another reason why I have been suspicious of Yosarian2: his behaviour on the Battle Mage wagon. Yosarian2 was very pro "the System", and yet he seemed to regard Battle Mage's subversion of it with equanimity. And, when Battle Mage started acting scummy (quite apart from subverting the System), he defended him, going after me instead.

Yosarian2 is in favour of lynching pro-town people who are harming the Town: as this post demonstrates:

That being said, while I won't vote someone just because they're not playing well, there are times I vote for someone because of anti-town play; if a person is acting in such a way that it directly harms the town, which could be lurking, or hammering people without giving them a chance to claim, or some other anti-town behaviors, then the town needs to make them stop doing that, either by pressuring them with votes or if they won't stop by lynching them, even if you're not sure of their alignment.

So why didn't he adopt this policy with Battle Mage, who clearly fell into this category?

I have a suspicion that the reason Yosarian2 was defending Battle Mage was that he knew he was a Townie, but knew equally well that Battle Mage was going to get lynched. He did it to look pro-Town. If you look back at his play yesterday, it seems to me that he is making it clear that he does not support a Battle Mage lynch, but he doesn't make any real effort to push to Town in any other direction.

Any experienced player knows that defending a doomed Townie is a win-win situation for Scum -- as long as they don't defend them too hard, of course. After everyone started screaming for Battle Mage's blood yesterday, I think I might well have done exactly what he did if I were Scum.

A lot of this is gut instinct of course. Yosarian2 is too good a player to give off scum tells.

[Mr Stoofer]

Not for anything he has done, but because I have this strange feeling that dylan might have challenged his scum buddy for distancing purposes...

WTF? Dylan came up town!

Sorry, old note that needs deleting!

[Albert B. Rampage]

@Yosarian: Its a very strong hunch, I cannot explain it too well but I will try to come up with something better.

Dean: huh?

Albert: who do you suspect as scum aside from me? What's your ideal 3-person/1 person pairing?

Actually, that's a fairly good question for everyone. I'll see if I can come up with an answer myself.

You and Dean sound like decent candidates for being conservative, I would also throw in either Stoofer or Fonz in there, from a brief recollection of the game.

VanDamien for liberal because it doesn't make sense for him to claim like that I think.

[mneme]

Hmm. Players left who have an unknown alignment to me: DeanWinchester, Mr Stoofer, Albert B. Rampage (r. SpinWizard), Stewie, The Fonz,Yosarian2

I'm pretty sure VD is Liberal, as he says he is -- for the reasons I've stated earlier.

Let's leave out Dean for the moment -- Stoofer's got a point about "too clueless to be scum" though that doesn't clear him.

That leaves us with three scum among Stoofer, Albert, Stewie, Fonz, and Yosarian.

We've had the following distancing:

Stoofer: Yosarian (both ways),
Albert: none (me, but I'm not on the above list). Also, recieving (as spinwizard), Stewie (also as Albert), Fonz (only once, though, and as a secondary)
Stewie: Albert, Dean, (many, many times for both, oddly)
Fonz: Albert, Dean
Yosarian: Stoofer. Both ways.


This is very interesting. First, it seems to indicate that Albert's probably not scum. (would have to be scum with stoofer and yosarian, assuming !bus, and that one's too unlikely to credit for now).

Second, since yosarian and stoofer are probably not -both- scum, that means that stewie and fonz are scum.

That said, Stewie's play has been very good.

Therefore,

Nom: Fonz

[Mr Stoofer]

Could you just explain the logic a bit more please, mneme. I don't understand how the data leads to the conclusions.

[Albert B. Rampage]

1) Stoofer and Yosarian are probably not scum together.

2) Stewie and Fonz accuse me, so I'm probably not scum with them

3) mneme is town from his perspective

Therefore, disregarding Dean and VD, I am probably town.

Fonz might be scum with Stewie.