WW47: Small Mafia Shenanigans

[Kaiser]

some current takes from my side:

town lean:
El Grillo has a fishy list, so is mine or any other list apparently. Any list will never do justice as we are writing it in list form to shorten it down and will not be able to explain every nuance of our train of thought.
I liked his orignal questions, especially the 2nd one, there is abuse potential in experience level and availabilty, but I will try to stay attentive to people trying to use these information.

undecided:
I like neither the Alhambram nor Amicalola discussions right now, both made (even explicitly knowingly) an easy to avoid (especially after pindicator explained that he is looking for exactly this behaviour) obvious follow an argument vote without explaining their exact reasoning.
They remain suspicious though and should try to clear this misstep further, the "I am a pressured/new" excuse is something I can buy, but do not find enough

thrawn seems a little all over the place, I am not putting to much value on the early claim right now, but his game lacks consitency besides him resting on pindicator since #35

Meiz seems helpful and was giving some good insights in potential role plays and importance. But he is also very aware that this might help a wolf hide. I can see the Alhambram suspicion but I do not feel it strong enough to follow as heavily on it as he does. (#60, #70, #90, #96)

pindicator: will be done tomorrow morning, sleepy time and my son wants his bottle

Suspicious:
WarriorKnight has been awfully evasive after poking people to participate early on.
I especially did not like that he never at least tried to give some input on roles but instead shuffled Meiz's arguments in front of him. #77 This would have been at least an opportunity to participate more.

T-hawk finds El Grillo's list wolfy but comes around with a list of his own in #84 then he continues to jump on thrawn due to him potentially being overeager and hiding a wolf power role.
WarriorKnight is a null tell, maybe due to the low content participation?

[Kaiser]

Crosspost with WarriorKnight apparently, ill check it in detail tomorrow.

Quickly my take on pinducator:
Quite confrontative it seems, i feel he sometimes answers very specifically in a way which suits him. I disagree with Amicalola and Alhambram trains at the moment but see value in his posts otherwise

@Meiz, thanks for the tie clarification

[Amicalola]

Honestly, it can said same about Newbie Villagers jumping too eagerly on arguments. And unlike Pindicator who did ask question and Meiz correctly calling out my tone, you seem to jump on lynch Alhambram train bit too easy, Amicalola.

I'm using this quote to sum up the general vibe (re: me) this morning. Yes, I did feel I was jumping on the lynch alhambram train a bit too easy, and even said as much in my post. I felt pressured into making a vote on someone by WarriorKnight's accusation, and Alhambram was one of the people I thought seemed interesting so far.

I think that's the problem with the pressure tactic, particularly on Day1. I don't have a super-strong read on anyone yet, as my thinking is roughly that El Grillo's questionnaire seemed a bit fishy, but nowhere close to clearly wolfy. Similar read on Thrawn's flip-flopping around right at the start. Lastly, WarriorKnight's poking everywhere you could argue is more productive than nothing, but I think it leads to votes that don't have much substance behind them, which can help the wolves later on in trying to frame those voters. I would argue that relentless pressuring could help the wolves more than the town, for exactly that reason.

[pindicator]

Quickly my take on pindicator:
Quite confrontative it seems, i feel he sometimes answers very specifically in a way which suits amuses him.

I think that's a little more accurate.

[Amicalola]

As far as a list, since that seems popular
Town-ish:
Pindicator: Has seemed more likely to start vote-trains rather than jump on them, other than in my case.
Meiz: Has been generally helpful with trying to direct discussion, I especially liked their questioning of T-hawk.

Unsure:
El Grillo: I didn't particularly like the questionnaire, but I think they've been perfectly reasonable since
Thrawn: As I said, I found the flip-flopping right at the start pretty weird. Like El Grillo, they've gone a bit off my radar since, in Thrawn's case because he hasn't really tried to accuse anyone since his (imo understandable) questioning of Pindicator.
Kaiser: I don't have much of a read on Kaiser yet, but they seem to find the same people fishy as I do so far, which is a good sign.

Suspicious:
WarriorKnight: As I said, I believe that repeated pressure tactics help the wolves more than they help the town.
T-Hawk: For much the same reason as many others have said - he doesn't seem to want to take any sides on anything. Everything is "oh I could go either way for them so far," which is perfectly reasonable to have about some people (see: everyone's unsure section) but isn't especially helpful when it's virtually every person you mention.
Alhambram: Has said remarkably little of substance since my earlier vote, but there are others I now find more suspicious, namely the two above. Still not convinced though.

[WarriorKnight]

Will comment on Kaiser later, but wanted to respond to this real quick:

Honestly, it can said same about Newbie Villagers jumping too eagerly on arguments. And unlike Pindicator who did ask question and Meiz correctly calling out my tone, you seem to jump on lynch Alhambram train bit too easy, Amicalola.

I'm using this quote to sum up the general vibe (re: me) this morning. Yes, I did feel I was jumping on the lynch alhambram train a bit too easy, and even said as much in my post. I felt pressured into making a vote on someone by WarriorKnight's accusation, and Alhambram was one of the people I thought seemed interesting so far.

I think that's the problem with the pressure tactic, particularly on Day1. I don't have a super-strong read on anyone yet, as my thinking is roughly that El Grillo's questionnaire seemed a bit fishy, but nowhere close to clearly wolfy. Similar read on Thrawn's flip-flopping around right at the start. Lastly, WarriorKnight's poking everywhere you could argue is more productive than nothing, but I think it leads to votes that don't have much substance behind them, which can help the wolves later on in trying to frame those voters. I would argue that relentless pressuring could help the wolves more than the town, for exactly that reason.

The reasons for my poking around everywhere yesterday are to avoid the situation where wolves do not post anything at all, thereby not providing any rope to get hung by. I agree with you that poking around everywhere produces posts of little substance, but we are on Day 1 and have nothing else to go on. Right now something is better than nothing.

The deadline is rapidly approaching, so my poking of low-content players ends now. I'd like to hear what T-Hawk thinks of the numerous people that seem to think of his posts as wolfy.

[T-hawk]

Yeah, I see what people mean, but my writing style is always composed like that (except in the politics thread) -- and now I realize this game IS politics, it's not a Civ narrative or Codenames explanation.    I'll be more explicit now.  Meiz and Kaiser read to me as actually doing good work for us.  I'm on Thrawn because it seems more of a combination of low downside and high upside than anything else we can figure out on day 1.  I think one of the wolves is either of Thrawn/Grillo making noise and the other is one of Alhambram/Amicalola who is trying to hide and hope for a bandwagon, or maybe pindicator who is also casting vague suspicions.  Now my analytical bent wants to qualify all that with "of course I could be way off", but I guess that's just implicit in everything here, right?

[El Grillo]

Updated from #73:

Lynch votes:
Amicalola: 2 (Alhambram, pindicator)
thrawn: 2 (El Grillo, T-Hawk)
WarriorKnight: 2 (Kaiser, Amicalola)
Alhambram: 1 (Meiz)
pindicator: 1 (thrawn)
T-Hawk: 1 (WarriorKnight)

We need to come to more of a consensus or the results are going to be murky with plurality lynch rules.

I'm not sure why thrawn isn't drawing more suspicion for initially saying that he planned to move his vote often Day 1, then proceeded to leave it on pindicator for over 30 hours while not giving clear reads on anyone else. He's second in post count but what have his contributions been?

Here's what thrawn has had to say about other players (skipping the fluff and role/claim bits):

#75: Pindicator needs to give more reads. Keep this in mind because thrawn keeps coming back to it.
#85: He respond to T-Hawk's vote by saying that T-Hawk is wrong, but null. Curiously, he goes out of his way to stay null, not wolf on T-Hawk by referring back to a Codenames game from over a month ago.
#86: Thrawn insists that pindicator still hasn't answered his question, and I'm really not sure what more he wants from pindicator here. Is this a maneuver to keep moving the goalposts, keep claiming that pindicator hasn't answered his questions, and get away with never talking about anything else?
#88: This is so ironic that it deserves a full quote:

Dear citizens, if you don't want to hand over the game to the mafia, please wake up and start throwing some accusations around. We are into the second day now and while I appreciate not having to read a lot, unless things get going we'll be heading to an almost random lynch tomorrow.

Do as I say, not as I do? Having made no serious effort to make an accusation of his own, now thrawn is in the position of being able to move his vote late in the day and later justify it by saying he warned us in advance.

#93: When asked by Meiz for his read on Alhambram, thrawn gives another null read.
#94: Finally, an actual clearly stated read: "Meiz for me is the most cleared one." No reasons given, but fine, at least he's not null.

The running theme here is that thrawn writes long posts that eventually culminate in reading people as null, in stark contrast with his persistent hounding of pindicator for nebulous reasons and no apparent outcome. Thrawn said in #86 that his last question of the day to pindicator was asking for his reads, and when pindicator shrugged that off in #95, thrawn doesn't press him further, or ask any questions to anyone else.

It's the combination of appearing to contribute activity, starting with early spam and followed up by a fixation on a single player, while actually staying tight-lipped about what his reads are, that makes thrawn my top suspect. This just isn't the behavior of a well-intentioned townie, however inexperienced and bumbling.

[Meiz]

Yeah, I see what people mean, but my writing style is always composed like that (except in the politics thread) -- and now I realize this game IS politics, it's not a Civ narrative or Codenames explanation.    I'll be more explicit now.  Meiz and Kaiser read to me as actually doing good work for us.  I'm on Thrawn because it seems more of a combination of low downside and high upside than anything else we can figure out on day 1.  I think one of the wolves is either of Thrawn/Grillo making noise and the other is one of Alhambram/Amicalola who is trying to hide and hope for a bandwagon, or maybe pindicator who is also casting vague suspicions.  Now my analytical bent wants to qualify all that with "of course I could be way off", but I guess that's just implicit in everything here, right?

I agree you seem like a very analytical person which will show up as more neutral tone on your posts as well. However to open more on why I've found your play suspicious so far, taking a look at your content post, https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid749749

"Starting with Grillo's questionnaire - that could be just to start discussion or yeah it could be bait from a wolf.  It does strike me as being at least a bit more likely than the plain 2:7 odds."

This is just a totally null read for me. This player could be starting a discussion, or could be a bait from wolf. Just leaving the read at this feels off to me, not analyzing El Gillo's play further to consider what else there could be to make him lean more town or wolf sided.

"Thrawn's vanilla village claim - he said he had a few in-person games (as do I), and that's what you do, everybody starts by saying they're vanilla villager.  What actually strikes me is the vanilla part of the claim.  Like I say with reverse-engineering Codenames clues, why would what you said have come to mind?  If he's a wolf then it feels like a power wolf trying to cover up the power.  I'm voting thrawn based on this and his other responses -- we might have little to lose if he's a vanilla villager but a lot to gain by potentially getting a power wolf right away."

Again, a very analytical stance on a player. Thrawn could be a power wolf making a play, or vanilla villager that we can afford to mislynch if it goes to that. And just like above, you skip analyzing the rest of his play and justify the vote with very simple logic.

"Alhambram's "I'm just trying to play, don't hurt the newbie" is also what you do in person, both when it's true and when it's wolf cover.  I'm OK not rushing on that just yet but it's on my radar."

Another very null read, could be town and could be wolf. No further analyzing of his responses just above. Do Alhambram's answers lean more towards paranoid town, or do we have a wolf in defensive mode.

Other than that, I do find the focus of game mechanics talk very neutral, and easy text to produce for a wolf as well. I do think as town you'd be very interested in the mechanics side of these games, but this does lessen the real genuine looking content from your posts. Out of the players so far, you're posts are currently giving me the slightest town vibes, so T-Hawk

Im also taking a note on El Grillo's focus on pushing thrawn and ignoring the accusations against T-hawk.

[Meiz]

Lastly, WarriorKnight's poking everywhere you could argue is more productive than nothing, but I think it leads to votes that don't have much substance behind them, which can help the wolves later on in trying to frame those voters. I would argue that relentless pressuring could help the wolves more than the town, for exactly that reason.

How did you like WarriorKnights latest longer post?