Day 1 blind interaction analysis
The spoiler below contains blind interactions for
all players (excluding myself).
The image below is the same thing, but with the zero posters and very-low posters removed (since they're almost compatible with everyone by default).
Jay, what the hell is this?
"Blind interactions" are essentially pre-flip associations. I said earlier that I don't tend to do those unless I review every single interaction. Well here we are. This is, in my opinion, the most useful behavioral solving mechanism in my personal toolkit, and thankfully this game has been active enough for it to be reasonably productive (sans the inactive participants).
Here's how to read it, for those who aren't familiar:
Each block (cell) in the table represents an association between two players (identified by columns and rows). The color reflects my view of how well they fit together as
mafia teammates.
Dark Green -- I don't think they make good sense as teammates. I dissociate this pair.
Light Green -- I think they're unlikely teammates, albeit with less confidence than dark green.
Yellow -- I have no good reason to say they're not teammates. They are compatible.
Orange -- I found at least one thing that might be teammate-
indicative.
Important caveat -- I try to do this from an unbiased point of view, at least as much as I can. That means I included everyone, including my strongest town reads, and I assessed them impartially. That's how Bereft can be my top town read but still have an orange block up there.
When I assess associations, I
assume one player is mafia for the sake of argument, and then assess how well the other player fits with them in that world. I have looked at every single pairing here through ISOs. I did not take thorough notes, and I won't post all of the tiny details that led to these conclusions. That would be too much for everyone else to absorb, and it would clutter the thread with messy data.
Still, you need only ask me to expand my conclusion for on any individual cell in this table, and I will do that (as long as I don't get flooded with a thousand such questions).
Thoughts and conclusions
~ The single most important thing I look for when I complete a table like this is
green blocks. They are more important to me than orange blocks. If I can find a player that seems to fit
poorly with the majority of other players, that is great evidence that the player is town. The premier example of this in this table is none other than
@Scotty (by the way, check out this deep Day 1 analysis, pal). Scotty technically fits with the lowest-posting players in the game (as does everyone), but I don't think he is a good fit with the vast majority of the active players. I think that is a very important finding, and it's one that I would love for everyone else to explore.
If Scotty is a major suspect of yours, who might be his teammates? Who makes sense? I think there's a case to be made about him an Abigail, but if that's not a pair then I am stuck with mostly zero posters. Those who want Scotty's head are responsible for reconciling this. If it cannot be reconciled, then he's probably a bad vote.
~ Cape90 turns out
okay as well with respect to green blocks, though with one important caveat. I think he and Thunal fit together (I can expand on this later), and in my POE that would kind of make some sense.
~ LoRab has the most strong dissociations (tied with S~V~S), though the reasons for them might reduce the extent to which she can be town read. I think that a hypothetical mafia LoRab would have been guilty of considerable TMI, so it's
her own posts largely driving those dissociations.
~
Most importantly, the raw prevalence of green blocks in the second table up there is important to me. Broadly, I don't think there are a lot of great mafia pairings that make sense among the active player base in this game roster. There are some, but most of the time when I make tables like this they're not
that green. So that leaves me with two conclusions to consider:
1) I was too generous when handing out green blocks.
2) The active player base is broadly town, and there are mafia (potentially multiple) among the inactive players.
It could be that both 1 and 2 are true as well.
~~~
This post is too big already, so I will shut up. I want folks to be able to absorb all of this. Please, let me know if you have questions or are confused about what you're looking at. This is precisely the kind of hunting I have been wanting to do for quite a long time, but I have continuously rolled mafia in games and didn't have the right win condition for it. This was fun for me.
![Big grin :biggrin:](./images/smilies/Big%20Grin.gif)