The Syndicate

Just so we're clear, I don't want to come across like I knew what I was doing the whole time. :P When you're in the moment and time is ticking down it's easy to start overthinking things and doubting yourself.

I definitely wasn't 100% sure it was Seanzie, and voted early largely to stop myself overthinking it. When Seanzie didn't just give up and die I began to grow concerned, and there was definitely a point where I believed it must be LC. But quietly watching LC's reaction vs Seanzie's right to the rand situation at the end, plus actually reading Seanzie's last-ditch self-casing (which I realised wasn't more than just a narrative with lot of effort put into it) reassured me enough to plan to switch back last second, knowing even if I was wrong LC would deserve it. (And I did feel obligated to stick by my 'locked' choice from earlier anyway.)

Oh yeah, Porscha, I owe you my life it seems. Cheers.

sorry for the heart attack LC


was quietly sitting here watching your reaction

gee gee

Let that mfer rand

There is a real chance I just fall asleep soon




so I'm making it 2-2.

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:10 pm

Master Radishes wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:08 pm What if we're all town

You would've loved SamP4Palmer if you were from EpicMafia.

But then I'd have to be from EM.

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:09 pm One guy has had a strong presence throughout and has tried to put town in the correct direction and most of the actions he's done have been pro-town.

The other guy had next to no presence and his main push was on FS who is green checked.

Macro level read will help.

"I've put in more work and deserve to win."

What if we're all town

I don't even remember the rest of the game anymore.


This is just a game of 'pick one of LC or Seanzie to disappoint and see if you too end up disappointed'.

This is why I think we just let a coin flip decide.

fingersplints wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 4:59 pm I really hate this position Mafia

Fixed

Through a perverse sense of morality, I feel obligated to stand by my 'locked' vote.




But maybe we should just tie it 2-2 and let it rand for the game.

If you were town Seanzie, truthfully there wasn't much for you to do/say today that would've swayed my mind. I was going primarily off Ender's treatment of you two and that pointed more towards you than LC so there's not much for you to say to that.

I was really hoping one of you would've been like 'teehee i was the wolf' but I guess no one believes in locked votes.

fingersplints wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:08 am The spec chat is either cheering or cursing us right now lol

Ender is now viewing the thread which doesn't fill me with confidence lol.

LC/Seanzie I'm not moving my vote now.


Feel free to reveal your alignment.

@dunya

I'm locking my vote. Solemnly swear I'm not moving it.

Lol maybe we should rand it 2/2

[VOTE: Seanzie] aubergine


Let's just end it one way or another.

fingersplints wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:01 am

Master Radishes wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:59 am

fingersplints wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:56 am

Master Radishes wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:18 am The 'easy' answer is just Seanzie. If Ender/LC were the team they worked really hard and 'deserve' it tbh.

But I also ALWAYS get it wrong in F4/F5 and I want to, just for once, get it right. So I'll continue to mull and ponder and ruminate.

Tbh I’m still at the same point. I’m also trying to think about how I’d feel after game

If I vote Seanzie, and it’s LC: ok it sucks to be wrong and lose for the town, but LC was the more townie option.
If I vote LC, and it’s Seanzie: I’m more annoyed because I thought that for days and then just second guessed my intuition last minute for no reason

Wanna just vote Seanzie and we call it a day?

That’s about where I’m at.

How do you feel about Ender’s day 1 vote on the tie being for Seanzie? Is he a known busser?
It bothers me a little but not a lot because Seanzie was not active at that point and even people who don’t like bussing would vote a non active teammate

I don't know if I put *that* much stock into it.

Ender and LC were both on Falcon (3 votes on Falcon, 2 on MR/Wilgy)
LC says 'let's make it rand' and I support the notion
Ender and LC simultaneously switch to Seanzie to meet this idea, though accidentally make Seanzie go into the lead (3 votes vs 2 on MR/Wilgy)
LC switches back to Falcon to create a 4-way rand (2 votes on Seanzie/MR/Wilgy/Falc)

I can see Ender feeling he'd rock the boat too much to switch off, and put his faith in the odds his partner would survive. He'd get a bit of cred for the bus if it was Seanzie who flipped.


I feel like Ender *could* have easily just stayed on Falcon or whatever, but maybe figured he would have time to switch off later or whatever (/ his partner was slanking so may as well bus).

fingersplints wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 6:56 am

Master Radishes wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:18 am The 'easy' answer is just Seanzie. If Ender/LC were the team they worked really hard and 'deserve' it tbh.

But I also ALWAYS get it wrong in F4/F5 and I want to, just for once, get it right. So I'll continue to mull and ponder and ruminate.

Tbh I’m still at the same point. I’m also trying to think about how I’d feel after game

If I vote Seanzie, and it’s LC: ok it sucks to be wrong and lose for the town, but LC was the more townie option.
If I vote LC, and it’s Seanzie: I’m more annoyed because I thought that for days and then just second guessed my intuition last minute for no reason

Wanna just vote Seanzie and we call it a day?

If it's LC what I'll be most annoyed about is the fact that I have previously said before that the best approach to F3 (/F4) is to look primarily at how each player approaches it, and to me I feel LC has maybe approached it more like I'd expect a scum who feels they deserve it would.

So if we vote Seanzie and it's LC I'll kick myself for not listening to my own advice. :P

I'm willing to just say it's Seanzie, and if it's actually LC then shrug it off and say he earned it by outworking us.

I need to take a break and do real work.

Master Radishes wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:20 am I get scumread when town all the time, especially in the early game.

I find it funny because I can just rub it in their faces later.

^my point being don't rage in the moment, just picture that moment where you end up mischopped, flip green, and all your detractors are like '...oh, shit' and then bide your time for the post-game/spec chat 'haha told you so' moment.

That's what I do.

I get scumread when town all the time, especially in the early game.

I find it funny because I can just rub it in their faces later.

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:16 am I say that numerous times but I end up raging anyways because nothing ever fucking changes.

But it's getting to a point where I'm missing shit that I never wanted to miss. I gotta do it somehow.

Swearing now won't change my concerns about this, btw.

The 'easy' answer is just Seanzie. If Ender/LC were the team they worked really hard and 'deserve' it tbh.

But I also ALWAYS get it wrong in F4/F5 and I want to, just for once, get it right. So I'll continue to mull and ponder and ruminate.

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 5:15 am

Master Radishes wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 4:55 am LC, haven't you said, in the past, that you often get angry/frustrated as town, but are more calm as Mafia?

I just got off a 2 month ban from this site and I'm nearing the end of a 6 month suspension on MU.

Trying to not rage.

Fair enough.

@fingersplints


My current thoughts:


Interactions
*Ender/Seanzie fits easily. They have no hard interactions.
*Ender/LC, however, are not really ruled out as a team. Their pushes on each other and are not *very* hard tbh. More details in posts above ^ but although it seems less likely that they're paired, I can't rule it out.

GTH: Seanzie is the likelier wolf based on how each of them interacted with Ender (and vice versa).


General scumminess
*Seanzie's actions fit that of a slanky wolf. His turn on to you feels like a slanky wolf looking for an avenue to appear engaged.
*LC as a wolf is also not impossible. His general activity/engagement level is good, but seeing as he never faced much pressure he likely would have always felt fairly comfortable even as scum in this slow gamestate. I'm...now a bit concerned though, because he has a history of getting visibly frustrated when Town but less so as Mafia, and this game he has been actually quite calm the whole time.

GTH: Seanzie is more conventionally scummy, but once again I can't rule LC out, particularly based on his own meta.


Approach to F4
(In my experience, the best tell for a scenario like this is how each person approaches the final round itself.)

*Seanzie is happy to talk about himself being town but not LC being scum. I guess this is fairly NAI.
*LC came in with a few big-ass posts about why he's definitely town. If I'm being uncharitible, they feel pre-prepared. I don't think he can be cleared on 'effort' here. In fact, in a gamestate like this, 'effort' is what should get him townread, which he'd know as scum. He's in the driver's seat, he knows it, and a bit of work over Night to show his towniness should seal him the game.

GTH: Lime Coke's approach to this final round feels simultaneously better but also worse than Seanzie's.

I was all ready to be like 'yeah it's probably just Seanzie'


but now I'm like....LC, where's the emotion? I'm just scrolling through past town game sof yours and even if you don't flip out and swear I still sense more *emotion* in your posts there than in this game.

LC, haven't you said, in the past, that you often get angry/frustrated as town, but are more calm as Mafia?

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Tue Mar 29, 2022 4:59 pm [VOTE: ender] aubergine

Why is Mac going over?

Afaict the Ender wagon was only at 2 votes until LC bumps it up here, 2 hours before EoD. (I can't tell from the thread what Mac's vote count is at tbh, but I don't remember it being any higher than Ender's I think? So like 2-3 votes at most?)

Once again, I wouldn't call this *never* w/w as maybe wolf!LC senses momentum and wants to get in on it, knowing his partner is gonna come in and cop claim soon.

But once again, it does feel a bit unnecessary for an Ender/LC team. Like, wolves absolutely do play 'scared' and over-think how they look together and so bus more than they need to. But surely both Ender and LC are more confident/experienced than that? At least enough so that they find an avenue to push a falcon or NAA or MR wagon in this gamestate instead, rather than bus like they've done to each other in this round? Or if they're going to distance they make more of a show of it?

God damn WIFOM.

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Tue Mar 29, 2022 7:07 am I actually am thinking more and more this is despondant wolf!LC. He falls off on D2/D3 when he isn't really putting in an effort. He can also do so after some bad games (I remember him falling off as town in Smilies for instance), but the weird vote swapping plus disengagement = IF Falcon/MR are town then LC has to be wolf

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Tue Mar 29, 2022 7:08 am I am gonna re-dive my meta stuff but I'm feeling a little more confident now about [VOTE: Lime Coke] aubergine and this gamestate is stagnant so shake-a-the-things-up

This is about 12 hours to go before EoD, which is not so close I'd call this 'never w/w' but also in this slow gamestate it's a bit risky to push your active potential deepwolf partner when you yourself do not, at this stage, have a wagon on you.

My hesitation is sort of *how* Ender goes about deciding to vote LC. It...doesn't feel genuine. Well, like, obviously, duh. But I can't tell the flavour of disingenuity. Is this a distancing tactic which he feels is safe enough to get away with, or an attempt to look like he's 'shaking things up' (as he himself justifies it with)?

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 6:53 pm

Seanzie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 12:10 pm

falcon45ca wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:00 am

NotAnAxehole wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:58 am

Seanzie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:47 am

NotAnAxehole wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:40 am TBH, I'm kind of surprised that Ender isn't voting Mac, because I see no way Mac and Ender can both be town.

Why? Because Mac suspects Ender?

It's not THAT he suspects him, it's HOW he approached the read. Mac came in with a very clear intention to take over the thread, and succeeded.

Oh, you're playing now? Excellent


What's your take on Porscha & fingers?

Eh, I don't like this. NAA has given a lot of thoughts on you. Are some of them kinda reachy? Sure, but he gave reasons for him pushing you. Pretending like he hasn't and only just now started "playing" is pretty meh.

Kinda starting to think NAA might be on to something.

This is a good post from Seanzie.

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:01 pm

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 6:40 pm [VOTE: Seanzie] aubergine

LC, your vote switches are definitely raising my hackles.

Ender/Seanzie remain w/w-compatible.

(tbh this is ALL me just 'thinking out loud' so sorry for spamming the thread in a disjointed manner, but it's more for me then for anyone else)

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 6:38 pm

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 7:06 pm

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:58 pm

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:55 pm

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:52 pm

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:47 pm Also, Ender, I can't read you anyways dude.

Best to leave it to someone else.

Not to take the blame off me FYI, just leave me less annoyed with myself for fucking up.

Mmmm.

I'm gonna re-read it a little but I'm actually thinking this might be LC wolf here.

LC has been scared of me as wolf in the past because I've grasped his meta outside his angry play pretty well. This feels like him grasping a chance to push against me while someone else has the blame for the reasons when I flip town.

I'm busy atm and will need to leave soon but that is definitely a possibility. (Mac not paired in that case.)

I've townread you pretty strongly every game when you were a wolf.

So are you really not considering this when looking at that?

I was also your "Most confident townread" on day 1 here too.

Yet you've shown doubt about your townread before when it feels like winds are blowing against me. You never commit to being my biggest detractor, and "sheeping Mac" is a great excuse for it.

That being said, I'm not 100% sure this does fit your meta, it was just a thought when seeing you play metronome with your stance.

This wouldn't be happening if I didn't misclear you about 3 games by now, as I was putting in effort to actually read you.

Meh. I could be wrong. Just felt really fucking weird when you ended last day with "Ender is town" as your "Most confident read" and then flipped it on me the moment someone big came at me.

I can't decide what to make of this sequence.

It's...pretty soft, enough so that I'd never clear the w/w association off of it.

But it almost feels like a real conversation? I do feel, at least, like they didn't *need* to do this at this juncture (D2). Maybe Mac's bulldozer entrance on D2 scared them a bit, so they went for a bit of distance? But beyond that these two were the loudest voices driving the thread, and could've easily continued that without the need to fake suss on each other. So it does feel a bit out of place for it to be w/w, but as I say not enough to discount it completely, and maybe Mac's arrival panicked them a bit.


/thinking out loud some more

I know I said I'd focus on interactions more so than generic scumhunting, but if I were to a distrustfall sort of exercise, I'd say:


The scummiest thing about Seanzie was his sudden, confident push onto Fingersplints after being MIA from much of the early game - it was an 'easy' target (FS has had a lower presence level and a tone/posting style that could be fairly easily twisted into being painted as 'scummy' imo) that makes sense for a low-activity scum to latch on to as a direction to push in.


And whilst I'm thinking along these lines, perhaps the scummeist thing about Lime Coke has been his propensity to be a weathervane. Like a lot of the time as I read through here, I see him changing direction based on what others have said, e.g. D1 with Falcon (he had him as a TR but changed his mind towards EoD) and D2 with Ender (once Mac came out and confidently claimed he'd solved the game and Ender was scum). Notably on that last one he didn't really push hard/vote Ender, just amplify the shade a bit.

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 26, 2022 5:11 pm I'm not sure I vibe with Seanzie being scum because the wagon on him has literally just sat there this entire time.

Towards the end of D1. LC pointed out shortly thereafter, though, that it was only a 2-person 'wagon' that Ender was referring to.

Ender then votes elsewhere, but does end up back on Seanzie in the 4-way rand. A bit risky to vote your partner, even in a rand scenario, on D1. But Seanzie had made like one post and it was a 4-way tie so, like, odds weren't awful I guess.

For context: what happened as far as I can remember/piece together now is that the Falc wagon had 3 (NAA, LC, EW), but LC suggested we let it rand and he and Ender switched to Seanzie in the exact same moment; LC then switched back to Falcon to make it a 4-way rand situation. I could see Ender hoping in the off-chance Seanzie lost the tie he'd get some credit for being there.

This is not a smoking gun or anything - I'm just thinking out loud.

Okay. Let's just haphazardly go through some things.


First, Ender and Seanzie have no interactions that can't easily be w/w.

E.g.

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:39 pm

Seanzie wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:25 pm

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:22 pm

Seanzie wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:15 pm

EnderWiggin wrote: ↑Sun Mar 27, 2022 6:12 pm Seanzie, I will vote you out if all you do this game is make a joke at daystart and fuck off.

And I won't even feel bad if you're town.

Seems kinda hostile. I missed one day, one instance does not make a pattern.

I'm not particularly happy with the content of the game and if you posted once and disappeared it would have just hurt more.

What is wrong with the content this game?

A good 50% of it hasn't existed as actual content.

I mean, this could easily just be one wolf speaking to another in a hot dog costume.


There are a few other Ender/Seanzie interactions later in the game but they're all on this sort of level. Nothing that makes me pause and think it's a wolf interacting with a town.

Lol. I'm just not going to give anything away for now, till Seanzie has a chance to counter at least.

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Sun Apr 03, 2022 12:32 pm @Master Radishes

Scale of 1-10 let me know how I did.

Also making my font bigger just to make it easier to read between the quotes and incase people are reading it on phone.

Mhmm.

Lime Coke wrote: ↑Sun Apr 03, 2022 10:09 am Like I said if there's any questions let me know and I'll answer. I'm not entirely sure what else I should be doing. I'm not the type of player to scumcase someone, especially when it's just a 1 on 1 since it's just flat out going to be a conf-biased case.

Can you do it anyway?

@Seanzie same thing - since you know it's LC, can you spell out the case for me on why?

I'll generally be trying to ignore individual towniness/scumminess.

I'm more interested in (a) their associations with all other players, (b) Ender's interactions with each of them, and (c) their approach to this round.

I'm roughly on the same page as you atm - I ended D3 leaning towards it being Seanzie, but I didn't really like LC's attempts to justify (I stopped reading his posts, actually) and am now not really certain which way to swing.

I intend to go back and double check everything; just need the time to do so. But we have every piece of the puzzle except LC and Seanzie sorted, including ourselves, so in theory I may come out of a re-read with a strong feeling? In theory, anyway.

I know no one wants to wait the full 48 hours, but I will have to give this a read-over/think-over tomorrow, not today.

fingersplints wrote: ↑Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:01 am I’m not sure why but I don’t like anyone’s responses today lol
I’m most interested to hear what @Master Radishes is thinking right now. I went into this day thinking definitely Seanzie but I’m questioning that right now

Oh damn, we actually have to make a game-winning decision here? I'm historically bad at those.

inb4 cop flip

*twiddles thumbs*