Lewwyn Wrote:You say whenever the masons reveal we get the benefit. I say this is not true because the benefit might be taken away.
You are assuming that we won't lose the benefit altogether. If a mason is killed then there is no way to prove the other masons innocence it can essentially become a tool by wolves to use against us. If we wait and the wolves get luck with a mason kill then not only do we lose all future benefits but we also are giving the wolves a benefit. Would you rather a benefit now that may be useful or take the chance that the benefit won't be there in the future and turned against us.
I'm completley aware of this benefit you describe, it's the sole benefit I've assigned to "revealing early". My point is that this benefit is not worth the cost.
We don't actually "gain a benefit" when they reveal. It doesn't tell us anything useful. We "gain a benefit" when we choose not to lynch a player because that player is a known power role. That's the only substantial benefit. We don't gain it until they would have been lynched otherwise
Serdoa Wrote:Not true. The suspect pool will be reduced. Not having enough votes to be lynched doesn't mean that they are not suspected. Every villager has right now to suspect 13 other players. So it will automatically lower the players we have to suspect. And give us some information to look at which we can trust that it was not meant to distract the villager (of course it still can be a distraction).
The suspect pool is not usefully reduced if they are not suspects in the first place. It's true that we know that a couple of people have been telling the truth. But frankly, it doesn't help us. They don't know anything that we don't, so all they could ever give us is an opinion and some arguments, and we have to weight those on their merits no matter who they come from. The difference between someone ignorantly spouting incorrect theories and deliberately spouting incorrect theories is the least significant of all the factors involved in this debate.
Lewwyn Wrote:So that is what I see as the difference between these arguments. I say use it or lose it. You say lets wait even if there's a chance we will lose it and it will blow up in our faces.
We lose it not just when the masons are killed by good wolf-guesswork, we also lose it if the masons are killed by wolves. Whether that's because they second guess the baner, block the baner, or kill the baner, the risk of losing our confirmed villagers is substantially higher once they're revealed.
So I'm saying, don't throw it away for nothing. Use it when we actually gain some benefit from it, and don't sacrifice it for no gain.
Lewwyn Wrote:In fact there's no way to show for sure that its a net loss on average for the future.
Sorry, this statement is complete nonsense. There is a indeed way to show for sure whether it's a net loss on average or not. You enumerate the finite set of possibilities, and assign a probability to each one. I really don't want to have to explain the modern philosophical understanding of probability theory right now so just take my word that you can
always assign a probability for something regardless of how much you do and don't know about the situation - that probability reflects your knowledge. Then simply work out the odds of winning in each case based on the possible outcomes and the probability of each.
Now, doing that is a lot of work, so we approximate things to create an estimate. If you make bounded approximations then you can get an estimate which is good enough to prove the point you want to make. Which is just about what I've already tried to do.
Lewwyn Wrote:If in fact the baner is never actually hit by luck then the masons will actually be living longer, therefore the case can be made that in fact you are increasing the number of confirmed villagers both in the present and in the future.
You thoroughly overestimate the power of a baner, especially in the presence of a void-wolf. If the baner protects the masons, the wolves can ignore the masons, then you've still shortened the expected average lifespan of the baner. And the masons soon after. If the wolves ignore the claim, and pick a player at random including the masons, then we're left with the same situation as no claim. Or they can bias a little bit more towards the masons, to trade off the increase risk of getting
So on the whole, now the wolves have a choice of strategy, one of which is equivalent to the strategy they had before. So it cannot be better (at least for optimal play by the wolves), and it can certainly be worse.
We don't want the baner protecting the masons anyway. We want the baner protecting a villager the wolves are targeting, who will become an extra confirmed villager as a result.
So no, it is not helping, it is stictly worse. It only keeps the masons alive longer in specifically only the case where the wolves decide that they benefit by not targeting the masons. That's not a profit for us that's a loss.
Anyway I don't need to convince you, I need to convince the masons. I'm sure at least one of the people disagreeing with me is simply playing for the other team and winding me up anyway.
