Elements Mafia 76 - by serprex

[PlayerOa]

This still gives mafia information about who the GN can be. Since they know all alignments, every time someone gets it wrong, that's a name crossed on their list. Unless we go galaxy brain and allow GN to lie and rely on actual crumbs about the correct reads.

That's true, but it's information they can't really act on without risk of revealing their own members. Consider the example where Player A correctly name drops Player B as mafia. At this point, either Player A has chosen a mafia member randomly, or Player A is the GN and identified an actual mafia member. The former is actually a lot more likely, as long as there are a few players providing names in addition to the GN themself. If mafia acts on this information and nightkills Player A, the civs can use this result to lynch Player B. Mafia ends up making a 1-for-1 trade which they definitely cannot afford to make.

It doesn't strictly need to be the statement "If I die and I'm GN...". That information can be conveyed through votes as well - this is why I think a civ with no information would actually be slightly better off picking a random target rather than just joining the biggest bandwagon. I'm sure this is common sense to the really advanced players here, but I've played a few mafias and am just now fully understanding this so I think it's important to share.

This is essentially a really powerful halfway point between the GN 100% hiding and 100% revealing. The former provides no information to the civs, and the latter gets the GN killed.

This in mind, it would possibly be the "best" strategy for this to have everyone point out a single, unique person. All mafia members are guaranteed to be named, and the GN gets to confirm someone without revealing themselves. When we find out who GN is we know who's safe and who's not.

We could possibly set up who "checks" who during the night phases, including phases where GN is on cooldown. However, it's a huge risk if Damsel, Warden or FFQ are mafia, so I'm not entirely on board with this.

Having everyone pretend to be GN checking someone at their own discretion would be better to avoid said risk, and simply have everyone name a unique person during day phases, although it could be a problem if someone names GN's check before they do. It's still not entirely reliable because andre's right in that it could potentially cross out 5 possibilities every two nights. In this case, both GN skipping a phase and doing this every night should throw off mafia somewhat.

I'm still not entirely convinced this is the way to go with GN, but if we do go that way, these are my thoughts.


worldwideweb3 (3) - Linkcat, MasterNoob, mathman
mathman101 (2) - TheonlyrealBeef, PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (3) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

Let's change tied wagons. Not sure if shock's just shitposting or if he's talking in riddles.

Doesn’t this plan like.. collapse if someone claims GN target before GN?

[Naii_the_Baf]

Having everyone pretend to be GN checking someone at their own discretion would be better to avoid said risk, and simply have everyone name a unique person during day phases, although it could be a problem if someone names GN's check before they do. It's still not entirely reliable because andre's right in that it could potentially cross out 5 possibilities every two nights. In this case, both GN skipping a phase and doing this every night should throw off mafia somewhat.

I'm aware. GN should try to claim early when they're revealing their check, just in case, although mafia can just target consistent early posters.

[PlayerOa]

Having everyone pretend to be GN checking someone at their own discretion would be better to avoid said risk, and simply have everyone name a unique person during day phases, although it could be a problem if someone names GN's check before they do. It's still not entirely reliable because andre's right in that it could potentially cross out 5 possibilities every two nights. In this case, both GN skipping a phase and doing this every night should throw off mafia somewhat.

I'm aware. GN should try to claim early when they're revealing their check, just in case, although mafia can just target consistent early posters.

Oops, that one slipped right through me. My bad!

Anyway, I’m going to sleep now. Guess I’m sticking my vote - fingers crossed, don’t do anything stupid guys

[RootRanger]

So basically, have all of town throw in random votes, hope rng isn't a b and actively invite mafia to manipulate voting? Then derive mafia from the manipulation afterwards.

I'd rather understand a strategy than go along with it, just because someone tells me it's for smart or advanced players or some such.

Also, afaik, the quote refers to GN targets, not lynch targets.

Basically, the point is for every player to convey information, either through their vote, or through their post, or through (god forbid) breadcrumbs. For most players, this will be pure noise, but the GN will have actual information to provide. If the GN provides information after every use of their ability, they don't risk dying before getting the chance to dump the information they have. In other words, your votes and reads (even if they are random) provide cover for the GN to convey actual information. Whereas, if we were to adopt a bandwagon meta and all vote/target the same person, the GN would have no opportunity to convey their info without sticking out to the mafia as the only player with info.

Implying you are good 

About the GN thing I think that making red and green claims in the same proportion as current town/mafia players (and taking care to avoid too many contradictory claims) would optimize the information while still mitigating the risk. (gotta double check the odds tbh but it looks sound to me)

Yeah, I think a mix of mafia and civ claims would be good.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

Tiebreakers ftw. I kinda set my alarm for this... x.x

worldwideweb3 (4) - Linkcat, MasterNoob, mathman, TheonlyrealBeef
mathman101 (1) - PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (3) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

Spoiler for quote:

So basically, have all of town throw in random votes, hope rng isn't a b and actively invite mafia to manipulate voting? Then derive mafia from the manipulation afterwards.

I'd rather understand a strategy than go along with it, just because someone tells me it's for smart or advanced players or some such.

Also, afaik, the quote refers to GN targets, not lynch targets.

Basically, the point is for every player to convey information, either through their vote, or through their post, or through (god forbid) breadcrumbs. For most players, this will be pure noise, but the GN will have actual information to provide. If the GN provides information after every use of their ability, they don't risk dying before getting the chance to dump the information they have. In other words, your votes and reads (even if they are random) provide cover for the GN to convey actual information. Whereas, if we were to adopt a bandwagon meta and all vote/target the same person, the GN would have no opportunity to convey their info without sticking out to the mafia as the only player with info.

Implying you are good 

About the GN thing I think that making red and green claims in the same proportion as current town/mafia players (and taking care to avoid too many contradictory claims) would optimize the information while still mitigating the risk. (gotta double check the odds tbh but it looks sound to me)

Yeah, I think a mix of mafia and civ claims would be good.

That's nice and all, but it felt like w3 copy/pasted a section out of context to defend his terrible vote. My post explains my interpretation of the result of using only lynch votes for it, especially when sticking to that vote. Better to "tag" the suspect with your first vote, then switch later?

[shockcannon]

worldwideweb3 (4) - Linkcat, MasterNoob, mathman, TheonlyrealBeef
mathman101 (1) - PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (4) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf, shockcannon
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

[TheonlyrealBeef]

worldwideweb3 (3) - Linkcat, MasterNoob, mathman
mathman101 (1) - PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (5) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf, shockcannon, TheonlyrealBeef
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

[shockcannon]

worldwideweb3 (4) - Linkcat, MasterNoob, mathman, shockcannon
mathman101 (1) - PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (4) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf, TheonlyrealBeef
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

[worldwideweb3]

Tiebreakers ftw. I kinda set my alarm for this... x.x

worldwideweb3 (4) - Linkcat, MasterNoob, mathman, TheonlyrealBeef
mathman101 (1) - PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (3) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

Spoiler for quote:

So basically, have all of town throw in random votes, hope rng isn't a b and actively invite mafia to manipulate voting? Then derive mafia from the manipulation afterwards.

I'd rather understand a strategy than go along with it, just because someone tells me it's for smart or advanced players or some such.

Also, afaik, the quote refers to GN targets, not lynch targets.

Basically, the point is for every player to convey information, either through their vote, or through their post, or through (god forbid) breadcrumbs. For most players, this will be pure noise, but the GN will have actual information to provide. If the GN provides information after every use of their ability, they don't risk dying before getting the chance to dump the information they have. In other words, your votes and reads (even if they are random) provide cover for the GN to convey actual information. Whereas, if we were to adopt a bandwagon meta and all vote/target the same person, the GN would have no opportunity to convey their info without sticking out to the mafia as the only player with info.

Implying you are good 

About the GN thing I think that making red and green claims in the same proportion as current town/mafia players (and taking care to avoid too many contradictory claims) would optimize the information while still mitigating the risk. (gotta double check the odds tbh but it looks sound to me)

Yeah, I think a mix of mafia and civ claims would be good.

That's nice and all, but it felt like w3 copy/pasted a section out of context to defend his terrible vote. My post explains my interpretation of the result of using only lynch votes for it, especially when sticking to that vote. Better to "tag" the suspect with your first vote, then switch later?

If I literally have 0 info, a random vote is going to be better than bandwagoning unless there’s some info out there from someone. I don’t have a reason to vote anyone in particular, we only
Have one day of reads so it’s not as if you can study interactions and posts either, esp as I haven’t had time to this phase.

[TheonlyrealBeef]

I guess that vote is the one I expected from shock. I cannot break this tie without breaking rules myself.

[MasterWalks]

worldwideweb3 (3) - Linkcat, mathman, TheonlyrealBeef
mathman101 (1) - PlayerOa
Annele (1) - RootRanger
shockcannon (5) - iancudorinmarian, andretimpa, Naii_the_Baf, shockcannon, MasterNoob
Naii_the_Baf (1) - worldwideweb3

Shock voted himself so it's safe to assume if his bad poetry breadcrumbs hold any value, he has put all the info he has into them.
w3 is Oty, Warden, or toadfish
I'm willing to believe that Linkcat is half-blood as shock implied, only because it doesn't change all that much in the long run, and if Link is town, he will be NK'd soon anyways.
TORB is really the only one who has raised any sort of sus for me. My impression of him is he is cold and calculated, someone I don't see requesting we shotgun blast the town in hopes we hit a mafia.

[shockcannon]

i have info on torb. Dont kill me.