NY 198: Nexus is Now a New Normal Mafia (Game Over)

mhsmith0 · Post Post #1152 (isolation #0) » Sat Nov 26, 2016 6:57 am

Town DEFINITELY didn't win just due to setup here.

That said, I tend to agree setup was town-sided. The comment was made that town get on extra ML in exchange for scum getting power.

But consider the 10v3 version of this:
Neapolitan
Deputy (backup neo?)
Shitty JOAT
Doctor
Even rb
Macho ic
4 vt

Vs
Goon
Goon
Encryptor

That's a majority of town roles being pr and none were trash roles like neighbor, bodyguard, 1-shot anything (other than bp) or miller.

Normally towns get wrecked in "5 town pr" 10v3 games, but from what I can tell, it's because town gets shitty powers and/or scum get way too much power in exchange. Neither really was the case here.

That said, if the deputy was a VT instead, and scum turned a goon into say a 1-shot strongman, it's probably pretty close to balanced.

mhsmith0 · Post Post #1167 (isolation #1) » Mon Nov 28, 2016 8:25 am

It's actually an interesting exercise to imagine a d1 mass claim here. Scum don't really have the ability to tear through the PRs, which means that they'd basically need to WIFOM up some tinfoil on the town PR claims to win. Barring that, you basically have:

N1 scum kills doctor who protects neapolitan who hard-clears or condemns a VT claim
N2 scum kills neapolitan, while the RB and JOAT both have a chance to catch someone making the kill
N3 RB or JOAT gets killed
N4 RB or JOAT gets killed

So given a D1 mass claim (presuming scum all claim VT), you have six declared town PRs AND a N1 hard clear from the neapolitan (or an easy guilty for D2), all in an environment in which scum need to achieve five mislynches in order to win (barring double NK stoppage which while unlikely isn't impossible). So either scum manage to get all five non-cleared VT's (presuming N1 clear from neapolitan) mislynched OR they mislynch 1+ town PR claims. That's an extremely difficult road to hoe. As long as town doesn't mislynch a town PR, all they need to do is behaviorally clear at least one of the VT claims and scum can't win given D1 mass claim.

Or, given lack of D1 mass claim, you get a potentially even harder road for scum, because scum might shoot a VT on N1 or N2 OR scum might get stopped from killing twice (doctor plus even night RB is unlikely to stop two kills but it's not impossible), AND you have neapolitan that can easily clear or condemn a VT claim on N1/N2 unless scum get pretty lucky with an early shot (and if neapolitan claims and gets doc-protected N1, then scum is in even more trouble).

I'm not going to say it's totally unwinnable for scum, but I feel like town is going to win this setup like 80% of the time. Too many different ways that things can go right for town, and too few easy ways for scum to lead town astray or really counter town's power (the stalker clearly helps, but it's not really enough). I'd think that scum success would be HIGHLY dependent on eventually mislynching the deputy claim (and mislynching a declared PR is always tough), AND successfully shooting a PR every single night, and even there town has a lot of ways that they can make the game go well.

mhsmith0 · Post Post #1169 (isolation #2) » Mon Nov 28, 2016 1:29 pm

In terms of D1 mass claim, the concept I'd generally work from is "town PRs claim true, and scum all claim VT". In this specific setup, the stalker should in fact claim tracker, although depending on mass claim order that might well not be known ahead of time (i.e for all they know there is a town tracker or watcher, and then they're kinda screwed with that claim, if not immediately than at least eventually). I don't know why the other scum would necessarily claim some kind of town PR, but if they do (especially if they have to claim relatively early), there's substantial risk of CC'ing or having their claim stick out as being unlikely. And, of course, at some point they'll have to actually DO something with their claimed power (or claim to), and then they have to justify what they've done each night and why. A game-long accountability regimen for night actions is tough on the wolves if they've claimed PR's (a lack of an actual town tracker does help a bit, though the roleblocker could easily be used as a PR verification device).

Generally speaking, I think it's appropriate for there to be a legitimately reasonable path for scum team to win if they all claim VT on a D1 mass claim, and in this game I don't think that such a reasonable path really exists. A D1 mass claim is brutal on the wolves (though town wouldn't know it ahead of time), AND the numbers are really tough on the wolves (again, town doesn't know this).

Also just eyeballing single ball setups of around this size:
http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=37208

Spoiler: single ball, around 17p

I go through that list, and I don't really see any setups that are especially comparable to:

12v3
town has macho IC, neapolitan, even roleblocker, doctor, JOAT, deputy
scum has stalker, encryptor, goon

You pretty consistently see one or more of:
1) Better numbers for scum (167, 174, 192, 193)
2) Better powers for scum (176, 183, 189, 196)
3) Worse powers for town (169, 170, 176, 183, 192, 193)

I could maybe see 172 as comparable, but even there town powers are weaker since there's only four PRs instead of six, and on a larger board.
Probably the best comparison is 179, and town won that with some room to spare (both masons survived and won, though it went to F5). 196 probably comparable too, and that required a day 2 lynch of a doc claim, and for the vig to shoot the cop N4, and a fairly ridiculous run of consecutive mislynches by A50 as the last wolf in order to somehow eke out a win (I'd say more but I only kinda skimmed that game so I don't really remember it in much detail).