The Syndicate

I like sharing whenever I know about myself too, and about others. It can only improve the games overall.

I hate when people say they have meta reads on me but refuse to share.

Oh nvm, Daisy was not a protagonist.

I think I know the answer then. The mafias could have attacked Epi and the kill had a 50% chance of failing.

If it's not that then I have no idea.

I take it that Daisy had some chance of NKing the remaining mafia player.

Glorfindel wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Here's what happened: I wrote a huge wall of text about Glorfindel where (although I ultimately concluded he was not suspicious) I bashed his playstyle over and over.

Normally when someone does that to me, at the very least, I try to argue.

But Glorfindel went and replied it with a post so happy it couldn't be true. He had no anger or frustration whatsoever. No suspicion. No paranoia. No attempt to discuss my (negative) points about him. Just pure friendliness and understanding.

And then for the subsequent days, he proceeded to make it clear I was the most civ person he knew in the world, and to buddy with me at every chance he got.

I now admit the mistake, but at the time, the whole thing seemed forced. Like, I assumed a normal player would at least suspect me a little, and not trust me THAT much.

He was also changing his suspicious on a heartbeat, like the whole thing with Daisy. And that also felt suspicious to me.

I had already decided I was killing 2 people, so I went with my gut and offed him.

I now understand he was just letting his emotions define who he trusted or not.

Whilst what I said may have APPEARED to be forced, I can assure you that it wasn't at all and the truth bears that out. And that's kinda what I've been trying to get at the whole time I've been here. What you witnessed there was 100% pure Town Glorfindel. Frankly, I thought your analysis was one of the highlights of the entire game for me. I can only aspire to your level of thorough forensic analysis. The thing is, I was convinced you were Town - I am not remotely threatened by a healthy and reasoned skepticism by someone whom I respect in these games. I'm really sorry that you couldn't see that before you 'offed' me. As for 'buddying up' to you, it wasn't that - I just recognized you as someone experienced here from which I could actually learn a lot. Again, I'm sorry you misinterpreted my intentions. For all that, one of the things I most look forward to now is playing more games with you - clearly, I have a LOT left to learn

Don't be so hard on yourself, I was the one who misread your alignment. I was just explaining my thought process since you asked about it.

For that matter, I'm not that good or experienced at this game either, considering I helped mislynch a couple civs in a row too.

I appreciate the recognition though. Looking foward to play with you too, and I hope next time I'm more aware of how you play the game.

Here's what happened: I wrote a huge wall of text about Glorfindel where (although I ultimately concluded he was not suspicious) I bashed his playstyle over and over.

Normally when someone does that to me, at the very least, I try to argue.

But Glorfindel went and replied it with a post so happy it couldn't be true. He had no anger or frustration whatsoever. No suspicion. No paranoia. No attempt to discuss my (negative) points about him. Just pure friendliness and understanding.

And then for the subsequent days, he proceeded to make it clear I was the most civ person he knew in the world, and to buddy with me at every chance he got.

I now admit the mistake, but at the time, the whole thing seemed forced. Like, I assumed a normal player would at least suspect me a little, and not trust me THAT much.

He was also changing his suspicious on a heartbeat, like the whole thing with Daisy. And that also felt suspicious to me.

I had already decided I was killing 2 people, so I went with my gut and offed him.

I now understand he was just letting his emotions define who he trusted or not.

Oh I remember that, but I thought it was a civ sign at the time.

... I need to revise my civ/bad signs.

Glorfindel wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

Glorfindel wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I don't understand why in God's name a civilian would use the Juicy Gaggle Juice on anyone. I got hit with it twice. MM got hit with it once he said I was faking (Typhoony did that).

I used the first one. I admit it wasn't a very well thought of move. But I didn't think people would try to use it to lynch you so fast, so I tried to fix the mistake by hinting at you having a post restriction a few times.

I need to check to see who did it the second time. I got a second fruit myself, but by that point I had already noticed the item was shit.

It was kind of hard to resist, though. Damn MP for distributing that stuff like candy.

It was Glorfindel the second time. :P

I just want to point out here Epi that prior to the end of that night kill (when I got killed) I had no intention to use the gaggle juice at all. I was also fairly convinced that you were Town at that point but you hurt my feelings with your comments after night end and I regrettably succumbed to my less mature impulses - I'm sorry

I like that you are a nice fellow, I really do. I'm also a nice fellow. Anyone who knows me in real life can attest to that. I'm quiet, and I let people have their way.

But my advice to you is that Mafia isn't a game of feelings. When done right, it's a game of calculation and logic. I will become absolutely nasty in Mafia. It's a place where I can lie and scheme and plot and not feel bad doing those things morally.

I was sold you were bad when Brit killed you.

Why didn't you speak up for Typhoony? Lord, man, you would have shown us you were Alph and I never would've pulled my Mafia views from your posts.

Thank you Epi for your comments. The thing is though, I am nice - unreservedly and unashamedly so and whilst I'm fine with calculation and logic, I am not so comfortable with manipulation and rudeness (just saying, in general - that comment doesn't relate to anyone here). You will learn very quickly to tell my alignment as did people I've played with at other sites. I AM the most transparent person with whom you are ever likely to play one of these games.

As for Typoony, if you were paying attention, I did try and defend him. I couldn't be too obvious about it because I didn't want to tip off the Mafia to our roles (which I believe I would've had I been anymore explicit).

You don't need to be confortable with rudeness. There is no excuse to be rude. But manipulation is what being a baddie is about. It's the entire goal of the role, and being a civ means being paranoid and trying to figure out who is manipulating who. It's just the nature of the game.

Feelings can be dangerous because they make you more easily manipulated by the mafia. Every mafia wants to have those townie friends who will never vote for them, and when you play with your emotions, you are making yourself vulnerable to that.

FZ. wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Seriously though, as soon as I found out K4J was mafia I was like "FZ has to be civ then, no way two mafias would defend each other like that".

...

I don't blame you, I would think the same. In fact, I usually spend my time fighting with the other mafia when I'm bad. Like I said, this was the first time I did that. It's almost never worth it. For example, at the end of the game, Epi looked at the people Glorfindel listed as highly civ, assuming Glorf was bad, and it made him more suspicious of MM. That's usually how people react. Especially on this site, but in other places as well. If I were in his place, I would think it's unlikely they were both in the same team, and would look at those Glorfindel rated medium or low. That is why I usually go head to head with those on my team. The thing that worked in our favour was the fact K4J was NK by something we didn't really get, and not lynched. No one was interested in his connections. That, and I think almost no one suspected him, so it was easy to defend him.


I've seen people say the civvies had better odds at winning this, and lost anyway. While the mafia-town ratio really took me by surprise at first, I'm not sure it didn't work in our favour. If you have more night kill options, or other potential deaths, it's easier to hide in the shadows. When you have a big group of baddies and you're trying to prevent being associated later on, while at the same time trying to make sure they don't get lynched, you're more likely to be caught at some point. In this case, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Likelihood of lynching a civvie was so much higher than lynching a baddie, that when I was involved in so many civvie lynches, it wasn't really suspicious.

In conclusion, as much as I'd like to give ourselves all the credit for this win, and I think we did play a good game, civvies shouldn't be hard on themselves, because the odds are more complicated than they appear.

It's harder for civs to lynch mafia in each individual day, but in the long term, they tend to win more easily if there are less mafiosos.

I mean, just look at the SK role, and how hard it is to win as it.

(no, I didn't calculate this stuff, but I assume it's common knowledge).

Metalmarsh89 wrote:That's the funny thing about mafia.

I felt like I was not playing a town me this game. Yet, folks continued to say, "oh that's just MM being MM, he must be civ".

Even Epignosis made a comment late in the game, "I just can't see a mafia MM doing such-and-such." Then again, he was convinced there was a single mafia left, which may have influenced his decision.

Please enlighten us, Sir Marmot, what exactly constitutes as you "not playing town"?

Because I thought you were indistinguishable from every other game you played.

I trusted you while I was alive, though later after I died I started suspecting you.

I never suspected FZ. Or MM. Or K4J until Matt pointed it out (and I was afk the day matt got lynched for personal reasons so I couldn't interfere).

Oh well.

I actually think civs were OP in this game, tbh. I've never seen a game have 6 mislynches in a row before.

It's just that baddies play a lot better than civs in this site, for some reason.

(the "awesome game" is not sarcasm though, it was really awesome. just felt like commenting on the other thing)

Anyway, awesome game. I still remain not ever having seen civilians win a game in this site, with this being the fourth game I play.

Epignosis wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:

FZ. wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I don't understand why in God's name a civilian would use the Juicy Gaggle Juice on anyone. I got hit with it twice. MM got hit with it once he said I was faking (Typhoony did that).

I don't either. Waste of a pikmin if you ask me

The juicy gaggle was a free action. There was nothing to lose for using it, mechanically. And MP would periodically remind us that we still had it in our inventories.

It kept me from posting normally for 72 hours.

I know, I know, it was a bad idea.

Seriously though, as soon as I found out K4J was mafia I was like "FZ has to be civ then, no way two mafias would defend each other like that".

...

FZ. wrote:

Epignosis wrote:I don't understand why in God's name a civilian would use the Juicy Gaggle Juice on anyone. I got hit with it twice. MM got hit with it once he said I was faking (Typhoony did that).

I don't either. Waste of a pikmin if you ask me

The juicy gaggle was a free action. There was nothing to lose for using it, mechanically. And MP would periodically remind us that we still had it in our inventories.

Spacedaisy wrote:I knew he was Charlie since I was gathered by him and when he died I was no longer in a party. I also knew Wilgy was Olimar and that one of DDL K4J or Glorf was Brittney the same sort of way. I was in each of their parties at one point or another.

Linki @ Epi: I was trying to say you already said I thread what my role was, without blatantly role outing. And I knew Boom was good by his posts, it just clearly read civ Boomslang to me.

I guessed he was a protagonist too, since he was the other player besides me who defended the people who were cursed on the juicy gaggle, as opposed to coming up with crazy conspiration theories like aglea's.

Good job mafia. You guys really deserved to win this after lynching so many Pikmin. All three of you were hard to detect, which is pretty amazing.

I'd like to thank Matt for being the one who suspected K4J and engaged in a conversation with him, btw. Otherwise i'd never have suspected him myself.

For those wondering, when we got to Night 4, I realized civs were screwed and rtealized there was a high chance of me dieing in that night (I didn't post for 48 hours and even THEN nobody was suspecting me), and so decided to go all or nothing and kill two players. I calculated a ~50% probability of hitting at least 1 mafia, which would be a net profit for civs. So I read the thread, picked two players and killed them. K4J because of the conclusion I drew from his convo with Matt, and Glorf because all of his buddying on me was rubbing me the wrong way (I apologize for the bad read, btw).

Epignosis wrote:I don't understand why in God's name a civilian would use the Juicy Gaggle Juice on anyone. I got hit with it twice. MM got hit with it once he said I was faking (Typhoony did that).

I used the first one. I admit it wasn't a very well thought of move. But I didn't think people would try to use it to lynch you so fast, so I tried to fix the mistake by hinting at you having a post restriction a few times.

I need to check to see who did it the second time. I got a second fruit myself, but by that point I had already noticed the item was shit.

It was kind of hard to resist, though. Damn MP for distributing that stuff like candy.

FZ. wrote:remind me never to sign up for a 24 hour days game again

Personally I prefer those, as in the Syndicate they have a lower number of players and thus tend to have a lower post volume to read.

Hey guys I'm here. Sorry about missing day 4, I had a real life problem to deal with.

Catching up.

Scotty wrote:Well that ended...poorly.

Thanks for the game, MP! Hope to find time again for a game some time next year!

Sorry about this man. Always a pleasure to play with you.

Or it's something that took effect during the day, but socky took his sweet time to process it.

Simon, before Scotty you were voting for Epignosis.

Why?

At this point the mafia team might as well be something like FZ/Glorfindel/K4J since they are my town reads and every read I've made in this site since the Economics game was wrong.

At least I suppose I agree with Wilgy's remark about lynching Enrique.

Ok I officially suck at hunting baddies.

Well can't say the kid is not loyal...

Simon save at the last second.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Think he may have a post restriction of sorts.

He didn't show any signs at the start of Day 3.

He is showing signs now though.

Think he may have a post restriction of sorts.

Hey guys did you notice Epi is putting random words on underlined?

The last post has "help" as it.

Also fun fact: none of the three lynch candidates are voting for each other.

This is gonna be interesting.

Typh has a point, at the current state of the poll, and assuming the protagonists haven't had the time to feed their pikmin yet, the lynch will be decided by whoever mafia votes in.

Scotty wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:

Scotty wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:I'm looking at Scotty's posts in the Watchmen game.

I'm almost too lazy to do it because Scotty talks so much. There are those big wall of texts where he approaches the game from different directions and tries to engage different suspects.

While the ISO for this game is so much easier to read...

Anyway, more details when I finish.

Yep. More of those to come, most likely. Again, time constraint plus I was the cop in that game. So...

Your post volume has hardly been what I'd call low, though.

You just wait

Sorry, no.

The first thing I looked for in my Watchmen ISO was your philosophy of "day 1 is a crapshoot" and... I found it. You really follow that school of thought.

But the way you approach it is different. On that game (and for those who don't know he was a civ there), not only you were looking at the no-shows, but also at the little-shows. You were analysing every single one of them, and eventually you made a pretty reasonable vote on Eloh. Here, you went on Sig for some lazy grammar related reason (read my ISO on Glorf for what I think about that), then invoked the rule of lynching inactives on fay 1, then hoped on Soneji and disappeared. When the day was over, you suddenly came lamenting "wait, how did this wagon on Zebra form?" like you had nothing to do with it. You did a similar thing on day 2, when you went to blame Epi for Sig as soon as he died. You seem content on assigning blame for lynches while you safely vote on people who won't die.

Speaking of Day 2, yours was nothing but tunneling. Very different from the multi-person approach from when you were a civ. Here, you picked a 3-person group and kept hammering theories about them over and over, until you eventually voted for Simon. Because the 8 year old didn't respond to your suspicions. Note that time didn't seem like a constraint: you were active the entire day, and your post volume was high. Just your choice of suspicions was incredibly constrained by tunnel-vision.

On day 3, you seem to be making a little more of an effort, you you still feel lazy. You give walls of reads whenever people ask, but you are still walking to the path of "lynching the 8 year old at the end of the day". You feel like while you have a view of the game, you are making little effort to turn it into results.

[VOTE: ] aubergine[VOTE: (I love the NF format lol)

I hope I'm right this time, I miss the last time I had a good track record of baddie-hunting AND made past Night 2.] aubergine

kneel4justice wrote:

Epignosis wrote:

kneel4justice wrote:Hey, what do you think of Dr. Wilgy?

DrWilgy's great. He helped me out so much. I was once involved in a bad fire that scorched my eyelids, and my eyelids had to be amputated. Worried that I wouldn't be able to blink, DrWilgy assured me that he would simply take skin from my genitals and provide me with eyelids. The procedure was a success! The only problem is I'm now a little cockeyed.

What?

Scotty wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:I'm looking at Scotty's posts in the Watchmen game.

I'm almost too lazy to do it because Scotty talks so much. There are those big wall of texts where he approaches the game from different directions and tries to engage different suspects.

While the ISO for this game is so much easier to read...

Anyway, more details when I finish.

Yep. More of those to come, most likely. Again, time constraint plus I was the cop in that game. So...

Your post volume has hardly been what I'd call low, though.

I'm looking at Scotty's posts in the Watchmen game.

I'm almost too lazy to do it because Scotty talks so much. There are those big wall of texts where he approaches the game from different directions and tries to engage different suspects.

While the ISO for this game is so much easier to read...

Anyway, more details when I finish.

I'm gonna take a look on Scotty's posts in the next few hours. And maybe a few others. Written ISOs not guaranteed.

Matt wrote:

kneel4justice wrote:Here's a question for everyone: If you had to vote someone other than Simon or Epi, who would it be and why?

Glorfindel
Daisy
DDL

I know this is WIFOM, but I like to believe if this were the mafia team you wouldn't have both me and Daisy defending Glorfindel, and vice-versa, like we are right now.

Matt wrote: DDL - You went through all the trouble to ISO Glorfindel, what do you make of sig thinking Glor is bad when sig is the only player in the land who has any sort of meta on him?

Beats me. But I'm not going to blindly follow the reads of another player just because they have meta that I don't. I want to draw my own conclusions. I might be wrong, but so does Sig.

For that matter, I'm probably the only player here with any meta on Soneji, but if I die before he does, please don't follow blindly whatever reads I give on him. Thank you.

I have seen Soneji reading the thread all game, yet his post count has been minimal and his reads have been all wrong.

[VOTE: ] aubergine[VOTE:

Let's see if this makes you show up.] aubergine

Glorfindel wrote:

Matt wrote:Glorfindel. What do you make of the Simon/Epignosis thing? If one were bad, who would you choose?

I honestly don't know, Matt. To this point, I've had a feeling the whole thing was a sideshow, a distraction (and not necessarily a deliberate one). It's probably just me but I don't have any trouble looking at Simon's comment about Sig generously and I personally think that what he said was interpreted less generously and then the whole thing got blown out of all proportion. I could be wrong but I sincerely have some problems seeing an eight year old as a Mafia mastermind. As for Epi, I don't know. I respect his experience and his capability but the way he seems to dodge questions that are put to him and derail other's lines of questioning by asking them questions in return to be frankly annoying. Let me ask you - I assume you have lots of experience playing in games with him, is this behaviour typical of his individual 'Town playstyle'?

I've played two games with him. In one game we are both civ, in the other one we were both mafia. The way he is playing this game doesn't seem that different from his civ playstyle. Now, his mafia playstyle isn't that different either, though I find it hard to remember it because I was more worried about surviving than analysing people. His is normally this condescending jerk that we have all grown to love, and his methods of hunting mafia might as well be called random. Also he tends to mess with people just for his own amusement sometimes in a way that doesn't make it clear whether he is actually suspecting them or just messing with them.

Thanks, I guess.

Just FYI, I'm normally a very idealistic person in real life and I hate being mean to others, but when it comes to games, I shut it down and do everything it takes to win. I still try to be as polite as possible because a game doesn't give me the right of being rude, but anything that can be done to win without breaking the game's rules is fair to me.

(I just hope you're not manipulating me).

Also I only do those ISOs when I feel it's necessary to understand someone's alignment. I don't have time to do it on everybody, so I pick a few ones.

Okay I'll try to do an ISO on Glorfindel to make sense of this madness.
Voices disagreement on lynching Sig, but seems to have a pretty shallow view on the matter. I'm pretty sure Sig is not being lynched for just a spelling error at this point (not that he was lynched for big reasons, though)

Metalmarsh makes a jokester post and Glorf fails to get the joke. Keeps voicing disagreement on what is perceived as a literal version of grammar nazi-ing.

Then he goes on an argument with Zebra about the merits of self-voting, which I won't bother to quote.
First post where he actually posts reads. Trusts Zebra. And Daisy (which fits with Daisy having defended him at this point). Torn on Sig. Wants to make it clear he would vote for Matt despite liking him as a person. But doesn't like Enrique's vote on him, and might suspect him for that despite doubting his mafia status.

Glorfindel is already showing signs of what would be obvious later, which is that he plays the game very personally. He lynches whoever he doesn't like the defends the ones he likes. He says this isn't true by using Matt as an example, but the fact he is even bother to point that out suggests this to be an exception to the rule.
Mild suspicion on Matt for the way he is posting. Looks like he might be weary about Matt since he was bad last game. Or he is bad and trying to manufacture a suspicion.
The trend continues. Somebody (Enrique) votes for Glorfindel and he is pissed.

In the next few posts, he defends Zebra. The main argument is a meta one comparing to Star Wars, where she was, ironically, mafia (granted, I'm guilty of making the same flawed comparison). Not gonna quote them all, just say he is firmly against the Zebra bandwagon.

Well day 1 is over, Glorfindel voted Enrique, and Zebra flipped innocent Pikmin.

What comes next is a long series of some really annoying white-knighting (which I later called "flirting", though admitelly I was mostly joking. That's none of my business). Enjoy:
The witch hunt is on. The paragon of justice and baddie hunting skills known as Zebra is dead, and the ones responsible must pay with their lives. Only evilness of the worst nature could have resulted in the death of such a pure soul, and the people who voted here are obviously all associated with the Dark Side of the Force.

So Day 2 is on, Sig continues to make WOAT posts and Glorfindel takes the bait (or he helps the suspicion get going so other people can take the bait):
Half of his argument is that Sig's theories are full of BS. The other half is that he was one of the ones responsible for the death of Zebra, and that he attacked her but didn't actually voted for her, which could be a sign of cowardice. He also uses Zebra's own post as an argument against Sig, which ultimately proved that we should learn to think for yourselves, and that people aren't right just because they are confirmed civ and/or have shown to be good at the game before.

There are more posts about that, I won't quote them all. K4J points out what I just said, and Glorf replies with more white-knighting:
He is also mad that people have been unable to read him accurately in the last few games. Well, welcome to mafia, man. First thing you must learn: EVERYONE sucks at hunting baddies, and the shortest path to failure is to believe otherwise. Seriously, just look at this very game.
Point taken.
Daisy and Glorf have a cuteness overload and don't want to lynch Simon. Not sure if this means anything since it's a kind of OT reaction, but I felt like quoting.
This post pinged me at the time, but now looking at the whole context it makes more sense. Glorfindel plays with his emotions and this is not an exception. Matt used faulty logic (or in this case, no logic at all) to suspect him, therefore he must be suspicious himself. Add it to the fact Glorfindel was weary of Matt at the start, and this could make some sense.
A wall of reads. This is useful. Reads civ on Daisy and seems to have a legitimate opinion on it. Doesn't have any reason to suspect Typh. Confused about Matt. To be fair, Matt is confusing.

Okay, let's finish this. If it hasn't become clear enough to this point, I don't like Glorfindel's playstyle. I try to be as cold and calculating as possible when playing mafia, and Glorf's way of playing seems to be the polar opposite. The white-knighting looks ridiculous to me, and all those OMGUS suspicions make me roll eyes. So I apologize to him for what may have been a somewhat rude post, and for the possibility of this clouding my judgement of him.

But as much as his playstyle might be questionable, Glorf seems consistent here. He doesn't back down, he puts his votes where his mouth is, and his logical path in the game makes sense. He is not trying to blend. He looks more like a newbie to me than a mafia player.

Sorry Matt, but this guy looks civ to me.

Glorfindel wrote:

Spacedaisy wrote:Can you please explain the reasoning there?

He can't Spacedaisy because there isn't any... I am not Mafia.

@Matt, perhaps you could remind us all again (for the fourth time) about how you are a sweet innocent little Pikmin - because frankly, I'm having an increasingly hard time believing that...

While I agree Matt has yet to explain his suspicion on you, it doesn't bode well for you to reply to his accusation with a "NO U" and also fail to explain it.

Also I'm feeling kind of uneasy about Epi, for all the accusations he made (Sig and Simon) while not jumping on the respective wagons on day 1. It looks opportunistic. That post where I explained the possibilities about Epi and Simon's alignments still points out to him being civ, though.

I also read MM's post about Epi, but I don't really agree with the particular points. A lot of them are based on the possibility of Sig being bad, and a lot of them are circular assumptions. Sorry, but if Epi is bad, it's not supposed to be that obvious.

linki: So Epi, do you still think Simon is bad?

@Matt: I've been kind of suspicious of Glorfindel the entire game, but haven't really decided why. Could you help, and say why exactly you suspect him?

I promise that at least I won't ignore you