Okay, I think I've figured out the optimal play.
It is very unlikely that either Jerub or AA is a normal miller (by that, I mean the Mod told them they were a miller). Why? Because each one has stated they were sure that the person that accused them is a liar. If either one of them knew they were an innocent miller, they could not be sure that their accuser were lying. It is possible that one or both is a secret miller (by that, I mean that the person is actually a miller, but the Mod did not tell them that), but I think a secret miller is highly unlikely in a Mini Normal.
At this point, I don't think the cops are much useful anymore unless one of the following highly unlikely scenarios is true:
1. We have two innocent cops
2. We have a four-person mafia team
If we have a four-person mafia team (3 still alive), then we have been pretty screwed since the game started, because that's pretty unbalanced. If we have a 4 person scumgroup, we lose on the first mislynch, even though that scenario seems highly unlikely.
If both cops are scum (double false claim), then all of their investigations are useless to us already. They will be able to fix their "investigations" and results as necessary to get a mislynch. If only one cop is lying, then the one that is telling the truth should have already found the two scum for us (the lying cop + the person the innocent cop has the guilty on). Based on this, I think the doctor is likely not very useful anymore either.
If both cops are innocent, which I find highly unlikely, it's likely we are going to lose anyway. Otherwise, at least one of the cops is lying scum, with a small possibility of both.
What we SHOULDN'T do is lynch one of the suspects with a guilty on them first. If they come up innocent, we can nail the cop that accused them, but then we don't know for sure whether the last scum is the other cop (double false claim) or the other suspect (the other cop is telling the truth). In either case, the one that is guilty will lie, and the cop and suspect that are left over will (obviously) not agree with each other. We could probably guess at that point and be right, but there is a better way.
I have a strategy that is highly likely to give us a win if we have only a 3 person scum group (2 of which are still alive) and still give us a shot at a win in the unlikely event there is a 4 person scum team (meaning we are now in LYLO). This strategy will even work if we have a double false claim. The strategy will fail if we have two cops and/or there is funny business going on with secret millers, or the like. But I think the chances of one of those occurring are extremely low.
The strategy would be to lynch our best guess at the lying cop first (let's call that person Cop A).
If Cop A is guilty, we lynch the suspect Cop A had a guilty on. If that suspect is guilty, the game should be over (but if not, we can try to guess who the 4th scum is). If that suspect is innocent, we lynch Cop B.
If Cop A is innocent, we lose if there is a 4 person scum team (but even in that case, we were in LYLO and we did the best we could by voting the person most likely to be scum). Assuming the game is not over at that point (and it shouldn't be) we lynch Cop B, and then the person Cop A had a guilty on.
With this strategy, it actually doesn't matter which cop is lynched first, though the best choice is obviously the one we think is most likely to be lying. And of course, we could adjust the strategy along the way if something really funny comes up during the NK.
For the record though, I think it is most likely Setael is lying and CKD is telling the truth, which would make Jerub the remaining scum. I tend to believe CKD because his investigation logic flows well, his choices make a lot more sense than Setael's given what's happened, plus it's a lot more likely that there is only 2 scum alive and that he counterclaimed a guilty Setael than Setael's assertion that there are 3 scum alive, she was the innocent claimant, and CKD made a fake counterclaim to try to save AA.
There is a scenario that makes sense for Setael-scum to claim early. Let me set the table:
I thought Adel was the cop for most of D3. When I posted how I thought Adel had "a good reason" to put an immovable vote on Flay and not justify it, I was trying to hint to the others that I thought Adel was the cop with a guilty on Flay. But later in the day I started to doubt that. Adel said she didn't suspect Flay until Nov. 30, but if she was a cop with a guilty on him N2, she should have suspected him long before that -- at least when she got the guilty N2, and possibly before that, for wanting to investigate Flay in the first place. Also, when she made the comments about spending Townie capital and made a possible "soft claim" as a Cop, I was starting to seriously doubt that she WAS the cop or the doctor, since I wouldn't have expected her to be so obvious about something she should have been trying to hide. But I wasn't sure.
Then I realized that Setael could be the cop, and she could be defending Flay because she had an innocent on him N2, or that she could be the doctor who protected him N2 and concluded he was innocent because there was no night kill. This is what I meant when I said that I came up with another theory that would lead to both Setael and Flay being innocent.
The fact that Adel was offed last night suggests to me that we have a partial-reveal game, and that the scum either knew that (because of Korlash) or highly suspected it. I think that the scum were pretty sure that Adel was the cop. So the scum shut her up, and thought they were in the clear. Given that, Setael did not expect a counterclaim, so the town would likely be willing to go along with her, as the theory is testable and we likely still have a mislynch left (remember, Setael did not bring up the "4th scum" theory until CKD counterclaimed). Even if AA came up innocent D5 and the town lynched Setael D6, the scum only needed one more mislynch on D7 to win, and the odds would probably be in favor of that. Not a bad strategy.
But IMO, Setael blew it with her claim. It was probably too early for an innocent cop to claim as CKD said, but even then I would have tended to believe her today
*if*
she said she had an innocent on Flay N2 (it would have explained her D3 resistance to lynch him). But she said she investigated Sudo instead! I really cannot see how Sudo was a good target N2. Setael did suspect him D1, but she never mentioned him D2. If she still thought he was a suspect worthy of an investigation, I would have at least expected her to mention him as a suspect early on D2, but she did not, that I could see. Instead, she seemed to focus on myself and CKD, with some Jerub on the side (I think). If she really believed early on D3 that the people who
didn't
lynch Korlash (CKD, Oman, and myself) were the most suspicious, why didn't she investigate CKD or me instead of Sudo?
Because of this analysis, I think Setael *is* the lynch for today. I am willing to take full responsibility for a game loss if we have an unbalanced four-person mafia team setup. But I am ready to vote her anyway, and call her bluff.
