The Syndicate

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:36 pm

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:29 pm seems weird to scumread me for my "associative" reads and then go "epi is probably town because the most likely scum buddy for epi to have is nanook and nanook is town"

Hypocrisy is a staple of the civilian playbook.

I have made numerous associative reads. I literally charted them. I may use them a bit differently than you do, however. I use them as a part of the POE process (at least when they precede flips). Determining what teams don't work helps to eliminate suspects.

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:29 pmbut also this logic doesn't even make sense. Like let's say we think that Epi has 20% chance to be partnered with nanook if he is indeed scum and 15% chance to be partnered with the next-highest percent. Why can't we be living in that 15% world? It's not that unlikely. For the chances of Epi/nanook not being the case to significantly affect your read on Epi, you have to really be sure that Epi is very likely to be scum with nanook if he is scum. Like 60/20 instead of 20/15. Then maybe it makes sense.

I don't stick these meaningless numbers on my reads. I said it's nice for Epi, and it is (to whatever degree you wish to describe it as "nice"). It doesn't clear Epi or mean that I'm finished assessing Epi. It's a single data point that I extracted in a review and posted. It was the most visible. There may be other connections of interest to uncover, but they're going to require a more dedicated analytic approach. I did not notice them in a general ISO scan. I have a very specific methodology for looking into two-way pairings as a deliberate motion. When I do so for Epi, we'll see what I find.

I don't think this addresses the primary concern about associative reads which is the house of cards thing. You asked me about my W/W read on you and LC - what if LC flips town? Similarly I'll have to ask you here - what if nanook flips scum? You haven't solved the main flaw with associative reads which you seem to be so concerned about. That aside...

...the numbers are examples, but they aren't meaningless. If we take "Epi is town" to be A, "Epi and nanook are scum" to be B, and "Epi is scum but not with nanook" to be C, then it is incorrect to believe that not-B strongly implies A unless you also believe C to be very low. For instance, if B = 0% (if we take it on faith that Epi/nanook are never a team together) and C = 80% (Epi is individually scummy, so he's scum wih someone that isn't nanook, since we know B is 0), then A = 20% (Epi has a low chance of being town). In other words, the probability of Epi/nanook should not significanatly affect your read on Epi unless you think Epi can't be partnered with anyone other than nanook. This suggests that the single data point B should not significantly adjust your read of A (since I have proven that A can be very high even if B is very low), which is what your post sounded like it was doing.

i think the discussion alison and jay are having is relatively pointless and is simply a matter of differing play styles, not anything to do with alignment

Hally wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:44 pm if i try some tiers im maybe here... ish? i think

jay
nanook
wisp

sabie
daisy
kitsu

epi
alison
tony

fg
lc
pawn
colin
wilgy

tiers not ordered. id say this is a rough approximation of where im at?

meh, whatever here you go

wanna make it clear that i basically town read everyone outside of the bottom five

not really sure why the tiers above that are where they are lol

ig its just like relative strength of town read

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:37 pm This is a pretty self centered view but I’m perfectly fine with a gamestate of “nanook and jay figure out alignments and determine kill pools and I don’t care what anyone else does as long as they follow our kill pools”

I get that’s not exactly the fun way to play but I think it wins more games than it loses

I generally think this entire debate about "what is the best way to play mafia" is pointless and unproductive here and I generally think JJJ's strategy can't be too bad in his gamestate anyway so I'm going to ask everyone to just shelve this particular dispute over theory until postgame.

I'll probably have my own kill pool and decision-making process, which I'll follow instead of yours, but I also suspect it's going to be 90+% the same as yours anyway, so we'll just see who overlaps in our kill pools and consolidate on them. I doubt it'll be a big deal this game.

Hally wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:47 pm i think the discussion alison and jay are having is relatively pointless and is simply a matter of differing play styles, not anything to do with alignment

No I think Jay is making an error of logic in thinking that "Epi and nanook are not W/W" means anything about Epi's alignment

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:50 pm

Hally wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:47 pm i think the discussion alison and jay are having is relatively pointless and is simply a matter of differing play styles, not anything to do with alignment

No I think Jay is making an error of logic in thinking that "Epi and nanook are not W/W" means anything about Epi's alignment

Or, to be clearer, I think he's overstating the meaning it has - on a theory basis it should not mean nearly enough for him to single it out as the thing that jumps out to him in Epi's ISO.

imo if we cut out all the fluff and nitpicking virtually everyone I townread believes some close variation of the following:

kill [Colin, LC, FG, Wilgy, Pawn]
don't kill [nanook, Hally, sabie, Kitsu, JJJ, Wisp, Spacedaisy, Alison]

with TSP and Epi as the slots people genuinely disagree about

if nobody has strong disagreements with this general idea I suggest we proceed in killing in the stated pool of 5 and not worry too much. I don't expect anyone to have strong objections to doing so. I think LC has the highest equity and his flip helps me sort JJJ so I'll start wih him tomorrow.

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:26 pm

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:23 pm

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:20 pm As I scour Epi's posts, the easiest case I can find for his being a mafioso is as Nanook's teammate.

That's a good thing. Nanook is a civilian.

I don't think Epi/nanook is the team if Epi is mafia, no. I don't understand why Epi can't be mafia with people that aren't nanook though.

Like he really has done nothing if you look at his posts. IMO if you're going to jam people who've done nothing into your POE (which is fine given the state of the game), you should also not TR Epi this hard.

Maybe I skimmed over a page where Epi did some serious gamesolving? Feel free to highlight it to me if you feel that's the case.

Hey, we have something in common!

I have read nothing since I went to bed and I won't until I do so. If the weather is fine, I'm in the pool. As a result I have eight pages. I'll be with you folks in a few hours, provided I live.

I am going to sleep. The readslist I gave earlier and the post advocating for a 5-person kill pool are my legacy if I die at night.

Wisp wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:46 pm Man I wish y'all would chill... I am trying to focus on something else right now, and night phase is supposed to be for sleeping and recuperating!

NO...SLEEP...TILL...VICTORY

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:49 pm

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:37 pm This is a pretty self centered view but I’m perfectly fine with a gamestate of “nanook and jay figure out alignments and determine kill pools and I don’t care what anyone else does as long as they follow our kill pools”

I get that’s not exactly the fun way to play but I think it wins more games than it loses

I generally think this entire debate about "what is the best way to play mafia" is pointless and unproductive here and I generally think JJJ's strategy can't be too bad in his gamestate anyway so I'm going to ask everyone to just shelve this particular dispute over theory until postgame.

I'll probably have my own kill pool and decision-making process, which I'll follow instead of yours, but I also suspect it's going to be 90+% the same as yours anyway, so we'll just see who overlaps in our kill pools and consolidate on them. I doubt it'll be a big deal this game.

I’m not saying everyone should turn their brains off and follow myself and jay

I am saying that if a kill happens outside myself and Jay’s pool while we’re both alive...well, I won’t say not nice things, it just shouldn’t happen and I’ll leave it at that.

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:08 pm

Wisp wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:46 pm Man I wish y'all would chill... I am trying to focus on something else right now, and night phase is supposed to be for sleeping and recuperating!

NO...SLEEP...TILL...VICTORY

Piss off... <3

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:11 pm

Alison wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:49 pm

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 5:37 pm This is a pretty self centered view but I’m perfectly fine with a gamestate of “nanook and jay figure out alignments and determine kill pools and I don’t care what anyone else does as long as they follow our kill pools”

I get that’s not exactly the fun way to play but I think it wins more games than it loses

I generally think this entire debate about "what is the best way to play mafia" is pointless and unproductive here and I generally think JJJ's strategy can't be too bad in his gamestate anyway so I'm going to ask everyone to just shelve this particular dispute over theory until postgame.

I'll probably have my own kill pool and decision-making process, which I'll follow instead of yours, but I also suspect it's going to be 90+% the same as yours anyway, so we'll just see who overlaps in our kill pools and consolidate on them. I doubt it'll be a big deal this game.

I’m not saying everyone should turn their brains off and follow myself and jay

I am saying that if a kill happens outside myself and Jay’s pool while we’re both alive...well, I won’t say not nice things, it just shouldn’t happen and I’ll leave it at that.

Not gonna lie, I don't care that much about your pool. I'll find scum my own way.

There’s the uncooperative attitude that serves syndicate so well

I was waiting for it, as soon as you mention working as a team or following a POE at least one usually more people have to come out and say some variation of “fuck you and the horse you rode in on I’m doing my own thing go away”

It’s super fun

Big daddy jay come talk some sense into these miscreants please

Why would I support a system that I'm almost always going to be on the wrong side of?

Long Con wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:28 pm Why would I support a system that I'm almost always going to be on the wrong side of?

because it will win the game in the long run even if you’re mislimed

if youre town, there should be a higher goal here beyond your own self preservation

Hally wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:35 pm

Long Con wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:28 pm Why would I support a system that I'm almost always going to be on the wrong side of?

because it will win the game in the long run even if you’re mislimed

if youre town, there should be a higher goal here beyond your own self preservation

Yeah, because that's the kind of Mafia I'm interested in playing, the kind where you yeet long con and then try to play the game.

to put it bluntly, perc’s town game is great because we generally all work really well together

on perc town wins about twice as often as scum because we’re excellent at forming good poe’s, finding each other as town and working together. there may be other factors there, like the different types of setups we run and perhaps our scum play being a bit less strong than the syndicate’s. but when it comes down to it, we just work well as a team and we get results

i promise this kind of play that jay, nanook and i are promoting wins games for town more than it loses them

Long Con wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:28 pm Why would I support a system that I'm almost always going to be on the wrong side of?

Because we could well be right about everyone else on the wrong side. I understand why you might view this with incredulity or frustration from your vantage point. Consider though: most POE pools are going to have one or more civilians in them. The strategy may be wholly sound anyway. If you’re a wrong answer, perhaps that’s added motivation to examine the other names and to fight all the harder to prevent your own mischop. And I do think you’re fighting at least.

This doesn’t mean you can’t case other people within the “town core”. If you believe in a read I encourage you to explore and pursue it to your satisfaction. Just please be open to feedback about why folks may not agree.

I’ve been wrongly crammed into a POE pool before. I know it’s shitty. It just means you’re all the more important to the game’s progression though. How about that for the vanity of Long Con? If you’re a civilian, then this is your opportunity to be a hero.

I mean being in the POE doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to die, it doesn’t even mean you’re going to stay in the POE! Helping sort the rest of the POE is a good place to start

Like the POE isn’t a 100% static thing, it evolves/has room to evolve

I do acknowledge that the mafia-aligned play on this site is often elite. So put your thoughts out there about anyone and I will listen y’all.

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:41 pm I mean being in the POE doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to die, it doesn’t even mean you’re going to stay in the POE! Helping sort the rest of the POE is a good place to start

Like the POE isn’t a 100% static thing, it evolves/has room to evolve

this

not to mention, being town and in the poe can give you an even better vantage point by which to solve

Also echoing what Hally said this approach is tried and true and you have people from two different communities with strong town play (Hally from PerC and myself from 451) telling you this is how towns win games over time

Do your thing. I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines.

Hot take: mafia play here is often solidly above average, but not elite. Towns here just have no sense of cooperation and often a strong sense of fatalism, and that leads to a lot of town losses.

I guarantee when you missyeet me that someone will put all the blame on me for not being in the POE.

Long Con wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:43 pm Do your thing. I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines.

Ngl it’s a bit irritating that you’re bitching about being left out literally as we’re trying to include you and tell you how to work with us

This “do your thing I’ll do mine” attitude is shitty, quite frankly, we’re trying to all to do the same thing

Like for fuck’s sake dude I’m trying to extend an olive branch and you’re just moping and putting up the finger

How do you expect people to not kill you if your response to “ok we’ll listen to you and try to work with you” is fatalism and fuck yous???

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:42 pm I do acknowledge that the mafia-aligned play on this site is often elite. So put your thoughts out there about anyone and I will listen y’all.

yeah, its probably true that the syndicate as better scum play than perc does on the whole, maybe by a wide margin even. and maybe thats contributed to this site’s culture of town being more cowboy style and distrustful of each other and town cores and what not. constantly getting burned by
great scum play can do that to you. its also kind of a chicken or the egg thing. does less teamwork as town lead to better scum play or does better scum play lead to less team work as town? my guess is its a mutually reinforcing dynamic. the opposite is probably true on perc i.e. great town play leads to worse scum play which leads to better town play and so on until the site as a whole is quite lopsided in towns favor

It’s fun to see that my ways aren’t THAT different to the 451 style as they appear on the surface. I don’t view post aesthetics or communication quite the same way, but the core process is pretty much there.

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:46 pm Like for fuck’s sake dude I’m trying to extend an olive branch and you’re just moping and putting up the finger

How do you expect people to not kill you if your response to “ok we’ll listen to you and try to work with you” is fatalism and fuck yous???

"Long Con is bad, he has no reads"

Long Con: "I think Jay is bad, here's why."

"You look worse for making that case."

Long Con: "Okay, here's why I think Kitsu is shady."

"Kitsu is town, why are you casing one of our towncore?"

Long Con: "All right... you specifically asked me about Epignosis, so here's a case on him, and reasons I think he could be bad."

"Uh, no, we didn't mean for you to suspect Epignosis frankly this makes you look worse."

Long Con: "Thanks for working with me, I'll just wait here for my yeet."

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:48 pm It’s fun to see that my ways aren’t THAT different to the 451 style as they appear on the surface. I don’t view post aesthetics or communication quite the same way, but the core process is pretty much there.

Yeh the broad approach of “towncore and POE” is the same, it’s just the methods of getting there that are a bit different I think

That reminds me that I owe you the rest of a theory discussion sometime lol

Long Con wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:51 pm

NANOOKTHEGREATANDFEARSOME wrote: ↑Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:46 pm Like for fuck’s sake dude I’m trying to extend an olive branch and you’re just moping and putting up the finger

How do you expect people to not kill you if your response to “ok we’ll listen to you and try to work with you” is fatalism and fuck yous???

"Long Con is bad, he has no reads"

Long Con: "I think Jay is bad, here's why."

"You look worse for making that case."

Long Con: "Okay, here's why I think Kitsu is shady."

"Kitsu is town, why are you casing one of our towncore?"

Long Con: "All right... you specifically asked me about Epignosis, so here's a case on him, and reasons I think he could be bad."

"Uh, no, we didn't mean for you to suspect Epignosis frankly this makes you look worse."

Long Con: "Thanks for working with me, I'll just wait here for my yeet."

I disagreed with your conclusions but I never said they made you scummy

If all you have for me is this combination of vitriol and resentment and petulance...idk dude, how am I supposed to work with that

I guess you can blame me for how other people responded to you if you want, not gonna get very far that way

I could have responded better to your Epignosis case, LC. I grant that. It’s that confirmation bias bug always buzzing around in the noggin. I also understand if it’s not super clear to you why folks think those people are town.

What do you think of the other names mired in the position alongside you? Primary FG, Pawnyo, Wilgy, and Colin

I’m taking a nap now, if I’m still alive for D2 I’ll make a concerted effort to get together with you and see if we can find some ground we agree on. Maybe you’ll even convince me someone in my towncore is bad, who knows.

I’ll listen to what you have to say, can’t promise I’ll agree with it, that’s the best I can offer, take it or leave it

Alright Nanook, next game you'll see a new long con, please remind me when we start and I'll do my gosh darnedest to fit in.

I’m not asking you to fit in I’m just asking you to meet me halfway lol

Idk why we have to wait for next game let’s just meet halfway d2!

There’s a non-zero chance this night poll means something. Perhaps we should care about the vote distribution before it locks.

does it matter where or if i vote? i can do whatever

Hmm

Simplistic view is on is for abilities on off is for them off maybe?

Doubt it would be that straightforward tho

I don’t really know lol, I’m just thinking out loud. Townies vote together or some shit

I suggest one of jay/Hally moves to on with me

And keep one on off

Bases covered either way makes sense I think?

K i stopped jacking off

Heh my first thought was the opposite, split the townies so our bases are covered either way

I bow to your expertise

That strat is also valid

You’ve got more experience with meaningful night polls than I do, I’ll follow your gut on it